forums as a central figure. You've put so much heart and soul into
this, I am glad you are taking a break.
My sense is that the meaty exchange at this level you've attempted
needs to evolve from a more casual community life exchange foundation.
Chicken and egg, but a focus on one or two of the largest forums to
encourage very local community announcement sharing and getting people
to use the forum as a place to get recommendations on local service
providers is important. These utility uses have proven themselves at
attracting everyday people.
Our in-depth civic issues at the neighborhood level wouldn't work if
we didn't have the more social exchange generating 80% of the traffic.
Obviously the lesson here is that despite strong information needs, it
is better to have a vibrant exchange going before disaster strikes.
As you can tell from our blog, we are flat out crazy with our funded
work, but we'd love to share our lessons:
http://blog.e-democracy.org/posts/1260
Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
ย Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org
ย Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy
ย New Tel: +1.612.234.7072