Questions - Neighbors Online "Joiners" Attributes
Summary
- There are 5 posts — by 2 authors — in this topic.
-
Posts with files From File Date Steven Clift 2010 Jul 08 17:09 UTC - Latest post made by Steven Clift at 2010 Aug 18 13:46 UTC
Aaron, thank you for participating in our Q and A. I have one final question, as hosts of local online blogs, e-lists, social nets, etc. we are interested in understanding more about what value our members and efforts can bring to the wider community. For example, when I encourage an elected official or civil servant constructively engage one of our forums, I have to answer the "so what" question. Part of that answer is, the people we've gathered are influentials, they know their neighbors, they get involved (or we say to a prospective members this is a place to effectively start doing those things). As we resource inclusive outreach, we can add - you'll reach a greater diversity in the community that at anyone physical meeting. I am not sure whether to cleave off blog visitors or informal neighbor to neighbor e-mailers with this question, but I am in particular interested in knowing more about the attributes of the "joiners" of nhood e-mail lists and social nets compared to everyone else. What percentage of Neighborhood E-List/Social Net Joiners and/or Neighbors Online (compared others): * know all or most of their neighbors * talked face-to-face with neighbors about community issues * discussed community issues over the telephone * read a blog dealing with community issues * exchanged emails with neighbors about community issues * say they belong to a community email listserv (if looking at NOs overall) * communicated with neighbors by text messaging on cell phones * joined a social network site group connected to community issues (if looking at NOs overall) * followed neighbors using Twitter * Subscribe to school event alerts * Subscribe to crime alerts * Are also online government participators (I think you shared this once) * Say they deal with most often...local government, state government or the federal government? * Have posted online on a government issue I am not sure how long this might take you to churn out. Perhaps, there is an easy way to run NOs/e-list/sn "joiners" across all the responses and I can dig for the nuggets?? Also, with the data available, for those with SPSS skills, what might you be able to tell us? Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy New Tel: +1.612.234.7072
This is not directly on-point but I wanted to observe that I see a big difference between online/website/blog and email. When I started the WestwoodBlog, some people said they didn't think it was necessary because "everybody just emails." People percieve the website and email lists as very different things. Many people in town have these distribution lists of friends and will informally blast around a chain email that flies completely under the radar of everything else. There are "listservs" run by the town...and people are very unsophisticated about subscribe/unsubscribe concepts. Most people are just like "add me to the list" and I think many people routinely just upload a big list of addresses to these things without the consent of anyone...and no one complains. But they are terrified to post on the blog. I don't know if "terrified" is the right word, but I know people are extremely reluctant to engage in "public" conversations...and yet I will see these emails with hundreds of addresses in the cc lines (I've introduced a few people to the concept of bccing such a blast.) Those emails DO NOT turn into threads or discussions. They are one-way and people like it that way. Just some counter-intuitive observations I've seen... Dave Atkins Content Developer, Analyst & Strategist http://davewrites.com http://westwoodblog.org 781-929-5850 Contact Me [image: Linkedin] <http://linkedin.com/in/daveatkins>[image: Facebook] <http://facebook.com/daveatkins>[image: Twitter]<http://twitter.com/daveatkins>
--- @ WiseStamp Signature<http://my.wisestamp.com/link?u=q3jfc467dwbqfxmg&site=www.wisestamp.com/email-install>. Get it now<http://my.wisestamp.com/link?u=q3jfc467dwbqfxmg&site=www.wisestamp.com/email-install> On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 8:22 AM, Steven Clift <email obscured>> wrote: > Aaron, thank you for participating in our Q and A. > > I have one final question, as hosts of local online blogs, e-lists, social > nets, etc. we are interested in understanding more about what value our > members and efforts can bring to the wider community. > > For example, when I encourage an elected official or civil servant > constructively engage one of our forums, I have to answer the "so what" > question. Part of that answer is, the people we've gathered are > influentials, they know their neighbors, they get involved (or we say to a > prospective members this is a place to effectively start doing those > things). As we resource inclusive outreach, we can add - you'll reach a > greater diversity in the community that at anyone physical meeting. > > I am not sure whether to cleave off blog visitors or informal neighbor to > neighbor e-mailers with this question, but I am in particular interested in > knowing more about the attributes of the "joiners" of nhood e-mail lists > and > social nets compared to everyone else. > > What percentage of Neighborhood E-List/Social Net Joiners and/or Neighbors > Online (compared others): > > * know all or most of their neighbors > * talked face-to-face with neighbors about community issues > * discussed community issues over the telephone > * read a blog dealing with community issues > * exchanged emails with neighbors about community issues > * say they belong to a community email listserv (if looking at NOs overall) > * communicated with neighbors by text messaging on cell phones > * joined a social network site group connected to community issues (if > looking at NOs overall) > * followed neighbors using Twitter > * Subscribe to school event alerts > * Subscribe to crime alerts > * Are also online government participators (I think you shared this once) > * Say they deal with most often...local government, state government or the > federal government? > * Have posted online on a government issue > > I am not sure how long this might take you to churn out. Perhaps, there is > an easy way to run NOs/e-list/sn "joiners" across all the responses and I > can dig for the nuggets?? > > Also, with the data available, for those with SPSS skills, what might you > be > able to tell us? > > Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com > Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org > Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy > New Tel: +1.612.234.7072 > > Steven Clift > Ericsson, Minneapolis > Info about Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift > > View all messages on this topic at: > http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/28aZD2a1CLbs2RVjPKx1nI > ----------------------------------------- > To post, e-mail: <email obscured> > Use "Reply-to-All" via e-mail to post publicly. > To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" > in subject, then send to: <email obscured> > > More information about Locals Online - For hosts of neighborhood e-lists, > placeblogs, and community social nets: > http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/locals > > E-Democracy.Org rules: http://e-democracy.org/rules > ----------------------------------------- > Technical assistance thanks to our friends at http://OnlineGroups.Net > > Join Locals Online from: > http://e-democracy.org/locals > Also follow via Twitter, Facebook, and Web Feed >
Since I've asked Aaron a hefty question, he has promised to respond but we need to give him some time. No problem. Thanks, Aaron.
