Vol. 1 Issue 1
Fall 2006

We are excited to bring you the first newsletter from Azavea. This issue will highlight several ongoing projects in the fields of political advocacy, economic development and historical preservation. Several of these projects will certainly be relevant to your industry or some of the projects you are currently working on. We are thrilled to share with you some of our findings, insights and results. Please let us know what you think!

Inside Azavea: Why We Wiki

Azavea’s development team is always technically savvy when it comes to communication and organization, which is why we decided to use a wiki to respond to the myriad of challenges of organizing large amounts of information in a group setting. The development team at Azavea uses the wiki software (dokuwiki, available for download from http://www.splitbrain.org/projects/dokuwiki ) to store project information, technical tips and tricks, and administrative contacts. What is a wiki?  A wiki is a type of website that allows users to easily add, remove, or edit content and is used as a tool for collaborative writing and knowledge management (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki).  The wiki stores technical curricula for new employees, contact information for shared office resources (calendaring, benefits, source control, technical tips and tricks, etc), and occasionally office humor. By opening the wiki to all employees, the timely and accurate distribution of information ensures that all employees have the resources they need to get started with a new technology or address administrative or technical issues. The benefits of using the wiki system over a typical inter-office memo are multifaceted: the information is immediately available on the office’s Intranet, can be ‘rolled back’ to older versions, is searchable, and can be appended with newer information as it becomes available. Having a dynamic, community-maintained information repository helps us share knowledge and keeps Azavea’s team on top of projects and new technologies.

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More in Vol. 1 Issue 1, Fall 2006 (6 of 7 articles)