Blink#2: 85 Broads

85 Broads is a chapter at Tufts of the larger global network. It focuses on trying to get more women involved in areas like finance, business, non-profits, etc where we don't usually see as many women.

1.Can you tell me a little bit about the work you do in Somerville?
As a chapter, we don't do any work, per say, in the area of Somerville, but we do work with women at Tufts to try to get them more involved in areas like finance and business. However, the larger global network of 85 Broads focuses on the entire world and therefore, would include women from the area of Somerville.

2.How is your organization dealing with the economic downturn? Is it affecting your organization? What about the population that your organization serves?
The economic downturn is clearly affecting everyone. It has not directly affected our organization in the ways things are run, but it has affected what we are able to do with the outside community in terms of events. The economic downturn has not affected the population that we serve, since we are a Tufts organization.

3.In your opinion, what is the main economic need in Somerville?
Like any other area, Somerville needs good leadership and tight finances in order to survive the economic recession.

4.We're trying to understand how people and organizations in Somerville are connected. What are the three most important partnerships you have -- OR -- the organizations you work most closely with?
a) 85 Broads Global Network
b) Career Services
c) other finance/economic related groups on campus

Blink: Chi Omega

1.Can you tell me a little bit about the work you do in Somerville?
* The Chi Alpha Chapter of Chi Omega participates in campus-wide philanthropy events that interact with the Medford & Somerville communities
o Read by the River
o Kids' Day
o Halloween on the Hill
o Relay for Life

2.How is your organization dealing with the economic downturn? Is it affecting your organization? What about the population that your organization serves?
* Our Executive Board has made a more "lean" budget, and has been sticking to it
* Instead of hiring a chef to cook dinner at Chi Omega 4 nights per week, we switched to catered dinner twice per week

3.In your opinion, what is the main economic need in Somerville?
* Addressing the needs of elementary, middle, and high-school students
o Encouragement to apply to private high schools
o Bridging the gap between the socioeconomic status at Tufts and the status of the Somerville community

4.We're trying to understand how people and organizations in Somerville are connected. What are the three most important partnerships you have -- OR -- the organizations you work most closely with?
* Strong ties with the Leonard Carmichael Society (one of our juinors is the Vice President) - she encourages all sisters to participate in events

* Sisters who are Child Development majors intern at the Pearson School (i.e. the daycare), and become more involved with community outreach with the children of somerville

MyBLink

From browsing around the new website and adding nodes I've found a few issues (apologies in advance if anyone else has already said these). First, the subheading under Opportunities says "Add an opportunities" so this needs to be changed to either "Add opportunities" or "Add an opportunity." Additionally, I think it would be really clean if under both Opportunities and Dashboard there was both a View and an Add option. This would make it a little more organized and symmetrical. In terms of my profile, I think more of a form style editing tool would be helpful, like on facebook. I imagine this is in the works anyway.

In terms of adding my actual nodes, I found it difficult to click "save" as this didn't actually seem to be a button, but just text at the bottom of the page. It did ultimately work, though. Also, there was nowhere for me to add email and phone number, but once I submitted it those fields were blank. I like the way that the "issues" section was set up, though, it was very easy to just click on the different topics for each node.

new blinks

Today, I added a variety of nodes because I wanted to see what problems I might encounter. I added Somerville Public Library, Senator Kerry, MASSPIRG student chapters, and Charlestown High School, and learned a couple things. The mechanics of the website worked well for me, but I found that the tags weren't cutting it for me. Unfortunately, although topics like homelessness work well for organizations like MASSPIRG when trying to tag individuals like Senator Kerry it can be kind of tough. A tag for politics or political figures might be helpful. Also, I came across an ethical dilemma while creating the nodes. For some of them, I just copied and pasted information off their websites. I can't decide whether this is a good idea or a bad idea. Ideally, it would be best if all the nodes created were done by the individual/organizations who they are about, but realistically, if we want the site to grow this would be hard. Consequently, it seems likely the description these organizations wouldn't mind being posted without their consent is what they already have posted up on their websites, so I decided to just copy and paste some of their mission statements. However, after I did this I began to have some doubts about totally taking their words. This also prompted me to think about more questions about consent. As a result, I am posing the following questions to the group, in regards to not only my new nodes but also the future nodes that will inevitably end up on blink. How much information is it OK to post about an organization without their consent? Is it OK to use other websites material? I don't think there is a clear answer to either of these two questions so I would love to get everyone's opinion.

Social Networking More Popular Than Email

I was browsing around the internet and found some interesting stats from an article that was posted in March 2009 that showed that social networking was more popular than email in 2008:

New stats from Nielsen Online show that by the end of 2008, social networking had overtaken email in terms of worldwide reach. According to the study, 66.8% of Internet users across the globe accessed “member communities” last year, compared to 65.1% for email. The most popular online activities remain search and Web portals (with around 85% reach) and the websites of software manufacturers.

The far-reaching study also explored a number of other trends within the social networking space. In 2008, users spent 63% more time on member communities than they did in the previous year.

new BLinks on BLinks.org

I posted two new blinks today and created my account on the site. youthvoteMA is a site that I started my junior year of high school, and I think has potential to make connections in the Tufts community. "The site was created as a resource for students and anyone of voting age to get information and resources for registering to vote. It was created as a part of a Girl Scout Gold Award Project in Westborough, MA. The project is focused on providing the youth of Massachusetts with the information, resources and opportunity to register to vote. By developing this website, holding local voter registration drives, and encouraging others to do the same, the project will work to open the door for many prospective voters." I linked it to "education and literacy" and "CIRCLE," because CIRCLE provided me with much of the information I used to create the site.

The second BLink I created was for the Somerville Journal, a local newspaper in Somerville. I discovered that its parent company is the same as my hometown paper and many in MA. I thought that having the Somerville Journal on the site would be a great stepping stone to have them publish information about the site in the paper.

I plan to doing some clean-up of nodes later this weekend.

Experiencing with Blink

I browsed around the website. I tried to create my own profile using the same username for the other blog that we had (with myopenid). I am not certain if I successfully create my profile because it seemed like it didn't go through. I also couldn't upload my profile picture. It showed up to an error page. So, I think we need to fix on that.

One more thing that I am concern while using the website is that the page of making the profile is just not that great for me. I don't really like it. I think it's easier if there are indications of what to put in a profile, such as network, locations, interests, activities, contact info, education, etc. and at the end perhaps a little box of "about yourself" or "about organization." I hope you guys can picture what I'm trying to say here. But the indications can vary between organizations and individuals.

I know that we mention this in class already, but I think we should add a calender to the website somewhere. A calender that indications what is happening during this month. What are the opportunities or big events - show publicly because sometimes people are just lazy to physically browse or search what they need to do. Yes, I know that eventually there will be so many events happening at the same time - we can fix/change that after the website has gone live for a few months or so. OR we should have a calender of each person and each organization. I think it will be more efficient and organized.

One last thing, what is the actual home page? We can incorporate the calender in the home page - perhaps for new users to have a sense of what the website is all about.

record bugs and suggestions here

The "alpha" version of our website is here: http://myblink.org/. Please record any problems or suggestions as comments here. I have already suggested two items:

1. Make the tagline something like this: "BLink links organizations, issues, and people in the Greater Boston Area for social change."

2. Instead of using the word "node" anywhere in the site (for instance, "add a node," or "recent nodes"), use the word "BLink." You add a "BLink" to the map when you add an organization or an issue. Each dot on the interactive map is a BLink.

Changes in these items are welcome.

