I stumbled across a relevant book recently called Refrigerator Rights: Creating Connections & Restoring Relationships. Drs. Will Miller and Glenn Sparks thesis apparently (I haven’t read the book yet) is that we all need people in our life who we are comfortable with… to the degree that they have refrigerator rights in our home. That is, they can come in and help themselves. The authors point to Americans’ frequent relocations, as well as TV and computers, as likely culprits to the lack of such relationships.
The authors have a new blog too. Looks like their 2003 book is picking up steam and will be published again in 2007 with some new material. This book and its success supports the impetus underlying Front Porch Forum.
Many neighborhoods are using Front Porch Forum to get organized in the face of shared challenges… proposed highways, landfills, convenience stores, etc. Others have gone beyond playing defense to using their neighborhood forum to plan constructive changes… new playgrounds, block parties, strengthening communication with elected officials and more.
Now some of our area’s more innovative community organizers are figuring out ways to use Front Porch Forum to reach hundreds and thousands of local folks across multiple forums. Several options are being used successfully:
1. Develop an email list of local contacts. When you have a message to get out, send it to your list and ask each of them to post it on their neighborhood’s forum… kind of like an old fashion phone tree. Organizers report a more favorable response to their message, because people are getting the pitch from a neighbor vs. a stranger. Some of your local contacts may need to sign up first… send them to Front Porch Forum. Here’s a recent example:
Build Burlington’s Future. Our schools need you! Please volunteer to post updates to your neighborhood FrontPorchForum.com. There are approximately 40 neighborhood Front Porch Forum’s in Burlington and we want to get the word out in EVERY neighborhood. Reply to this email to find out more.
2. Join Front Porch Forum’s network of neighborhood organizers. In our first few months 175 people signed up for this designation across our 130 neighborhood forums. This group has it’s own forum where these organizers swap tips for successful neighborhood forums, as well as share interesting messages that organizers may choose to pass on to their own neighborhood forums. Any members can log onto Front Porch Forum (password required) and select the Neighborhood Volunteer status on their Account page.
3. Some local officials have access to multiple forums across their district/ward/town for “official business.” In some cases, an official is asked to share a message across several neighborhood forums.
4. In the first part of 2007, we plan to test a new feature that will allow members to post messages in neighborhoods other than their own, for a fee… something like a paid classified ad. Stay tuned!
Also from The Local Onliner today, an interesting quote from an outgoing R.H. Donnelly executive, Simon Greenman:
Yellow Pages “[p]ublishers are well-positioned to become local search providers. But they’ll need to become much broader, with classifieds, promotional information and service directories. They’ll need to become more consumer-centric, with social networking, merchant recommendations and other features.”
I’m not sure how compelling all these features are when tacked onto a local search site. Front Porch Forum‘s approach is to build the most engaging local social networking service available, then integrate commercial features to add value for our members and pay the bills. That is, design the service for neighbors, and only treat these good people as consumers when and where it makes sense.
A story about Front Porch Forum will air tomorrow (Dec. 20, 2006) on Vermont Public Radio’s Morning Edition at 7:49 AM. That’s 107.9 FM around Burlington. We’ll have the audio version on our Media page after the fact. Thanks to Mitch Wertlieb and Ben Embry of VPR.
Mia Moran of Channel 5 News WPTZ captured the essence of what we’re after with Front Porch Forum in a piece broadcast last night. And bonus points to her and cameraman Nick for braving our home during the toddler bewitching hour. If you have trouble watching this video (on WPTZ’s site), hold tight… I hope to have a more accessible version directly on our server soon.
And in another take on related matters, Peter Krasilovsky reports on two more city sites: Pegasus News in Dallas and CitySquares in Boston. CitySquares co-founder Ben Saren reports 300 advertisers paying a flat 25 cents/click.
To date, neighborhoods out of the downtown district do best, like Jamaica Plain and Harvard Square. “There is a lot more of a neighborhood mentality,” says Saren The more homogenized, high rent businesses in downtown Boston are less likely to pitch their tent with a local city site.
Saren, like Pegasus’ Orren, hopes to take his concept beyond his city’s borders. “Ideally, it would be a Tier 2 or Tier 3 market with a college orientation, like a Burlington or Tallahassee,” he says.
Hmm… I wonder how this would work in home-sweet-home Burlington.
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