With National Night Out - http://natw.org - on Tuesday, August 5, hundreds of thousands of people connect on their block across the U.S.. People always say, we shouldn't wait another year to connect again ... and then we all wait a year.
I am always interested in ideas about how we go far deeper with our block or building level connections - year round using a *mix* of in-person and digital approaches. Purposeful connecting with a mission rather than just out of a fear of crime. I am talking digitally enhanced efforts to better connect the nearest of neighbors - be that 10 or 100 households. From babysitting swaps to hiring teens to mow the lawn to jointing operating a wi-fi alley security camera network or pot-luck organizing tools ... extremely local connecting beyond the simple ability to communicate as a group via email or an online group. Something slightly more structured but not so complicated that no one will use it. Something that can be quiet for weeks and that is OK because people know it will work when they need it. Something that can be locally owned and "off-the-grid" without converting donated local organizer labor into channel for sucking advertising revenue away from neighborhood press to distant lands. >From email cc: to YahooGroups to Facebook Groups, i-Neighbors and some of the early NextDoor sites (before they started pushing a larger default scale) encouraged easy very private very small scale communication, but purposeful deeper connecting often spurred by block leader or informal maven motivated beyond the fear of crime to this day does not have a good tool set beyond, "let's have a meeting." It might well be that the "virtual ice breaking" among residents online neighborhood groups (like the one's my non-profit hosts covering ~10,000 resident areas e.g. http://e-democracy.org/se or that many growing like crazy on Facebook Groups - https://www.facebook.com/groups/55720173893/ ) might be all we can expect digital to do well in terms of real-life community building among local people who do not yet know each other well. All I can say is that I would like to see something more that begins to hard code some of the soft code connections that bring people on their block or in their building together. I was recently chatting with folks involved with past U.S. Census supplemental surveys on civic life and the key measure that really resonates with folks is whether people exchange favors with their neighbors. So, I think that is a starting point, what can be done online that encourages more sharing of favors (beyond often siloed tool sharing apps). Any ideas? Steven Clift E-Democracy.org P.S. I have 1300 of my neighbors, or roughly 30% of the households in my area in an online group using open source, non-profit run tools. So that means, if someone has the right idea, code, or motivation I can in theory test ideas at a low relative cost with a sub-set of users. To move even 200 everyday people into an experimental tool would be extremely resource intensive from scratch, so we have the bodies so to speak and the openness to widely share lessons and experiences for the benefit of all. Also, here are neighbors on our BeNeighbors.org network of forums inviting others to join them Tuesday night: http://bit.ly/nno2014edem Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.org Twitter: http://twitter.com/democracy Tel/Text: +1.612.234.7072 ᐧ ----------------------------------------- Group home for Newswire - Steven Clift's Democracies Online Newswire: http://groups.dowire.org/groups/newswire Replies go to members of Newswire - Steven Clift's Democracies Online Newswire with all posts on this topic here: http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/74mtuXNuFpTIE16YcTEpGm For digest version or to leave Newswire - Steven Clift's Democracies Online Newswire, email [email protected] with "digest on" or "unsubscribe" in the *subject*. Newswire - Steven Clift's Democracies Online Newswire is hosted by Democracies Online - http://dowire.org.