MDAO; Somerville and beyond

For a new node, I've added the Middlesex District Attorney's Office. I figured I'd share this, because I don't think many people would view this type of governmental organization as really doing much in the way of aiding Somerville's economic hardships, or any city within Middlesex for that matter, but after working with them for several months, I can tell you it is just the opposite. They have pursued several different initiatives and ideas to begin implementing new programs to either replace or in-conjunction with older ones, that will essentially save funds for years to come. For example, the juvenile diversion program that his run through the Cambridge Court House saves countless hours of the police from coming into courthouse, from the assistant district attorneys of having to go into the courtroom and prosecute the offenders, from the different advocates within the court, from the parents that must take time off from work and sit all day in the court, and so on. It's very much a rippling effect, that unless someone really knew about it, would never quite get the impact that it has in a financial manner.

I think being able to expand to other organizations and institutions that aren't solely in Somerville is still extremely beneficial, as there are many institutes like the MDAO that don't necessarily do work strictly in Somerville, but definitely do plenty to affect it. It's awesome to see that we now are moving in this direction, and I can't wait to see our final product as it expands with the reaches of Somerville and every hand that has a part in its makeup.

Identifying Overlooked Local Assets

Using the Asset Based Community Development Guide to Mobilizing Local Assets has really been a beneficial tool to assess the current standing of our map, helping me to identify the strengths and weaknesses as we approach turning the map over toward the users. On page 19, entitled “Connecting Organizational Assets to Community Assets,” there is a categorized listing of all different types of assets that might exist within an organization. The different categories include personnel, constituents, space and facilities, expertise, networks of connections, materials and equipment, and economic power. By analyzing these categories separately, we can think creatively about different ways to engage the community. For example, the “expertise” section is further broken down into “classes,” “educational workshops,” and “training courses.” Before reading the ABCD Guide, I had not thought about different community classes as a potential node on our map. However, an art class might be the ideal group to target for a social justice mural to be painted in the community, for example. Looking at the variety of different assets identified in this guide—expanding from just organizations, people, or ideas—can help us think creatively to ensure that this community map reaches its full potential.

The Anti-Social-Network Social Network

After reading Jenn's post on social networking in advertising, and after seeing the advertisement which equated hotel lobbies to social networking it made me think about this article I read in the New York Times last week about a variation on social networking sites.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/the-anti-social-network-social-network/

The article explains that there is a new social networking site named By/Association which has striped down the facebook social networking format to create a site specifically for the expansion of "social horizons." The idea is similar to a hotel lobby as well were professionals and "creative types" can reach out to people outside of their industry to people that they might never have the chance to meet. I like the idea because its a professional environment which promotes social out reach beyond the "people you know" button.

It's also interesting that the site does not include pictures or profiles which have become standards in the facebook format or dating sites. I think its food for thought to maybe think outside of the "facebook" box.

Site Online!

I think that is very exciting to have the site finally be interactive and online, even if only in a test mode. I've explored Blink and clicked on just about everything. I am very glad to see a geographical map on the page that will hold 'Opportunities.' I know we had been talking about needing a geographical representation, but I wasn't sure where it would end up. I also like the idea that with it on this page, when events are created, they can be tagged directly on the map, so when people click on them, the map will tell them where it will take place. I think that the map is really excellent. We played around with it in the last class, but after exploring it a little further, I like how it functions. I'm glad that there is more focus on the nodes closer to the innermost circle, however, it would be good to be able to click on fringe nodes.

I think that there is clearly a lot of work to be done with the nodes themselves however. I understand the goal of the final assignment, to add more nodes and to interact with the site. However, I believe that it is equally important to clean up the nodes that already exist. Many do not have all the links to other nodes that we know exist. There are duplicates and typos which make the site look less reliable, and therefore less likely to be used and trusted as a legitimate resource.

More on Social Capital

It seems like all my classes are intertwining lately. While researching for my Senior Thesis, I came across this great article on the Government Technology magazine website, entitled "Social Capital: Technology's Impact on Society" by Robert Bell that referenced a lot of the studies we discussed in class such as Nie's work and Netville. I liked it a lot because it combined their conclusions with more updated information, which I know was a criticism we all made of the original pieces. I really enjoyed a quote Bell made about the new generations growing up with the Internet. He references another study writing, "The Net generation is in many ways the antithesis of the TV generation... Rather than leaning back on the couch as passive consumers of media, they lean forward to interact, choose and challenge." I am curious how such generational differences will play out on our network map, will our map help this Net generation more, or can it span different age groups? Anyways, the Bell article is pretty short and definitely worth a look. Check it out at: http://www.govtech.com/gt/734063?id=734063&topic=117673&full=1&story_pg=1

Clay Shirky video

Below is an awesome video discussing the effects web 2.0 has on coordination of institutions: http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration.html

The description of the video reads as follows:
In this prescient 2005 talk, Clay Shirky shows how closed groups and companies will give way to looser networks where small contributors have big roles and fluid cooperation replaces rigid planning.

It is a great summary of a lot of issues we have talked about class, such as how institution costs are shed with these new online networks. Shirky also focuses on the power law distribution, and the value of the smaller end of the spectrum, something we have not discussed much in class. He explains that in normal corporations, employees who only contribute one idea are a waste of resources but on networks online, a user who only contributes one idea does not cost anything extra, and in fact, a bunch of users who do that is actually a very valuable asset. Similarly, while creating our map, although it is easy to focus on big nodes, all those smaller nodes are valuable too, even if each organization contributes minimally. Check out the video if you want to hear more!

Six Degrees

In my Social Theory class, we recently read a book called Six Degrees: The Science of A Connected Age by Duncan J. Watts, which was all about networks, and I kept seeing connections to our class. In fact, I actually wrote a blog post for Social Theory about what we were doing on Project PERIS. The post was prompted by the following quote: “Like ambiguity, an organizational failure can come in many shapes and sizes—people get sick, factories burn down, computer systems crash, and large numbers of employees may have to be laid off. Sometimes disaster comes from the outside and sometimes it is generated internally…Regardless of their origins, however, what all disasters have in common is that they disable a part of what was previously a whole, functioning system….And when critical resources have been lost, the most important asset an organization can possess is easy access to the resources it has left.” Watts wrote this in reference to a potential product disaster that occurred in Toyota plants and how the company minimized the consequences. By using a less centralized more connected network for all their manufacturing, when one plant burned down, multiple plants were quickly able to pick up the slack because they shared so much information. In contrast, no one expected the disaster in New Orleans and no organizations were prepared for the ambiguity of the situation. Furthermore, with a delayed government response, hierarchical organization was not just overburdened but impossible because the government who should be at the highest position was unable to coordinate other specialized response teams. Because responses to disasters are normally so centralized, in the face of a crisis without that leadership, the organization of other services broke down. If New Orleans disaster response was organized like Toyota with a more robustly connected system through all levels of leadership as opposed to a hierarchical system, the consequences could have been much more minor. I think the same lessons can be applied to Somerville. We are creating a more connected system.

This Week's Reading

This week's reading is from a workbook that's whole focus is to help organizations connect with their surrounding community and learn to utilize whatever assets the community has to offer in order to form strong community-based projects. It lists three main goals, all of which essentially boil down to strengthening both communities and organizations through interaction with one another. After reading this, what I found to be extremely encouraging was how relevant our project is to the goals this workbook pushes organizations to achieve. BLink's whole purpose is to build connections. With BLink, communities, organizations, people, businesses, etc. can all communicate with each other and hopefully combine resources to make everyone more successful in achieving their goals. BLink will foster strong community-based projects. The reading talks about the importance of relationships with local residents, marginalized residents, associations, local economy - the list goes on. And BLink, I would say, provides organizations with the opportunity to strengthen their relationships in every one of those areas. It's cool to see just how important our project is to community organizing. One of the pages in the workbook actually encourages organizations to draw out their own map of connections, complete with existing and potential lines!

