- Can you tell me a little bit about the work you do in Somerville? (Make sure you check out their website first too!)
- How is your organization dealing with the economic downturn? Is it affecting your organization? What about the population that your organization serves?
- In your opinion, what is the main economic need in Somerville?
- 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 couple things to remember:
- Contact your organizations on Thursday or Friday so they have plenty of time to respond
- Offer to contact them via phone if they prefer
Half way through my first attempt to contact and question a Sommerville organization and I would like to report that it is going well. I have contacted the Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership, an organization with a totally good acronym STEP. STEP advocates for better transportation resources in Somerville, especially Green and Orange Line extensions. I beleive that STEP is an organization that is working on projects that have ecconomic recovery potential. It will be interesting to see how they answer the questions and if they identify the same potential that I see.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the technical aspect of contacting an off campus organization it has thus far gone smoothly. I sent and email, got a response from the webmaster who forwarded the questions along to the President of STEP. Now I just have to cross my fingers and hope that I get a response back.
I wish I could say that I had the same luck as Daniel, but unfortunately the Somerville farmer's market turned down the opportunity to contribute to the social networking map. I was successful in contacting them through email and by phone for a follow-up, but the woman whom I spoke with denied both options to answer the questions we drafted out in class. She did however allow me to use information on their website and add the farmer's market to the network. So, in the end I do not think it was an absolute failure.
ReplyDeleteIn the process of being denied, by email and phone, the woman which I spoke with raised a few issues that might be able to help us in the future when we approach other organizations. First, she was a little confused about how her organization can specifically effect the economic down turn. She felt this issue was outside her area of influence, and might prove to be a waste of time to be involved with. Because she is a one woman operation she said that she needs to be careful with how she spends her time with potential projects like ours because they might not prove viable. The social network is unproven, by her standards, and this makes it difficult to approach organizations. From this experience I think we need to develop a better pitch for organizations like farmer's market that dont have any direct effect on the current economic situation, or just some way to get them involved.
Bad news. As of 5:19 PM on Wednesday I still haven't heard back from the president of STEP and thus am holding off on adding them to the map until I hear back. I will contact her again tomorrow.
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