Monthly Archives: July 2011

Welcome to Front Porch Forum’s New Look!

Posted on Friday, July 8, 2011 by No comments yet

Check out Front Porch Forum’s website… it’s all new! Thanks to the work and support of many, we launched our newly rebuilt site on the 4th of July, 2011! Great day for a birthday.

We’re blown away with the craftsmanship of our development partners, The Working Group. Using Ruby on Rails, they’ve constructed a fantastic platform on which FPF can build for years to come.

From an FPF member perspective, functionality has not changed much… yet. But with this new foundation under our feet, we look forward to all sorts of future improvements (we’d love to hear your suggestions). So stay tuned!

P.S. Our blog is being overhauled as well. Please note that it has a new URL (http://blog.frontporchforum.com/), so your RSS feed must be re-done.

Connecting with constituents using social media #BTV #VT

Posted on Sunday, July 3, 2011 by 5 comments

Tyler Machado covered the local Social Media Day for Seven Days recently.  Congratulations to the many professional communicators recognized for their use of social media.  In part…

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.