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To: FFL State Teams
From: Ed Walz, Spitfire Strategies
Date: September 30, 2011
Re: FFL wiki instructions
Thanks for visiting the FFL wiki. If you’re new to wikis (or even new to this wiki) or if you haven’t
been back in a while, this introduction memo should help you get started. It opens with a
reminder about the roles the wiki plays in our project, then offers some how-tos, and concludes
with a reminder that you can always get individualized help.
What’s the deal with the wiki?
The FFL wiki serves two main functions in support of your work: a journal and a library. It serves
as an online journal – a place for you to record your notes about challenges, accomplishments,
and experiments. The advantage of this approach is that your colleagues will be able to see not
just what you did but how you did it and how it worked. The Foundation will also look to your
journal entries as indications of your efforts to employ Facebook as an integral part of your
children’s health communications strategy. The wiki also serves as a library, offering resources
from Beth Kanter, Spitfire Strategies, and other FFL partners.
Ok, so how do I use it?
How Do I Use the Wikispaces Site?
Wikis are a cool idea that move away from the one-way communications of traditional websites
to a new approach, where the site’s sponsors and users can all share information. For the FFL
wiki, we use a platform called wikispaces, which makes editing pages on the wiki as easy as
editing word processing documents. It should be pretty intuitive, but if you need a few pointers,
check out these video tutorials and dive in.
How’s the FFL Wiki Structured?
The Menu Bar
The menu bar, positioned along the left-hand column of every page, is the easiest way to
navigate the wiki. It includes two major sections: Actions and Navigation.
Actions
The Actions section includes two subsections:
Wiki Home lets you return quickly to the wiki homepage.
Recent Changes shows you a page listing updates to pages on the site, including time
and author information. This link will be particularly helpful if you are looking for
information about recent journal updates by other teams. You can even sign up for email
or RSS alerts when specific pages are updated.
1800 M Street NW ● Suite 300 North ● Washington, DC 20036 ● tel 202-293-6200 ● fax 202-293-6201● www.spitfirestrategies.com
Navigation
The Navigation section of the wiki includes three subsections: About, Participants, and
Resources.
Participants
The Participants section is the one you’ll likely use most often. It includes your organization’s
page on the FFL wiki, as well as the pages of other participating advocates.
What’s on our page?
1. Contact information for your FFL team
2. A checklist of milestones against which you can measure your progress during
the project year
3. Your journal
Why visit our page? To update your journal or contact information.
Why visit other participating organizations’ pages? To learn whether they’ve faced
similar challenges or tried similar tactics.
How do we get to our page?
1. Click Participating State Organizations
2. Select your organization from the “Alphabetical by Organization Name” list or the
“By State” list
The Navigation section also includes pages about the FFL teams at the Foundation and its
national partners. Check out those pages under the National Partners link, for more information
about their roles in the project and the support available through each.
About
The About section includes information about the Friending the Finish Line project. Most of this
information is drawn verbatim from the FFL launch packet (pdf, wiki login required). The majority
of this information is most useful to you at the very beginning of the project, as an initial
orientation to FFL’s objectives, theory of change, and support system. But a couple of links will
likely be useful on an ongoing basis:
Project Calendar – A good snapshot of the FFL project year
Getting Help – Contact information for the Spitfire and Foundation FFL teams, in case
you have questions the wiki and the FFL Facebook group can’t answer.
o Resources –
Resources tab provides you with various tools and refreshers
The initial PDF Launch Packet
Friending the Finish line presentation
Social media checklist and resource for questions
Ideas to boost your activities through social media; ie. Custom
landing tab pages on facebook
Resources
The Resources section is the wiki’s library. It’s where Beth, the Spitfire team, and you will share
materials and resources that may be helpful to you or your colleagues in the future. The library
is designed to evolve over time, but some of the initial content included a PDF copy of the
project launch packet and a video of the project’s launch webinar. It’s grown since then to
include links to sample social media policies, examples of metrics spreadsheets, and guidance
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on building SMART objectives for a Facebook plan, and tools you can use to create custom
landing pages.
About Wiki Discussions
The top of every page on the wiki includes a tab labeled “discussion.” This is a useful tool –
broadly similar to a blog – that allows wiki users to converse about the content of a page without
changing the content of the page. Since our FFL Facebook group was designed to be the
discussion venue for FFL participants, please use the Facebook group instead of the wiki’s
discussions tool.
I still need help! Where do I go?
This memo includes only basic information about the wiki. If you have other questions about the
wiki, the FFL Facebook group or anything else related to the project, contact your FFL coach for
help.
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