Ghost of Midnight
… about neighbors, community and Front Porch Forum
VBSR Networking Get-Together Jan. 27 in Burlington
Front Porch Forum is glad to be co-sponsoring this upcoming Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility event. Looking forward to seeing lots of folks there.
VBSR Networking Get-Together
Date: Wednesday Jan 27th, 2010
Time: 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Location: Magnolia Bistro
Address: One Lawson Lane, Burlington, VT 05401
Cost: FREE and open to the public
To Register: Please RSVP to info@vbsr.org or call 802-862-8347; RSVPs appreciated, but walk-ins also welcome
For More Info: Call 802-862-8347 or email info@vbsr.org
Ten Words for 2010 Raffle Winners!
We’ve got raffle winners! Nearly 1,000 Front Porch Forum members posted entries to their neighborhood forums for the Ten Words for 2010 Raffle. Thanks to our sponsors and to all who entered. Congratulations to our lucky drawing winners…
- Tamra & Tony Augostino, Milton: One-night stay at The Essex Resort and Spa ($269 value)
- Steffen & Kathryn Parker, Williston: Solio portable solar charger for iPod/digital camera/etc. from Seventh Generation ($100 value)
- Olga Vrana, Burlington: $100 gift certificate toward any youth or adult art class at Davis Studio
- Roger Kohn, Hinesburg: Three-month membership to Hammerfit Athletic Club and Motion Studio ($100 value)
- Alida Duncan, Burlington: $100 opening deposit for a Power Saver CD at Opportunities Credit Union
- Carol Ode, Burlington: Great Harvest Bakery “Year of Free Bread” – one loaf/month for a year ($70 value)
- John and Debbie McMahon, Isle La Motte: One pair of tickets to Higher Ground Comedy Battle Jan. 17 ($30/pair value)
- Rob Stumler, Burlington: One pair of tickets to Higher Ground Comedy Battle Jan. 17 ($30/pair value)
- David Gray, Essex Junction: Five-class pass to South End Studio ($60 value)
- Sherridan Beyer, Winooski: $100 gift certificate from 1-800-GOT-JUNK?
- Deena Frankel, Burlington: Personal Training Session at Greater Burlington YMCA ($65 value)
- Jane Agran, Richmond: An assortment of 20 greeting cards from Sweet Basil Cards ($60 value)
See some of the many, many entries from FPF members.
Ten Words for 2010 – Enter FPF Raffle!
To celebrate 2010 and have a little fun, we invite Front Porch Forum members (this means you!) to submit postings to their neighborhood forum between January 10 and 12, 2010. Any message that has EXACTLY ten words will be entered into a raffle for the following ten prizes…
- One-night stay at The Essex Resort and Spa ($269 value)
- Solio portable solar charger for iPod/digital camera/etc. from Seventh Generation ($100 value)
- $100 gift certificate toward any youth or adult art class at Davis Studio
- Three-month membership to Hammerfit Athletic Club and Motion Studio ($100 value)
- $100 opening deposit for a Power Saver CD at Opportunities Credit Union
- Great Harvest Bakery “Year of Free Bread” – one loaf/month for a year ($70 value)
- Two pairs of tickets to Higher Ground Comedy Battle Jan. 17 ($30/pair value)
- Five-class pass to South End Studio ($60 value)
- $100 gift certificate from 1-800-GOT-JUNK?
- Personal Training Session at Greater Burlington YMCA ($65 value)
- An assortment of 20 greeting cards from Sweet Basil Cards ($60 value)
Don’t delay! Post your “car for sale,” “seeking snow removal” or “lost cat” message today… or share a neighborhood resolution, poem, joke, hope for your town… you decide. Any ten-word posting received by Front Porch Forum between Jan. 10 and 12 will be entered in the raffle! An individual may enter the drawing up to twice a day.
Thanks to our raffle sponsors and happy 2010!
P.S. Trouble posting? Just hit reply to an FPF email, or post via our website.
P.P.S. Posting a comment to this blog will NOT enter you in the raffle! You must post to your FPF neighborhood forum to enter the drawing.
UPDATE 1: See sample entries from FPF members.