Social Isolation and New Technology

Last month, the Pew Research Center released their findings on a study they had done to gauge whether or not internet and mobile phone use led to social isolation. This is particularly relevant to our discussion about Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone book. Putnam upholds the thesis that social ties are weaker now than they were 50 years ago (using the demise of bowling leagues as his star example.)

The argument now against Putnam's premise is that it is outdated; Bowling Alone was written prior to the explosion of the Internet, before Facebook or MySpace or Twitter. Putnam is crippled in his discussion now because of the ubiquitous use of social networking sites and the impact they have on our daily communications.

The Pew study updates Putnam's research, yet also negates it. The basis of the study was to explore issues that have not been probed directly in that study and other related research on social isolation: the role of the internet and mobile phone in people's core social networks.

Ultimately the results find that Americans are not as isolated as had been reported earlier, and I found a few points especially interesting and convincing:

• Whereas only 45% of Americans discuss important matters with someone who is not a family member, internet users are 55% more likely to have a nonkin discussion partners.
• In-person contact remains the dominant means of communication with core-network members. On average, there is face-to-face contact with each tie on 210 out of 365 days per year.
• Email, social networking services and instant messaging promote "glocalization" -- that is, they are used as frequently to maintain nearby core social ties as they are used to maintain ties at a distance.
• The use of social networking services to maintain core networks is highest among 18-22-year-olds. Thirty percent of 18-22-year-olds use a social networking service to maintain contact with 90% or more of their core influentials.
• Users of social networking services are 26% less likely to use their neighbors as a source of companionship, but they remain as likely as other people to provide companionship to their neighbors.
• Owners of a mobile phone, frequent internet users at work and bloggers are more likely to belong to a local voluntary group, such as a neighborhood association, sports league, youth group, church or social club.
• Compared to those who do not use the internet, most people who use the internet and use a social networking service, such as Facebook, MySpace, or LinkedIn, have social networks that are about 20% more diverse.

As someone who falls within the 18-22 year old demographic, I must agree with Pew's findings on our high rates of social networking use. In the future, I'd like to see them extrapolate this data across age demographics as well as comment on the quality of these interactions.

Social Networking in Advertising

I saw this billboard advertisement in the O'Hare airport when I was flying back to school after Thanksgiving vacation. I took a picture of it because I think it is a great representation of social networking online interacting with social networking offline.

There has been such a huge push to get companies in on the social media bandwagon. From Twitter to Facebook pages to mobile applications like foursquare, companies and people are interacting on the Internet. While these interactions are important and provide a new and dynamic way to engage the consumer (or the business), it is important to remember that we do still exist in a real, non-virtual world where we interact with people face to face every day.

I think Marriott does a great job of bringing it full circle by associating their hotel lobbies with social networking, because it is. It was the original. The black-and-white movie era hotel lobby was a place of intrigue and romance, and it has been replaced by our virtual existences. By combining the two images into one advertisement, Marriott captures the attention of the consumer with a successful advertisement.

Meeting with Tufts and UMass Boston

Just before Thanksgiving Break, I had the opportunity to meet with a few UMass Boston students about their uses of the software. Since the class associated with BLink is completely different than our class, it was really valuable to have insight into their uses and perspective on the software.

There were a few major differences between the two schools. First of all, UMass Boston has a strong reputation for remaining very engaged with the organizations in their communities on a consistent basis. Therefore they were very invested in the organizations they added to the map. They also added fewer organizations, but there is more information available about the organization, including names of administrators and phone numbers and best ways to contact them, etc.

Secondly, they deal with a diverse population of community members, and many of them don't speak English. There is a desire to have the BLink website available in Vietnamese as well as other languages so that the entire community can access and benefit from the site.

Thirdly, they see a huge opportunity for this site to be a collection of resources that community members need, such as where to vote, how to get a state ID card, who to contact in different situations, etc. There is a lack of centralization with all of this information and if you don't know what you're looking for or how to find it, it can be very difficult information to access.

Other topics discussed included privacy setting issues, as well as different Facebook applications (such as games).

Groundworks Somerville

Here is my new node for groundworks somerville. I figured I'd post exactly what I emailed them, since it worked out and they actually responded to the questions, even if it did take a while. It is quite interesting to read that even they are not 100% sure about the status of Somerville. It made me think about our website, and how people will learn about the different organizations and people in Somerville, but what about Somerville itself? Will we/should we have a page where people can learn and explore about the issues that need to be addressed within the community?

1. In your own words, can you please tell me about the word you do in and for Somerville?

Groundwork Somerville is a community-based organization designed to serve as a catalyst for reuse of former brownfield sites and for community revitalization in Somerville. The organization is an affiliate of Groundwork USA, a network of organizations created by the National Park Service and modeled after the successful network of 43 Groundwork organizations in the United Kingdom. Groundwork Somerville is one of a small number of organizations nationwide that have received planning and startup grants of $100,000 from the National Park Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It is currently governed by a Board of Directors representing a cross-section of non-profit groups, community-based organizations, public agencies and business interests in Somerville.

2. How is your organization dealing with economic downturn? Is it affecting your organization, either negatively or positively? Is the downturn affecting the population that your organization serves?

Our organization has not felt the squeeze as much as other non-profits, largely because there are many grants for “green” projects trickling down from the government, which is a label that basically covers all the different programs we run.

3. In your opinion, what is the main economic need(s) of Somerville? Is your organization addressing that need(s)?

I don’t know enough about the different aspects of Somerville to say with any authority, but I know from experience that Somerville Public Schools are very poor, and I think the many afterschool programs Groundwork runs with all age levels helps to inject some science and outdoor hands on learning into the curriculum.

4. We’re trying to understand how people and organizations in Somerville are connected. What/who are the three most important partnerships you have—and/or—the organizations you work most closely with?

Difficult to say because our different programs have different needs, but overall probably Tufts University, Somerville Public Schools, and the City of Somerville

Outreach Opportunity - Launch

Kretzmann and McKnight’s Community Building Workbook provides a thorough guide with which to analyze the extent in what manners and the extent to which an organization is involved in the local community. I went through the survey questions using our project as the organization to try to discover where our strengths and our weaknesses lie. It is clear that our project’s greatest strength lies in its objective of having a direct economic impact on the community by mobilizing resources (volunteering) specifically within the local community. However, going through the questions, one weakness of our project that struck me is the extent to which we are engaged with institutions and organizations of Somerville. We are building this networking map on a fairly large scale, and yet the organizations we are hoping to connect have little (if any) knowledge of the project. Considering that the launch of our map is coming up, I think our project’s prospects for success could be greatly increased by outreach aimed specifically at getting organizational and institutional participation. The easiest and most cost efficient way would be to draft a newsletter type email to be sent to the organizations that are already on the map (or maybe send out hard copies—but this would cost money) announcing our launching, goals, and ways to participate. However we approach this, our launching presents an excellent opportunity to contact these organizations and get them excited about the map, being more tangible and useful to the organizations than when we were simply contacting them for information.

Facebook changes as community changesi

Although this is not about our site or the project at all, I thought that it was an interesting bit of information on how networks evolve.

These are excerpts from an open letter to all users of Facebook from the creator, Mark Zuckerberg

-Facebook's current privacy model revolves around "networks" — communities for your school, your company or your region. This worked well when Facebook was mostly used by students, since it made sense that a student might want to share content with their fellow students.

-However, as Facebook has grown, some of these regional networks now have millions of members and we've concluded that this is no longer the best way for you to control your privacy. Almost 50 percent of all Facebook users are members of regional networks, so this is an important issue for us. If we can build a better system, then more than 100 million people will have even more control of their information.

The plan we've come up with is to remove regional networks completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone.

-We've worked hard to build controls that we think will be better for you, but we also understand that everyone's needs are different. We'll suggest settings for you based on your current level of privacy, but the best way for you to find the right settings is to read through all your options and customize them for yourself. I encourage you to do this and consider who you're sharing with online.

Thanks for being a part of making Facebook what it is today, and for helping to make the world more open and connected.

well, thats actually a large portion of the letter. I just found it very very interesting.

Some interesting design for the map

Hi guys!

I have to do a mapping project for my design class. I browse through the internet to look for some cool and interesting design to stir some ideas for the project. I found this one website that is really pretty. It shows so many different design for mapping. You guys can browse around and check out the many patterns they offer...
http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/search.cfm?input=map

It is just an idea that we could make our website look a little bit - I know that we are pretty much set with circle, but looking for new things wouldn't hurt, right?

Users connecting to Orgs

Welcome back to Medford/Somerville everyone... While I was in Virginia for thanksgiving I grabbed a UVA newspaper and it finally surfaced in my book bag this morning, and some clever little Cavalier designed this comic:

"
Facebook needs more options than 'Send Friend Request." Lots of people on Facebook are not my friend.

(insert sad face stick figure drawing)


____________
Send a Message

View friends

Send Friend Request

Send Enemy Request

Send Arch Nemesis Request

Send 'I wanna creep on your pictures' Request




So it made me wonder: how will organizations be able to control if they don't want to be linked other organizations, causes, or users? What if Tufts' LCS wanted to send an "arch nemesis request" to Jenn Bollenbacher or Dean Ladin (even if he got accepted by TFA-- congrats)?

I don't remember us discussing this, and only touching on the idea of users being able to connect to other users.

An Interesting Article

I am not usually a fan of anything written in Tufts student publications. They are usually poorly written, and unless focusing exclusively on campus issues, simply repeat information that could be found in real publications. This weeks Observer however has an article worth checking out because of its relevance to our class and that fact that its actually pretty well written.

Micah Hauser and Michael Goetzman's article "All My Friends" about Facebook addresses lots of the issues that we talked about earlier this semester and provides an interesting perspective to add to our discussion. They make an interesting point about Facebook being similar to a small town in the larger anonymous world of the internet. Through the newsfeed people can passively take in information about all of their friends, similar to how people do offline by seeing people and hearing what friends of friends are up to. Hauser and Goetzman beleive that Facebook is a legitimate community that happens to be online. I think that we should view the website we are creating in similar terms. We are creating a legitimate online community of people who are involved in offline community activism of some kind.

Sadly there is no link on the Observer website but you can pick up a copy around campus.

latest material for review

1. The map (which still requires a new color scheme plus the data we have collected this fall.)

2. New screen shots. (Click to view in a separate screen, enlarged).

Religion

Throughout the duration of the class, religious institutions continuously arise in our discussions. Whether we are discussing the importance of contacting Churches for the map, or analyzing the different development and adaptations of Churches and Synagogues in Boston, religion seems to play a pivotal role in community organizing. However, I naively assumed that this concept was overrated and has changed as U.S. communities have changed. I enjoyed reading the excerpts of Warren’s book Dry Bones Rattling, because it made me question those beliefs. By providing the Texas Industrial Areas Foundation’s work as a relevant contemporary example, Warren made me appreciate how faith based organizing might not be a new idea but it is certainly is not outdated. Above all though, I appreciated some of the reasons Warren gave for the importance of religion centers during social movements, particularly in reference to race and poverty. He discusses Sidney Verba’s research which showed “that religious institutions play a key role in equalizing political participation because they are sites where people of color and low-income people have the opportunity to learn skills that can be translated to politics, skills like writing letters, making speeches, and planning and making decisions in meetings.” Warren also discussed the uniting power of religion throughout history, writing, “At its best, religion has provided a moral basis to conceive of our place in a larger human society and inspired people to work for racial equality, social justice, and democracy.” These points are extremely valid, and illustrate why we always seem to circle back to religion when talking about nodes and networks.

Warren

Mark Warren makes a number of good arguments about the importance of community organizing in this country's future in Dry Bones Rattling. He proves how much it has declined in the past half century, the unfortunate effects that decline has had on the poor, and acknowledges the challenges we currently face in attempting to revitalize communities. Out of all the points he makes, however, I want to focus on a specific one, and that is racial segregation within and between communities. It's no secret that many towns/neighborhoods/cities have demographics which tilt heavily to one race or another. This could easily lead to members of the minority races feeling alienated in their own area. As a result, these members of the community could turn to one of the many small, specialized groups that Warren talks about, and make that group their community instead. These small groups can be built around many things, but race especially tends to be a strong binding factor. People's allegiances to these respective racial groups only increases segregation within communities, and Warren stresses how important bridging these groups is to being able to effectively organize a community. However, he realizes the difficulty of this as many racial groups could feel almost in competition with other racial groups who most likely do not share the same concerns. In terms of our map, I think the interconnectivity we offer to these various small groups will be huge in terms of encouraging said bridging. It will offer such a wide variety of other smaller, non-racial groups to connect with that each group will hopefully be able to find others it can connect with over shared concerns/beliefs/goals/etc., regardless of race. With each group connecting with just a couple others, we will be well on our way to forming a more cohesive community unit.

Meeting with UMass Boston

The small group meeting on Monday night with a few Tufts students and two UMass Boston students was very interesting and productive. It was excellent to hear from the UMass Boston students how they had used the software in the past, and what their goals were for the future. It seems as though their use of the mapping technology is similar and different to ours in many ways, and out goals and outcomes are very different. They have focused on a small community in Roxbury and have made very personal connections with the community through their work. They have many fewer 'nodes', but their ties to each are much stronger. This is a main point that I see our final goals differing in. UMass Boston intends to maintain these 'strong connections' to each node on the map. On the other hand, I believe that we envisioned our map and website acting independently (as possible) from our initial ground work, with each node taking ownership for itself, and the site being used as a resource.

One of the most interesting ideas that the students from UMass Boston expressed, that I don't think that we even touched upon was the possibility of exporting the map or an certain nodes connections to an outside source, such as a private website. Many organizations, businesses etc have an exported Google Map, listing their location, but also allowing viewers to interact and get themselves directions there. It is not just a link to Google Maps, but an integrated piece of the site. If an organization liked the map concept, I think it would be great if they wanted to export it to their site, publicizing not only our site, but their connections within the community.

Another important idea that came up were making the site accessible to all in the community, especially in language. How to make the site accurately multi-lingual is something we need to explore.

Dry Bones Rattling

Mark Warren's Dry Bones Rattling is a very interesting take on how to get America's social capital back up where it needs to be, yet in a way that includes racial consciousness and participation by all. He uses Texas' Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) network as a model for how this idea can be achieved in the most challenging of spots, the inner cities. Now, his main idea is that the way to shoot up America's social capital, and essentially its democratic ideals, is by essentially making politics and community organizations one through the beliefs, missions, and ethics that drive both.

