Modern community building isn’t easy but if there is one thing the Internet has taught me over the past 15 years, large engaged communities are incredible powerful things, both commercially and socially. Building them is important and ultimately very valuable work.
Category Archives: Orton Family Foundation
State of the Re:Union looks at online communities
Posted on Sunday, August 26, 2012 by Michael • No comments yet
#BTV #VT – This NPR show weaves together several stories about online communities… lots of food for thought, including a segment about Front Porch Forum (for FPF’s part, go to the 5th section (Segment B) and start at the 7:00 minute mark).
“Free Speech, Community Enterprise and Citizen Engagement”
Posted on Monday, August 6, 2012 by Michael • No comments yet
#VT – Recently I have heard folks express concerns about our Front Porch Forum (FPF) as a legitimate venue for particular types of posts…
I feel very strongly that this forum has proven to be an exceedingly powerful venue for the greatest number of Citizens in our Community as well as for the widest representation of our Citizens to impart and access information about our Community.
At a time when public participation in community affairs is waning across VT and the country, we have been provided a communication tool that is better than any other option currently at our disposal.
While I certainly may not agree with the content of, or manner in which some posts are made in our public forum, I am constantly reminded that the viewpoints and ways in which those viewpoints are expressed are no more than the true reflection of the most diverse assembly of citizens in Cambridge.
For me, our Front Porch Forum is in no way a “gossip forum” or illegitimate source of information. Quite to the contrary, our FPF provides every opportunity for factual information to be shared, and for misinformation to be corrected. Every post is as legitimate as the individual who’s name is signed at the end. And every post invites the scrutiny of our Community at large.
Our Front Porch Forum is a wonderful format for Free Speech, Community Enterprise and Citizen Engagement in municipal affairs. For me, it is an accurate reflection of the voices that make up our Community.
I welcome and encourage everyone in our Community to voice their thoughts, concerns, commentary, questions, public notices, municipal agendas, business listings, garage sale notices, lost cat postings, poetry, updates, whatever! I’ll sure be reading.
Posted today by Cambridge FPF member Michael M.
Do tech start-ups belong in Vermont?
Posted on Monday, July 2, 2012 by Michael • No comments yet
#BTV #VT – Sometimes we get this question from out-of-state folks who think all tech start-ups should be born in Silicon Valley. Well, Burlington and Vermont have been great to Front Porch Forum.
And we’re not alone. CNN today reported that the Kauffman Index ranks Vermont the 8th most entrepreneurial state, and the top state east of the Mississippi River. And Richard Florida’s latest research puts Burlington 11th on a new Technology Index of U.S. metro areas.
I’ll take it one step finer… from state, to city, to neighborhood. Our Five Sisters neighborhood in Burlington’s South End boasts several tech start-ups, including
Thanks to Fresh Tracks Capital and Vermont Business Magazine for some of this information.
Burlington community engagement survey results
Posted on Tuesday, June 5, 2012 by Michael • 5 comments
#BTV #VT – Burlington’s Community and Economic Development Office (CEDO) just released the results of a new survey that shows that “sense of community” is highly valued by Burlington citizens. About 44% liked their neighborhood because of friendly neighbors and a strong sense of community. And 10% said that an even stronger sense of community would improve their neighborhood more.
The average respondent (588 total) uses Front Porch Forum, is an English-speaking homeowner age 30 to 60, lives with one other adult and no children, works full-time, and has an annual household income greater than $50,000.
Some other tidbits…
Q: How did you find out about your Neighborhood Planning Assembly?
38% Front Porch Forum
22% Word of mouth
5% Newspaper
35% Other
Q: What do you like about your neighborhood?
52% Proximity to amenities
44% Friendly neighbors/strong sense of community
Lots of other options
Q: What would you change about your neighborhood?
13% Less traffic and speeding
11% Nothing
10% More connection to neighbors
Lots of other options
Q: Are you subscribed to Front Porch Forum?
