Linking LocalThe wikiDOMO Blog

Camping around town: self-organizing for a cause

What do wikis and conferences have in common? Probably not much, unless we are talking about self-organizing "Camps" (sometimes referred to as "unconferences"). In that case, much of the principles are shared. 

Over the last few weeks, we took part in a number of Toronto "Camps" (many are based on "BarCamp" model), where everyone contributes towards a common goal. These "Camps" provide a platform, a way for people with common interests to get together and pursue their objectives. That is what we are building (only online) - a platform to coordinate finding, sharing, and contribution of information about local places, people who work at those places, and products/services they provide. 

Here is a quick overview of some of these events...

CrisisCamp

CrisisCamp events are organized and coordinated with CrisisCommons, a community of innovators using technology to improve crisis responses. Currently, Camps are being organized to assist with the aftermath of earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. 

ChangeCamp Toronto

ChangeCamp mission is to "re-imagine government and citizenship in the age of participation". On February 16th, 240 participants gathered together to design a "civic engagement toolkit" in preparation for the upcoming municipal elections. 

ChangeCampTO Feb.16, 2010

View more presentations from Mark Kuznicki.

PodCamp 

PodCamp Toronto 2010 is a "FREE 'unconference' bringing together professionals and hobbyists from Toronto and the surrounding area to explore the cutting edge of new and social media." Anyone could sign up to present at the two-day event that ran on Feb 20-21st, and it was great to re-connect and catch up with many members of our community.

(by stevenharris)

wikiDOMO shares many of the fundamental principles with these Camps, and we are happy to be a part of the conversation. Hope to see you at the next one!

By: Dragan Stojanovic

Organizing the organizers: Wikis to the rescue!

We've all been watching and reading the latest news reports from Haiti and the terrible consequences of the January 12th earthquake. But, there is also an important story behind the news. 

When disasters strike, most media coverage is focused (and rightly so) on the immediate needs of the relief efforts: locating victims, collecting and distributing food/water/medical supplies, and providing shelter. But, what about the effort required to keep all the rescue teams organized? And, what happens when more and more of the relief efforts are supported by virtual teams of people working all around the world? How do they keep organized?

That is exactly the issue faced by a new type of relief effort sweeping the cities across the world. Organized around local events called Crisis Camps (and organized by Crisis Commons), a whole movement of volunteers is using technology and mobilizing to help. And, the results are pretty impressive, as can be seen from this news coverage from a recent Crisis Camp held in Washington, DC.

But, with hundreds of volunteers working on dozens of projects all over the world, how do they keep organized and focused? There are many tools to help individuals and groups communicate and share knowledge/ideas (e.g. IRC chat, skype, Google Docs, etc). However, the most robust, flexible, and easy to use tool is still a central wiki http://wiki.crisiscommons.org, which anyone can access and contribute to. 

It is true that most "off-the shelf" and freely-available wiki solutions are not perfect for this purpose: there is often lack of structure from ad-hoc contributors; there is no easy way to assign tasks and track their progress; and, data is often difficult to aggregate and extract in meaningful ways. Yet, despite these problems, the underlying characteristics of wikis are certainly well aligned with the needs of crisis relief: they are quick to edit, flexible, and generally open to all. When disaster strikes and large numbers are mobilized to help, these are certainly huge strengths. 

So, if you are interested in helping out with Crisis Camps, find one in your community (yes, you can find the details on the wiki at http://wiki.crisiscommons.org, or follow twitter hash-tag #ccHaiti). Since we are based in Toronto, we are involved in Crisis Camp Toronto, and are looking forward to the next one on Saturday, January 30th. Hope to see you there (in person, or online - maybe with your contributions on the wiki)!

By: Dragan Stojanovic

Human Nature - online or offline

As usual eMarketer had a couple of great articles yesterday. The one that really peaked my interest was the one titled Harnessing Active Brand Advocates. The article is about a survey conducted by Synovate for word-of-mouth ad network PostRelease.

 The largest percentage of respondents, nearly 54%, reported "Helping a friend or family member make a decision about a product purchase".  I don't find this surprising, as I've have always believed that people tend to perform word-of-mouth activities towards people they care about. 

