Category Archives: Front Porch Forum

When Members Sell Your Service better than You

Posted on Thursday, June 14, 2007 by • 1 comment

I attended a wonderful event in the neighborhood this evening hosted by Burlington’s SEABA (South End Arts and Business Association) and located in Lake Champlain Chocolates‘ newest building.  LCC CEO Jim Lampman shared stories of their success over the past 25 years and then architect John Anderson, who designed the project, talked of his vision of a vibrant, walkable Burlington… where people can’t help but keep walking, drawn from one interesting block to another by art, architecture, parks, views, etc.

As I mingled with the crowd afterward, I was struck that in each small group of people where I stopped to chat, Front Porch Forum would come up.  As I prepared to explain the service to those unfamiliar with it, I repeatedly was brushed aside by a current FPF member who would extol its virtues and implore the uninitiated to go right home and sign up!  In each case, they were more emphatic than I would ever be… and they each had a first-person story to tell of how it was working for them in their neighborhood.

Outsold by our own members… we must be on to something!

Lightning Strikes… Inside House!

Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 by • No comments yet

Can’t say I’ve ever heard of this… from the Huntington Neighborhood Forum…

We’d like to see if anyone knows who we could talk to about lightning in our house… yes IN our house. Our home is built over a fair amount of ledge and from what we understand lightning travels along ledge. We actually see flashes in the house in usually one area (N) although the storm a couple of weeks ago produced flashes in the basement (S) and at our barn. There is also a big pop, kind of like a large flash cube going off. We unplug the computer & phone but have still lost the phone. We are off grid and it must have struck the system because it was a bit messed up for a while and got it our DC freezer. A $300 storm! A light in the barn, that was off at the time flashed on when that was happening at the house. It’s scary! We’re wondering about grounding the house and have in the past called about lightning rods but the cost was VERY prohibitive for us, we’re talking over $10,000!!!

This has been going on for a while and seems to have gotten worse over time. Any thoughts or ideas would be very appreciated!

Any ideas? I’ll pass them along via Front Porch Forum.

Mahalo and human-powered search

Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 by • No comments yet

Dan Gillmor wrote recently…

Jason Calacanis, who calls his new venture Mahalo “human-powered search,” says the company will pay freelance searchers a fee for links the site accepts. He says he hopes for hundreds or thousands of people in this part-time capacity.

Some similarity to Front Porch Forum in that our subscribers put all sorts of search questions to their neighbors through our service… looking for a roofer, seeking replacement storm windows, babysitter needed, who to talk to about potholes, etc.

Instead of pay, the motivation for members to respond to requests for information is based on their desire to connect with neighbors and build community within their neighborhood. That is, answer a question and get a little healthier community to live in in return.

On Kittens, Church Retreats, and Neighbors

Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 by • No comments yet

Another member connecting with her neighbors through Front Porch Forum (this one from the Malletts Bay Neighborhood Forum in Colchester, VT)…

I’ve made a habit of sending a “welcome to the front porch” email to people when they join my neighborhood forum. Most recently, I had a pleasant response and the two of us began emailing back and forth, she is looking for a kitten or cat for a pet, I let her know about a friend who has new kittens she is trying to find homes for. As we exchanged emails I shared about a hike sponsored by a local church and wanted to clarify that I attend a different congregation. Anyway, she emailed back that she is the same denomination and not yet hooked up with a congregation!

So, I’ve invited her and her daughter to join us for all or part of the weekend at our Lake Elmore retreat and we are getting together at a local playground to meet each other in person later this week.

Fun way to make a connection that likely might have never been made! Thank you.

Neighborhood Night of Success on TV

Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 by • No comments yet

Burlington’s annual Neighborhood Night of Success occurred May 29 this year.  CCTV Channel 17 has been replaying their tape of the event and couple of the replays are still to come:

  • Mon, Jun 18, 2007 at 5:40:00 AM
  • Mon, Jun 18, 2007 at 11:40:00 AM

Front Porch Forum was one of many proud award recipients that night.

City Councilor using FPF to Organize

Posted on Friday, June 8, 2007 by • No comments yet

Burlington Ward 5 City Councilor Bill Keogh is using Front Porch Forum to organize an initiative he calls Walk with Me…

Want to reduce your health care costs?  Start at home by (and you’ve heard this before): not smoking, watch how often you eat and how much you eat, and exercise.  Exercise is not a sophisticated endeavor.  It means you get out and walk.  Walk up and down the street, around your block.  Just walk.

With that in mind, I am looking for volunteer WWM’s!  Those are Walk With Me leaders.  You would be the person in your neighborhood who would be a leader in a neighborhood walk of, maybe 15 mins a day, twice a week.  This proposal is to get folks in the neighborhood together, to take a short evening stroll. Aha! Exercise and sociability.

