Feeding the Beast
Monday, November 29, 2010
How to motivate internal forces to keep relevant content fresh and perhaps save your . . . behind?
Need a hole in the wall?
Thursday, August 19, 2010
The continual expansion of technology and accessibility that the internet provides us has ushered in a new era of business to business capabilities that were once the domain of only the very large, very financially capable firms.
Ways to Wiki: Establish Corporate Culture
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
As more and more people with more diverse experiences, points of view, and job responsibilities become part of the larger team - sometimes in different locations - teamwork and innovation gives rise to bureaucracy. Use a wiki to establish corporate culture.
Spotlight On: Learn it in 5
Thursday, July 22, 2010
With 75 percent of Millennials, or people ages 18-29, using social media, Learn It In 5's powerful library of how-to videos, produced by technology teachers, helps teachers and students create classroom strategies for today's 21st century's digital classroom. Mark Barnes tells us why he's selected EditMe as the platform for this new community site for teachers in this latest installment of Spotlight On: Learn It In 5.
Spotlight On: Schaumburg Library
Friday, July 16, 2010
We put the spotlight on Helen Stewart who runs the Schaumburg Township District Library Wiki at stdlrawiki.editme.com to learn more about how Shcaumburg uses EditMe.
Facebook COO declares Email is dead
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
At a recent conference, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said "E-mail--I can't imagine life without it--is probably going away." Here are some thoughts on why she may be right.
Spotlight On: Maple Bear Canadian School Niteroi
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Canada's Maple Bear School's bilingual early intervention program develops children from early childhood education to acquire fluency in reading and writing in Portuguese and English.
Ways to Wiki: Gathering Customer Feedback
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Gathering customer feedback about your product or service is critical to the success of your business. But, it's a job that doesn't always get done, and for a myriad of reasons. Sometimes a wiki provides the clean sheet of paper to get people thinking in ways that a Customer Feedback Process did not anticipate.
Spotlight On: Chef's Resources
Friday, July 2, 2010
Chefs Resources is an online community whose goal is to provide culinary resources that deal with kitchen management and restaurant issues for professional chefs. With the Spotlight on David Buchanan, Founder & Chef de Cuisine at Blackfish Wild Salmon Grill in the Tulalip Resort Casino, let's see how he uses EditMe.
Five Reasons to Document Your Business Process Online
Thursday, July 1, 2010
The unique way that your organization works is what sets you apart from your competitors and makes you unique. Would you be able to articulate explain your organization's secret sauce to a new employee or potential investor?
On Intranets and their Editors
Monday, May 24, 2010
As Matthew and I have talked to customers and analyzed usage statistics across existing EditMe sites, we?ve learned a curious thing about how our customers use the product.
The Ning Free Community Collapse - What's Next?
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Ning has eliminated its free communities and laid off 40% of its staff. What Ning Free Community alternatives exist for those affected by the change?
WikiLeaks shows the power of online community
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
WikiLeaks has created a successful online community, despite significant challenges and obstacles to member participation.
Vote for EditMe at Mass Innovation Nights
Friday, March 26, 2010
We're proud to be among the 10 companies that will part of the April 14th MassInno. Vote us in as a presenter, we'll show the love by bringing cake!
Video of the "Google is your Storefront" presentation
Monday, February 15, 2010
Matt Wiseley's "Google is your Storefront" talk for small business owners on why a web site is their single most important marketing tool.
Venture Funding as a Competitive Disadvantage
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
A friend pointed me to an article on the CrowdVine blog responding to the post-mortem on the demise of EventVue. Tony makes a number of good points that echo a lot of my own feelings on the self-inflicted do-or-die pattern of funding and failure seen in so many web software businesses.
Google is your Storefront - Presentation
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The presentation for my "Google is your Storefront" talk this morning in Acton, MA is now available on Slideshare and is embedded here. Video of the talk is being edited and will be available here soon.
Ways to Wiki: Employee Onboarding
Monday, February 8, 2010
An employee's first day is one she will always remember about with your company. If this first impression doesn't go well, it can be difficult to fix.
Top Tweets from @EditMe - January 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The following are links of interest to customers from EditMe's Twitter feed that flew out during November. Follow @EditMe and/or become a fan of EditMe's Facebook page to stay in the loop.
