CNE Expresses Appreciation- Michael Bobak

Michael Bobak, our Resource Center Intern who has been with us for 7 months, will be leaving us as his graduate career winds down. He will be greatly missed as he was an outstanding intern full of knowledge on not only library special collections but technology and Web site issues as well. Michael will graduate in August from Kent State University with a master's degree in library and information science, and he plans to find employment as an information technology librarian. Michael, thank you for your many contributions to CNE and we wish you the best of luck in your future career! Below you find Michael's last tech related article on wikis.

In the coming weeks, we will be looking for a new Resource Center intern to fill Michael's shoes. We are thankful to Roger and Judy Read for their funding to make this intern position possible.

So You are Thinking About Starting a New Nonprofit?
by Renee Steffen, Resource Center Manager

Many people are passionate about meeting an unmet need in the community, and some consider starting a new nonprofit to help meet that need. They are full of excitement and ready to hit the ground running. However, they soon realize they have LOTS of questions and devote hours and hours of time asking around to get the right answers.

Does this sound like you or someone you know? Give up? Why not ask the experts instead? Questions you may have about starting a new nonprofit will be covered in CNE's upcoming two-part training series on how to start a nonprofit. You will not want to miss Part 1, A Reality Check, held on April 22 from 8:30 a.m.-10:30 a.m. at CNE. 
As a sneak peek into the training series, I have included a few "Did You Know" questions: 

• Did you know that there are 8 other options to starting a new nonprofit which could also help you accomplish your goals?
• Did you know it costs $125 to file articles of incorporation with the Ohio Secretary of State?
• Did you know the names and addresses of three people need to be included on the initial articles of incorporation? These three people will be deemed the initial directors of the organization.
• Did you know that you must apply for an Employer Identification Number (EIN) in order to open bank accounts and file employee withholding taxes?
• Did you know CNE has books and other resource materials to advance your knowledge on how to start a new nonprofit?

Do you want to learn more? Contact Renee at 330-762-9670 Ext. 2 to register for this April 22 training. Part 2, A Legal Framework, will be held on May 26. During Part 2, a checklist for forming an Ohio nonprofit, the duties and liabilities of  nonprofit board members, and much more will be discussed. You can register for one or both of the trainings when you call. The cost is $35 for one session and $60 if you register for both.

How Can Wikis Improve the Workflow at Your Nonprofit?
by Michael Bobak

Wikipedia, wikileaks, wikispace... It seems these days tons of words and places begin with the word wiki. What exactly is a wiki? A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked Web pages via a Web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG ("What You See is What You Get")  text editor. They are typically powered by wiki software and allow for group collaboration.Most wikis keep a record of changes made to wiki pages; often every version of the page is stored. This means that authors can revert to an older version of the page, should it be necessary because a mistake has been made or for any other reason.

Wikis can be a great asset to many organizations. Wikis can be very helpful to nonprofits and bring the follow features to the table:

• Avoiding e-mail overload. Wikis allow all relevant information to be shared by people working on a given project. Conversely, only the wiki users interested in given project need look at its associated wiki pages, in contrast to high-traffic mailing lists which may burden many subscribers with many messages, regardless of relevance to particular subscribers. Also useful for the project manager is having all the communication stored in one place, which allows them to link the responsibility for every action taken to a particular team member.
• Organizing information. Wikis allow users to structure new and existing information. As with content, the structure of data is sometimes also editable by users; see structured wiki. On the other hand, wiki is not strictly hierarchical which might be a disadvantage in corporate context.
• Building consensus. Wikis provide a framework for collaborative writing. They allow the structured expression of views disagreed upon by authors on a same page. This feature is useful when writing documentation and preparing presentations.
• Access rights, roles. Users can be forbidden from viewing and/or editing given pages, depending on their department or role within the organization.
• Knowledge management with comprehensive searches. This includes document and project management, as well as using a wiki as a knowledge repository useful during times of employee turnover and retirement. Wikis are a great way to host all of the organization policies and can be updated on the fly.

Getting started is fairly simple and many free options exist. For those wishing to look at some free wiki software I suggest Wikispaces, MediaWiki, and DokuWiki.  These are not the only free options, nor should you limit yourself to only these three. There are other great free and paid for wiki software out there. I encourage you to explore your options and see what best fits your organization's needs. 

Michael is currently a Master’s candidate in the Library and Information Science program at Kent State University. His area of focus deals with human-computer interaction, information technology, information architecture, and user experience design.