A national federation of U.S. “green” business groups ran a blurb today. From the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) e-newsletter…
Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility is experimenting with Front Porch Forum to increase traffic to member job listings on the VBSR site while increasing interest in socially responsible businesses.
VBSR is a sponsor of FPF and its first ad will run on FPF’s neighborhood forums in Chittenden County next week. The ads will encourage FPF’s subscribers to check out VBSR’s online job listings. Smartly, VBSR alerted its business members to freshen up their job listings on VBSR’s website before the ad run starts on FPF. A small step on a modest campaign, but a smart one.
Good to read this posting today on my own neighborhood’s Front Porch Forum by Carolyn…
I had the glorious pleasure of listening to Bill McKibben speak this week at an AIA meeting. He is the guru on global warming, and has chosen to live in Vermont, too!
While he was answering questions about great things happening, he said that the Front Porch Forum was just the absolute best thing to happen, anywhere.
That it brought people back together, communicating with each other, in a terrific way. The very best way. And that most important thing to do is to get communication and neighborhoods back together, instead of the “dream house” where everyone lives in their own isolated internet cubby, and parents have dual bedrooms, and live miles from anyone.
I can only say ditto to this. Having lived here for many years, in this neighborhood, I knew a few people who had dogs, or lived next door. Now I feel connected to the entire neighborhood and I know almost everyone on my street, and neighboring streets. And this place really really feels like my home in capitol letters. (And yes, I was born in Kansas).
And this way, not only is there better communication, there will be less driving, more car pooling, more local jobs, …. more local shopping.
Bill’s most recent book, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, is a fascinating read.
Feedback from Front Porch Forum subscribers is overwhelmingly positive. So today’s complaint submitted by a member in Burlington’s Old North End got my attention…
Every day it seems as though Front Porch Forum, well all of us that subscribe, continue to become more and more like the “Rant & Rave” section of craigslist – as a result Front Porch Forum is increasingly more petty and negative. It seems as though everyone climbs on a particular stream and loudly wines – Burlington Telecom is our latest victim of this electronic faceless diatribe.
So I bid FP adieu and cancel my account. The incessant complaining is just too much for me.
Bye.
Well… that’s regrettable. I take this feedback seriously. I also think that a thick skin is required to engage in public discourse. And, frankly, the tone on the FPF neighborhood forum in question is nothing like the nastiness of many online comment areas… no name calling, e.g. Several recent postings in the neighborhood forum in question have been complaints about city services, litter, crime, etc. But I’ve seen them as primarily constructive and civil… but I guess that’s subjective.
For the record, the other four postings this morning to accompany the one above in that neighborhood are… two follow-up points about local telecom options, a call for volunteer basketball helpers at the neighborhood school, and this gem of a follow-up of an earlier post from Matt…
Last night a miracle happened. 7 people, strangers until last night, put aside their excuses and braved the cold Vermont winter night to clean up our neighborhood. We walked south on Elmwood, west on Peru, north on Champlain, then back to Elmwood by way of North. Along the way we collected and disposed of 10 bags of garbage. Despite the cold it was a good time. Tara’s brownies flowed like a chocolate river in high flood. The laughs were continual and of a high quality. No cheap jokes in this bunch. Just straight shooting zingers all the way.
Next time we’ll do a different block. Next time we’ll have even more people, and I’ll bring prizes for the best find.*
*Prizes may consist of a high five, but it will be quality. Seriously I have a no miss system, yes it cost me, and yes the price was worth it.
Definitely not “incessant complaining”… makes me proud to be associated with FPF’s members.
I received a wonderful note recently from Sharon, a Front Porch Forum member in South Burlington, VT…
I have a FPF experience that might be worth sharing. For her 14th birthday, my daughter wanted to do a day long canoe excursion with several of her friends. I had noticed during my walks through our neighborhood that several of my neighbors owned canoes (some that did not appear to get a lot of regular use). I decided to put-out a request to see if folks would be willing to lend-out their canoes for a day. I needed about 4.
I was so excited, as I received more offers than expected. Several folks let me stop in at my leisure to pick-up and drop-off the canoes. They also lent me paddles and life vest. My daughter and her friends had a great time. Also, thanks to my neighbors and FPF, we saved about $200.00 in canoe rental costs!
And coincidentally, Sharon won a gift card at a local kids’ store in a Front Porch Forum raffle. She wrote in to say…
Thanks to my big Kid’s Town win, I’m somewhat a celeb with my neighbors as well as with friends from other neighborhoods who participate in FPF. It really is pretty amazing how FPF connects so many folks on a neighborly level.
Great things are happening through Front Porch Forum in much of our pilot area of greater Burlington, VT. That said, our initial model is not an ideal fit for some communities. We’re working on adjustments and always welcome input. One such challenge is the small city of Winooski.
Winooski has nearly 3,000 households and is covered by four FPF neighborhood forums. About 12% of the city subscribes. Unfortunately, Winooski doesn’t have clear cut actual neighborhood boundaries that jibe with our target scale of several hundred households. So the FPF neighborhood forum boundaries feel arbitrary to many residents.
Couple that with the fact that Winooski is underserved by local media… no city newspaper or blog, etc. Front Porch Forum is the one thing getting any traction that I’m aware of.
All this adds up to several people calling for FPF to combine its four Winooski neighborhood forums into one large citywide forum. I’m reluctant. FPF is all about small groups of nearby neighbors connecting online… and that spilling over onto the sidewalks and into the cornerstores… from the virtual to the actual front porch.