I've actually looked at Warren's book in another class and context, so it's very interesting for me to put it toward the ideas of what we're trying to achieve. His argument definitely does bode well with social networking, although I feel it takes on a bit of a different notion when put into a digital context. The challenge comes when thinking about the true role that faith could play on a computer screen. While obviously for us, we aren't looking to necessarily connect politics, beliefs, and organizations through faith, I think that his model is hard to recreate as he explains his findings through a faith lens. Faith is a very tricky and powerful subject, especially as we've seen talking about Gamm's article. I'm not sure we could necessarily find the same type of synergy that faith creates to have people "religiously" use our map in the ways we intended it to be utilized. I may be being too close minded about this idea, but I'm having a hard time connecting all the ideas in his article to what we could practically apply to our class and our website. On a less pessimistic view, I certainly believe that Warren's suggestion can be played out in a more broad sense; by looking for aspects in American society that advance/cultivate/catalyze people's participation and how that can be tapped into and expelled towards others to make that phenomenon a norm. That's what I see our challenge as in relation to Dry Bones Rattling.

current vote count for the name survey

Streets of Hope response

One aspect of this narrative that I think really connects to our project is the creation of the Dudley Advisory Group out of the Riley Foundation's interest. When the directors of the Riley Foundation first saw the Dudley area and La Alianza Hispana up close, they had an emotional response. However, they were not listening to what the community was asking for. When La Alianza Hispana requested funding for a new carpet, the Foundation offered grants that did not solve any real problems. They offered to be a part of a larger, more visible initiative to revitalize the area, without addressing real issues. I see this problem paralleled very often when people try to help causes or organizations. It is imperative that the volunteers, donors, etc. listen to the people in need so that their resources can be put to use. I think that the network we are creating in Somerville will address this issue. It will give groups an opportunity to explicitly state what needs to be done, or at least a means to collaborate to figure out what needs to be done. The progression from isolated grants to the Dudley Advisory Group was an instrumental step, as input from more than one organization helped formulate their plans. I do not think that the ensuing problems stemmed from this collaboration, but that the problems would have prohibited any progress at all if the collaboration and communication did not take place.

Jonathan M. Tisch

I was assigned to read Jonathan M. Tisch's book "The Power of We: Succeeding Through Partnerships" for another class of mine. Yes, this is the Jonathan M. Tisch of who's building we sit in every wednesday night. His book revolves very heavily around the idea of "putting aside our individual concerns in order to work together toward a greater good." (pg. 1). From the second I read this sentence, I immediately began to think about our entire class and map project. The more and more I read the book, the more I began to really realize the immense value that our website could provide not only the city of Somerville, but the rest of Boston and hopefully even further in the future. While many people may think about how partnerships can help them, I truly don't believe that many people and places the real impact of this notion. We've talked about it over and over again, especially when harkening back to Linked, but even we seem to get caught up a bit in simple things like the name of our website and which we like better. Reading Tisch's book made me think on a different note of being in the place of the people that will use our site to really help transform and enhance their organization. I think this is the frame of mind we need to adapt as the semester quickly is coming to an end.

The most interesting and practical chapter in Tisch's book for our class was his final chapter. In it, he discusses how partnerships can help people, businesses, and institutions survive during some of the worst crises, much like we're seeing with the financial meltdown of our nation. I just want to make sure we don't lose sight of this notion. Whether it is putting in nodes ourselves or talking with non-profits and institutions throughout Somerville, I think we really need to stress the point that two is always better than one. Having partnerships can honestly lead to the help or demise of an organization. As the ones who are currently making many of these connections on the web, we really need to put our heart into this idea. With our abilities to frame what the website is going to be, do, look like, and contain, we have to remember our responsibility to Somerville and the rest of Boston in recovering from the economic downturn.

Streets of Hope

Much of this weeks article talked about the racial separations of areas in Boston. As I touched upon in my last post, if we look at the area of Somerville there is clear racial segregation. According to Wikipedia, Somerville has a mix of blue collar Irish-American, Italian America and to a slightly lesser extent Portuguese American families who are spread throughout the city; immigrant families from Brazil, Haiti and El Salvador, who live in East Somerville, from South Korea, Nepal, and India, in the Union Square area. Not only is it important to consider the racial diversification, but also income. The median income for a household in the city was $46,315, and the median income for a family was $51,243. The per capita income for the city was $23,628. This is still a relatively low range when compared to others, and clearly changes need to come to the are of Somerville. This map is a great tool to aid these changes, and make it easier for people to participate and respond.

Streets of Hope

Medoff and Sklar focus mainly on the Dudley neighborhood of Boston. Similar to Roxbury and Dorchester, Dudley also experienced a "white flight" where white people/families moved out of the area and racial minorities (mostly African Americans and Latinos in Dudley's case) moved in. Unlike Gamm's arguments for religion being the driving force behind "white flight" in Roxbury and Dorchester, Medoff and Sklar attribute Dudley's situation mostly to unfair policies of government organizations and national banks. They talk about redlining and blockbusting, and the displacement of many low-income families for the sake of building higher end condos. They also touch on the city government's attempts to "help" and "improve" the area, which in actuality were nothing more than a way to appear as if they were helping without meeting the community's needs at all. Medoff and Sklar then go on to explain how the people of the Dudley Street area, along with the Riley foundation, were able to organize and actually effect a change in their area. They worked together, got the attention of the city, and made something happen. I think this is a great example of community organizing. It was during a time prior to the Internet, and I think can be looked to to show both the advantages and the drawbacks of online community organizing today. Had those involved in DSNI, Riley, etc had access to the Internet, I think they would have been able to reach out to more people, and perhaps achieve things a little more efficiently. However, I also think the lack of Internet is what made their town meetings so effective. Everyone was forced to be in the same location and talk face to face, inspiring passion, conflict, a feeling of solidarity, and other things that just can't be felt through a virtual setting. This is definitely something we should keep in mind with our project in terms of encouraging active and effective involvement among our participants.

Ownership of Nodes

I just wanted to post a link to something that I saw the other day and thought would be applicable to our site. This is a page on a site called "City Voter" for a pub in downtown Boston. While the pub itself is not applicable to the course, the little "This is my business" link, is. The button takes you through the process of taking ownership of the page because anyone could have posted it. This is the type of format we could use for nodes.

http://cityvoter.com/cornwall-s-654-beacon-st-fenway-kenmore-boston-ma-02215/loc/24379

The Name Game

To use an extremely cliched Shakespeare quote, " A rose by any other name would still smell so sweet." That is to say our site is gonna be awesome regardless of its name. Obviously an inviting descriptive, orginial and fun name will help our site attract visitors but a bad name wont ruin the site either.

Each of the names we have discussed have their have their pros and cons. Here is how I see them:

Boston Area Service and Engagement Network (BASEN)- The name its self is very accurate of what the site will do. The name BASEN however is kinda vauge and not very aspirational. Basen = low point?

Boston ACTS (Advancing Community through Service)- Good name when spoken, ative. It sounds like a theater company or test prep service. Also advancing community through service has nothing specifically to do with our site but is just a general statment about any sort of volunteering.

BLinks- Cool enough. Seems hi-tech-ish.

OurBlock.org- Doesn't really describe the site but sounds pretty good when said. Our = community feeling

Boston NOW (Neighborhood Organizing Web)- Good name to be said and neighborhood organizing web is what our site is. The main problem is that NOW is an already established nationwide organization that operates in Boston. This seems to remove this name from consideration.

