Even though the Saving the Sierra project websites aesthetics felt a little archaic, I thought the methods for community building and tacking the community’s issues were incredibly forward thinking. Not only was there the task of figuring out how to preserve the culture, economy and environment of the Sierra Nevada community, project coordinators had an additional layer to navigate. How do you construct community dialogue and build bridges in a rural, thus an incredibly spread out population with diverse stakeholders? It’s not like you can easily call a town hall meeting.
This project website offers a myriad of very well organized tools and technologies for individuals to learn, engage and discover solutions to the issues at hand. The radio podcast, storyboard platform and blog were great tools to share their stories however I thought there were three components that elevated the community building strength of the project.
First is the well-organized presentation. Being able to navigate stories and conversations based on particular interests, especially in the blog area, makes it so easy for people to connect with others based on particular issues or interests. The second is the Storybooth map. This is a powerful tool for dealing with the geographical challenges a rural population. Allowing the user to see the location of various storytellers, issues and successes allows users to make additional connections based on proximity. Third, I thought the link to the toolkit through the Sierra Business Council, a collaborator on the project, was a great additional resource that allowed people to dive deep into understanding the issues and get connected to take action.
It’s too bad that the Saving the Sierra project is defunct but it’s wonderful that the site is kept in tact to serve as an archive of stories and even more so, a showcase of possibility of generating community and collaborative problem solving in a digital space.
PS: DON’T FORGET TO CHECK OUT PROJECT WEBSITE SURVIVE GRAD SCHOOL AND POST A COMMENT!!
Questions for Jesikah: By now she has plenty of projects under her belt to prove she can “ map out and produce and plan and curate a really kick-ass program” but I’m curious how, she gains the trust of both the organizations she works with in order to get buy in and how she gains the trust of the stakeholders involved to get them to participate. What does she feel are the key components in getting stakeholders to participate?
I love that you brought up the idea of the town hall meeting. Perhaps it is getting harder to get people to gather in the same physical space, so is the future of the town hall an online, digital space? What if communities could have a forum for constantly posting and discussing issues online? Could communities both rural and urban benefit from this kind of structure surrounding their own local issues?
Wouldn’t that be cool. I definitely see that it could be useful not only for rural areas but for the busy lives of urban dwellers. I can see this being a successful platform for folks who are interested in the peak oil/transition/self sufficiency movement. There are plenty of groups to be a part of but for those who aren’t crazy die hards, What a great way to build community and increase preparedness based on interests, skills, knowledge and geographic locations.
I’m usually a glass half full kind of gal but there is some harsh realities in the shifts taking place that will increasingly threaten our everyday comforts if not our very survival. I wonder if building awareness, getting people engaged and connected is too hard in the real world. Maybe a digital platform would be a safer and more efficient means to strengthen the communities that we’ll end up needing the most? Do you see other local issues that might benefits from this kind of structure?
I too felt the Saving the Sierra project’s over all “look and feel” felt outdated. But, if someone decides to bring life into the project, they will have plenty of rich content to chose from. I can see how the site can easily be updated to include current audience engagement tools that we’ve seen other sites use.
Also, I think your Survive Grad School project needs to sponsor a “we survived the first quarter of grad school” happy hour. 😉
Good point on the Happy Hour, in fact it’s in the works so stay tuned!
Lindsey,
I would be curious what you think of http://www.upworthy.com/
It is a super-millenial do-gooder post-Witness site that uses media to…(?) I’m still not totally sure, but I do note that it is new and shiny and getting tons of attention. Upworthy.
I think that building sustained community online is actually really hard (think of how Move On tries) and that meeting in the real world is how to get momentum going and build support to make online more meaningful.
What do you think of this Move On offshoot called Living Room Conversations?
http://www.livingroomconversations.org/
Oh I love UpWorthy, I follow them on Facebook. I really appreciate that rather than having a specific issue, agenda or call to action they simply curated inspirational real life stories of people that are making a positive impact on our society. A totally different media approach to solving social issues just by sharing the good stuff. Oh to imagine what the world would be like if mass media focused even 50% of its stories about good things happening in the world!
By the way though I usually just tap into their stories via Facebook, I did just visit their website and saw that they are hiring. I’m not a media wonk but thought I’d apply just for fun. But if you know anyone who fits the bill….
As for livingroomconversations.org, the Tea Party creates “transpartisanship” with MoveOn.org, who would have guessed! With so much fighting on dividing issues, I can’t imagine that most people, on their own, think about the value that could come out of creating an intentional space to have dialogue with someone from “the other side”.
It’s such a simple thought; we are all humans and have so much more in common than what we realize. If we can connect and care for other side,and realize the common ground that we share, it really is a great place for finding solutions that can benefit us all. Is it an idealist pipe dream? Maybe.
Both of these are great examples of the possibilities of creating social change through a positive lens that shows that humanity really can be elevated. Thanks for sharing.
Yes, I think that Saving the Sierra’s message was strong despite its at-times clunky format, and this was probably due to its compelling focus on community. One thing that I was a but put off by was the rating system on each individual audio story. Most people didn’t get above four stars…seemed to me a bit negative for a community-building project.
Oh good point, I’m not even sure I caught that. I wonder why they decided to implement a rating system? Perhaps it was thought that a rating system could help people navigate to the most relevant stories but that could be different for each user. In general ratings can be a tremendous help in sorting through vast amounts of options we all have, but I think your right, this doesn’t seem to be an appropriate platform to implement.
jesikah addresses all of these questions in her interview — and it must be understood that the piece was created in 2007 and active until 2010.