By neighborhood, I’m talking about focusing around the area covered by your electronic Front Porch Forum.  The walks could be at 7 p.m. on a weekday and one day of the weekend.  If you are interested, contact me at bkeoghsr@yahoo.com for more details and support.

Good for Bill!  I know a former councilor who has done the same thing in her own New North End neighborhood through Front Porch Forum.  Another great use of this service.

MeetUp.com growing 10% per month

Posted on Wednesday, June 6, 2007 by • No comments yet

Front Porch Forum received a wonderful compliment from someone who knows about such things when he compared FPF to MeetUp.com.  And then today Dave Weinberger wrote…

I’m glad to say that MeetUp.com is doing well, growing 10% per month. (Their only metric is how many successful meetups there are.) I love the Web, but I love faces more than screens. Also, I’m an admirer of MeetUp because it was founded to address a real social need. They are, well, good folk.

State Rep. and City Councilor Agree

Posted on Tuesday, June 5, 2007 by • No comments yet

Steve Urquhart, a Utah state rep. who I met at the PDF conference had these wonderful things to say on his blog…

One of the most interesting projects I saw at PDF was FrontPorchForum (FPF). FPF is using online community to build real community. According to FPF co-founder Michael Wood-Lewis, about 20% of the people in Burlington, Vermont, are FPF members. Membership groups are limited to neighborhoods and sign-in is by real name. By using the forum to help match needs with resources for things like shoveling snow, moving furniture, obtaining emergency firewood when a furnace failed, selling old cars, staffing neighborhood watch programs, etc., FPF is using the Internet to help build better neighborhoods in Burlington. Way to go, Michael!

UPDATE (Later): My friend Arjun Singh, the bloggingist city council member in all of Kamloops, British Columbia, paid me a visit in the comments. It’s really funny how people see the world. As far as I know, Arjun and I were the only two elected officials at PDF (at least he’s the only one that I met, I should say). And we both work on the local level (though city and county council types might challenge me on that assertion). While there were lots of famous and important people there and lots of cool things to catch someone’s attention (I’ll blog about some in the coming days), if you look at his blog, you’ll see that Arjun and I both lasered in on a not-so-flashy site doing worthwhile things at the local level.

MacBook on truck roof… happy ending?

Posted on Tuesday, June 5, 2007 by • 3 comments

I had trouble imaging a happy ending when the following message came across the Huntington Neighborhood Forum from a local blacksmith yesterday…

I left my MacBook Pro (17″ screen) on top of my truck and took off down the road. Long story short it fell off between Huntington and Montpelier. At some point I herd a clunk, looked over and passed it off as the passenger seat-belt rattling in the wind. I’m sure that was the the computer. In retrospect I’m thinking this would have happened on the road to Richmond OR getting on the I 89 going south in Richmond . I remember saying to myself I’m not stopping now to fix the seat belt.

Anyway PLEASE keep an eye out for a silver case on the side of the road while biking, walking, or driving. More then likely its in pieces but it has all my business data and such on it….. An obvious lesson for all can be learned from this $2800.00 ++ mistake. I’ll let you all figure it out as it’s way to painful for me to relay.

Today some other Front Porch Forum members weighed in with similar thoughts as mine…

All I can say is “ooouuuuch!” As a dedicated Mac user, I know your pain must be great… I hope some Samaritan found it and will return it to you! If so, you should be able to recover the drive…

So imagine my surprise when the following note just arrived!

I received a call from Small Dog Electronics in Burlington. Some one picked up my lap top off the hi way and delivered it to them!! It was run over a few times BUT the hard drive still works! So all my info was not lost and all will be recovered. HOW ABOUT THAT!  Small Dog actually said it could be repaired!  Thanks to all that looked for me.

Gotta love the happy ending.

Another Happy Subscriber

Posted on Friday, June 1, 2007 by • No comments yet

Just chatting with a Front Porch Forum subscriber this evening… ran into her on Church Street during Jazz Fest. Last we spoke, she was in tears because her car had been vandalized and broken into in her Old North End/Hill neighborhood.

Today it was all smiles. She posted a note about her experience on her neighborhood forum and – viola! – she got two responses… one from a neighbor who’s nearby car was side-swiped about the same time, and another from a neighbor who put her in touch with a city program to help victims of such crimes.

So she got to commiserate with someone, find some redress for her problem, and then she passed along the victim-program info to the other person whose car was damaged… and felt good about lending a helping hand too!

Oh… and she found a squash partner (that’s with racquets on a court!) through her neighborhood forum. A happy subscriber indeed!

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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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