One supersized forum, I’m afraid, will be dominated by a few loud voices focused on larger issues and official pronouncements. Gone will be the small voices and the “need to borrow a ladder” and “my teenager is available to babysit” postings.
So it was hard to read a posting the other day from a member who concluded her request for one citywide forum with a promise to boycott FPF’s advertisers until we complied. Oh dear. We’ve got to come up with a reasonable solution to this.
Enter Winooski resident Cathy Resmer…
I just read your comment on Front Porch Forum about wanting Winooski to be one neighborhood.
I, too, wish we could have a way to communicate to the entire city.
However, I know Michael Wood-Lewis, and have talked with him at great length about his service, both as a reporter (in the past few years), and more recently as a representative of a company that sponsors the forums (Seven Days).
I can tell you that Michael understands Winooski’s need for one forum. But the service he provides (for free) is based on a model that’s built to encourage neighbor interactions. He believes — and his research shows — that if he increases the size of the forum to include the entire city, he will damage the neighborhood interactions that the forums are meant to encourage.
Please, ask him to explain it to you. He’s very articulate, and, I believe, an honest and trustworthy guy.
Yes, it is *extremely* frustrating that we get so little media coverage in Winooski. I do what I can to cover stories or get them covered in Seven Days. I ran the Winooski Eagle for nearly a year — essentially by myself, and at great personal cost — because I believed that the city needed its own paper. I still believe we need it, but frankly I can barely keep up with this outrageous tax increase, much less idealistically underwrite the city’s struggling newspaper.
So I understand your reaction to Michael’s refusal to create one Winooski “neighborhood.”
But I urge you to reconsider your pledge to boycott the businesses that support the Forums. Michael is providing a great service to us. It’s not exactly the service that we want, but it’s still better than what we had before, which was *nothing.*
The bottom line is that FPF is not, and will never be, a substitute for a Winooski newspaper. But it’s got me talking to you — and our neighbors listening in. I think that’s a good start. And it’s worth our support.
If we need that one Winooski forum, let’s find a way to create it instead of tearing down the forums we’ve got.
Respectfully,
Cathy Resmer, Online Editor, Seven Days
Wow! Thanks Cathy. I look forward to sorting this out.
Some folks are surprised to hear that Front Porch Forum works well in rural settings, in addition to more conventional neighborhoods. Huntington, VT is a great example… about 25% of this rural town subscribe and the conversation is steady. Here are couple posts from today…
My 2 1/2 year old quarter horse, Koko, would absolutely love to play with someone his own age. His lovely companion is 18, and will occasionally run around with him, but he’s really looking for something more fun.Do you have a youngish playful horse in Huntington that can come over to Koko’s pasture for a play date every so often? And a way to bring him/her over (I don’t have a horse trailer/truck yet)? Thanks!
And…
Greetings! We’re looking for someone to fix our propane backup generator. We live off-grid and really rely on the generator during these less than ideal solar power times! Any suggestions on who we could call? Thanks!
Of course, on the actual forum (open only to Huntington residents), each posting includes the writer’s full name and road they live on. I’m willing to bet they both get multiple responses to these requests… and get to know more of their neighbors along the way.
The ONE Central Neighborhood Forum in Burlington’s Old North End has been carrying on several in depth conversations lately. One focuses on neighborhood cats… trade-offs of indoor vs. outdoor cats and related issues. I’ve been impressed by how civil, constructive and caring the dozens of postings have been. A great use of Front Porch Forum.
An interesting contrast was offered today in one such post…
I have read quite a few posts on Craigslist’s Rants and Rave section about people in the old north end that have threatened and apparently followed through with killing or torturing some of the outdoor cats in our neighborhood. It just makes me sick to my stomach to think someone would do such a thing but I wouldn’t doubt it either.
I don’t intend to pick on Craigslist in particular, but this is just the kind of thing that seems common in anonymous unmoderated open online forums. Someone must have already coined a term for this phenomenon. These ground rules… unsupervised, unknown identity, anyone can participate… they seem to often lead toward this ugly side of human nature. Hardly seems the highest and best use for this amazing technology we have at our disposal.
UPDATE: Kevin’s comment below got me thinking about a couple previous postings…
Constructive war talk among neighbors
Masked marauders invade cyberspace
Local organizations are increasingly putting Front Porch Forum to work with their own network of volunteers. Here are a couple recent examples… Local Motion and FUUSB.
Essex Junction Village is developing a new website… sounds like a well-conceived leap forward for this small Vermont municipality. The committee of volunteers pulling it together are incorporating Front Porch Forum into it… on the ground floor. I look forward to seeing it soon. For now, the local paper covered the story this week.
We get this question all the time from members… “What can I post on my neighborhood’s Front Porch Forum?”
Well… just about anything. Have at it. Any message that doesn’t significantly detract from FPF’s mission of helping neighbors connect and foster community within the neighborhood is GREAT.
Think of a block party… what would you chat about with your neighbors… just about anything. (Just don’t be a bore. Posting about your real estate business once is wonderful. Posting about it once a week is the wrong idea.)
Politics? Religion? Well, if you’d feel comfortable bringing it up at the “block party,” then give it a shot. Keep in mind that all postings are automatically signed with your full name and the street you live on… and they only go to your nearby neighbors.
The point is to get neighborhood conversation flowing… online at first, but ultimately in person. From the virtual to the actual front porch. So please post! Here are some headlines from a variety of neighborhood forums over the past few days…
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