FAQ wikis, calendars, and mailing lists -- When do I use what?

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1. FAQ wikis, calendars, and mailing lists -- when do i use what?

2. I need a community announcement board/calendar. Would a wiki page work

for that purpose?

3. What's a wiki good for?

4. Ok, what's a calendar?

5. What about announcements?

6. Why not just use one tool?

Someone said: I need a community announcement board/calendar. Would a wiki page work for

that purpose?

Well, maybe you want a wiki AND a calendar AND an announcement board.

So, what's a wiki good for?

Wikis are really good for developing ideas with people who are already

motivated. They can also be good common holding tanks for working documents.

Instead of mailing an attachment with a text document to whomever, you

just have them keep looking at the same url for all the documents they might

need, and let them know when it's been updated.

You can ead about wikis or set one up here: http://pbwiki.com.

Ok, what about sharing a calendar?

For calendaring, I'd use google calendar: http://calendar.google.com,

which allows users to subscribe to each others' calendars and meshes well

with some desktop computer software.

Or, I might use Upcoming which tells people everything that's

going around them in their social network and/or in their local city.

And what about announcements?

For announcements, I'd just use a google group.

Then people can receive announcements the way they like.

But, why not just use one tool? you may ask.

Well, all these tools are really good at one or two things. if you have one

homepage (which can be a wiki), you can direct people to all the other tools

your community uses.

As long as they use email, all such information will be coming straight to

them anyway -- announcements over email, calendar updates (if they've asked

for them), alerts of when the wiki has been updated.

The great advantage of using the best tools for each purpose is that every time

an individual goes to look at some information, it'll be very easy for him or

her to add more . Adding events and telling others is really easy on calendar

sites, but not so easy on wikis. Adding documents and telling others is

really easy on wikis, but not on mailing lists. And so on. This is all about

making the world more interactive.

This article written by Jo Guldi

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