Prevalence of Online vs. Offline Marketing Response
Friday, January 29, 2010
Yesterday's post talks about how many people are using the Internet to find local products and services vs. traditional methods like phone books. I knew I'd read a statistic on this somewhere and asked my friend Matthew Mamet if he knew where I might have seen it. Though it's a different source, this video pretty much sums it up. You probably already know this, but seeing it this way hits home.
Google is your Storefront: How to get your local business found. (Sneak preview)
Thursday, January 28, 2010
This post is an overview of a talk I'll be giving for a small business forum at Enterprise Bank in Acton, MA on February 9th. Check back here soon for information on how to register for this event. The following is an outline - I'll post the full presentation and expand this post with additional detail after the event.
Is your business really a startup?
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Ever since the dot com bubble a decade a go, Internet software companies have been referred to rather glamorously as "startups" .
EditMe's Kiva Lending Program Makes 350th Loan
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
EditMe made its 350th Kiva loan recently as part of our ongoing lending program .
Ways to Wiki: Project Management
Monday, January 4, 2010
Traditional project management tools leave open an enormous gap of need: an information repository that supports many-to-many communication.
The Army's Business Process Wiki
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
The Army is, of course, a massive organization. They're going ahead and documenting their business processes (they call it "doctrine") on a wiki.
Ways to Wiki: Document Management
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
A hosted wiki service outsources your document management needs and applies wiki benefits to your tired and disheveled shared folders and files.
Wiki Fundraising, Revisited
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
A number of compelling web sites were offered up as work in the area of web-enabled charitable giving and are work a look.
Ways to Wiki: The Disposable Wiki
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
EditMe has lots of cancellations, and that's not a bad thing. Many customers use temporary wikis. They might last a month, maybe three, maybe twelve. These sites typically serve as a space on the web to store information about a project or event that has a short lifespan. When the need has passed, the site can be downloaded, archived and canceled.
Top Tweets from @EditYourWeb - November 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
Links of interest to customers from EditMe's Twitter feed that flew out during November. Follow EditMe @EditYourWeb and/or become a fan of EditMe's Facebook page to stay in the loop.
Ways to Wiki: Documentation Authoring & Publishing
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Wikis have the ability to provide a collaborative authoring, publishing and reader review system that is incredibly simple and eminently affordable.
Intranet Organization: Focus on Tasks, Not Departments
Thursday, November 19, 2009
The goal of an intranet site is to centralize knowledge within an organization and let employees find the information they need quickly.
Wiki Tools Are Not All the Same: Six Key Differentiators
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
While wikis have become commonplace - almost ubiquitous - wiki software has hardly adopted a cookie cutter set of features. Here's where EditMe stands, philosophically and feature-wise, on six key areas of differentiation among wiki tools.
Trend Micro is Blocking All Mail from Amazon's Cloud
Monday, November 16, 2009
Internet security and spam blocker Trend-Micro has decided, for no apparent reason, to block all mail from Amazon's massive EC2 cloud hosting service.
Ways to Wiki: Business Process Documentation
Friday, November 13, 2009
Using a wiki to document and improve business process can drastically reduce the effort involved and increase the value provided to your business.
Open Space Technology & BarCamp - The Wiki of Meetings
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Open Space Technology and BarCamp provide a decentralized wiki-style meeting format. Here's the low-down on how to run one.
Why You Shouldn't Generate Your Wiki Content
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Two articles last week illustrated perfectly a lesser-known wiki aphorism: don't generate wiki content. Many a wiki concept has started off with a large existing data set. The idea is that if the data set is converted into a wiki, users will build upon the data set and add value, transforming commodity data into something more valuable. But does it work?
An Anomaly, Not an Archetype - How Your Business Wiki will Differ from Wikipedia
Friday, November 6, 2009
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit and the one wiki almost everybody knows about, is often considered an archetype for all wikis. If you're considering implementing a wiki within your business or organization, you'll need to know how and why it will likely differ from Wikipedia.
Five Reasons Why EditMe Isn't Free
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
One of the themes of Web 2.0 has been the expectation of Free. EditMe, while offering an inexpensive product, has never been free. Here's why.