93% Yes
Q: Which (other) social media do you use?
92% Email
69% Facebook
33% YouTube
21% Twitter
17% Google+
4% None
1% LinkedIn
Several others listed
Q: How did you find out about survey?
69% Front Porch Forum
10% CEDO e-newsletter
4% NPA
4% Friend/co-worker
3% Facebook
2% email
2% Bulletin board
1% Twitter
1% Service provider
0.2% Business
Q: Languages spoken in household?
99% English
6% French
4% Spanish
16 other languages selected by respondents
Q: Rent or own your housing?
30% Rent
70% Own
Q: Number of adults (18 or older) living in household?
20% 1
66% 2
9% 3
3% 4
1% 5
0.4% 6-7
Q: Children under 18 in household?
68% 0
14% 1
14% 2
2% 3
1% 4
Q: Your age?
1% Under 18
18% 18-29
34% 30-44
32% 45-61
13% 62-74
3% 75 and over
Q: Your employment?
58% Work full-time
16% Work part-time
11% Retired
5% Student full-time
4% Unemployed
2% Self-employed
1% Disabled
1% More than 1 job
1% Attending school and working
1% Stay-at-home parent
0.4% Student part-time
0.2% Sabbatical
Q: Your annual household income?
13% Less than $20,000
12% $20,000 to $30,000
10% $30,000 to $40,000
10% $40,000 to $50,000
14% $50,000 to $65,000
9% $65,000 to $80,000
15% $80,000 to $100,000
15% More than $100,000
Vermont’s Digital Future Conference May 8
Posted on Thursday, April 19, 2012 by Michael • No comments yet
#BTV #VT – Calling digital leaders and Vermonters statewide! Help set the path for Internet technology use that will create jobs, enliven our communities, reinvent schools and increase citizen participation. Register today for…
Fascinating keynote speaker, Nicco Mele, will be joined by Governor Shumlin and dozens of other speakers. Sign up today!
Front Porch Forum is a proud e-Vermont partner and we look forward to participating in this event.
Natural disasters, neighbors and social networking
Posted on Wednesday, July 13, 2011 by Michael • No comments yet
NPR recently covered Daniel Aldrich’s work… he’s looking at how neighbors help each other during disaster. We watched this on Front Porch Forumthis spring when flood waters ravaged many Vermont communities and people rallied to help those who lived nearby. From NPR…
Aldrich’s findings show that ambulances and firetrucks and government aid are not the principal ways most people survive… a disaster… government interventions cannot bring neighborhoods back, and most emergency responders take far too long to get to the scene. Rather, it is the personal ties among members of a community that determine survival during a disaster, and recovery in its aftermath. When Aldrich visited villages in India hit by the giant 2004 tsunami, he found that villagers who fared best after the disaster weren’t those with the most money, or the most power. They were people who knew lots of other people the most socially connected individuals. In Japan, Aldrich found that firetrucks and ambulances didn’t save the most lives after earthquakes. Neighbors did.
Meanwhile, from Keith Hampton and Pew colleagues…
Do [social networking sites] isolate people and truncate their relationships? Or are there benefits associated with being connected to others in this way?
In their fascinating report, they share several observations from their survey, among them… “In this Pew Internet sample, 79% of American adults said they used the internet and nearly half of adults (47%) say they use at least one of social networking sites.” The adults surveyed are using Facebook mostly to connect with people from their past… high school, college, family. Facebook doesn’t appear to be used much among current neighbors (chart)… less than 2% in this survey. So, can social networking sites be used by neighbors to help each other… during disasters, as well as with more pedestrian issues the rest of the time? Hampton’s earlier work suggests yes (e-neighbors study and a previous Pew study). Portia Krebs of USTelecom (The Broadband Association) reported this past week…
Consider this: 28% of Americans know none of their neighbors by name, and fewer than half of American adults know most or all of their neighbors. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Americans who go online daily are more likely than non-Internet users to know some of their neighbors’ names ““ and 27% of Internet users said they used digital tools to talk to their neighbors and keep informed about community issues. Front Porch Forum ““ a neighborhood-based network serving small cities and towns ““ gives registered users an opportunity to discuss everything from road repairs to the school budget. According to FPF, half of the residents of Burlington, Vermont subscribe ““ and an astonishing 90% of those users said their local civic engagement increased thanks to this online service.
Facebook works so well to help connect old acquaintances. But it’s not so good at helping neighbors find each other. Perhaps that’s because Facebook is all software and no community management. The role of effective online community management to bring diverse people together online in civil and constructive conversation is critically important. Venture capitalist Fred Wilson weighed in recently on this point…
Amen! We’re excited to see the dozens of online neighborhood forums that are bursting with activity on Front Porch Forum and we look forward to expanding to more places in the near future. Check out our new web app.
Note: This post originally appeared on the PBS MediaShift IdeaLab blog.
Connected Citizens – New Report
Posted on Friday, April 8, 2011 by Michael • No comments yet
From Mayur Patel at the Knight Foundation this week…
Arthur Goyette knows the value of good neighbors. While his wife Betty was battling cancer, they brought countless meals to the Goyette home. When the neighbors learned that Betty had always wanted to ride in a convertible, they surprised the family with a loaned Chrysler Sebring. The couple drove down the block with the top down, surrounded by people waving and taking pictures.
Arthur marvels that he might never have met these people f it weren’t for the Front Porch Forum, an online network of neighbors.
The forum is a great example of how digital media and technology are changing how we connect to information and each other. The way we engage in public dialogue, coordinate, solve problems—all of it is shifting.
Networks themselves are as old as humanity, used by activists from Mahatma Ghandi to the Tea Party to impact society. Today, though, technology is enabling networks to emerge in new ways.
So Knight Foundation and Monitor Institute set out to look at the impact on communities, and ask, what do these emerging networks mean for community change? And, how can funders leverage them for good?
The result is our new report, Connected Citizens: The Power, Peril and Potential of Networks. Through more than 70 examples, we found networked communities pushing for open government, banding together to care for the elderly, enlisting volunteer coders to make online aid maps for earthquake ravaged Haiti, and more.
The report is a compelling read… lots of excellent examples and points. A couple snapshots…
How many needed to make community planning successful?
Posted on Thursday, December 2, 2010 by Michael • No comments yet
Bill Roper asks today “What constitutes successful participation in your community”…
Over the years, we at the Orton Family Foundation have debated how much citizen participation constitutes success in our projects. This discussion gets complicated as the “how many” quickly and appropriately gives way to a deeper conversation about the “who” in the room and the opportunity and level of participation rather than just a simple head count…
As I often say, the only thing harder than planning in the midst of a crisis is planning without a crisis at all. So: when there is no crisis at hand and a community is trying to bring citizens together for authentic, thoughtful discussions about its future, what constitutes a successful turnout? From my observations, achieving 10 percent community participation is pretty amazing (even though it doesn’t sound so great). And if this happens two or three times in a row, there’s really something going on.
Another way I’ve tried to calculate success in the numbers is to find out how many people turned out for the most controversial issue in the last five years, (i. e. a development proposal, school bond, crime, etc.). If the community then meets or exceeds that number in the context of a proactive planning discussion, that equals success.
But I’m still not satisfied. This may be setting the bar too low.
In dozens of Vermont towns and neighborhoods, more than 40% of the households subscribe to Front Porch Forum, where planning-relevant discussion often occurs. In one town that we studied, about three-quarters had posted in the first year.
Of course, ongoing online exchange among neighbors is different than face-to-face planning sessions, but we have seen many times where community turnout swells for such gatherings once FPF is up and running well. Frequent communication among clearly identified nearby neighbors gets folks informed and engaged.
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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