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.