When: Thursday, February 16, 2012: 8:00 am to 4:00 pm
Where: Vermont Technical College, Randolph Center
Register: Visit http://evermontworkshop.org for details and to register

Join community leaders from around the state to share ideas and learn how online tools are being used to create jobs, reinvent schools, attract visitors, improve civic involvement, and enliven Vermont communities. The workshop is sponsored by the e-Vermont Community Broadband Project.

Anne Galloway of VtDigger.org will be the keynote speaker. Session topics include mobilizing community resources for emergencies, a hands-on lab exploring online tools for business, a showcase of how technology is expanding the classroom for 4-6th graders, a look at conducting town meetings in the digital age, and ways to increase public Internet access in your town (and why).

Registration is $20 and includes course offerings, refreshments, lunch and the chance to win a Kindle reader and other prizes in our raffle drawing.

For more information about the day go to evermontworkshop.org. Pre-register online, by phone 802-859-3090, or by e-mail joanna@snellingcenter.org.

As America’s cities become larger and life gets more complicated, some long for a return to a small-town lifestyle, where they are greeted by name, and the front porch — overlooking a picture-postcard main street — is a place to talk to neighbors. While this rosy view of rural living may not exactly square with reality — especially in hard economic times with high unemployment — the urge to enjoy a more rural lifestyle is attractive to many.

e-Vermont, a consortium of seven different organizations, has come together to improve the economic outlook of rural Vermont through technology, while at the same time preserving what’s most attractive about a region better known for its maple syrup, skiing and mountain vistas than Internet connectivity and job growth…

As for those conversations on the front porch, there’s a forum for that called “Front Porch Forum.” … “it’s a platform for neighborhood conversations, with the goal of things spilling over from online conversations to in-person conversations. Needless to say, public officials take a keen interest in that, not just to follow what’s going on but to have an engaged citizenry.”

Typical items on the forum might be someone selling firewood, eggs or a canoe. Missing pets are frequent items, as well as local government issues such as a proposed tax hike to pay for heating repairs at the school, which may be on the agenda for the next town meeting…

Susan Clark, a resident of Middlesex, is a sixth-generation Vermonter who co-authored All Those in Favor: Rediscovering the Secrets of Town Meeting and Community. She wanted more frequent connections with her community than the once-yearly town meetings. So when she heard about Front Porch Forum, she became a community volunteer…

Clark said that in keeping with the benefits of face-to-face meetings, Front Porch Forum isn’t anonymous, and the person’s street… is also listed… And unlike social networking sites like Facebook, she said, “Front Porch Forum wants you to know what’s going on in your community so you’ll get out from behind your computer and go out and go to the yard sale or the town meeting or the school play or the concert or any of those things.”

Clark said that the forum helps connect the public with local government, but she cautions against loading a forum with such things as planning commission documents at first. Wait until they are hooked on community events and items of personal interest, she said.

When Duane Sorrel, of Middlesex, moved to town he found out about Front Porch Forum at a town meeting. Sorrel, in a YouTube video, said that when he posted his information, he got a dozen customers for his automotive business in the first two days. “My favorite post,” he says in the video, “is ‘lately there’s been bears eating chickens.’ That’s been pretty interesting.”

FPF is expanding beyond Burlington… we now serve one-third of Vermont.  More than 32,000 members participate in rural areas, suburbs, and cities.  Imagine this level of engagement in every part of Vermont and beyond!  Let us know if you’d like to help bring FPF to your town (just enter your address on our home page and complete the form).

Three cheers for the tens of thousands FPF members in Vermont… and here’s to vibrant neighborhoods in 2012!

This is further evidence of the “neighbor connect” online space heating up.  In the past year, I’m aware of at least two dozen significant start-ups focused on facilitating conversation among people who live near each other.  Some, like Localocracy, aim at niches (local ballot issues and related), while others intend to promote a general sense of community.

Huffington Post/AOL joins MSNBC.com, which acquired EveryBlock.com last year, in this space, as well as many other new VC-backed and boot-strapped entrants. Most start-ups in this area appear to be strong on tech and weak on traction.  That is, they can crank out the code, but few people actually show up and use their product.  To make matters worse, many attempt to open up everywhere all at once.  As a friend said… “a mile wide and an inch deep.”