You share with friends and family more than you share with people you don't know. When it comes to word-of-mouth it's no different. Posting online ratings and reviews came in at 24.9% of the respondents, again not a surprise. Most sites don't relate the posting of ratings or reviews to a personal experience.

As an industry, we need to create the right tools that focus contributors of word-of-mouth content on sharing with people they know - not just posting to the world. The public posting should be considered a byproduct of the referral activity. Public referrals are an example of how word-of-mouth opinions can be both exchanged and posted to the broader audience. Only when we do a better job of creating personal experiences that relate to our offline reality will we see participation in these activities increase. 

No matter how much we want to change the world with new web practices and tools, we have to remain keenly aware of human nature. It's as simple as observing our offline behavior.

Jose Leal

Another successfull show and sponsorship

It's that time of year again - the annual spring wedding show!  Once again, wikiDOMO is proud to sponsor the Hamilton-Halton Spring Wedding Show and the Niagara Spring Wedding Show. The Hamilton-Halton Spring Wedding Show - now in it's 41st year and Canada's longest running wedding event - was on this weekend at the Hamilton Convention Centre. And for those of you who missed it, you can can catch the 13th Annual Niagara Spring Wedding Show next weekend (Jan 16 & 17) at the Quality Parkway Hotel & Convention Centre in St. Catharines.  So if you're planning to tie the knot this year, what could be better than finding everything you need under one roof? There is no shortage of companies that want to help make your wedding day the best it can be - and with over 200 bridal professionals - you are bound to find what you're looking for to make your special day memorable.  

wikiDOMO has partnered with Beau Monde Productions and provided links to all the exhibitors' listings. Check out their profiles and see what others have had to say about the products and services they received. Perhaps you can add your own opinion regarding the service received at the show? Or maybe you've already confirmed a booking or made a purchase - and by sharing your first hand experience with others it helps put the spotlight on a great service provider who deserves to be recognized.  Service was great?  Let everyone know!  Service needs improving?  Let the business know! Maybe the wedding professional doesn't even know he or she dropped the ball and would appreciate being able to make things right. Either way, you'll be helping future brides and grooms - and just maybe yourself - along the way.  

Busy couples are conscious of the overwhelming number of decisions they have to make months - and sometimes years! - before their special day, so help your fellow brides and grooms by going online and letting everyone know how the exhibitors this weekend did. If you missed the show then be sure to catch the Niagara Spring Wedding Show next weekend - and don't forget to contribute your opinion!

Vesi Leal

 

Good 2009 - Great 2010 for wikiDOMO.com

First up, I’d like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year! This post is about looking back at 2009 and looking forward to 2010; we are very excited about 2010 and what it will bring.

 

New York - by caruba 

2009 started on a good note. We had just hired our new lead developer, Derek Martin who went to work right away and started moving the code to a new framework; by March he was done and we were able to re-launch the Alpha site under the new framework. The site became faster, more reliable and, most importantly, easier to develop upon. Since then, Derek and the team have released half a dozen new Alpha releases which included many improved and new functions like search, history and moderation. Derek has been doing a great Job and we're looking forward to more coding magic from him in 2010.

 

2009 also saw us team up with TABIA - which is the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas - and we look forward to working with TABIA and other BIAs in 2010 as well.  Our involvement with the Bloor West Village BIA has helped us formulate some strategies as to how we can work more closely with the BIAs moving forward. I can't wait to employ those strategies - so watch out BIAs because we’re going to blow your socks off in 2010!

 

Also in 2009, we were able to prove a number of our assumptions. We launched our Alpha Ad platform with the help of our partners Shiny Ads and our new advertising model will be tested early this year - and we hope to deploy it across North America by the second quarter.

 

We spent a lot of time thinking through the Open Marketplace model and the manifesto. Though it detracted from other projects, it helped us build clarity around what wikiDOMO is about and how the model is much bigger than the wikiDOMO.com implementation. We will continue to evolve that model this year by reaching out to the Open Data and Linked Data communities to develop strategies around the Open Marketplace.