Google and Yahoo: Don't Spend Time on Meta Keywords
Monday, November 2, 2009
Last month, both Google and Yahoo! came out and said they (all but) completely ignore the venerable <meta name="keywords"/> tag in determining suitability of a page for a search on a given keyword.
When Introducing an Internal Wiki, Don't Lead with Change
Thursday, October 29, 2009
How do I push through the organizational changes needed to make our internal wiki work?
Find Designers At Haystack
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Customers looking for custom designs for their EditMe site can find designers whose work they like, work locally and fit their budget.
Google's New Web Collaboration Tool: Where Wave Fits
Friday, October 23, 2009
Where and how does Google Wave fit into the existing landscape of email, forums, instant messaging and wikis?
Wiki Fundraising & the Kiva Model
Thursday, October 22, 2009
A post on Philip Tome's personal blog titled Wiki Charities got me thinking about why EditMe supports Kiva.
Amazon vs. Spamhaus - Where are my wiki notifications!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
You may have noticed some emails from your EditMe wiki site didn't come through last week. Here's a detailed look at what happened and why.
What Is A Browser - Part 2
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Google has posted an interesting follow-up to their "What is a browser?" viral video that I posted about not long ago. The marketing strategy behind that first video becomes clear, as Google attempts to insert Chrome into the standard set of available browsers.
Survey: Corporate Wikis / Enterprise 2.0
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
A doctoral candidate at the Maastricht University asked that I share this link with EditMe's customers. It's a quick survey about wiki use at work.
Edit Your Web: Don't Use A Wiki
Friday, September 18, 2009
From Matt's Edit Your Web blog: Wiki technology is a great tool for resolving information and communication quagmires. But don't get stuck on the wiki concept itself. Remember that the wiki technology is but a cog in a more complex mechanism - how the wiki is actually used to solve a real world problem.
Wiki is a Technology Term
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
When I talk about EditMe with people who aren't in technology, the wiki term inevitably comes up, but wiki is a technology term
Wikipedia's Content Moderation: Proof that Wikis Work
Friday, August 28, 2009
Wikipedia started implementing its Flagged Revisions policy on Wednesday. Let's consider what this really tells us about the wiki model.
Edit Your Web: Wikipedia's Content Moderation is Proof that Wikis Work
Friday, August 28, 2009
Wikipedia started implementing its Flagged Revisions policy on Wednesday. Rather than hang our heads at the ultimate failure of wiki collaboration, let's consider what this really tells us about the wiki model.
Associated Press to Reign In Web Content
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Associated Press plans to centralize their content on the web rather than allowing licensees to publish AP stories on their own web sites.
Army Jumps on Board as Government Increasingly Embraces Wikis
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
The NYT reports that the Army has started moving its field guides, traditionally written by theorists and strategists, to a Mediawiki site. The goal is to get more real-field examples and experience from active soldiers and consolidate the vast collection of printed field guides into a single source.
Digital Textbooks In California
Monday, August 17, 2009
A story on WBUR's Weekend Edition caught my attention with an alarming fact: the average public school text book costs $100. When is the last time you spent that much on a book? I don't think I have, ever - even in college. The fact was slipped into a story about California's recent vetting of digital text books for use in its public school system, a change that is hoped could save the state $200 million annually.
Word Processing Applications Increasingly the Wrong Tool
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
A great post from Ars Technica on why desktop word processing apps are hopelessly obsolete for much of the tasks they're still used for. Sure, if you're creating a long document that will be delivered to its audience in print form, Word (or your desktop word processor of choice) is a great tool. But how many documents created in the business world today really fit this description? When everyone in the audience for your document is online, why not author your content online?
Usability Lesson: What is a browser?
Sunday, July 19, 2009
What is a browser? A friend on Twitter recently linked to this video from Google asking people on the street in Times Square this very basic technical question. You may be surprised at the answers they got.
Survey Report: Why Businesses (Don't) Collaborate
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Stewart Mader and Scott Abel conducted a survey of 523 content professionals about collaboration. The result: Email is a terrible collaboration tool.
Web Content 2009 - Day 2
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Here's my day two wrap-up of Web Content 2009 conference sessions.
