The Innowiki Overview

The whole point of a wiki is to let users mess around, edit pages, add stuff, change things, work together, collaborate, be creative, get funky, have a good time and generally use the web as an interactive tool, rather than a one-way device for looking at charged electrons. Which fits the bill as far as what the Breakthrough Cafe experience is all about.

Now... some wikis are totally "open," meaning that anyone can, at any time, edit any page. That's cool for some applications, but since we're encouraging folks to do some serious business toolilng with the innowiki... totally open is a bit wooly for our tastes. The innowiki, therefore, is a partially "controlled" wiki. Although guests (unregistered folks who happen by) can read most of the pages on the innowiki, they can't edit anything. The "edit page" button is greyed-out for them. Registered users, however, will be able to edit many pages on the innowiki once they log in with their username and password.

Editing and adding to the Innowiki One of the most important bits about wikis is the abilit of users (that's you) to edit them. Regular web sites are for viewing. Yeah, maybe you get to enter data into a form or buy something, but mostly some guy (a webmaster) creates the site, and you passively absorb it. Not with wikis. And definitely not with the innowiki. Here, you are the webmaster. Other than Fixture Spaces (see below) and other people's Chair Spaces (more seeing of below), you can do lots of changing of stuff on this site. You can add text, delete it, edit it, change its color, size and font. You can add pages, add pictures, links and tables. You can make a calendar, import a Word document, start a blog, post an entire poll or a quick question to a forum. You can leave comments on pages, send email to pages and set up your RSS feeder to let you know when a page has changed. The innowiki is interactive in the extreme. Find out more about how to edit things here.

Innowiki Spaces: Fixtures, Chairs and Tables

There are three main types of "spaces" in the Virtual Breakthrough Cafe:

Fixture Spaces The easiest to understand are "Fixture Spaces." These are those pages that are installed by the management and edited only by Staff. This page you are looking at right now is a Fixture Space. If you look at the URL for this page, you'll see "/Fixture/" in the page name. That's how you can tell it's a Fixture Space. These are the only spaces on the innowiki that can't be touched by non-Staff. The reason should be obvious -- you don't want people to mess around with instructions, notices, templates, etc. Those should be the same for everyone. They are like the fixtures (hmmm.... coincidence?) in a real cafe; posted menus, glass cases, etc.

Chair Spaces The second types of pages here are "Chair Spaces." These are private pages, each belonging to someone -- or a group of someones -- who attended a live Breakthrough Cafe event, or who has signed up to be a member of the Virtual Breakthrough Cafe. Chair Spaces can be edited and changed, added to and deleted by the registered member -- called a Diner -- for whom the space was created. When you log in as a Diner, your Chair Space "knows" you, and knows that you can edit it and all sub-spaces you've created. The default setting of the innowiki lets other Diners view but not edit your Chair Space. You can choose to make your Chair Space un-viewable to anyone but you (essentially a private room for your own bad-self), or you can open up your Chair Space and let one or more other Diners have permission to edit your space. If you'd like, have a gander at our master list of all Chair Spaces.

Table Spaces The last type of spaces we've got here at the Cafe are "Table Spaces." These are spaces shared by Diners. These are the spots we're really excited about, frankly. People have had areas on the web to go to for information (fixtures) and places to do their own thing (chairs) for awhile now. But the ability to have true, virtual, worldwide collaboration on the web -- without specialized software, training or medical implants -- hasn't been possible until now. Table spaces are where you'll interact with other Diners, shaping ideas and innovative answers to each others questions. Learn All About Tables here.

What's the whole point?

We don't quite know...

Which is one of the reasons that, for now, the Cafe is open, and free, for everyone who has attended a live Breakthrough Cafe event. We like to think of ourselves as cock-eyed realists. We have every expectation that the concept and promise of wikis -- the ability to finally make the Web a two-way place -- can combine very well with our ideas on creativity and business development. But we don't know for sure.

The whole premise of the Breakthrough Cafe is for us to try new ideas, float new hypotheses and get the heck out of our trenches once in awhile. The innowiki is another chance for us to put our electrons where our mouth is and do for ourselves what we're always telling our clients to do... something...

...different.

Now go play.