A good name is obviously preferable but I don't think we should stress the name anylonger. Lets do it. Lets get it over with. Lets choose a name.

Somerville's Urban Exodus

Gerald Gamm's article "Urban Exodus" is quite interesting. Although I am not quite familiar with the "suburbanization" of Somerville, I feel that a lot of what Gamm talks about relative to Dorchester and Roxbury can be applied to the area of Somerville. In 1971, a staff member of the New York Times stated, "We believe that the set of events in Boston illustrates what is going on all over America. The rapid white exodus from Boston had become a national symbol of the urban crisis." Basically places like Dorchester and Roxbury were seeing a lot of racial movements, with the white population moving out and immigrants moving in. However, "left behind are the poor who cannot move and those working-class and middle-class families who have chosen not to."

I feel that this is the same case with Somerville. According to Wikipedia, Somerville has a mix of blue collar Irish-American, Italian American and to a slightly lesser extent Portuguese American families. Although I am not certain, I can guess that through time there was a white exodus, with white people moving out, and immigrant families from Brazil, Haiti and El Salvador moving in (as is what we see today).

Likewise, another point that Gamm makes in his article is the fact that most centerless suburbs fell apart. However, he felt that "churches and synagogues have helped define the centers of discrete communities" and therefore, have helped to keep these towns together. I feel that in the area of Somerville, churches and synagogues might help to keep certain religious entities together, but the town of Somerville. Somerville is known for its high crime rates, slum-like areas, and especially high theft rates. Likewise, sources state that the creation of the Red Line in-to Somerville in 1985 caused a dramatic "gentrification," especially in the area between Harvard and Tufts University. It was also accelerated by the repeal of rent control in the mid-1990s. Residential property values approximately quadrupled from 1991 to 2003. "This has led to tensions between long-time residents and recent arrivals." I can clearly see how this could happen, and it relates to Gamm's point about having a center to keep the community intact. I feel that the Redline does the opposite, although sounding silly that a subway could make this impact.

Suburban Development

In Gamm's boom he refers to the cities of Roxbury and Dorchester as "streetcar suburbs" and discusses how the expansion of transportation in those areas changed the dynamic of the communities. Specifically, traditional community centers were removed and in their place, streets were laid. I think that this is an idea that is worth looking at from the perspective of Medford and Somerville. Current plans are to expand the green line of the T to additional parts of Medford and Somerville, including areas by Tufts. Many community members wonder how this will change the dynamic of the communities. If the Medford and Somerville areas become a hub for commuters, will the traditional groups that have lived in the area be forced out? Will the dynamics and interactions between people change? And, to bring this back to what we are working on in class, how will this change the sense of social responsibility in the area, and how can our map help? Perhaps new, younger families will move into the area and develop their own community, but it is just as possible that young people will gravitate to the area for its newfound convenience to the city and not for a neighborhood with a strong sense of community.

Response to Gamm's "Urban Exodus"

I was fascinated by the Gamm article and the transitions that Boston has been through. I was somewhat familiar with the Catholic perspective, but did not know much at all about the Jewish and Black movement. I am especially interested in the idea that different community groups or organizations affect the behavior of their members based on how the institution is set up. Because the Catholic Church is centralized and organized vertically, resources are allocated to specific geographical areas, rather than to a fluid congregation.

I am interested in Gamm's exploration of St. Peter's school, as it does not seem to follow the pattern he outlines in the rest of the article. If migration was so much slower and more disruptive, what has brought about the diversity that the school's enrollment shows, and the need for a bilingual sign displays. St. Peters community has transformed from a homogeneous Irish-Catholic parish to a diverse community who also identify with the parish.

Another idea put forth by Gamm is that social contexts (church or club memberships) shape political ideologies of individuals. I agree with this to some extent, but I associate more with what Robert B Putnam is quoted as saying that the mere existence and activity of community groups fosters a sense of 'trust, cooperation and civic engagement.' I think that this ideology is precisely what the mapping project will examine and foster. People in Somerville may be engaged in some group, but when an individual can see that their group is tied to so many others within the same city, I believe a more significant sense of community and responsibility can develop. For example, if someone is involved with a group, and regularly volunteers there, and they see that that group is connected to another, they may engage themselves in the second groups events or causes.

Revisiting the Name Issue

Here were the names that we cam up in class yesterday, in descending order of votes. What do you think?

Boston Area Service and Engagement Network (BASEN)
Boston ACTS (advancing Community through Service)
BLinks
OurBlock.org
Boston NOW (Neighborhood Organizing Web)

Somerville Community Corporation

Like some other people in the class, I haven't had any relative success contacting community organizations. I've emailed some people, and called but it's hard to get a hold of them through both channels, especially since through phone-calls it has to be between 9-4/5pm and at some points, I got directed through a channel of people because nobody knew who the right person would be to speak with.

Regardless, like Honey, I would like to target an interesting group in Somerville since I didn't have much success with the other groups I was supposed to contact. The SOmerville Community Corporation works with Somerville residents who are at risk of homelessness due to rent or utility arrears, high costs of housing, substandard housing, and other reasons. The program's primary goal is to stabilize families by helping them maintain their current housing. If the client needs to move, SCC helps them find new housing.

LIFT (formerly NSP)

LIFT (formerly National Student Partnerships) is a growing movement to combat poverty and expand opportunity for all people in the United States. LIFT encourages people to try to be able to achieve economic security and pursue their aspirations. LIFT clients and volunteers work one-on-one to find jobs, secure safe and stable housing, make ends meet through public benefits and tax credits, and obtain quality referrals for services like childcare and healthcare. Simultaneously, the LIFT experience pushes volunteers to grapple with our country's most challenging issues related to poverty, race, inequality, and policy. Since LIFT's founding, over 5,000 volunteers have served more than 30,000 individuals and families. LIFT works with families in Somerville to do many things, including the following:

• Employment: Assessing needs and strengths; providing personalized job coaching and job search assistance; creating and distributing resumes and cover letters; providing computer, Internet and telephone access; identifying employment opportunities, and job training and educational programs.
• Housing: Locating affordable permanent housing, as well as short-term shelter.
• Child care: Identifying affordable child care options.
• Health care: Identifying affordable health care options, including mental health services and substance abuse treatment.
• Legal aid: Locating low-cost or free legal assistance.
• Transportation: Determining transportation options.
• Other services: Other services may include tax counseling and filing assistance; language and citizenship resources; listening, support, advocacy and mentorship.

Thinking Spatially

In a portion of The Rise of Personalized Networking, Barry Wellman makes a point about how everything does not have to be spatial anymore, even though we still think that way. This point really struck me because it reminded me of a conversation, I participated in, in another class. In my class, we were talking about various election reforms, and a teacher posed a question asking why we elect representatives geographically; instead, she suggested, now that we have the Internet to make it plausible, why are we not organizing the country by beliefs, race, or another important category? This question was shocking to me because I never even considered organizing our political system any other way than by geography. However, even though the idea of reorganizing representation sounded interesting, I ended up defending our geographical method of choosing representatives, emphasizing that certain parts of the country and their specific issues might get overlooked with a new system. Nonetheless, it made me think. Bringing that lesson, and Barry Wellman's point back to our class, I wonder now that we have the potential to organize in a non-spatial manner how useful a tool that is. Our social network is organized geographically. We are not looking past the Boston area right now. On the other hand, how useful would it instead be to create a world wide social network map for hunger or for homelessness? There are positives and negatives to each method, and I am curious about other opinions on the issue.

