The power of an online community

I attended a great conference in Chicago this weekend called BlawgThink (more about this in an upcoming post).  At the conference I met a great web design guy named David Eads who, in his zeal to help people affected by Katrina, set up a wiki called Fema Answers which has great information about matters related to FEMA and Katrina.  Check it out.

For those of you not familiar with the term 'wiki' it is basically a website that anyone can edit.  The most wonderful example of this is Wikipedia, an online encylopedia that has grown into a highly useful webtool through ad hoc collaboration of people dispersed throughout the world.  Speaking of dispersion, I have some ideas about how to use a wiki to assist in the recovery effort in New Orleans; I'll spew those out in a few days.

Comments

[Jack Vinson]

Ernie - It will be interesting to hear your thoughts in light of what the technology community did in response to the Big K. I did a quick Google for "katrina wiki" and returned several related to what you might be thinking. Or you might be thinking along completely different lines...

[professional web design specia]

intersting...i havent heard wiki before but i would definitely check it out.