While I was on the road, Aaron sent me a gold mine of information in a set of cross-tabs. Thank you. I am really interested in what we can say about the "joiners" or those who register for local online e-mail lists and social networks. (They might not be different from regular community blog/site visitors ... something to suss out.) I've skimmed the findings, but need your help pulling out interesting items. Dig in and report back please. While can't predict the causal direction, check out this number: * 74% of those who talk digitally with their neighbors (77% of e-list members) have talked face-to-face about community issues with their neighbors compared to 46% overall We may just be an inherently neighborly bunch, but I am guessing that with the right promotional efforts that move millions of new people into our many distributed local online spaces, that we could measurably connect far more people face-to-face in their neighborhoods. This is a very important community building outcome and these numbers can help dispel the resistance from those who say online shouldn't replace face to face connections. Instead online appears to be the ultimate ice breaker for building neighbor to neighbor connections in the "real world" when applied with community building intent. The big question follow-up questions I'd like to ask "the people," is IF people knew about "Locals Online" opportunities would they join. Actually, I'd start with are you aware of a neighborhood e-mail list, social net, in your area? Did you join? If you are not aware of one, how likely are you to join if there was one in your area? My guess, 80% of those who were asked/encouraged by someone to join, joined. 60% of those who are aware of such online spaces overall have joined (only 10-15% would report being aware of such spaces) and 40% of those not aware of such spaces would say they would be likely to join (even more would visit particular community blogs). If people were simply aware of the many online spaces that currently exist we could double participation rates IMHO. We could take "joiners" from 15 million people up to 30 million and higher if we helped more "hosts" succeed with their own spaces to help cover the huge swatches of territory not currently served by neighborhood-level online public spaces. I could be wrong about this, but now with the Pew numbers we have an essential baseline and can track our collective progress. Time to get to work! Steven Clift E-Democracy.org
The following file was added to this topic:
Hey all, I wanted to share one more set of numbers Aaron provided me based on my request: Here's a comparison of different household income groups based on the percentage within each group who "talk digitally with neighbors": Among all adults Total: 22% Less than $30,000: 12% $30,000-$49,999: 20% $50,000-$74,999: 26% $75,000+: 39% Among internet users Total: 29% Less than $30,000: 19% $30,000-$49,999: 26% $50,000-$74,999: 29% $75,000+:41% ... Their study showed similar disparities in income with neighborhood e-mail list/forum participation and that confirms that in general the "collective we" are not reaching out or interesting lower income folks in same way we are reach the over $75K/yr crowd in particular. Historically most digital divide work - note the Digital Inclusion Network http://e-democracy.org/di that we also host - has focused on technology access, skill building, digital literacy and very little on "voice," community participation, or even content generation. Our own experience in low income, high immigrant neighborhoods - http://e-democracy.org/inclusion - suggests that with outreach efforts (resources) there is no reason to accept a path where "neighbors online" serves primarily high income areas/people. Hopefully we can all use these numbers to generate support for inclusion efforts that work. Steven Clift E-Democracy.org
Loading…
Design Party? Join our Projects volunteer online group to help design a new image for your local forum's home page.
Home - Mobile - Forums - Wiki - Blog - About - Help - Contact - People - Donate - Rules - Archives
Need help? Get support.
Creative Commons - Share our content with attribution
Hosted by E-Democracy.org. Sponsored by OnlineGroups.Net - easier email collaboration for your organization. Powered by GroupServer - open source web-based mailing list manager.