In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Crescent City residents tapped the power of social networking (that increasingly influential blend of software tools and interpersonal communication) to bring their city back from the brink.

At the annual Burton Group conference, Alan Gutierrez, a programmer working for the nonprofit group Think New Orleans offered a presentation entitled “Innovating Your Way Out of Total System Failure” that . . .

highlight[ed] how residents in a handful of the hardest-hit neighborhoods used ingenuity, creativity, digital cameras, Flickr, WordPress, Google Maps and Yahoo Groups to bend rebuilding efforts to the will of the people and away from the wrecking balls swung by city government.