Welcome to the Alliance for Innovation Wiki+

How to Use the Alliance for Innovation Wiki

We encourage you to explore and collaborate on this Wiki! Here are some helpful hints and community guidelines:

Editing - Each page has a box with text in it which you have full control to edit. To edit one of these boxes, click the link at the top of the box to login. You will log in using your Knowledge Center login and password. If you do not have a login or forgot your login or password, please email wiki@transformgov.org.

Why Edit? What you add, or delete, is up to you. Do you know a lot about Green Building? You might want to add a few documents to that page. Or maybe you can write a few paragraphs about what your city has done to create a Financial Sustainability Plan.

Create! You are encouraged to be creative and to play with this technology as much as you would like. The research assistants and other staff will monitor this wiki for errors and problems, but it has been created with enough backups that you cannot break anything, so be creative! Innovate!

Community Guidelines – These are up to your development, too. Login at the top of this box to add or edit these guidelines.
Please remember that a variety of people are reading the material you post. Please always keep in mind that you are responsible for what you write on the Wiki. Copyright rules apply – you cannot copy anything that does not belong to you. Please check with the author of any copyrighted material – and if the author approves, please write "used with permission" after the quote or content.

What Needs Done? or What Can I Do?
Start exploring! Add content in the main text boxes, telling what you think is important about each topic and subtopic. We encourage you to concentrate on the subtopic level, which is the most specific level of information.

I still need some help - what can I do?
Write a question here, and other users can respond!

About the Alliance for Innovation Wiki

The Five Themes: Right now, sustainability is the only theme that has launched. The following themes will be launched in the coming months:

• *The Public Workplace
• Civic Connections
• Collaboration and Partnerships
• Performance, Value & Accountability

      * Renewing the work force and revitalizing public organizations 

Organization
The Wiki has a basic hierarchical structure – starting with the general theme, leading to the more specific topic under each theme, and finally the subtopic under each of the topics. You will find the most amount of content and information at the subtopic level – and we encourage you to add more content and discussion at the subtopic level. You can also edit and add to the theme and topic level.

Add Resources
At the subtopic level, there is a section at the top of each page to add resources.  In this section, you can post documents of various types related to the subtopic. These include articles, reports, case studies and more. You have the option of viewing previously loaded documents by clicking on the listed names. Only 5 documents are listed at once; you may review the complete subtopic list by clicking on "View All."

Bookmarking and Forums
On the topic level, there is a forum question which will hopefully spark a response from you.  We encourage you to read others' responses, and add your own comment. At the subtopic level, you can share bookmarks with other users. These are the web sites that you think are important for that subtopic. You can also add comments about the bookmarks or other websites posted in that area.

More About The Alliance for Innovation and Wikis

The Alliance for Innovation is a community of practice that incorporates vibrant member interaction and synergy through open exchange of knowledge and ideas that support networking and innovation by members. Building a sense of community for participants that are highly engaged and willing to assist one another is a core element to being an Alliance member. Membership is geared toward progressive, innovative local governments who are the leaders in adopting and developing new approaches and sharing information about the issues they face and the innovative practices they are using.

The Alliance for Innovation has adopted the wiki format because it encourages the accumulation of knowledge through collaboration. Wiki is a Hawaiian word meaning "fast," and the initials stand for "what I know is." Online wiki environments seek to involve visitors in an ongoing process of creation and contribution that constantly changes Web site content. We are offering a number of other social networking options as well. The five themes for Wiki+ are Sustainability, Civic Connections, Collaborations and Partnerships, Regeneration and Performance and Accountability.

We hope you will find that the Alliance wiki and other features offer local government professionals a useful and engaging platform to exchange ideas on the topics of greatest relevance to you.

Uses of Wikis
For some background on using wikis in government, you can refer to our Alliance Newsletter article "A Wiki for Your City", which talks about the benefits of using wikis in cities. You can also read, "A Wiki for the Alliance for Innovation".

Local Government Wiki Pages
These cities and counties are using wikis in interesting ways:
Ann Arbor, Michigan; Santa Cruz, California; Bloomington, Indiana; Mankato, Minnesota; Omaha, Nebraska; Rochester, New York; Davis, California. In developing stages are Berkeley, California; Hokkaido, Japan.

Further Information
The May 2008 cover story in Governing addresses the use of new technology, primarily wikis and blogs, in relation to sustainability and transforming government. The article provides excellent background on Web 2.0, the new Internet applications, and how government will be enhanced and become more effective by using such tools. It further illustrates the concepts with case studies from different cities.
Access the article Working in Wiki (Perlman and Maynard, May 2008). Permission granted by Governing © 2008, Congressional Quarterly Inc.

Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams describes how social networking can pioneer a new form of collaboration that will revolutionize markets and firms in our economy. Published by the Penguin Group, 2006. Visit the Wikinomics Website to read an abstract, participate in online discussions or learn more about collaboration in business. Wiki use is one form of collaboration technology often referred to as Web 2.0. This article in Computer Weekly, "Web 2.0 - What Does It Constitute?" is a good introduction to Web 2.0.