Web Content 2009 - Day 1
Monday, June 15, 2009
I'm in Chicago for Web Content Conference 2009 and Day 1 is a wrap, with considerably higher quality presentations from impressive speakers.
Why Wave Is Important
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Casual users will likely see Wave as another neat web tool from Google, but an analysis of its makeup indicates it is a significant paradigm shift.
BarCamp Boston 4 - Wrap Up
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
BarCamp Boston 4 was a great time. I was amazed at how thoroughly the event was self-organized and how smoothly it ran.
BarCamp Boston 4 This Weekend
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
This weekend I?ll be attending my first BarCamp at MIT in Cambridge. I?ve heard great things about the previous years from folks I know who have gone.
Web Content Conference 2009 - Chicago
Friday, April 17, 2009
The 2009 Web Content Conference in Chicago is June 15-16 and will be host to the web's leading thinkers on web content strategy and management.
Fun with Wordle
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Wordle is a fun web toy that creates an attractive tag cloud from either pasted text, an RSS feed or a Delicious account.
Fun With Wordle
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Wordle is a fun web toy that creates an attractive tag cloud from either pasted text, an RSS feed or a Delicious account. Here's the tag cloud it created for the Delicious account that houses EditMe's Site Directory. It's an interesting way to visualize the kinds of sites customers create with EditMe.
How Secure is EditMe?
Monday, April 6, 2009
The security, integrity and availability of our customers’ data is a top priority.
The Importance of Good Original Designs for Wikis
Thursday, April 2, 2009
I have a new guest post on Future Changes about the importance of design for wikis. Blogs have been pretty since the start, but somehow wikis are allowed to have boring, generic (if not downright ugly) templates. Time for that to end. Hire a local designer today and spiff up your wiki!
Staff Lounge: Goodbye Planet, Hello Cloud
Thursday, April 2, 2009
EditMe has completed a move of all services to Amazon's EC2 cloud computing platform. What does this means for EditMe customers?
Wikipedia Revolution
Thursday, March 26, 2009
A book released today by Andrew Lih chronicles the story of Wikipedia. The timing is great - it seems like Wikipedia is at critical mass.
Wiki Turns 14 - Thanks Ward!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The first wiki created by Ward Cunningham went live 14 years ago yesterday. The commemoration got lots of attention on Twitter, and a NY post.
TV Show Wikis: A Perfect Marriage
Monday, March 16, 2009
One of the most prolific categories of wiki use is the TV show fan wiki. Having an active fan wiki has become a marketing must-have.
Sound Pedagogy Makes Classroom Wikis a Success
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
I had tagged a post on classroom wiki techniques from educator Jon Orech. It's a great post for teachers considering using wikis with their students.
Is TheOfficialBoard.com a wiki?
Monday, March 9, 2009
A TechCrunch post today announced the launch of a new org chart site that aims to document the management structure of the world?s 20,000 largest corporations. Normally I don?t read TechCrunch, but the use of Wiki in the title brought it up in my Google News fetchermajiggy. The title of the post is ?TheOfficialBoard Launches With Wiki Org Charts For 20,000 Companies?. Is TheOfficialBoard really a wiki?
Recent Changes Camp 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
Recent Changes Camp is an annual unconference focused on wiki technology and methodology.
Per User Pricing is Detrimental to Adoption
Saturday, February 21, 2009
The Enterprise 2.0 market is suffering due to its deep discounting of per user pricing contracts with large firms.
Wikis & CMS Provide Value in a Down Economy
Thursday, February 19, 2009
A culture that is committed to knowledge sharing operationalizes the processes that are central to your business.
Does Your Wiki Need a Spring Cleaning?
Monday, February 16, 2009
A wiki that’s been around for a few years probably has some great old pages that have been faithfully maintained and kept up.
Is ReadWriteWeb Reliable Enough for Wikipedia?
Friday, February 13, 2009
There’s currently a debate going on at Wikipedia over the blacklisting of ReadWriteWeb.com as a deterrent against spammers.
The Personal Wiki
Thursday, February 12, 2009
A personal wiki can act as your home page, your to do list, your journal, a reference manual, image gallery, and quick and easy online file storage.
