E Write Intro To Web 2

Introduction to Web 2.0: Wikis, Blogs, and Social Networking Leslie O’Flahavan, E-WRITE Partner Author of Clear, Correct, Concise E-Mail: A Writing Workbook for Customer Service Agents

Presentation overview Learn how wikis, blogs, and social networking sites might help you do your job at NAR Review examples of blogs, wikis, and social networking Consider how web 2.0 could improve your communication with colleagues or members

What is a wiki? “ A wiki’s just like a web site, only you can edit it.”

What is a wiki? From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia “ A wiki is a website that allows visitors to add, remove, edit and change content, typically without the need for registration. It also allows for linking among any number of pages. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for mass collaborative authoring . The term wiki can also refer to the collaborative software itself ( wiki engine ) that facilitates the operation of such a site, or to certain specific wiki sites, including the computer science site (the original wiki) WikiWikiWeb and online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia .”

Wikipedia: the most familiar wiki example

C&O Canal Revision History page

Commoncraft: “Wikis in Plain English”

How do a wiki and web site differ?

National Park Service’s C&O Canal site

C&O Canal Association’s site

Shrink and Grow: “This wiki acts as a design doc for the game…”

RocWiki.org – the People’s Guide to Rochester

wikiHow: “The How-to Manual Anyone Can Write Or Edit”

FLICC/Fedlink Environmental Scan wiki

National Alliance for Medical Image Computing wiki

US Court of Appeals – Seventh Circuit

Argonne National Lab’s SEED Project Wiki

The AAA Wiki … “ Welcome to the AAA Wiki - created to coordinate the Assembly, Alignment and Annotation of the now 12 sequenced Drosophila genomes.”

Goochland County Public Schools

MassGIS Geospatial Web Services project wiki

“… caGrid provides the core enabling infrastructure necessary to compose the Grid of caBIG™”

The “hall of mirrors” wiki: a presentation by Janel Brennan-Tillmann, UMD Coord. of Foreign Lang. Instructional Technology

Why are wikis so popular? Anyone can write or edit Outside the normal permissions and approval process for web content Encourage interaction Easy to learn User-defined life span

Wikis vs. Web sites Require permission to publish Mediated by experts Transactional Governed by workflow or publishing cycle Graphic design conveys content organization to user Staffed by professionals with a range of skills: designers, developers, content types Judged by outcomes Relevant Useful Correct Alive Updated regularly Read Authored collaboratively Little to no graphic design Foster dialogue or conversation Socially mediated Content author in charge of content over time Web Sites Shared Traits Wikis

Edit-before-publish vs. Edit-after-publish “ Something that’s 80% accurate, on time, and shareable is better than something that is too much, perfectly formatted, too late, and over-classified.” Chris Rasmussen, Knowledge Management Officer, Intellipedia, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense

Why do you need wiki writing guidelines? Organic growth of content can cause many communication problems Producing valuable content of any type requires reviewing and editing Wiki users search vs. navigate , thus putting extra pressure on words

What should the wiki writing guidelines cover? How to organize content How to make content easy to read How to write as a wiki citizen

Guidelines on writing to organize How to name pages Use concrete descriptive words; use the most commonly searched terms: not ID but Social Security Number or Passport Strive for names you can use in a sentence: not hips – replacement surgery but hip replacement surgery Provide guidance on caps, numbers, special characters Give a name that will last over time: not Proposal – Final Version Avoid beginning with articles: not The Interagency Agreements Team Develop naming guidelines for different types of pages/articles How (or whether) to group pages

Clear naming at Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki

HRE Wiki: Naming Problem HREwiki Home Ready-to-use resources Resources in development Images New topics Projects Useful websites http://hrewiki.pbwiki.com/ Featured resources the Univeral Declaration of Human Rights Nepal death Penalty - teaching materials Discrimination Voices of people affected by human rights abuses Ideas for HRE Using this wiki Request a password Writing for this wiki Developing this wiki 'How to' Reporting problems Reproducing content Terms of Use Disclaimer About

Debian wiki: organized by user

Guidelines on writing readable wiki content Headings Vertical lists Links (no click here ) Conciseness Tone Mechanical correctness Spelling Punctuation Grammar Abbreviations Dates

Bulleted wiki article: Easy to scan or read?

