CHANGE I believe in

There are more things to say on a day like this than I can possibly articulate in a blog post. The attitude of students on campus, the feeling that seeps through screens and into our homes as we watched Obama take office, the excitement I feel in my belly---I believe it is HOPE.

But let's keep it together, my husband would say. Breath, my best friend would remind me.

Breathing.

Let's start out with THIS--the new White House website. We've got a blog, we've got a Director of New Media, and most excitedly, we've got an Office of Public Liaison. It is this last one that is particularly exciting to me.

For those of you that haven't been following Change.gov or the Citizen's Briefing Book, everyday people, you and me, have been welcomed to give suggestions, ideas, and ask questions to the President-Elect. One of the ideas floated was to keep the people's voice at the table. And it is happening.

Which brings me to the idea of collaboration and access. Yesterday, a professor who always jokes with me about my penchant for suggesting wikis admitted that he didn't even know what a wiki was. Another professor we were walking with gave him a brief explanation, essentially getting at the opportunity wikis provides for more than just a webmaster to make changes to a website. It enabled people to share in the responsibility of providing information. Wikis offer us all to share our knowledge rather than expecting one person to know it all.

Switch screens to Michael Sauer's post on making a wiki.whitehouse.gov.:
wiki.whitehouse.gov

In the article “America Online” in the latest issue of Wired (#17.02 which isn’t online yet) I cam across the following paragraph:

The incoming administration is still working to assess the implications of the Presidential Records Act, the post-Nixon legislation requiring the preservation of all White House written communications. But that means that once any page goes up on the White House site, it can’t be altered, only archived and replaced, greatly slowing down the process of modifying and enhancing pages.

So, ok, I understand this and think it’s a good thing. But I instantly thought that this would be the perfect use for a wiki. Just have Wiki software be the underlying system that ran www.whitehouse.gov and you’d instantly have a traceable record, and archived copy, of every version of the page that’s ever been from day-one forward.

I’d like to think that at least one of the smart people on the transition team had already thought of this but I’ll be submitting it to the folks at www.change.gov just in case they haven’t.

Where am I going with all of this?

It brings me back, again, to the thought I had first thing this morning as I rode the bus to work. Today, a very special day, was about more than just Barack, or being an American, but about participating. Way back when, Barack Obama was the Underdog in the presidential campaign. And it was us, the people, that shared information about him, engaged our friends and neighbors in his campaign, and even brought him to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on this cold, January day. Barack Obama's presidency marks a change in our ideas about action, participation, collaboration, and change itself.

And that is change I believe in.

Happy Inauguration Day to you all.

Something missing in Wiki-dom

Lately, I have come to think slightly differently about wikis. Initially, as a devotee of the Common Craft show's explanation of wikis, I touted wikis as the ultimate collaborative tool. I can even think back to reading an article by James Fallows in the Atlantic months ago about the lack of collaborative software and thinking, "Come on, James Fallows! It's called a wiki!"

But actually, I think that there is something missing in wiki-dom: collaboration. Over the last few months, I have set up wikis for a slew of projects with other people and no matter how much I encourage them to use it, show them the Common Craft video, or remind them that it's available...it sits. It gets forgotten.

Why is this?

I have a theory. It's called Academic Touchy Feely. Frankly, I think that there is something in the academic culture that stops us from writing over someone elses work or discarding text without making sure it is ok first. I think that if I were in a more corporate, business culture, people wouldn't hesitate to edit the wiki to create a cohesive, comprehensive, collaborative document. But in academia, or at least in my case, people don't want to type over someone else's work. So they post their ideas/corrections/additions/edits beneath it. And the wiki takes on a very untidy, unfinished, informal appearance.

So while I think the wiki has its uses, I am starting to wonder whether those uses are purely dependent on audience.

When I say it like that, it seems obvious. Perhaps you are saying, "Come on Sheck. Isn't it just like everything else?" Well, yes, I suppose so. But I thnk it is a new phase for me in my technological life. The excitement for technology is evening out (not to be mistaken for waning). I am reviewing, rethinking, rediscovering the utility of some technologies and really trying to get a sense of what works when and for who. And to consider those questions independently of exploring the technology. I am pretty excited by it, actually. It's the same, but new.