Front Porch Forum is an established leader in this space, with amazing traction in our state.  More than half of our primary city participates.  In another FPF town, 75% of members post… much higher than the 1-10% seen on many social sites.  And the member success stories flow through FPF faster than we can write them down.  People use FPF to reduce crime, find jobs, give away baby gear, reunite with lost pets, recommend roofers, debate ballot measures, call city hall on the carpet, and much more.

With our new web application recently launched, we look forward to bringing Front Porch Forum to communities far and wide.

Floodwaters have receded, but most rivers and streams remain above normal levels, and some are still dangerous in many areas. Vermont officials recommend staying away from rivers that are still high and flowing rapidly. You should stay out of all floodwaters because of pollutants or debris.

Motorists are still encouraged to stay off roadways as many are unsafe and what roads are open are needed by emergency responders, road crews, and utility crews.

Road closures are still too numerous to list. Please call 511 or visit www.511vt.com for updated road closures. The public is asked to NOT call 211 for road closures – those calls are hampering 211’s ability to help those who need shelter or other resources.

State Police also ask that you only call 911 if you have an emergency.

Before returning to your flooded home, you must have a licensed electrician inspect your electrical system. Wet wiring can cause electrocution.

Thanks to all of you who responded to my FPF post a couple weeks back about the dog attacks on North St. I appreciate your concern and all of your suggestions. Before I got a chance to report the incidents to the police, I received an email from a Community Service Officer of the Burlington Police Department. He saw my post on Front Porch Forum and wanted to know more about the attacks. I have to say I was somewhat floored by the email.

The day’s schedule included a fun panel discussion about how politicians use social media, with two politico Tweeters — Burlington City Councilor Ed Adrian and State Rep./possible-mayoral-hopeful Jason Lorber — and blogger-turned-State Senator Philip Baruth. Although Adrian’s a frequent Twitter user — he’s been known to spar with fellow Tweeting city councilor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak at the same time they’re presumably debating in real life at council meetings — he said that the social network that he finds most useful to connect with his constituents is actually neighborhood email service Front Porch Forum.

Councilor Adrian is not alone.  About 400 local public officials across 60 Vermont towns use FPF to connect with their constituents.  Unlike some social media, FPF reaches far beyond the usual suspects.  E.g., more than half of Burlington households participate in their FPF neighborhood forums, so elected leaders can reach a broad swath of the tax payers.

UPDATE:  Terri Hallenbeck weighed in too on her vt.Buzz blog.

… as many of you know, 46 percent of registered voters didn’t vote in November. That’s 209,000 Vermonters whose only choice on November 2 was not to show up. They decided it wasn’t worth it, or it didn’t matter, or it wouldn’t do any good, to make their voice heard. My experience shows that’s just not the case… I don’t think any of us fully realized until November 2 what that frustration had turned into; it turned into 209,000 people who had apparently given up… Civic involvement isn’t something that’s only relevant on even-numbered years.

All of us here in the Legislature need to reach out to those folks and welcome them in, even when we might not agree with their views. We need to open our doors. In order to live up to the intentions and the expectations of our accessible government, we ourselves need to be more accessible. That will mean different things for each of us. For me, that means literally opening my office door downstairs a morning or two a week and inviting you in for coffee and conversation. It means opening my virtual doors…

When I challenge Vermonters to get involved, I’m not just talking about the work we do in Montpelier. Because I really believe we all want to help each other; sometimes we just need to know how… one theme that I’ve stressed… is self-reliance, and its partner, volunteerism. In my mind, those are two sides of the same coin. Being self-reliant doesn’t just mean looking after yourself, although that’s important… But self-reliance also means looking after our neighbors, and giving them the support they may need to get to the next step in their lives.

That has a lot of implications.

• That means buying local, and supporting the merchants on Main Street instead of the website in California.
• That means helping Vermont’s manufacturers to identify suppliers and trading partners who are here within our borders or close by in our region.
• That means making it easier and more affordable for more of us to eat local food, supporting our farmers, reducing transportation costs, and getting fresher and healthier things to eat.
• That means investing in energy policies that help us become more independent.

