Web Watch: California Innovation Corridor

My guess is that the California Innovation Corridor has done the best job of organizing and collecting the stories that are emerging from its WIRED region. 

Organizing Our Knowledge

Many WIRED regions are still struggling with their web presence. An early challenge -- one among many -- is defining the structure of the site, so than it is expandable. In the course of Wired, we are collecting a lot of information and knowledge (which can often be most easily communicated in the form of stories.) 

Building a WIRED web site that provides a flexible and adaptive container for this knowledge is not easy task. We confronted the same challenges in thinking through the structure of Wired Nation. 

So, it's impressive to see how the California Innovation corridor has organized its web site to capture these stories. You can look through the site here. 

Thanks to Richard Mains of Mains Associates. Richard was involved in designing the site, and he was the first person to draw our attention to it. 

Leveraging Web 2.0 Tools

At the same time, we have the opportunity in WIRED regions to leverage new Web 2.0 tools. These tools enable people with little or no web development experience to post directly to the web. We can now build web sites to share everything from contact information and meeting notes to MP3 files and videos. 

Traditional approaches to web development -- in which you rely on a IT department to build, maintain and update a site -- are relatively slow and difficult to manage. New approaches, such as Wired Nation, allow many users to contribute. 

Bioscience Regions

During our Bioscience Regions Institute in Winston Salem, we set up our own Internet audio channel. We also capture presentations on line. People from around the country could easily tap in and keep up with what was going on. If you have not done so already, visit our Bioscience Regions web site. 

Many of these Web 2.0 tools are inexpensive or free. That means that virtually any group can now set up a web site and begin sharing information and promoting collaboration. The key is capturing information quickly and cheaply.

Weekly webinars

To help you get up to speed on new developments on the web and how you can use them, we will be launching a series of weekly seminars next week. We will use the Wired-Nation site as our demonstration site to show you how to use these new Web 2.0 tools. We'll announce the schedule with an e-mail blast, and you will also be able to keep up with the schedule by checking the Wired Nation blog and Events calendar (under the Events tab above).