 

We learned a lot of things from our thousands of daily users. Many of them will be integrated into our Beta launch in February. As with everything we have done so far, it will be a quiet launch initially but keep your eyes open around April, when we will start making some noise. It’s been a long time coming - and we still have a lot of work to do - but we are extremely excited about the Beta launch.

 

Along with the Beta launch we are also working on our Iphone application. It’s something that we've been working on for some time and have been talking to a couple of potential providers and we think we found the right partner with the right idea. In retrospect, I’m glad we did not execute a half-baked Iphone strategy earlier.

 

Now that we are getting closer to our Beta launch, we plan on being more transparent with the goings on at wikiDOMO. So, watch out for more posts, more info and more opportunities to participate and engage in a number of different levels.

 

Have a happy and open 2010!

New wikiDOMO contributor excels!

In this - our first - feature spotlighting a contributor we wanted to introduce Rob McJannett to the community.

Rob works in the family business (Performance Improvements) alongside his brother Andy McJannett. Until recently, Rob was responsible for producing their bi-monthly in-house magazine to a readership of 30,000.  However, Rob has now focused his attention on the online space and part of the learning process was attending the Online Marketing Conference at the Sema Show in Las Vegas.  He learned about directories, Google local and the need to manage online presence, SEO, etc.

Like most businesses, Rob's not really happy with his website and he knows the company needs to maintain their online presence on sites like wikiDOMO - so when he returned from the conference, he set up a number of Google alerts (and included some of his competition). Soon after he got an alert about one of his competitor's profile on wikiDOMO.com which prompted him to update and enhance Performance Improvements profiles.  To our surprise, Rob has made over 225 contributions - wow!  So what did he think of the process?  Well for starters, he liked the fact that wikiDOMO did not make him jump through hoops to make changes and additions.  Having tried to update his Google Local profile, he was annoyed with the verification process and was unable to gain access; he suspects it may be a couple of weeks before he gets it too.

Asked what else he liked about the site compared to other directories, he said that wikiDOMO has more fields and he especially likes the Related Places feature.  This feature allows businesses to link their profiles together based on their business 'relationship' - such as Parent Company and Subsidiary, Landlord and Tenant or an Association and Member.  In the case of Performance Improvements, the eight locations in Ontario and Quebec - Toronto,  Barrie,  Brampton,  Guelph,  Hamilton,  Oshawa,  Newmarket and Pierrefonds - are all linked as Affiliates, which means each location appears on any given profile. Rob also liked that the profile had a 'Products' feature but didn't like that it wasn't working; this feature is not fully active at this time...but it's being working on!

Having never seen or heard of wikiDOMO, Rob was able to use the site with ease to update his company's profile(s).  This helps to elevate Performance Improvements standing - and in the online world this could mean a competitive advantage.

We just noticed that Rob was kind enough to update a couple of his customers' sites as well.

Thanks Rob, for your contributions to the wikiDOMO community!!

By Vesi Leal

Hamilton Halton Wedding Show

For the second year, wikiDOMO has sponsored the Hamilton-Halton Fall Wedding Show and The 12th Annual Hamilton-Halton Fall Wedding Show was a huge success!  Produced by Beau Monde Productions and held at the Hamilton Convention Centre, the show surpassed everyone's expectations with the number of brides in attendance.  With all of the hype surrounding the fear of the flu pandemic as well as the recent economic turmoil, The Hamilton Halton Fall Wedding Show was still able to pull through with impressive attendance.  This goes to show the endurance of brides and grooms and their determination to have the wedding of their dreams!  

 

Congratulations to Amanda Gibson of Gibson Glamour In Motion. As in previous years, one lucky exhibitor wins a free booth for next year's show - and Amanda was the lucky winner this year. 

