Dan Gillmor repeats today Loic LeMeur‘s 10 rules for startup success:
Hearing something from someone you know is powerful… increasingly so with every new website, cable TV channel, etc. vying for your attention. From a New York Times op-ed (thanks to Neal Polachek)…
Public trust in all kinds of communication is eroding, with a notable exception: word of mouth. A Roper poll found the number of people who said they get good ideas and information from television ads declined from 1977 to 2003, while the number who said the same about word of mouth increased by 25 percentage points.
Our mid-December survey of Iowa voters found 38 percent saying they trusted information provided by TV ads, while 69 percent trusted “comments from friends, relatives and colleagues.”
This jibes with our experience with Front Porch Forum, which a neighbor recently described as “word-of-mouth accelerated.”
Thanks to Maggie Gundersen for drawing my attention to today’s Washington Post article about PTA-focused Yahoo Groups in the Washington suburbs… worth a read.
Over the past few years, electronic mailing lists have become the main forum for parents across the region to talk about their schools. With just a few keystrokes, the lists offer parents unprecedented power to spread information, to ask a question or answer one, to praise or pillory for an audience of hundreds.
As school e-mail lists multiply in size and reach, they are increasingly becoming ensnared in contests for control of the medium and the message. Principals are accused of trying to silence their discussion-group critics. Parents have allegedly stolen or hijacked e-mail lists. Moderators who step in to halt vitriolic threads are sometimes accused of censorship.
Some of the most contentious school controversies of recent years have played out largely on e-mail lists: reaction over a plan to distribute hip flasks as a senior gift in 2006 at Arlington County‘s H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program; debate about military recruitment at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda in 2005; and discontent, this winter, with a $50 graduation fee at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring.
“It’s the new venue. It’s the new community forum,” said Pat Elder, a Whitman parent who protested the presence of military recruiters on the Whitcom mailing list. “We’re too busy to, you know, meet.”
It goes on to detail some of the disagreements.
This begs for comparison to Front Porch Forum. Somewhat similar technology, scale and local focus… but big differences too. Schools, almost by definition, are breeding grounds for controversy and skirmishes among parents, teachers, admin, politicians, media, etc. And email, especially bulk email, is a notoriously poor medium for resolving conflict. It tends to foster and escalate misunderstanding.
Front Porch Forum tends to turn all that around… building community within neighborhoods. Still, there are lessons here.
Front Porch Forum is a small start-up business that my wife and I have self-financed to date. We’ve been blown away by the incredible reception this free service has received from the more than 7,500 local households who have subscribed so far… better than 30% of Burlington, VT, our pilot city, is on board!
We’ve recently begun selling ad space on FPF to local businesses and nonprofits and this is going well, and we’re developing other revenue streams too. All told though, the business requires more income than it’s generating so far, so we’ve set up a contributions page for any and all who would like to support this ongoing effort financially. Donations to date have ranged from a few dollars to a few hundred… any amount is helpful in furthering FPF’s mission and is genuinely appreciated.
“We are delighted to support Front Porch Forum with a financial contribution, and feel we have seen firsthand the many benefits it brings to our neighborhood and the wider community. It is our pleasure (and responsibility!) to lend a hand.” —Siobhan Donegan, ONE Central Neighborhood Forum
Some particularly pleased members have elected for our monthly contribution plan… sign up once and your credit card automatically pays whatever sum you indicate each month… a kind of voluntary subscription fee.
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more