Category Archives: Media
FPF Killer Start Up?
Front Porch Forum was featured on KillerStartups.com today.
City Councilor Gauges Public interest in Smoking Ban
From today’s Seven Days…
If you thought the Church Street smoking ban debate was over, think again. One city councilor is floating the idea of putting the decision in voters’ hands.
Following a November 26 city council vote not to pursue a smoking ban on the Marketplace, Councilor Joan Shannon (D-Ward 5) posted comments on her community Front Porch Forum — a neighborhood email listserv — asking her constituency if they would be interested in making the decision themselves. “If there was interest, I would also be supportive of placing the issue on the ballot and letting the voters decide what kind of environment they want on the Marketplace,” Shannon’s posting reads…
Jim Willis – Pulling his Neighborhood Together
Congratulations to Jim Willis for pulling his Red Bank, NJ neighborhood together with a Front Porch Forum-like effort. From RedBankGreen…
Jim Willis rolled into town three months ago eager to do some community building… It’s what he did in his job as director of eGovernment services in the Rhode Island secretary of state’s office, where he went on a four-year tear putting previously hard-to-access information at the public’s fingertips via the web.
On the personal side, Willis is equally passionate about what he calls “social capital”… Willis subscribes to the belief that traditional social life in America has been frayed by a number of forces —€” the rise of television, the emergence of two-earner household, and technologies that make it easier to interact electronically rather than in person.
Willis grew up in Colts Neck and moved back to the area after 14 years in Washington, DC, Cincinatti and Providence… But leaving Providence meant giving up a neighborhood with “astounding social and economic diversity,” Willis says —€” not to mention great block parties. And he and his wife decided, “if we didn’t find it here, we were going to make it,” he says.
Soon after arriving, Willis began planning an email newsletter for his new neighborhood, an electronic venue for people to share information and insights about everything from the availability of babysitting services to updates on the water-line replacement work now underway in the area to notices of free stuff about to be put out on the curb.
Willis said he encountered some suspicion when he first went door-to-door to pitch the idea and collect email addresses. Some people wanted to know what he was getting out of it, and others worried that their inboxes might soon be hit with more spam.
But it wasn’t all resistance out there. In fact, he says, of the first 40 responses he got, “20 were just full of enthusiasm.”
One inspiration for what he’s doing is Front Porch Forum, a community-building organization that claims to have brought 25 percent of the population of its home city — €” Burlington, Vt. — into online discussions in its first year.
Willis has adopted several of the Front Porch Forums suggestions. One is to keep the newsletters fluff-free, or people won’t value them. Another is to build the readership to an optimal size, which turns out to be about 150 active members. And, perhaps most important, no one can post anything anonymously, which obviates the “flame wars” that occur in forums where anything goes.
He’s also sharing the workload that goes into providing content for the emails. “I don’t want to write it,” Willis says. “I want neighbors to want to do it, and I’ve got people stepping up.”
“This is for neighbors by neighbors,” he says.
Already, one parent has suggested organizing a play group for kids of a certain age. One neighbor volunteered to get in touch with Parks & Rec to get the lowdown on what improvements are planned for East Side Park, and another has said he’ll reach out to Police Chief Mark Fitzgerald about organizing a neighborhood crime watch.
The East Side Park Neighbors Newsletter, Willis wants it known, is not meant to isolate the neighborhood from the rest of Red Bank. In fact, he says he’s willing to share the software and know-how behind the newsletter to anyone in town who wants to adopt it for similar efforts.
He thinks that offer might be of particular interest to residents of the West Side, whom he’s seen coming together anew in the wake of the Best Liquors controversy and concerns about crime and housing conditions.
Whether his idealism proves infectious remains to be determined. Calling the police chief and writing up a short report can be a burden for people with full-time jobs and kids.
“I’m going to try to help him if I can,” says John Gosden, a Harrison Avenue resident for nine years who has a particular interest in the upkeep of the park.
“It kinds of brings people together as a community,” he says. “It’s actually a very busy park.”
Willis thinks it will take some time to work the bugs out and get the newsletter established. Already, he’s sent out two issues, but problems with spam-bocking software in the email programs of many intended recipients kept the first one from getting though.
But that’s a fixable problem, says Willis. The bigger challenge is fostering a sense of community.
“If we accomplish one thing, I’m hoping we diminish that cynicism that keeps people from talking to one another,” he says.
Front Porch Forum at PBS.org
Mark Glaser has an interesting piece about hyper-local newsites at his PBS.org blog. He includes mention of Front Porch Forum, which is appreciated, but I would characterize FPF differently… FPF is not an email list.
Front Porch Forum is collection of online neighborhood forums that cover 100% of a metro area. While FPF uses email as its primary distribution channel now, it’s also available over the web and we’ll be adding other channels over time. FPF is not about the technology, it’s about convening and maintaining neighborhood conversations in every part of a metro area.
