The American branch of the organization – ICLEI-USA – makes use of the knowledge developed by ICLEI-Global in a program centered around what it calls the Five Milestones. These are the basic building blocks that local governments must commit to achieving to even qualify for membership. Resolutions must be passed by these governments before ICLEI will engage them in the program.

In essence, ICLEI shares and distributes its knowledge about effective local government action by insisting that its clients enroll in its program. Along with the benefits of being guided through the implementation of sustainable and adaptive processes, member governments get to share with their peers the results of their creative efforts. Many of these can be found on the ICLEI-USA web site under Success Stories. An upcoming online community will provide opportunities for more peer-based knowledge exchange.

I tend to think of knowledge sharing as benefitting from informality in conversation, where participants drop pretenses and rely on trust to reveal what they know. Small scale encounters seem to support more open communication. It’s good to know that knowledge sharing can scale to the institutional level where informality is replaced with structure and some prerequisites that demonstrate commitment to learn. If ever we needed to learn as a planet, now is the time.

One reason I ask is that this product review on the GCN (Government Computer News) site begs the question. Check it out and see how you feel about the recommendations for implementing the $15,000 (for small groups) Team Page 4.0 application. I’ve got no argument with the review’s recommendations of Team Page as a content publishing tool, including its ability to assign many levels of read/write permissions and staging content for selective previewing. But when applied with social interfaces like wikis and blogs, it seems likely to wash the “social” right out of the application.

Here are some lines from the review that had me scratching my head wondering why you’d bring wikis and blogs into your government workplace only to lock them down with good old “Team” Page. OK, I know…State Secrets, National Security, etc. But, still, we’re beginnig with relatively inexpensive enterprise level apps and then adding a relatively expensive enterprise application to neutralize their effectiveness.

A poorly deployed blog or wiki can do your organization a lot more harm than good. Even at open federal agencies, releasing information willy-nilly is a recipe for disaster. But with careful planning and deployment, even the most secretive agencies can benefit from this relatively new technology.

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If you think about how wikis and blogs work, they are essentially the same thing, though with different permission levels. That is how TeamPage can become all things to all people, even a content management tool used as Web server.

Beyond the important matter of permissions, TeamPage’s ability to handle data is impressive. If more wikis were designed this way, they probably would be more widely used in government, either as internal tools or for public comment.

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Pricing for TeamPage varies. On the low end, with only a few users, you can get the program for $15,000 with annual updates of $7,500. This is a little expensive if you have only 25 users. There are less efficient but far cheaper ways to manage your wikis and blogs — even some freeware programs.

However, having a large number of users involved in wikis and blogs increases the complexity and the potential for disaster — both technically and by giving out the wrong information to the wrong people. If you have more than 200 users, you can purchase the unlimited license for $60,000 with annual updates of $30,000. This is isn’t cheap, but there is no better way to manage wikis and blogs supporting multiple projects from one program.

Alaska’s Climate Impact Assessment Committee issued its report on March 17 and a balanced report it was, recognizing the upside of a warmer Alaska along with the downside. Benefiting the state would be increases in tourism, research and commercial shipping. (Not to be negative, but if the tourism and research are increasing because the environment is changing so fast, those benefits may be not only fleeting, but ironic in the extreme.)

On the other hand, global warming continues to threaten dozens of rural communities on or near the coastline, with accentuated erosion problems. The impact of climate change will also be felt in commercial, sport and subsistence fisheries, and sport and subsistence hunting, as well as in the way the insurance industry deals with Alaska, the report said.

The Committee remanded its recommendations to the governor’s new “sub-cabinet for climate change,” and,

recommended that the Legislature consider a coordinated process for village relocation efforts, a review of capital planning statutes to determine if they meet the needs of potential future impacts, and support of federal efforts on mapping, tide stations, U.S. Coast Guard presence and permafrost thaw.

So Alaska, it seems, will be the first state to begin relocation planning to deal with current and expected climate change impacts. Beside loss of permafrost and migrating coastlines due to the softening of terrain, the committee also forecasts changes in migratory patterns of wildlife that will affect indigenous lifestyles around the Arctic Circle and changes in boreal forests that are increasingly threatened by insect infestations due to warmer winters.

And, of course, the insurance industry has recognized the need for changing its policies in light of Alaska’s altered climate.

The insurance industry also will be reviewing insurance regulations, potentially making significant changes that will be necessary as a result of global warming, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the report noted.

Here, you find not just the government essentials, wrapped up in a pleasant design. You have what amounts to a combination community newsletter, streaming video channel, RPIN (Regional Public Information Network) alert link, and – within its Natural Resources and Parks Department, a collection of information, reports and opportunities dedicated to conservation, mitigation and adaptation.

Then you get to the internal web site of County Executive Ron Sims and his initiatives, which include Global Warming, and Environmental Protection. These two initiatives alone - if they were the only things King County was doing besides “the essentials,” would put it ahead of all but two or three counties in the U.S. in terms of advance planning for climate change.

I’ve spoken with Elizabeth Willmott, the Global Warming Coordinator for the initiative. She referred me to Peg Reagan, Executive Director of Conservation Leaders Network.

I talked to Peg.  As someone who is always trying to get the attention of county commissioners (or whatever their local titles may be), she informed me that they are predominantly understaffed and overcommitted. I’m not surprised, but the contrast between what King County is able to accomplish and what the vast majority of counties seem able to accomplish is dramatic.