Incentivizing Cyber Participation

In his piece The Internet and Virtual Civil Society, Kittilson claims that “interactions on the internet build cyberskills that lead to online participation, but not traditional forms of participation.” Project PERIS, however, hopes to accomplish exactly the opposite: use interactions on the internet to facilitate and increase traditional forms of participation or service. As I see it, users of the map may virtually participate in one of two ways: either passively, simply providing contact information and waiting to be presented with an opportunity, or actively, using the map as an advanced tool to mobilize. In order to encourage the latter usage, it is important that users truly view the map as a valuable resource so they virtually participate on a regular basis. To achieve this, we should incentivize active usage by providing access to advanced tools for community organizing. As an example, organizations joining the network could opt in to including a “service” component on their window. This component would then add some kind of pop-up or page that appears when an individual links to the organization, asking them if they would be interested in being added to the equivalent of an ‘activist’ elist for that group. Individuals could further specify what types of activities they would be interested in participating in. Then, when the organization is in need of volunteers or is hosting an event, they would be able to send out a message to all those who opted in, either on the website or directly to their email. This is just one example of a community organizing tool the map could provide to organizations to incentivize them using the map (requesting volunteers, posting events, etc.), but it is something we may want to explore because this map will be most functional only if all parties are actively participating.

Boys and Girls Club of Somerville

The Boys and Girls Club of Somerville is located on Washington St., directly off of McGrath Highway. They are part of the great Middlesex County Boys and Girls Clubs, but house the main offices in this building. They primarily work with kids from k-6th grade and 7th-12th grade. Almost all who attend are from Somerville. They are a staple within the community, as many kids use them on a daily basis. Their programs for younger kids are much more popular and more highly attended than their teen programs, but both ages come to the Club.

While the B and G Club may not seem like they are directly helping with the economic recovery of Somerville, they work in more indirect ways. They allow for parents to spend a bit more time at work by giving their kids a place to use computers and get homework help for free. They also offer different programs for the teens such as how to deal with finances and decision making. Both these things can have ripple effects into the greater Somerville community in helping slowly build back up what may have been shaken down.

This Club also has worked with numerous other organizations throughout Somerville in the past and present. They obviously have a fairly strong tie with the different schools throughout Somerville, and have to work with many on a weekly basis. In fact, they rent out part of their building to the Somerville School's Superintendent's office. They have also worked with several non-profits that focus on youth services such as SCAT, CAAS, and Teen Empowerment Somerville.

BUILD

I have been extremely sick for quite a while now. Therefore, I couldn't have a chance to interview anybody. I did send out the emails to the community in Somerville organizations. However, they said they've been busy and couldn't get back to me with the answers just yet.

Although I do not have a progress, I saw this one organization at TUFTS that looks really interesting and will be really awesome to add on to our map. They are Understanding through International Learning and Development (BUILD.) I read about them on Tufts Daily today.

In the near future, I hope to have a chance to talk to them because I think it will be a good idea to add them in to our map.

Somerville Mathematics Fund

The Somerville Mathematics Fund was founded in 2000 by Erica Voolich. The program is an affiliate of the organization "Dollars for Scholars". The Somerville Mathematics Fund assists the community in 3 main ways: by providing scholarships to local students, offering grants to area schools for mathematics instruction, and by hosting community-wide events that engage members in mathematical activities.

The program is particularly beneficial to the community during difficult economic times for two reasons. One, SMF is providing scholarships for students to go to college at a time when money is scarce, and two, they are providing grants and programming so that students can receive additional or enriched mathematical education. Many school programs have been cut as a result of a loss of funding, so these contributions are particularly beneficial. The Somerville Mathematics Fund is closely tied with the Somerville School District.

Somerville Community Health Agenda (SCHA)

The Somerville Community Health Agenda (SCHA) is the other node I just added. It's an organization that works closely with the Cambridge Cambridge Health Alliance, Somerville Healt Department, and the community that works to improve the health of Somerville residents. They do a lot of collecting and assessing community health data, and support other community coalitions that work on issues which affect health and quality of life such as substance abuse prevention, youth development, children's oral health, nutrition, etc. etc. Like SCALE, they were very interested in what we are doing, and especially since SCHA already has so many connections to other community organizations, I think they would be avid users of the network. One thing is when I added the node, I noticed there was already one called Somerville Health Agenda - is that the same thing?

Somerville Center for Adult Learning and Education (SCALE)

I just added two new nodes to the map, the first being SCALE. Essentially, SCALE is an organization under the Somerville Public School system that provides classes for adults in basic education, secondary education (GED), and English Language Learning (ELL). It is a fairly big program, serving about 1200 adult a year, and fun fact, is funded in part by Tufts. I asked the woman I talked to about SCALE in relation to the economy, and she said they have been affected in two main ways - decreased funding and decreased number of students attending class. Their enrollment numbers remained the same, however, indicating that people wanted to continue their education. It's just the economic situation forced many of their students to pick up more jobs or longer hours, and as a result weren't able to come. She also said that SCALE has recently increased its services a bit in an attempt to help their students get social services support and subsidies outside the classroom, so that hopefully they can spend more time in it. The woman seemed very interested in our project and I think is definitely someone would participate once it is up and running.

Helping Communities Help Themselves

Just over a week ago the Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to two academics, including the first woman ever to win that prize, Elinor Ostrom. When I was reading about Elinor I thought back to the starfish story we discussed in class a couple of weeks ago. Elinor's work specifically deals with government interventions in communities. She has been quoted as saying that often times communities can fix their problems better on their own than with government intervention because those within the community have a better understanding of their needs. It made me think of how we discussed that the starfish may not necessarily have wanted the help they received when being thrown in the water.

More about the Nobel Prize here: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/10/12/nobel.economics/index.html

Mock Up Design

The mock-up designs we received in class last week were a marked improvement on the map we've been working with currently. There is still a long way to go, however, to make it as user friendly as possible.

As someone who has accounts on multiple social networking sites, the user interface is the number one factor in whether or not people use it. I feel like usability is the new ergonomics -- instead of adapting our physical tools and objects to fit our hands and bodies, we have to adapt our online web technology to make it as easy to use as possible.

As cliche as it sounds, Facebook has done it right: a nice, simple, illustrative graphic on the left, and the "Sign Up!" feature is nice and prominent. The site isn't too cluttered, and only the pertinent information is featured.


The Twitter homepage is great too because it shows what people are talking about. Imagine that -- a communication site that shows recent communication and encourages people to "Join the Conversation" as a sign-up.

I think getting the homepage right is the most important, because it has to be welcoming and get people in the door before this site becomes useful.

Somerville Chamber of Commerce

The Somerville Chamber of Commerce is the leading group of local businesses and serves as a community for local employers, business owners, and interested parties to come together to discuss and address the future of Somerville’s business community. They are very focused on the idea that Somerville is a diverse community where small businesses can thrive, and when I talked to them they were very eager to show all the areas where this has been proven.

We had a very brief conversation, but a lot of the areas highlighted had to do with how Somerville has been divvied up into “squares” and places like Davis Square, Ball Square, and the new up-and-coming Magoun Square are highlighted as hubs of the small business community.

 

The chamber is a member driven and funded organization that takes voluntary dues to pay for its endeavors. Since there are hundreds of members, that really is the strength of the organization. 

Somerville Commission on Energy Use and Climate Change

The SCEUCC (less clever in terms of the acronym) has no website, just a half-hearted attempt at a web page. I emailed them over a week ago, and haven't heard back from their listed contact, Vithal Deshpande.


Buuuuut, I found an article, with an amazing YouTube video embedded. The video essentialy answers our basic needs in a matter of seconds, so check it out :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czJewqeBQ8c&feature=player_embedded

According to Andrea Ranger, chair of the SCEUCC, they work with the Somerville Climate Action : "A way to get invovled with the commision -- first tuesday of every month meets at the Tufts Administration building". The Somerville Climate Action is an organization that is part of the Massachusetts Climate Action Network, which organizes grassroots activities to get the public involved.

An article in Wicked Local states about the SCEUCC that, "specifically, the commission has worked on the issue of energy performance contracting, which replaces equipment where needed to save energy; locates areas where the city might need technical assistance; and encourages the city to assess energy consumption."

Ranger was also quoted saying that no energy is good energy. Not exactly sure what she meant by that, but she seems determined to eliminate unnecessary energy use.

Phillips Brooks House

"The Phillips Brooks House Association strives for social justice. As a student-run organization, we draw upon the creative initiative of students and community members to foster collaboration that empowers individuals and communities. Through social service and social action, PBHA endeavors to meet community needs and promote social awareness and community involvement at Harvard and beyond. PBHA is a student-run, staff supported public service/social action organization at Harvard College providing a variety of services to the Greater Boston community. PBHA is often called "the best course at Harvard." For more than a century PBHA programs have provided vital experiences for generations of leaders in service and activism, simultaneously developing real, meaningful community partnerships.

"PBHA today is comprised of more than 70 programs, with over 1600 volunteers participating in a wide range of service activities. The cabinet, still at the heart of governance of the organization, continues to play an important role, both in setting and managing the vision for PBHA as we head into our second century."

And here is an important youtube video about PBHA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCISiaxCTtI&feature=player_embedded


Who do they work with? PBHA is an umbrella for many things such as, for example, Harvard STAGE (Student Theatre Advancing Growth and Empowerment -- nice acronym huh?). They have over 1600 active volunteers and have done work world-wide since the 1920s. They are partial autonomous but still heavily in association with Harvard College (they kept switching from college to university).

Tufts University Osher Lifelong Learning Institute

After a few weeks, my first community group got back to me. The Tufts University Osher Lifelong Learning Institute has connections with a few local groups, including Councils on Aging. They are very interested in working in Somerville, and I think that our map could really help them target their audience of older people looking for learning opportunities. I added them as a node on the map.

My two other community contacts have not gotten back to me, or have responded that they will get back to me soon. The Medford Somerville Unitarian Universalist Church and the Somerville Public School District were my two contacts, and I'll keep trying to contact them.

Declining Social Trust

In Putnam’s piece, he argues a trend toward the decline in what he calls the social trust, particularly of the “generalized other.” Recognizing the threat this poses to civic engagement, he argues that a continued decline in social trust will lead to the erosion of social collaboration in all fields. Drawing from his research, he also noted that this decline was particularly evident among youth populations. Considering the target population of our social networking map, this issue is particularly relevant to the success of our project. As with any social network, there is a certain degree of risk in joining it. The objectives of the map would obviously be facilitated by included the most contact information. At the same time, increasing the amount of contact information—particularly when given by an individual—increases the risk factor. How can we mediate such risks so as to reduce such disincentives for participation? One solution to the privacy issue of individuals would be to personalize privacy settings, which would make the user feel most in control of their experience on the site. What other disincentives for participation are we going to run into and what are different avenues can we use to increase the sense of social trust felt by users of the map?

STEP

I'm not really sure where we are supposed to be putting the responses to our economic recovery questions. STEP took time and gave a great detailed response to the questions so I thought that other people might want to know whats up and thus I am posting it to the blog:

Q. How is your organization dealing with the economic downturn? Is it affecting your organization? What about the population that your organization serves?

A. STEP is a transportation advocacy group that is all-volunteer. We operate with a very small budget and have done so before and after the downturn. We are not a service delivery organization so we do not have clients per se. We do serve the entire Somerville community and I would say that the economic downturn has refocused many peoples’ time and attention to personal economic survival. It is always difficult to do extensive outreach to environmental justice communities because it is very time-intensive, and as a volunteer organization, that is challenging.

Q. In your opinion, what is the main economic need in Somerville?

A. The city of Somerville receives one of the largest state subsidies through local aid because we have very little commercial tax revenue compared to many other cities. Although Somerville is not as poor as Lawrence and Chelsea, because of this we receive a similar percentage of state aid. This limits our ability to provide needed services that are not based on grants. There are very few jobs in Somerville so most employed residents must travel to other cities and towns to work. Where Cambridge has more jobs than residents, Somerville has way more residents than jobs. We have higher property taxes than Cambridge and this is a problem for low and moderate income families to buy and stay in the city. We need to do smart economic development that will bring new companies and jobs to the city and increase our commercial tax revenues.

Q. We're trying to understand how people and organizations in Somerville are connected. What are the three (or more) most important partnerships you have -- OR -- the organizations you work most closely with?

A. STEP is a member of the Community Corridor Planning Coalition with Groundwork Somerville, Somerville Community Corporation and the Somerville Health Agenda. We work with them on community involvement in planning the Green Line extension and the land uses around the station.

STEP also collaborates and its work and some members overlap with the Mystic View Task Force which focuses primarily on economic development issues and in particular on Assembly Square. Both groups work on issues associated with the effects of mobile pollution on people living near high volume highways and arterials. STEP works with the Union Square Main Streets, East Somerville Main Streets and the Chamber of Commerce on issues associated with land use and economic development. STEP also works with the Somerville Bicycle Committee and the Friends of the Community Path to promote better bicycling and pedestrian access through the city and in particular on extending the Community Path along the Green Line into Cambridge and downtown Boston.

comments on design

We have received a mockup for the website that we're getting ready to launch--the public website that will allow people to sign up to join our civic network. We liked many aspects of the design provided, but we do have some feedback.

1. The acronymn of "BACN" can't work because it sounds like "bacon," which isn't kosher (or halal).

Other names: Civic Net Boston, BAANC (Boston Area Assets and Needs Connector), BayNet, Eastern Mass Civic Network, Bay State Civic Network, Boston Area Social and Civic Network (BASCN, pronounced basin), Boston Area Scope (could be an acronym, for "social and community outreach portal")

2. The front page (see below)

We felt that it needs more content, because otherwise people won't know what it is and log on. (Also, it might be good to allow visitors access to some parts of the site without login.) Content that could be added to the homepage would include upcoming events, newly added organizations, sample orgs, student of the week, blog posts, etc.

We didn't like the Google map, because of the aesthetics. Some students would prefer an image such as the Boston skyline. But a map has practical advantages for navigation. Thus a schematic map might work. Note that it must extend as far as Waltham, Medford, and Wellesley.

The tagline is good except that "Bostonite" isn't a word. So replace it with "people."

Students wanted the main login to go first, then the Facebook connect option (mainly because they didn't know what the latter is; an explanation might help).

The color scheme was considered too bold, by everyone. They wanted a more subdued pallette, e.g., grays and blues. But not too much like Facebook.

3. An organization page (see below)

What is the difference between the dashboard and profile?
There should be a search tab.



3. The personal page

"Node" is not a good word for novices, so make it "add to my community."
Remove the "recent activity" section because it might be empty and that gives a bad impression.

Logging service hours is a useful function for students in some programs, but it should be an optional add-in, not a default. Tufts students, for example, would very rarely need or want to log hours.

Contact information should be added. And this is where students could add their service interests?

Is this the place to control one's privacy and notification settings?






























Other comments??