Personally, I suspect that a great deal of the collective frustration that caused those 209,000 people to stay home on November 2 was the sense that our elected officials and candidates kept talking about the goals — creating jobs, jump-starting the economy, and helping our most vulnerable — but didn’t talk enough about how we would get there. Buying local and encouraging innovative local partnerships are part of my vision for how we do it…

Our challenge in Montpelier is to come up with solutions that will strengthen Vermont. Your challenge is to come up with solutions that will help your neighbor and strengthen your community. If we all work together, we will strengthen the legacy of the state that we love to call home.

e-Vermont Selects 2011 Communities

MONTPELIER, VT — The e-Vermont Community Broadband Project will bring digital tools and in-depth internet training to 12 additional rural communities in 2011. The twelve, announced today, will benefit from the expertise and resources of e- Vermont’s statewide partners as the local groups develop ways to take full advantage of the Internet for creating jobs and innovative schools, providing social services, and increasing community connection. These towns join the first 12 pilot e-communities, selected in spring 2010.

The 2011 e-Vermont communities will be Bridgewater, Calais, Castleton, Dover, Fairfield, Hardwick, Jay/Westfield, Middletown Springs, Moretown, Morristown, Richford, and Vergennes. “As we work with rural communities to support the best use of high speed Internet tools in business, government, community and education, we are bringing Vermont one step closer to truly eliminating the digital divide,” says Project Director Helen Labun Jordan, “Rural regions can’t be left behind in digital skills — we may be receiving high speed Internet later than more urban areas, but we’re going to make up for lost time through programs like e-Vermont.”

e-Vermont is one of the few national broadband adoption initiatives focused on rural needs and it is being viewed as a national model. These towns are among the first to explore how the Internet can be harnessed as a tool for community development.

Although the e-Vermont Community Broadband Project can only bring in-depth services to 24 communities, it will be offering tools and resources to all of Vermont through workshops, conferences, webinars, online tools, and the continuing programs of its partner organizations. e-Vermont updates are posted at www.e4vt.org. Contact e- Vermont with any questions at 802-225-6091 or helen@vtrural.org.  e-Vermont is not stringing cable or fiber, but is working to make better use of broadband where it is available. The 2010 communities are already seeing benefits.

• In Middlesex, almost 60% of the households are using a new community e- newsletter called Front Porch Forum to buy and trade household items, learn about local special events and volunteer needs, share wildlife sightings, and support area businesses.
• Five towns (Bristol, Ludlow, Poultney, Newport and West Rutland) are exploring the feasibility of creating public access Wi-Fi zones in their town centers in order to promote their communities and provide visitors with information about local events, services, entertainment and hospitality.
• Small business owners in West Rutland are getting one-on-one analysis and advice on how to update and grow their e-commerce from the Vermont Small Business Development Center.
• Sunderland – Arlington – Sandgate are adding technology as part of their celebration of their 250th Town Charter Anniversaries in 2011. High school community service students will create a website based on the historical holdings of Martha Canfield Library’s Russell Vermontiana Collection.
• In Canaan churches, sports teams, and community groups are implementing an online calendar which will allow for greater event coordination, promotion, and cross-pollination.
• Bristol’s 5th graders are learning to create podcasts and other interactive projects as the teachers integrate technology into their classroom. Digital Wish brought new computers for these students along with the training to unlock their potential.
• Libraries in all the e-Vermont towns are trying new ways to offer the public better access and training, as computers become essential to obtain social services, find jobs, and keep up with research.

e-Vermont’s partners include Digital Wish, Front Porch Forum, Vermont State Colleges, Vermont Department of Libraries, Vermont Small Business Development Center and the Snelling Center for Government. The Vermont Council on Rural Development is overseeing e-Vermont, and will bring its expertise in community organizing to help each town connect its schools, government, businesses, and nonprofit providers in new and exciting ways.

The 2010 e-communities announced last spring are Brighton, Bristol, Canaan, Cambridge, Grand Isle County, Ludlow, Middlesex, Newport, Poultney, Pownal, Sunderland-Arlington-Sandgate, and West Rutland.