 

There were some unique and innovative exhibitors at the show this year - such as Fun Photos.  This company will bring a photo booth to your wedding so your guests and bridal party can have some fun while making memorable photos of your big day.  Another innovative exhibitor was Allure Fitness.  They had a great booth display and brought their poll in to demonstrate how fun a bachelorette party could be with a private Allure Fitness class.  As a matter of fact, they have recently attracted some media coverage due to the controversy over their sign.  Westdale Village (where Allure Fitness is located) has asked the company take down their sign and create a new logo - it seems they do not like the company's design!  Or how about going all out by renting that special ride?  Celebrity Limousine brought not one, but two Ferraris - which attracted quite the audience. 

 

The highlight, of course, had to be the fashion show and the gorgeous dress designs for the 2010 wedding season were a hit.  Thanks to Rainbow Bridal, Jeffery Bridal, Juliz Bridal, Sposa, The Proper Topper, Mirella's and Moores for putting on a fabulous show.  Rainbow Bridal also hosted a Bridal Gown Sale, and again, this one-time sale was a hit.  

Alas, there are just too many exhibitors and too little space to list them all!  But you can help by clicking the Bridal Shows Today or The 12th Annual Hamilton-Halton Fall Wedding Show Exhibitor List links and letting everyone know what you think.  Rate and review the exhibitors and support your local businesses with your feedback.

By Vesi Leal

Event week at wikiDOMO

First Parade

We’ve had a very busy couple of weeks here at wikiDOMO. It started with preparing for our first parade. Yup, you read that right!  Parade!  One of the things we’ve wanted to announce is that we are working with a number of BIAs (Business Improvement Areas), here in Toronto and in Hamilton, Ontario. One of those BIAs is the Bloor West Village BIA. As a matter of fact, it was the first BIA in world!  It began in 1970 and for the most part, Alex Ling has been instrumental in driving its success and that of the BIA concept overall.

While working with Mr. Ling and the Bloor West Village community, he asked us to attend the Toronto Ukrainian Festival parade - so we did. We got our dinosaur and signage and handouts ready and on Saturday September 19th wikiDOMO attended its first parade. I must say it was a blast!    We will definitely be attending next year; and we got a lot of ideas on how we will continue to support the BIAs.

First One Web Day Sponsorship

Meanwhile, we became aware that there was a One Web Day event here in Toronto and in New York City, so we decided to attend both. In Toronto we helped to sponsor the event at Café Taste along with Mozilla and Tucows. Dragan stepped up to help with both setting up the event and representing wikiDOMO. I was in New York with Vesi (my wife and our Membership Manager) and attended the event in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. We showed up a little late and missed the speeches, but we had a great time nonetheless.

It takes commitment to be involved in our community and we at wikiDOMO wish to contribute in any way we can. Thanks to everyone who helped us at these events and to those who organized such great events.

By Jose Leal

Open Marketplace Manifesto

Well, it's been a couple of months since we last posted to the Linking Local blog. That's not to say that we haven't been busy. A lot has been happening in the background, we've released a number of new features to the http://www.wikiDOMO.com alpha site and more features and bug fixes will be released by the end of September. We've also been doing community outreach and have a couple of exciting partners to share with you. But, more about that in a future posts.

This post is about Open Marketplace, something we've been working on for some time. As we developed wikiDOMO.com from the original concept,  we kept encountering more and more concerns with the media, marketing and advertising industries - the industries we call the Marketing-Industrial Complex. We realized that the impact of what we were doing was much bigger than just a tech start-up - it was something that had the potential to change how marketing works - to change the marketplace.

We knew we needed to develop a broader model that allowed anyone to engage in its development and most importantly benefit from it. So, we started to work on the model, at first we called it "open marketing" and then after a lot of meetings and feedback we decided Open Marketplace was more accurate. After a few months of work we now have something that we can share with the world:

Open Marketplace Manifesto

The media, marketing and advertising industries are a massive marketing-industrial complex. The mass marketing options that once worked for marketers and consumers are no longer effective. They worked before, in part because there was no viable alternative. In the post Internet age consumers and businesses alike are abandoning the complex and attempting to replace it with the Internet.

However, the Internet by itself is not a solution. We're looking to social media for answers, but it's not meant to address this problem. We must develop a new model that allows us to transition away from the marketing-industrial complex. A model that truly addresses marketplace needs by providing efficient and low cost production, distribution and consumption of marketplace information. A model that avoids the inherent duplication and fragmentation carried over from the complex.

