Online Community Building

& e-Activism

WELCOME!

Presenters• David Keyes, Seattle Department of Infomration

Technology- Community Technology Program • Phillip Duggan, Pinehurst Community Council &

City of Seattle technology advisory board• Joe Szilagyi, Westwood-Roxhill-Arbor Heights

Community Council & West Seattle Transit Coalition• Vicky Yuki , Seattle Department of Infomration

Technology- Community Technology Program• Host: Lindsey Greene, PACE Intern, Seattle

Department of Neighborhoods

When do we join in – offline or online?

Communication takes a lot of work!

• See scale on seattle.gov/CommunitiesOnline

MultichannelUp-to-dateInteractive

Diverse participation

OutdatedBrochure

AdoptionLow TechLow Engagement

Low TechHigh Engagement

High TechLow Engagement

High TechHigh Engagement

Online participants may be…

1. Visitors: Occasionally view content2. Followers: Subscribe to watch announcements regularly (via RSS, listserv, tweet, friending)3. Participators: Contribute content - comments, votes, ask questions4. Engagement leaders: Authors initial content, leads and encourages participation by others5. Managers: Responsible for overseeing a site that produces and distributes content or engagement (eg neighborhood blog manager)

Tools: expanding or exploding

Wordpress is one of the easiest to get started and build on.

See Rainer Valley Greenways for an example

Creating Community Solutions Nat’l Dialogue on Mental Health

http://www.creatingcommunitysolutions.org/resources

INNOVTIONS

The Conundrum!

• Post it where? How often?• Email• Facebook• Twitter• Website• Street kiosk• Newspaper• Etc etc etc

What’s working for us?

http://www.pinehurstseattle.org (update coming soon)

Email List (~400 people)

F A C E B O O K

What We’reNot Embracing

(yet)

What Next For Pinehurst?• More involvement – We’ve got 400-600 people in a

9600 person neighborhood on our various lists.– A small fraction of that participate regularly.

• More diversity of participation:– Race, income, renters– Group 001200-3 has a median income of $26,786 and is

Whites:65.5%, Hispanics:5.1%, Blacks:12.8%, Asians:12.9%, Others:8.8%

– Group 000600-6 has a median income of $75,750 and is Whites:59.6%, Hispanics:7.1%, Blacks:9.4%, Asians:21.6%, Others:9.4%

• Other tools?

What’s working for us?

wwrhah.wordpress.com

How we used the Internet for two West Seattle groups

WWRHAH Group: Mostly documentation

Facebook is our main meeting spaceWe use Facebook polling heavily

WSTC Group:Mostly to establish our presence

To advertise our meetings

"Power resides where men believe it resides; it's a trick, a shadow on the wall, and a very small man can cast a very large shadow."

What we do with the

West Seattle Transportation Coalition

(WSTC)

How the WSTC did it

in our first six months

from September 2013 to now

Small discussion

• What’s working for us?• What’s not?• What would we like to do?

• 89% have cell phones • 58% have smart phones• More laptops (72%) & mobile (smartphone &

tablets, 66%) than desktops (55%). • Higher education: more likely to use and own

computer, smartphone or tablet.• Those with more than one internet device tend

to be younger, male, and have more income.

Results of Seattle Tech Survey

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Smart phone Laptop Tablet

38

50

14

6676

44

7684

68

PERCENT

Technology Ownership - Mobile Internet DevicesUnder-represented groups compared to phone and online survey

respondents

Under-representedGroups

Phone survey

Online survey

35

• Skills & uses show more gaps than access

• Education & income show greatest differences• Age & ethnicity too

• About ¼ not comfortable using attachments.

• Trust & privacy barriers remain

Adoption

Social media use by age

• 53% participate in community group• ¾ want to share opinion electronically• Email preferred• Facebook mentioned more by least educated in

phone survey

37Engagement

Disabilities Latino Vietnamese Ethiopian Somali Af-American Chinese0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

4543

3329

2523

21

5

How many want to give opinion via Facebook From focus groups . Note that Chinese community uses QQ, a similar site in Chinese

Conclusions

–Plan to combine on and offline–Let people know what’s coming and

how–Don’t assume they know it–Build in skills training

Campaign Planning

• Online & offline activities• What leads people to online• What leads people to offline• How to use tech at events• Use something well…A small crowded room

The most popular social media sites

Planning & Expanding your toolkit

Which one is most useful?

Tools Available on Seattle.govBlogs & Social Media Sites of Seattle Officials & Departments seattle.gov/html/citizen/socialmedia.htm

Neighborhoods on the Net seattle.gov/communitiesonline/neighborhoods.htm

Tools Available on Seattle.govPublic Internet: seattle.gov/tech/publicInternet

Event Calendar:seattle.gov/calendar

Strategy exercise

• Pick a topic and plan activities on and offline over 4 months.

Tips for multilingual

• Bing/Google translate can be embedded• Don’t rely on them• Short abstract can be enough to identify

interest• Better deep than wide• Consider using video shorts • Translation teams needed

Online Community Building & e-Activism

Thanks! Feedback?Next?

Other good e-civic resources

• Matt Leighninger: Deliberative Democracy Coalition– Using

Online Tools to Engage – and be Engaged by –The Public

• America Speaks

• Non-profit tech resources: Idealware.org & Techsoup.org

Taproot Foundation

Tweet a message from their web site when you sign up to volunteer.

• Where to look up whether a web site address (url or domain name) are taken: http://www.internic.net/whois.html

• Fundraising: • PBS article on crowdfunding tools (alt to

Kickstarter fees)