Wiki Content Is Not Sacred, and That’s OK
Monday, February 9, 2009
Organizations implementing wikis need to promote a culture where content posted to the wiki is considered a work-in-progress.
Staff Lounge: Wiki Content is Not Sacred, And That's OK
Monday, February 9, 2009
My latest guest post on Future Changes discusses how web content has become sacred and how wikis challenge us to rethink this notion. Organizations implementing wikis need to promote a culture where content posted to the wiki is considered a work-in-progress, and make light of innocent errors and omissions. The only appropriate response to an error or omission on a wiki is to fix it!
Staff Lounge: EditMe Sponsors Future Changes
Monday, January 26, 2009
EditMe is now sponsoring Stewart Mader's blog, Future Changes. Stewart is a highly regarded wiki consultant, the man behind the seminal Wikipatterns project and editor of a new book, Wiki In Education. Reading Stewart's blog is a great way to keep up on wiki-related news and best practices. I will also be guest posting on the blog and sharing some of the lessons I've learned running a wiki company for almost 7 years now. Coming up with the brief ad text for this spot helped solidify the new mantra for 2009 and crystallize what makes EditMe a unique value proposition in the wiki hosting space: "Pay for what you use, not per user. Customize everything. Affordable professional services."
Staff Lounge: EditMe's Plans For 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Yesterday's task was to put together plans for EditMe in 2009. It was a constructive session resulting in a development plan to carry EditMe through the next year. Some themes emerged as over-arching goals for direction of the product and service, and I thought it would be nice to share those here.
Staff Lounge: Wikis In Plain English
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Common Craft's "Wikis in Plain English" video is the most succinct, accurate, informative and entertaining explanation of wiki technology I've seen.
Staff Lounge: Wiki Adoption & Patterns
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Whether your wiki is built for a small internal audience or large public communities, getting people to come, read and contribute is the a challenge.
Staff Lounge: Eating Our Own Dog Food
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Here is an overview of how EditMe uses it's own product to solve its business (and other) requirements.
The Classroom Wiki
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Wiki technology is more than Wikipedia, and teachers are finding success with private classroom wikis. Select the right private wiki in the classroom.
Staff Lounge: Forrester finds “Good evidence” that wikis are transforming collaboration
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Wiki guru Stewart Mader recently posted about a new Forrester report about the growing success of wiki use within enterprises.
Staff Lounge: New Directory of Customer Sites
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
We replaced the old list of EditMe sites with a new dynamic site directory. Getting your site listed here will help boost search engine visibility.
EditMe For Business: The Value Proposition
Monday, September 8, 2008
Many of the most successful EditMe sites are used for business purposes, and for good reason. During my many years at a mid-sized interactive marketing agency, I learned a lot about what businesses need on the web, and have built EditMe with these lessons in mind. In this post, I will share some of these lessons, explain how EditMe responds to them, and prompt you to ask yourself some questions about how your business gets what it needs done on the web today.
Follow EditMe On Twitter
Monday, July 21, 2008
The Twitter posts will contain announcements, development status updates, minor maintenance updates, tips and other useful information.
Staff Lounge: A Survey of Custom Development Projects
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
A few prospective customers have asked what kind of projects EditMe's Custom Development team has done. It's a good question, and one that I thought warranted an answer on the web site. Here are a few of the more interesting projects we've completed within the past several months, grouped by project size.
EditMe One the Fastest Wiki Farms
Friday, February 15, 2008
According to web traffic analyst Alexa, EditMe is one of the fastest sites in the Wiki Farm Category.
EditMe: Not Just For Wikis Anymore
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Most content management systems make heavy-handed assumptions about how content is managed and organized, and too often cost an arm and a leg.
Staff Lounge: Wikis For Dummies
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
EditMe is featured in the new book Wikis for Dummies from the #1 best selling computer book series. I spoke with the author, Dan Woods.
Staff Lounge: The Personal Wiki
Monday, July 2, 2007
Wikis are most often billed as collaboration tools. But considering what makes the wiki a great collaboration tool points to some other often over-looked wiki applications. For example, a lot of customers (including myself) use EditMe for a "personal wiki". It was a personal need that I originally developed EditMe to fill, and it's the way I use EditMe most frequently today. Put simply, everyone should have one of these.