Developing a wiki that contains few content types requires explicit writing guidance.

PolicyOptions Wiki: Lots of guidance about writing issue briefs

Guidelines on writing as a wiki citizen Use your real name Write objectively (?) Comment considerately Contribute original content Avoid slang Explain edits in “Comments” section

Wiki software options MediaWiki – www.mediawiki.org Tikiwiki - www.tikiwiki.org PBwiki - http://pbwiki.com/ Wikipedia’s article “Comparison of wiki software” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software

Wiki writing guidelines ColabWiki: Wiki Style Guide IBM’s Redwiki Writing Guidelines and Etiquette wikiHow’s Writer’s Guide BattleMaster wiki Style Guide LinuxQuestions.org’s LQWiki:Manual of Style MuppetWiki Building a successful wiki community

Wiki resources NIH Wiki Fair – February 28, 2007 Wiki Home Page at COLAB , the collaborative work environment: “Hosted by GSA Intergovernmental Solutions” “Which Wiki is Right for You?” in School Library Journal , May 1, 2007

What is a blog? “ A weblog, which is usually shortened to blog, is a website where regular entries are made (such as in a journal or diary) and presented in reverse chronological order. Blogs often offer commentary or news on a particular subject, such as technology, politics, or local news… A…blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic.”

How is a blog different from a website? Easy to set up to update to organize and archive Interactive Personal, representing and individual’s point of view, not necessarily the association’s

How do blogs work? How do you publish a blog? How do you read a blog?

How do you publish a blog? Use off-the-shelf, user-friendly software (blogware) to Create new blog posts Organize, archive and retrieve information from old posts Create links from your posts Enable other bloggers to link back to a specific post on your blog (Permalinks) Let bloggers see who has viewed their posts and commented (TrackBack)

How do you read a blog? Subscribe to a blog with RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed Portal or browser based aggregators (GoogleReader) Web based aggregators (Bloglines, FeedReader) E-mail updates

Who blogs? “In April 2007, blog search and measurement firm Technorati was tracking over 70 million blogs and reported seeing about 120,000 new blogs created each day. That's 1.4 blogs every second.”

Who blogs in the real estate community?

Why do associations blog? Communicate with the public Communicate internally Put a human face and personal voice on issues

Humanize your association Create a dialogue Get feedback Keep public updated Improve visibility—search engine placement A new way to communicate with the public

Share information Create community locally, nationwide, or worldwide A new way to communicate within the agency

Before starting a blog consider What’s your purpose? Who will write the blog? Will you allow comments? What’s your approval process? What legal issues should you address?

Disseminate Information: DC Public Safety Blog

Customer Interaction: Evolution of Security

A six-week special project blog: EPA

Personal Experience: Volunteer Journals

Who will write the blog? “They’ve got to be authentic. You must be the author of your post—not your staff, not your secretary or administrative staff, and certainly not your campaign manager or consultant.” -- Christopher Barger, IBM blogging consultant

A team: employees or invited experts

Will you allow comments? Most associations allow comments Will you moderate or edit the comments? Edit for grammar Edit for content Limit comments to specific issues What will you do with the comments—feedback?

Will you allow comments? Without comments, a blog is “just a glorified press release.” -- Mike Cornfield, professor, George Washington University

The Corps-e-spondence comments policy

Usage and Comments Policy: Center for Realtor Technology Web Log

Evolution of Security comments policy

How will you use comments? Change policies or programs Get customer feedback Incorporate comments into your posts

Incorporate comments: Corps-e-spondence

The blog approval process? Outside formal clearance process Posts will need to be reviewed before they’re published Blogger + blog’s purpose + blog publication schedule

Legal issues Confidentiality Does your organization have confidentially guidelines for other types of communication? Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Copyright

Establish and publish blog policies Incorporate your decisions on into a written blog policy Purpose Writers/contributors Comments policy Approvals process Legal Issues

Publish your blog policies: IBM

Social Networking: Sharing, Rating, Connecting

Questions or comments? Contact Information: Leslie O’Flahavan E-WRITE [email_address] 301-989-9583

E Write Intro To Web 2

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E Write Intro To Web 2