The future marketplace must be open. An open, non-proprietary model can help consolidate and direct innovation to the needs of both the providers and consumers. Only then, can the Internet deliver its true potential: free and open access to the information that empowers our lives.

Open Marketplace is a future where everyone has access, a voice, and shared responsibility over marketplace information to make better consumer choices. 

It's about a future:

    where everyone has free and equal access to promote anything;

    where local, national, and international marketplaces' are equally empowered;

    where relevant, reliable, timely information is freely available to the marketplace;

    where providers and consumers have equal ability to voice their opinions;

    where everyone is able to collaborate and engage in open conversation; 

    where the production and distribution of information is a cooperative effort;

    where we all benefit from a new sustainable, efficient and effective marketplace; and

    where the end game for marketplace participants is increased information quality.

To achieve the future Open Marketplace, we must be guided by these core principles:

 

1. The commons is where all marketplace information belongs.
2. Competing is good - sharing is better, because we all win.
3. Duplication and fragmentation are the enemy - aggregation is essential.
4. The marketplace must set standards, and most importantly follow them.
5. Transparency of information is the air that sustains the open marketplace.
6. An identification system for everything, and everything with an ID.
7. Every bit of information linking to the physical world.
8. Information without engagement is futile.

For more background info visit: Open Marketplace Manifesto Background

We Want Feedback & Co-Conspirators

We want to see the Open Marketplace future come to pass and we have taken it upon ourselves to make it happen. But, we can't do it alone. At the very least we need encouragement, we need to know if you think we're on the right track. Better yet, we need your help! We've created a public Open Marketplace Google Group. The group is a work space where you can learn more about the project, provide input and add your name to the Open Marketplace co-conspirators list.

If you have feedback of any kind on the Open Marketplace Manifesto please add a comment below or start a discussion on the Google group.

By Jose Leal

Who should control local business listings?

A great way to find local businesses online is through local business directories that provide listings with ratings and reviews. Ratings and reviews can help separate great businesses from those that are simply good or downright terrible. But, the key question that we all need to ask is, who controls the online profile in the directory?

 

Business, Customer, or the Community?

Most local directory sites ultimately cater to either the consumer or the business. But, if it’s the business that controls the content, how can customers trust the reviews? If everything is controlled by customers, how can businesses feel protected from spiteful customers and dishonest competitors?

At wikiDOMO, we make money from rendering services to businesses. Therefore, there’s a huge chance for perceived and real conflict of interest. But, our listings are not controlled by the businesses. We are a wiki. Therefore, like Wikipedia, the content is controlled by the community. Businesses and customers alike can contribute and help manage the business listings. 

Business Feedback: “I want that review removed”

We have done a number of test pilots and the outcome has been a little surprising. We had businesses call us to say; “I want that review removed.” - Our answer was always; “No, but feel free to engage your customer.” Now for the surprising responses: “But other sites let me delete the reviews that I don’t like.” wikiDOMO doesn’t and we think that makes a big difference.

Trust and Reputation

How important is this? At first, it doesn’t seem like a big deal. But, as more and more customers look to the internet for information about local businesses this will become critical. Trust and reputation have always been important. Moving forward these will be even more important. Now, just about anyone can voice their opinion about anything. These voices must be moderated, not just by one side or the other, but by the community at large.

If you already have a place (business) profile on wikiDOMO, be sure to help manage it. If you’re a customer of local businesses in your community, help contribute to their profiles and reputations. Everyone benefits and more importantly, everyone is providing a balanced measure of control.

Not only are the wikiDOMO business profiles controlled by the community, they’re also provided to the community for reuse through Creative Commons licensing. We’ll soon be announcing our API (currently in testing) that will provide free access to all of our business listings.

Let us know what you think. We would love to hear your thoughts about wikis, business listings and wikiDOMO.com.

The image above is of one of our place profile businesses: Kootenay Country Store Co-op and was taken by donkeycart. 

by Jose Leal