37. openness means...open access to the information
or material resources needed for a diverse range of
users/producers/contributors to contribute to
projects.
wikipedia.org
42. blogging 101
• what to blog about:
• talk about what the department is working on/thinking about
• post meeting summaries
• ask questions you need to find answers for
• post progress and announcements on services projects.
• interact with citizen blogs (post about interesting citizen initiatives,
concerns and questions to get feedback)
• speak in a human voice, not as a press release
43. blogging 102
• self-hosted platforms I’d recommend:
• wordpress.org (open source + free + lots of great support and plugins +
simple to install, skin and keep up) PHP
• drupal.org (open source + free + more ‘control’ over permissioning, etc.,
but not as simple to install or user friendly) PHP
• moveabletype.com (not free, but more control over permissioning and
fairly simple to install) PERL
• silverstripe.com (free + open source, haven’t used, but it’s won some
awards lately) PHP
45. wiki 101
• what to use a wiki for:
• jotting down unfinished ideas/random thoughts
• collaborating on projects that need loads of input
• gathering random information and research
• create a public reference encyclopedia
46. wiki 102
• self hosted platforms I’d recommend
• MediaWiki.org (open source + free + extensible)
• confluence/atlassian.com (not free or open source, but enterprise grade)
• DocuWiki/wiki.splitbrain.org (open source + free + extensible)
• For more: http://www.wikimatrix.org
48. discussion groups 101
• what to use discussion groups for:
• use it instead of emails with long cc’d lists. get everyone to join the mailing
list and send EVERY SINGLE communication between members of that
group on the topics covered.
• make it publicly viewable and allow anyone to join (you can set first posts
to needing to be approved to prevent spam)
• link to these threads from blog, wiki and other correspondence
49. discussion groups 102
• software I would recommend:
• Google Groups - groups.google.com (free, hosted, excellent interface)
51. group chat 101
• what to use group chat for:
• instant feedback and ongoing relationship building
• condition 1: people have to be in the chat room pretty constantly
• condition 2: the chat needs to be logged somewhere that people can go
back and see the threads
• there are many times you will need the synchronous communication
allowed by chat
52. group chat 102
• software I would recommend:
• Pibb.com (open source + free + loggable + embeddable in your website)
• Skype channels (free, but logging can be a pain)
• IRC (open source + free, but not as user friendly - good for developers.
hint: bridges with Pibb)
• Tangler.com (free, logs as both a forum and a chat, threads discussion, but
not currently embeddable)
• Meebo.com (free + embeddable, but doesn’t log)
64. and of course...
• for events: Upcoming.org and Eventful.com
• for photos: Flickr.com
• for general social networking: Facebook.com (great groups and events
features there)
• for a different perspective altogether: Secondlife.com (if you need to have
remote meetings, why not have them in second life rather than on conference
call?)
• for licensing: CreativeCommons.org
66. collaboration means...a process where two or
more people work together toward a common goal
by sharing knowledge, learning and building
consensus.
wikipedia.org
74. A quot;platformquot; is a system that can be
programmed and therefore customized by
outside developers – users – and in that
way, adapted to countless needs and niches
that the platform's original developers could
not have possibly contemplated, much less
had time to accommodate.
–Marc Andreessen, http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/09/the-three-
kinds.html
75. platforms 101
• sharing data is the most basic level of being a platform
• supply feeds in machine-readable formats: microformats, rss, opml, kml,
etc.
• APIs
credit: Matt Biddulph, Dopplr (FOWA fall 2007)
78. my information without microformats
http://www.horsepigcow.com
Tara
Hunt
San Francisco
California
79. my information w/o microformats, but with html
<div >
<a href=” http://www.horsepigcow.com”>
<span > Tara </span>
> Hunt </span> </a>
<span
> San Francisco </span>
<span
> California </span>
<span
</div>
80. my information with microformats
<div class=quot;vcardquot;>
<a class=quot;url fn nquot; href=”http://www.horsepigcow.com”>
<span class=quot;given-namequot;> Tara </span>
<span class=quot;family-namequot;> Hunt </span> </a>
<span class=quot;locality”> San Francisco </span>
<span class=quot;regionquot;> California </span>
</div>
81. so what is an API?
• an application programming interface (API) is a source code interface that an
operating system or library provides to support requests for services to be
made of it by computer programs.
• in other words: it is the way you bring data from one source to display it in
another.
• this is the ‘magic’ behind cool mashups like:
84. case study: an api, a couple of citizens and a
desire to improve the Caltrain interface
85.
86.
87.
88.
89. platforms 101
• sharing data is the most basic level of being a platform
• user identity is an excellent way to start sharing a person’s information
between sites
• OpenID.net is user-centric identity and it is being adopted more widely:
AOL, Moveable Type, Orange/France Telecom, Plaxo, and hundreds of other
smaller sites are IDPs (identity providers)
credit: Matt Biddulph, Dopplr (FOWA fall 2007)
90. platforms 101
• sharing data is the most basic level of being a platform
• user identity is an excellent way to start sharing a person’s information between
sites
• delegating authority is what needs to happen to allow 3rd party applications
and mashups to use your data in cool ways
• OAuth is another community project that is working toward a standard
protocol to use for delegating authority
credit: Matt Biddulph, Dopplr (FOWA fall 2007)
91. platforms 101
• sharing data is the most basic level of being a platform
• user identity is an excellent way to start sharing a person’s information between
sites
• delegating authority is what needs to happen to allow 3rd party applications and
mashups to use your data in cool ways
• then you can even make your own cool widgets and use your own api’s to build
cool stuff
credit: Matt Biddulph, Dopplr (FOWA fall 2007)
109. another advantage of being transparent...people
will see you making progress along the way.
110. ways to report along the way
• display a countdown or a progress meter
• a public to-do list (crossing things off...or allowing others ‘to do’ the stuff for
you and cross it off)
• twitter what you are doing right now
• post wireframes, mockups, photos of cocktail napkin sketches, etc. on Flickr
• add announcements to blog, notes to wiki, etc.
128. how to encourage collaboration [summary]
1.be a platform 9.reach out to people from different
backgrounds and industries
2.publish everything openly
10.be part of the community
3.be available
11.view the public as a partner, not a
4.embrace the chaos recipient
5.provide clear goals and purpose 12.run real, open betas
6.reward contributors
7.show progress
8. take simple steps first
137. there are all sorts of ways to encourage
serendipitous meetings.
138. simple things to accelerate serendipity
• the ability for people to leave comments on every announcement, article
and information page
139.
140. simple things to accelerate serendipity
• the ability for people to leave comments on every announcement, article and
information page
• DIGG for citizen issues/ideas
141.
142. simple things to accelerate serendipity
• the ability for people to leave comments on every announcement, article and
information page
• DIGG for citizen issues/ideas
• a widget for ‘who is talking about this...’ on pages
143.
144. simple things to accelerate serendipity
• the ability for people to leave comments on every announcement, article and
information page
• DIGG for citizen issues/ideas
• a widget for ‘who is talking about this...’ on pages
• a Flickr photo gallery that pulls in everyone’s photos tagged properly
145.
146. simple things to accelerate serendipity
• the ability for people to leave comments on every announcement, article and
information page
• DIGG for citizen issues/ideas
• a widget for ‘who is talking about this...’ on pages
• a Flickr photo gallery that pulls in everyone’s photos tagged properly
• the menu item ‘Community’ actually show some community life in it