Yi-Tan, rBlock and FPF
Thanks to Jerry Michalski for inviting me to participate in his Yi-Tan Weekly Call today about community building at the neighborhood level. There, I learned about other efforts, including…
LifeAt, Meet the Neighbors, Neighborology, i-neighbors, Front Porch Forum, TownConnect, Mesh Tennis and rBlock
Vivek Hutheesin, rBlock’s founder, offered many excellent insights. And from his most recent blog posting…
Fatdoor has just announced in Private Equity Hub their first-round financing through Norwest Venture Partners and their new CEO, Jennifer Dulski, from Yahoo! Here is a quote from Jennifer, which I know is true from my own experience:
“Building online local communities that scale is an extremely difficult problem to solve, but the market opportunity is immense and consumers are craving a solution that will make this vision a reality.”
To address this immense market, any platform needs to first solve some very difficult problems in four areas – boundaries, applications, verification, and privacy. rBlock believes that it has solved them all. However to win a big share of this immense market, rBlock’s solutions must be integrated in a manner that leads to viral growth. This requires, among other things, a user-interface that’s easy-to-use and scalable. rBlock believes it has solved this too, paving the way for more plan execution than experimentation.
Front Porch Forum Earns National Award
We just learned that the community-building accomplishments of Front Porch Forum are being recognized with a national award! Hooray! Congratulations and thank you to the thousands of local people who contribute to the success of this service.
The Orton Family Foundation and PlaceMatters will present the award as part of the CommunityMatters07 national conference that will take place on Burlington’s waterfront Oct. 23-25. We’re truly honored by the “Innovator in Place” award and it provides a welcome boost to our efforts. Thanks to the Orton Family Foundation and PlaceMatters.
Michael and Valerie Wood-Lewis
Front Porch Forum
Here’s the press release from Orton…
Orton Family Foundation Awards
2007 Innovator in Place to Michael Wood-LewisMIDDLEBURY, Vermont –The Orton Family Foundation takes great pride and pleasure in naming Michael Wood-Lewis winner of the 2007 Innovator in Place Award. Michael and Front Porch Forum http:// frontporchforum.com, his free on-online service, excel at building social capital and community capacity for change.
In choosing Michael, the Foundation decided he best fulfilled the spirit of the award, which aims to honor successful grassroots community activists and leaders not typically recognized for their efforts. Michael accepted his $3,000 award at a reception at the ECHO Center on Burlington’s waterfront during the COMMUNITYMATTERS07 conference.
“Some argue that the Internet isolates people, further tearing the social fabric,” said Orton Family Foundation President and CEO Bill Roper, “but Michael proves the opposite can be true. His innovation, civic spirit and commitment enable the kind of friendship, trust and interdependence among neighbors that the Foundation believes are key to vibrant, sustainable community. His tool is enhancing Burlington’s heart and soul.”
Michael Wood-Lewis, with his wife Valerie, founded Front Porch Forum in 2006. In its first year, the Forum’s trend setting use of the Internet at the neighborhood level brought 25 percent of the citizens of Burlington, Vermont (pop. 38,889), into community discussions. The free on-line service hosts 130 adjacent neighborhood forums covering every part of Chittenden County. About 7,000 households have subscribed, and hundreds more join every month.
“We hear from people all the time who lament not knowing their neighbors,” said Wood-Lewis. “When Front Porch Forum kicks into gear, those connections begin to form. It’s a wonderful thing to watch take root, grow and blossom.”
Neighbors put Front Porch Forum to good use, connecting with neighbors and building community by posting all sorts of messages: borrow a ladder, refer a plumber, look out for a lost kitten, organize a block party, discuss traffic calming, report a break-in, announce a school play, debate zoning, and on and on.
In addition to direct results (“Kitten Found!”), it’s the growth of community offline that is the true measure of Front Porch Forum’s impact. Each message comes from a clearly identified nearby neighbor, so over time participants get to know each other better. This familiarity spills over from the virtual to the actual front porch.
The webs spun by Front Porch Forum that connect people are strengthened by 250 Forum Neighborhood Volunteers who champion the forums in their own areas and 140 local elected and public officials who participate across their jurisdictions. Police and other government officials use the site to better respond to problems in their area.
A remarkable Burlington innovation actively cultivating the development of rich, vibrant community, Front Porch Forum is exploring replication options and has a waiting list with more than 150 communities represented. Michael Wood-Lewis’s groundbreaking social innovation is a blueprint for community development of the future.
Michael’s previous experience includes steering a regional trade association to a position of national prominence. He also led a consortium of municipal leaders from across the country in developing environmental technology. He is active on the advisory board of Burlington Telecom, a cutting edge municipally owned “fiber optic to the home” utility, providing data, voice and video. Wood-Lewis brings to bear an unusual combination of technical background (MS engineering University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), business experience (MBA), and 20 years of community organizing.
CONTACT:
John Barstow
Director of Communications
The Orton Family Foundation
152 Maple Street, PO Box 111
Middlebury, VT 05753
www.orton.org
About Blog
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
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