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There is an open invitation to join the Pikia Charter, which is the first step to forming the team and defining for-profit services.

Pronounced: 'Pick-EEEE-uh'. Pikia is a proposal to establish an entrepreneurial arm of the PortlandWiki contributor team.

The essential idea is to launch a business enterprise that would seek commercial work and devote a portion of earnings and/or development resources to PortlandWiki.org. Pikia's origination comes from the notion that the existing contributors of PortlandWiki are equipped with commercially valuable skills. These talents could be leveraged to provide a bridge to PortlandWiki to professional level resources, while fostering a more robust network of contributors.

Pikia is a play on words: pwiki (pet name of Portland Wiki) and Wikia (the for-profit arm of Wikipedia).

Supporting Ideas

Pikia is a way to work on PortlandWiki without having to work for 'the Man'.

In other words, Pikia is a possible avenue of revenue that would allow primary contributors to focus full-time effort on creation of wiki-based content, project development and administration.

  • Sustainability - By creating a revenue source, we can compensate contributors. Pikia can pay you for doing what you're doing already. This will create stability and consistency that can only be obtained from salary. Volunteering has a high burn-out rate, Pikia could counter that trend. Just imagine, paying your rent with Wiki entries? If possible it would be the perfect job!
  • Resource Symbioses - The hardest part of being a new company is to prove itself. PortlandWiki can serve to legitimize Pikia in front of prospective clients. In turn for the help, Pikia can serve PortlandWiki in areas that is difficult for PortlandWiki. Such as funding events, providing financial rewards to editorial, pay for hosting and technology infrastructure.
  • Financial & Business assistance - Pikia can serve as a patron to PortlandWiki, providing any financial, resource support so that PortlandWiki's structure remains simple and transparent.
  • Mutual Benefit - For lack of a better term, the idea is that as Pikia increases in value, so does PortlandWiki. As PortlandWiki increases in value, so does Pikia.
  • Advocacy - Believe it or not, commercial entities have more rights than non-profits. Small Claims courts will favor a professional vs a volunteer. In some ways, having a commercial ally can fast track needs that would other wise be sluggish.
  • Vouching - Often organizations struggle to get nonprofit status, because it is an effort to become exempt from government control. On the other hand if a commercial entity such as Pikia can vouch for PortlandWiki it can go a long way.

Concerns

As the idea of Pikia develops, there are concerns about the potential for confusion between PortlandWiki and Pikia that might inadvertently taint PortlandWiki's grassroots, public domain charter.

Specific concerns and proposed solutions:

  • Need to avoid the perception that PortlandWiki is owned or controlled by Pikia or Pikia members, and not the greater community. New people won't help build PortlandWiki if they think it's built or controlled by a specific cadre of people. (added by kotra (talk))
    • Proposed solution by kotra (talk): Effectively communicate that anyone who chooses to help build PortlandWiki is an equal partner and has the same level of authority as any Pikia member, and that Pikia members are just a group of particularly active PortlandWiki contributors with a closely related side project. And that this side project, though it supports the PortlandWiki infrastructure and finances, has no implicit or explicit authority over PortlandWiki. Pikia supports PortlandWiki because that's part of Pikia's purpose. Perhaps formalize this in Pikia's mission statement. Also, Pikia members wouldn't "pull rank" in PortlandWiki disputes/debates, or cultivate the idea of "Pikia authority" in PortlandWiki (I don't foresee this to be a problem, but it deserves a mention I think). -kotra (talk) 05:37, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Join the Pikia Charter

Per discussion at April 18, 2011 Monday Meetup. Interested parties are calling for a charter. A list of who would be interested in pursuing the planning and creation of Pikia. Since the effort strives to be open and transparent, the hope is the list can be visible and available to add.

Please add your name if you're interested.

