Comments on: Google Meeting and Various Notes on the Project thus Far

By: robert

robert — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:33:58 +0000

greensboro will never support anything in the county except, sports moves away , residenst move away and here we are left with the planet of the apes. council members suck up to who ever has the biggest undertable funds and so here we are back to the beggining. nothing solved and everyone happy. and for the mayor of greensboro, who the hell is it? does anyone know whos incharge anymore?

By: ryan shell

ryan shell — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:41:09 +0000

Actually, no, I don’t feel the need to state that I worked for a firm that has not been mentioned. Even if they had been, I don’t see a huge need to say I worked there for a year as there is no conflict – and I’m not going to go back and forth with you about that.

I look forward to seeing your continued support for this effort.

By: Roch101

Roch101 — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:53:26 +0000

I don’t think I jumped the gun, Ryan. I think AG and the firm that shall not be named* jumped the gun — and behind closed doors. Instead, they might have considered using the meeting last night as an opportunity to explain their proposals, perhaps inviting public participation; or they might have focused on some other way to contribute if their online offer was take-it-or-leave all-or-nothing. But to simply vanish instead, to not even come to the meeting, that’s really weird.

* If I were writing about a firm I used to work for, I would probably mention it.

By: ryan shell

ryan shell — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:25:58 +0000

Roch, it just seems like the City and the org were trying to provide a jumping off point. You created a site as well – who provided input or was it behind closed doors? And the PR firm has a web presence, you might just not be part of it. But the effort has stopped (so I’m told), and we don’t have a site… Also, that PR firm has done a great job with other social media efforts – I think you, and others jumped the gun, but that’s just me.

I think we agree on some things, but disagree on others, which is fine.

If you think I’m leaving something out, please do inform me.

By: Roch101

Roch101 — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:01:06 +0000

Is there something you are leaving out?

By: Roch101

Roch101 — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:54:46 +0000

“To those that griped – unless you’re planning to develop it yourself…”

I “griped.” I wasn’t alone. I griped because what was underway, as I came to understand it, was a behind the scenes effort by an organization that has demonstrated no enthusiasm for participating in the local online community to hire a PR firm, also absent from the local online community, with invitation-only input to selected individuals, to “manage” the social media aspects of this endeavor. So, I took your advice.

Yes, the city needs a web page on their site. It should do three things:

1. Update citizens.
2. Solicit citizens’ input.
3. Link out to online places where people are talking about this.

They also need to participate in social media. But they do not need to, indeed cannot genuinely, take control of it. To that end, they must start a blog, join the Facebook group already begun (2,300+ members), start Twittering and offer a widget that distributes their news to blogs and web pages on which it is installed.

Oh, and the mayor? He was at a North Carolina mayor’s conference — an excused absence. But I agree with you, he needs to start talking this up. And thanks for the link to Google4GSO.com