I’m hoping to both find out more myself and encourage others to join me in helping with Ann Arbor’s reaction to Pfizer leaving.

Please visit the Wiki. Anyone can comment, but only invited members can edit the pages. I’m also trying to find out more details about the various SWAT teams that Spark has created and encourage them to use Web 2.0 technologies. I’m a firm believer that using many of the new and free or low cost Web 2.0 technologies can make a huge difference in Michigan’s economic turnaround. We desparately need new ideas if we are going to make economic progress and the best way to get new ideas is to open up the forum to as many people as possible.

I highly recommend reading “The Wisdom of Crowds” by New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki who “explores a deceptively simple idea that has profound implications: large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant—better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future. This seemingly counterintuitive notion has endless and major ramifications for how businesses operate, how knowledge is advanced, how economies are (or should be) organized and how we live our daily lives.”

I am also talking with the City of Ann Arbor staff about using wikis to make us both more efficient and more transparent. I have already started one for the Cable Commission and as soon as there is more content there I will publicize it.

Wikis are now for anyone who can use a web browser

In the past I have thought that only programmer types were interested in trying to use a Wiki, but companies like Socialtext have provided a layer of usability that opens up this world to non-technical folks. So, the technical barriers are gone, but people still have to be able to think and make time to learn a new approach to organizing information. I have heard far too many business leaders in Michigan indicate that they don’t have time to learn something new. To those who would have such thoughts, I say, please step aside and let those those people with new ideas and a willingness to learn, step up and help us all with Michigan’s economic turnaround.

Here’s a screenshot from the Socialtext privacy settings: