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??

Localocracy

Last night, I remembered I was a fan on facebook for a similar idea to the Youth Map. I thought it might be worth posting the link to the website for people to check it out: http://www.localocracy.org/

"Active" "Citizens"

The other day I had a conversation that made me think quite a bit about a talk we had a couple of weeks ago regarding active citizenship. I was speaking with a Tufts Almunu when the question of what exactly active citizenship meant came up. I simply just asked what the term meant for him, and waited for an answer. Yet, his response was something that I hadn't thought about before.

Instead of giving me a definition that he felt was right or what I wanted to hear, he challenged me. He asked me to break the word apart. He first asked me what the term "active" meant. I responded for what I thought was a good Webster's definition. He nodded, but started explaining what it meant for him. He began to explain that being active was more than just something exerting energy. For him, being active added the element of achieving something. Yes, one could be active in talking about a an issue, but if they weren't achieving a goal or a belief or an issue resolution, were they actually being active? It's almost like sitting on the sidelines of a game. You're part of a team who is fighting to achieve a goal, winning, but if you just sit there, can you really be considered "active"?

He then began to talk about the word "citizen". He began talking about how people view themselves in different settings. If they see themselves as a part of a group or a feel that they belong to something, does that make them a citizen? For him it depended. He alluded to the fact of how people talk about themselves in relation to their group or another group, in if they use "they", "we", or "I". He also gave the example of if a person is walking in their local park and sees a piece of trash, will they pick it up and throw it out or just walk by and think about how someone else should clean it up? They're a citizen of that community, but are they really a citizen if they just walk past?

This entire conversation brought me back to how we look at potential. Should we only look at people who are both "active" and "citizens" or is there a role for people who may only fall into one of the categories? I personally think that for our project we should look for only those who are both. Yet, I do think that people who are extremely strong in only one of the two words do have a great deal of merit, as they could set a great example for people who are both to learn new techniques. I definitely feel the idea of what an "active citizen" is should be kept in the back of our minds as we continue to look at Tufts, and are now exploring Somerville, for organizations and people to put on the map.

Evolution of the Map

I've been thinking a lot about how the map and network is going to develop and how different stakeholders will interact with it.

As we go through and add nodes and links to the map, I can't help but thinking of the different people and groups that I know of that would be really valuable in consulting with to expand the map. For example, I've worked with the director of the Office of Diversity in Medford and she is one of the most well-connected people I've ever met. Although it's not Somerville, it could be useful to have someone like that in Somerville as well to really identify some of the people and organizations that we're missing.

Another possible resource would be umbrella organizations. For example, domestic violence agencies in Boston are all connected through Jane Doe, Inc., the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence. Many of the Boston organizations are associated with BARCC, the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center.

Tapping these large institutions to provide connections between smaller organizations could really flesh out the issues on the map a little bit and provide meaningful connections.

I've also been thinking about how different groups are going to use the map. Students will be more inclined to use the Facebook plug-in and less hesitant to set up a one-time account. Older people and organizations are probably less likely to use the Facebook application, so it's important that we tailor the user interface to really meet the needs of the people viewing the map on the web. Particularly for organizations that are seeking volunteers, we should make an effort to make it easy for them to discover those people.

Bridge Over Troubled Water

Bridge Over Troubled Waters’ mission is to enable high-risk, runaway and homeless youth to achieve a healthy and productive adulthood through prevention, intervention, and education services. Serving 2,433 youth ages 14 – 24 each year, Bridge offers a comprehensive range of health, educational, career and housing services. Bridge is the only agency in the Boston area to provide a continuum of age-appropriate services.
Website: http://www.bridgeotw.org/index.html
*Although this organization focuses its efforts in Boston, people from Somerville can go here to use their services.

1.Can you tell me a little bit about the work you do in Greater Boston?
I started off as a tutor helping students for their GED requirements. When a teacher was out sick for awhile, I worked their as a teacher, so instead of working with individual students, I worked with a large group of students. I also help with college prep in terms of FAFSA forms, SATs, essay writing, and interview skills.

2.How is your organization dealing with the economic downturn? Is it affecting your organization? What about the population that your organization serves?
At least in the education group, the economic downturn has affected our supplies so instead of getting one book per student, we ask students to share their books. We’ve also been limited in “fun activities” like educational field trips and pizza parties. The economic downturn also affects who we help because there are definitely a lot more people that we are helping, ranging from people who sit on the streets with cups to people who just lost their homes because of foreclosures. With the downturn, we are obviously seeing larger amounts of people.

3.In your opinion, what is the main economic need in Somerville?
I think the strength of Somerville is the small businesses. So an economic need in Somerville would be to help these businesses out with possibly loan or interest forgiveness, which could keep these businesses stable, and in turn keep the area of Somerville stable.

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) Tufts Medical and Dental School because they provide the health services for the group.
b) Realtors in the area to try and find affordable housing.
c) Local government because they provide us funding.