UPDATE 2: Raffle winners announced!
Shihtzu fends off Shovel Man Robber!
Residents of Burlington’s New North End have been reporting on Front Porch Forum break-ins and scams targeting the elderly this past week. Looks like one FPF member has found a solution…
Just another voice to add to the neighborhoods re. the shoveling robber. On Monday, the 28th, a man
approached our home on Grey Meadow Drive. My husband was in the backyard and Odin, our 22 lb Shihtzu was with him playing ball. Odie took off barking like the fierce Tibetan Temple guard dog he is and next we know he was in front barking furiously while chasing a man who was running for life, out of our open garage. He had expletives for our good good dog while yelling to us “I only was trying to shovel!”…. well, we knew him for what he was! These are hard times for many people…so neighborhood watches and neighborly communication about these events are good prevention. Also recommended: get a fierce Tibetan Shihtzu: small but fierce!!
Pew: Online neighborhood forum users more engaged locally
Pew’s new report, “Social Isolation and New Technology: How the internet and mobile phones impact Americans’ social networks,” really is required reading for those interested in the intersection of local community building and online tools. (See other posts for additional points: one and two.)
One of the most interesting sections vis-a-vis Front Porch Forum concerns neighborhood-level online offerings…
A small number of Americans – 4% (N=103) – reported that they belonged to a neighborhood email list or internet discussion forum for their neighborhood… Although this suggests that only a small fraction of neighborhoods are using the internet for local communication and information sharing, those who do adopt this technology benefit from high levels of neighborhood engagement.
Well… this is huge. If reliable, this is more evidence in support of what we’ve seen with Front Porch Forum. People join FPF often to get some direct result (“Seeking lost cat!”) and along the way meet more nearby neighbors (online, via phone and/or face-to-face). This often seems to awaken more interest and awareness in local goings-on, and FPF postings from neighbors fuel the fire (“Park clean-up this Sat.”). Over time, this resident becomes a citizen, engaged in the civic life of his/her community.
Indeed, one independent survey of FPF users found 93% of respondents claiming increased civic engagement since signing up for the service. You can see why FPF fans often ask “how can we get Front Porch Forum in all neighborhoods everywhere?”
The good, bad and topsey turvey of Pew social isolation study
In trying to digest the conclusions and supporting evidence presented in “Social Isolation and New Technology: How the internet and mobile phones impact Americans’ social networks,” I’m getting a little carsick. It’s a great ride, but I’m having trouble with some of the unexpected hairpin turns.
The authors of this Pew study start with broad conclusions that social isolation in the United States isn’t so bad and the internet, mobile phones and online social networks are essentially making it better. Then, reading on, whiplash approaches from statements like these…
- Users of social networking services are 30% less likely to know their neighbors.
- Users of social networking services are 26% less likely to have used neighbors as a source of companionship.
- With the exception of those who use instant messaging, internet users are 26% less likely to have received small services (e.g., household chores, shopping, repairs, house-sat, lent tools or supplies) from neighbors.
- Internet users are 40% less likely to have been cared for, or had a member of their family cared for, by a neighbor. And, users of social networking services are 39% less likely than other internet users, or 64% less likely than those who do not use the internet, to have received family care from a neighbor.
- Internet users who are frequent users at work are 57% less likely to borrow money from neighbors.
Other points from the Pew study to consider…
Do you know the names of the neighbors who close to you, or not?
- 40% Yes, know all or most
- 30% Yes, know some
- 30% Do not know any
- Apartment dwellers are 60% less likely than home dwellers to know at least some of their neighbors.
- Those who are married or cohabitating are 31% more likely to know their neighbors.
- The likelihood of knowing at least some neighbors increases 3% for every year of age.
- Residential stability, the longer one lives in any one place increases the odds of knowing neighbors; 6% per year.
- The odds that women know at least some neighbors are 41% higher than for men.
- Those with larger, core networks are more likely to know neighbors. The odds are 19% higher per core tie in their network.
- The odds of knowing at least some neighbors are 50% lower for African Americans and 43% less for those of other races, in comparison to white Americans.
