Appropedia Action
It's (not) been a quiet week in Appropedia, my home town. (What the heck? Okay, Garrison Keillor says something like that about Lake Wobegon.)
We've been pretty active over there, and it's starting to bear fruit. Even without aggressive promotion (fear not, it'll come!), we've gotten some notice in several great spots. Engineers Without Borders International has recognized Appropedia as a Solution of the Month for September, and they've also added the wiki to their list of Comprehensive Appropriate and Sustainable Technologies Databases and placed among their list of 12 phenomenal Useful Tools! Ethan Zuckerman has recognized Appropedia as a "very cool idea" and added a link. And Appropedia got great mention on O2 Nederlands.
Meanwhile, several new contributors have shown up and added content. A lot of house cleaning and yardwork have been furiously going on, improving the usability of the site. We're in the final stages before an "open house". That's my perspective; while we haven't been keeping the doors tightly shut, we haven't sent out a zillion invitations either. Once we've gotten all our ducks in a row and vacuumed under the beds and cleaned the windows, we're gonna put onour Sunday best and have our coming out party. (Okay, yeah, I did mix a few metaphors there, but you get the idea.)
One of the things we've been working on is our mission statement. This is a very useful idea, of course. Most of the people scurrying around and getting stuff done all think pretty much alike, and the mission seems fairly obvious. But it helps to find ways to articulate it, and that's what we're working on now. In addition, this exercise helps us make sure we're thinking as BIG as we can. Some stop by the Appropedia Mission discussion page and help us think big!
Another effort has been to create a more colorful and inviting Main Page. I was perfectly happy with it, until I visited some really nice sites. (One site has a great looking main page, but no activity in the last 30 days. ) We're incorporating some of those great ideas at our test page, and will be going live with that shortly.
So, if you don't get an invitation very soon, it's, um, just that I misplaced your address. Drop me a note or comment! Y'all come! Invite your friends!
See you soon at the wiki.
We've been pretty active over there, and it's starting to bear fruit. Even without aggressive promotion (fear not, it'll come!), we've gotten some notice in several great spots. Engineers Without Borders International has recognized Appropedia as a Solution of the Month for September, and they've also added the wiki to their list of Comprehensive Appropriate and Sustainable Technologies Databases and placed among their list of 12 phenomenal Useful Tools! Ethan Zuckerman has recognized Appropedia as a "very cool idea" and added a link. And Appropedia got great mention on O2 Nederlands.
Meanwhile, several new contributors have shown up and added content. A lot of house cleaning and yardwork have been furiously going on, improving the usability of the site. We're in the final stages before an "open house". That's my perspective; while we haven't been keeping the doors tightly shut, we haven't sent out a zillion invitations either. Once we've gotten all our ducks in a row and vacuumed under the beds and cleaned the windows, we're gonna put onour Sunday best and have our coming out party. (Okay, yeah, I did mix a few metaphors there, but you get the idea.)
One of the things we've been working on is our mission statement. This is a very useful idea, of course. Most of the people scurrying around and getting stuff done all think pretty much alike, and the mission seems fairly obvious. But it helps to find ways to articulate it, and that's what we're working on now. In addition, this exercise helps us make sure we're thinking as BIG as we can. Some stop by the Appropedia Mission discussion page and help us think big!
Another effort has been to create a more colorful and inviting Main Page. I was perfectly happy with it, until I visited some really nice sites. (One site has a great looking main page, but no activity in the last 30 days. ) We're incorporating some of those great ideas at our test page, and will be going live with that shortly.
So, if you don't get an invitation very soon, it's, um, just that I misplaced your address. Drop me a note or comment! Y'all come! Invite your friends!
See you soon at the wiki.
posted by Curt Beckmann at 6:35 AM
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