Eric Odom talks to us about how the Sam Adams Alliance is using open source software to bring transparency to the corners of American democracy that often go overlooked.

Jed Sundwall: What is the stated mission of the Sam Adams Alliance?

Eric Odom: The Sam Adams Alliance has existed for a year and a half. It's a 501(c)3 that focuses and education and information and it also has 501(c)4 because of our work across the country with activists and leadership training.

Thank you kbaird for the photo!

Net Tuesday SF Vlogger, Ross Chapman, posted videos of the presentations from our February and May Net Tuesdays on NetSquared's Blip.tv Channel:

Building Nonprofit Online Community with MyBlogLog, Yahoo! Groups and Upcoming
How Nonprofits & Educators Can Use Wikis

Check 'em out and help us thank Ross for volunteering his time by giving his web site a click.

If you live in the Bay Area, on January 23rd the San Francisco Online Community Report Meetup will be talking about using wikis for online community building. Adam Frey, one of the founders of Wikispaces, and Angelique (Angie) Shelton, the General Manager of Wikia's Gaming Network will present.

Susan Tenby, TechSoup's Senior Community Manager, and Megan Keane, TechSoup's Online Community Manager, are organizing the event at TechSoup Headquarters in San Francisco (525 Brannan Street, 3rd floor)

You can find more info. and RSVP at: http://ocr.meetup.com/135/

I blogged about Milieucontact International experimenting with a mashup of google earth and wikis: Riny Heijdendael explained during a meeting what he is working on right now: One of the major problems I encountered was that more and more the network faced the problem of finding the relevant information, both on a geographic as a thematic scale.

Questions arose like these:

How do I know what other themes are being addressed in my region or
country?

Who is working on the same theme as I am?

How can i quickly connect to the part the network that can enhance my strategy for my own region or theme?

How do I present my local knowledge to a broader audience without having to set up a "website", including all the hassle?

I interviewed Chris van der Sanden from Milieukontakt International because I heard that they use wikis in a new way.

Chris has the impression that working with wikis has had a large influence in changing the way people collaborate. The dynamics of collaboration change, working together becomes flatter, more democratic and more creative, and working through wikis seems to really contribute towards that change. For instance: ‘we had a new member from Moldova in the international training group. She introduced herself in the who-is-who part of the wiki, she had direct access to all materials that were developed so far and could start immediately contributing to the training materials.

To read the full story go to:

This is a terrific volunteer opportunity for anyone who cares about knowledge in the public interest or online collaboration.  The following is my redaction of the publicity blurb:

Wikimania 2006, the 2nd annual international meetup and conference of the Wikimedia Foundation, will be held August 4-6th, 2006, on the Harvard Law School campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The conference will feature presentations from Jimmy Wales, Larry Lessig, Brewster Kahle, Eben Moglen, Yochai Benkler, and Clay Shirky; along with some of the most active contributors to Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource, and the MediaWiki platform.  Presenters and attendees will discuss the present and future of Wikimedia Projects; the dynamics of Wikipedia and related communities; publishing and verification of information; and technical updates and Mediawiki hacking.

Wikimania will be a chance to meet the people behind one of the extraordinary successes of the internet - a multilingual volunteer community of a hundred thousand people who are passionate about creating high-quality free knowledge for the world.  For community members, it will be a chance to meet fellow Wikimedians, learn about what's happening today, and discuss current issues and the future of the projects.

For others, Wikimania 2006 will be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to participate in shaping the future of Wikipedia and collaborative knowledge production generally.

All sorts of volunteers are needed.  If you're interested in getting involved, please go to the Wikimania 2006 Volunteer Teams web page, or send at email to wikimania-info @ wikimedia . org.

Clare-Marie White is the communications coordinator of Never Again International, an international network that aims to alert the international community to both the causes and effects of genocide and facilitate the exchange of ideas between young people - those who have lived through genocide and those who wish to learn from them. (See their case study page on Net2)

This group is very innovative and is really trying to leverage new communication technologies - the main page of their web page is a wiki! Wikis are web sites that any authorized user can edit, where all previous versions are viewable and notification of changes can be subscribed to.

In the following interview I asked Clare-Marie White about Never Again's use of new tools and she emphasized that new users have to be introduced appropriately.

Hi all,

Looking forward to participating in the event. I'm in the San Francisco office of Atlassian Software Systems, a small Australian company that builds an enterprise wiki called Confluence. Our application is free for non-profits and we've given out hundreds of non-profit licenses to many different types of organisations. Mostly, these folks are using our wiki for internal collaboration and knowledge management. Hoping to share some ideas and learn loads from everyone at the conference. - Jon

Adam Frey is one of the founders of Wikispaces.com, a popular hosted wiki service. A wiki is a web site that any authorized user can edit, where all previous versions of the site are visible and notification can be receieved whenever a change is made. 

Wikispaces hosts wikis for a wide variety of communities and offers free premium hosting for K-12 educators.  In the following interview Adam and I discussed his thoughts on optimal use and selection of a wiki.