And…
And this chart is very interesting (although it calls into question the whole notion of people self-reporting, given the difference between the responses to the two versions of the question)…
More interesting survey results…
- Bloggers are 72% more likely to belong to a local group.
- Those who frequently access the internet at work are 49% more likely to go to a non-fastfood restaurant, 35% more likely to visit a community center, 21% more likely to visit a public park, and 71% more likely to go to a bar.
- However, frequent internet users at work were 26% less likely to visit a library.
- Those who contribute to a blog are 61% more likely to go to a public park than internet users who do not blog.
- Users of social networking websites are 40% more likely to visit a bar, but 36% less likely to visit a religious institution.
- Users of instant messaging are 21% less likely to visit a library than those who do not use IM.
U.S. Social Isolation skyrocketing… or not, depending on who you ask
Thanks to Steven Clift for encouraging me to take a closer look at the recent Pew study “Social Isolation and New Technology: How the internet and mobile phones impact Americans’ social networks.” This work, undertaken by U. Penn. well-credentialed researchers, really digs into its central question.
However, like much of social “science,” one has to read it with an open mind. Some of Pew’s results run counter to those in other well-respected studies, and we’ll likely see other viewpoints supported by additional studies in the near future.
For example, as reported by Olds and Schwartz and others…
… a simple but compelling fact from the General Social Survey: in the past twenty years, the number of Americans who have talked to no one about something of importance to them during the previous six months has skyrocketed. That number is now a quarter of the population.
However, the new Pew study says…
We find that the extent of social isolation has hardly changed since 1985, contrary to concerns that the prevalence of severe isolation has tripled since then. Only 6% of the adult population has no one with whom they can discuss important matters or who they consider to be “especially significant” in their life.
So… 25% or 6%? Or some other fraction? Is social isolation in this country skyrocketing or holding steady?
Did the two surveys ask the same questions to similar population samples in the same way? Doubtful. Do the parties involved have special interests at play that may inadvertently steer the results toward a desired conclusion? Likely… we’re all human. (Here’s the Pew authors’ take.)
More soon…
Slate: “Why is hyperlocal news so terrible?”
With the title “Noise in the ‘Hood: Why is hyperlocal news so terrible?” Slate’s Mark Gimein aims to provoke with his recent article. He derides EveryBlock.com, Topix.com, Outside.in and Examiner.com, while praising AOL’s Patch. Of the former, he writes…
The reality of the sites, though, is a scary lesson in just how dreary the local news outlook is. The new local ventures are designed to deliver more news with fewer resources. In fact, they deliver less. That in itself is not a surprise, but just how much less is a shock for anyone who bothers to actually look at what they offer…
So what we see in the local news efforts is something like the creepy apocalypse of a 1950s science fiction story, in which, with the people gone, computers take over the few tasks that remain to be done in the barren landscape, hoping by algorithms to take the bits of local information that are out there and put them together into sites that can be built on the cheap.
And why this writer likes Patch…
… what distinguishes it is that Patch actually has a live local writer/editor for each local site. Think about that for a second: The sites run by media companies, such as Topix and EveryBlock, are the ones that hope to take people out of the news gathering process, while the one that’s backed by the onetime Google ad guy is putting them back in.
Mark was successful in his provocation… several of the targets in his piece responded in the comments, as well as other well-informed folks.
My view… the aggregators that Mark singles out are valiant well-moneyed efforts, but they hold little interest to me personally. While they could serve as a helpful starting point when trying to plug into a given locale, once I know good sources of information for a community, I no longer need the aggregators. At that point, I’ll just go straight to the sources themselves… most likely locally owned and operated sources. But I’m sure aggregators can be of great value to others… traveling salespeople, researchers/writers/students, tourists, etc.
Also, what’s the difference between USAToday and a funky local weekly… or a well-established (if now struggling) daily? Even when traveling, I prefer to find local newspapers over picking up USAToday. Something about the aggregators seems more like Home Depot, McDonalds and Starbucks than local hardware stores, diners and coffee shops. I realize most of America is squarely in the homogenization camp… so maybe the aggregators will do as well as the big boxes and chains.
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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