Addressing Architectural Vulnerabilities

“While networked context shifts the focus away from interests onto people, it is also vulnerable to the architectural aspects of mediated environments. Even though most participants are primarily focused on the contexts in which they participate on social network sites, search (combined with massive media panic) has once again allowed adults to rain on teens’ parade and bosses to invade employees’ personal space. While the future of situational management in mediated environments is quite unknown, the context collisions in social networks have raised numerous questions about the right to privacy in digital public spaces. Context matters and people want to have some level of control over their audience. After all, ‘it is MY space!’” (Boyd).

I thought this was an interesting point made by Boyd in the reading, and one which we should discuss in creating our social networking map. Especially right now, before the true launch of the program, we need to address what kinds of architectural aspects of creating a mediated environment we are going to run into that might be a detriment to our project—we need to also ask ourselves how is the map might be vulnerable when put into the hands of the users. I think that issues of privacy will be at the forefront of potential hindrances because our social networking map is going to hold a tremendous amount of information about organizations, individuals, and their relationships in one very accessible place. Other issues that come to mind include determining the level of investment that is going to be needed in order for this project to be self-sustaining as opposed to constantly having a group (like us) devoted to researching and redefining relationships and other information. How should we work around this potential problem? What other areas of vulnerability does the class see for our project, and how can we address them before they become major issues?

Chi Omega

This week I interviewed the president of Tuft's Chi Omega (world's largest women's fraternal organization). Although, she was in a hurry because of midterms, I still got some useful information.

What is Chi Omega and its mission?
Chi Omega is a sisterhood that provides a network of friends and lifelong development for collegiate and alumnae members. Chi Omega is committed to personal integrity, excellence in academic and intellectual pursuits, inter-generational participation, community service, leadership opportunities, social enrichment.

Have you/are you interested in volunteering or working in Somerville/Medford? (you, being part of Chi Omega)

I personally volunteer in other organization on campus in the somervile/medford area but specifically chi omega had girls help out in a local soup kitchen last year and every fall we bake cookies/brownies/etc for local police and fire depts. I am definitely interested in learning about new volunteer opportunities. In addition, through our fundraising events chi omega also raises money for our boston chapter Make a Wish Foundation.

What "economic recovery assets" do/could you bring to Somerville?

Well, Chi omega along with other sororities on campus raised money and participated in the BARCC walk to help the boston area Rape Crisis Center. I guess you can say we helped this organization with funding their services for the area. (not completely sure we do any economic recovering of assets) --> I guess they are not our main target...

How large is your organization on campus?

Right now we have 70 girls on campus and 2 abroad

(If relevant) What is your perception of the economic crises as it pertains to Somerville/Medford?
It seems like many areas in boston, some businesses are having a harder time then others. I have seen a lot of business go out of business even my short two years here. I've noticed a lot of construction seemed to be halted or slowed (projects like fixing sidewalks-- take a lot longer than expect--maybe due to funding?).
Its difficult to really gauge the economic crises of somerville/medford since I spend a majority of my time in the tufts bubble where I am constantly surrounded by students who do not reflect the economic status of the area in which we live.

[This made me think about our conversation about "being part of the community of Somerville" .... while we are in the "Tufts bubble"]


*** Last - she gave me her contact info. but she begged me not to publicize it.

Danah Boyd

I was really excited to see Danah Boyd on our reading list because even though some of her research has already become a little outdated, I find it extremely insightful. In fact, last year someone in a Sociology class of mine passed me along this link (http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html) to a blog post she wrote that continues to make me view social networking sites in a totally different way. Before I read it, despite my love of Facebook, I always felt like the website was a little elitist. I used to describe wall posts as twenty first century calling cards for college students. When I read Boyd's article about the class differences between Facebook and MySpace, I felt like she was articulating everything I was thinking but didn't know how to really explain. If you enjoyed this week's reading, I highly reccomend you go check it out.
The essay she writes reminds me that as much as we would like it to be, the Internet is not egalitarian and I think that is a lesson we need to think about with this map to. Successful websites are about finding a niche. Which leads to some important questions we need to answer. Who is are audience going to be? The leaders of the organizations we put on the map? The people who need the help? Members of organizations looking for other places to get involved? Then, we need to figure out how we are going to target them.

friends vs Friends

While reading "Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8," all I could think was 'wow, this is so outdated.' It was published only three years ago, yet it doesn't include Facebook in its argument, and so I couldn't help but feel that it was behind the times. However, I felt the points Boyd makes are still pretty accurate. The role online "friendships" plays in real life relationships, the great publicity benefit social networks provide for media figures, and the incredible social organizing abilities of these social networks are all very true. All that aside, I am not quite sure what this whole "friend" situation has to do with our network map. The goal was never to implement a "friend" application to the site, right? I see how connections between "friend" links and our network map can be drawn - "collector friends" are similar to hubs and the social organizing aspect is certainly similar - but they differ in one key way: our map requires no acceptance/denial of a created link. I feel that because of this difference, most of Boyd's points can't be applied to our map. One thing I guess it does bring up, though, is the importance of defining a "link" in our map. Obviously "friends" in these social networks doesn't actually translate into a true friendship in real life, so we definitely want to make sure the links between organizations on our map are legitimate.