Proposed internal structure

  • For a smaller organization:
    1. Casual, fairly conventional working process where a delegator-type person assigns tasks and projects to specialists, who confer and ask opinions of others but ultimately make any decisions regarding that project.
    2. A 'client contact' for lack of a better word. Someone who has sold a statement of work to the client for a promise of money.
    3. A board and/or a steering committee from PortlandWiki to advise Pikia of it's strategy.
  • For a larger organization:
    1. For general issues, use a consensus-based model with a deadlock-breaking process (for example, a chairperson or overseer that has the ability to make a decision if debate goes on too long).
    2. For project-specific issues, there could be taskforces and groups that are able to do work independently of the other members, without having to consult everyone for input.
    3. In the unlikely event that Pikia became large enough, incorporating would allow the structure to be more democratic, since no one person would own it.
  • PortlandWiki as resource pool
    1. One big difficulty with new companies is obtaining the necessary talent to complete hired tasks. Pikia would have a rich pool of writers and developers to request from.
    2. Pikia could hire individual contributors and pay freelance writing rates. A PortlandWiki contributor would develop professional value and qualifications from simply writing what they already do for enjoyment.
    3. Pikia would agree to seek PortlandWiki contributors first, and any outside freelancers would be required to become contributors in tandem.
  • Transparency
    1. One goal would to be as upfront as possible. Even regarding the payment and revenue, so that people can see that Pikia has integrity. (Of coarse that might backfire if someone wanted to copy our business model, but who cares? Pikia isn't in it for the money, but a lifestyle supported by contributing)

Skills available

  • Matthew
    • Business planning
    • Information architecture
    • Wireframes, flows, maps, various schematics
    • Market analysis
    • Manufacturer Product Design
    • Technical writing
    • Enterprise Software Design
    • Product Innovation
    • UI Design
    • Inventing
    • HTML,CSS, Jquery, CMS
  • Dave Myers
  • Kotra DeNies
    • Mediawiki configuration & maintenance
    • graphic design (print)
    • graphic design (web)
    • identity branding (particular training and experience in logo design)
    • HTML/CSS/Javascript/AJAX/XML/LotusScript
    • CMS configuration/customization: Lotus Notes/Domino/Administrator, MediaWiki (some WordPress, Joomla)
    • copy editing
    • press release writing
    • SEO
    • online & offline research
    • event organization
    • tech support
  • Michael (talk)
    • Writing
    • Wiki skills
    • Basic CSS
    • Basic graphics
    • Creativity

Service Proposals

  • Seed Writing - A wiki is only as good as it's contribution level, but freelance writers by themselves are incongruous. A client might lack skilled editorial staff to hire and manage them. Pikia could serve as a wiki editorial agency to plan a unified editorial strategy complete with editing and writing services for a corporate wiki, that would be needed to flesh out their initiative. An example would be if a the Mayor's Office opened a wiki for next elections, they could hire Pikia to front-load initial writing, so that it would gain enough credibility to attract volunteer writing. Payment would stem from an editorial statement of work. (Based on word count, pages, we would plan enough pages to warrant the effort, and/or include pages we already had base content)
  • Wiki Integration - Design a wiki platform integration, that would allow wiki's to be embedded easily into commercial portals. Much in the same way that forums are added to customer support areas. Wiki's in some ways can serve as forums, since the bulk of great content, tend to be research and analysis. By not being married to a particular technology, we could match the solution, whether it be wikia,Wet Paint or a hand-rolled version.
  • Wiki Design Boutique - Wikis have been around a long time, and while wiki's like Wikipedia continue to grow in visibility and interest, there has yet to be strong design work in the wiki market. Most wikis either look like Wikipedia (like we do), or they look like blogs (like Wikia sites do). Either way no one has really nailed it yet. If Pikia could figure it out, we could offer the service to ad agencies who could incorporate it in their larger campaign.
  • Wiki Business Strategy & Consulting - Wikis are an underutilized communication channel, and often times, a company may want advice about the use of a wiki. We provide simple business strategy and analysis, and recommendations for creating a wiki and/or building an internal team for it.
  • Knowledge Management and Development - Similar to the wiki strategy services, there is also the possibility of helping clients with Knowledge Management which is a market that is largely untapped. Clients who own massive amounts of knowledge for public and proprietary purposes struggle to make it available to customers, with our experience in working with wiki and other web-based media we can provide valuable direction and development solutions.
  • Electronic Documentation - If a wiki could be made to be secure, easy to use, HIPPA compliant, and secured in a such a way that no data loss was guaranteed, then it could potentially be used as a method of electronic documentation that was FAR less cumbersome than many existing "solutions".
War of words!
War of words!