Videos

There are now two new embedded videos on the site. One, blogs in plain english, is on the content page.




I am going to be looking at how we can do some "plain english" descriptions of how to add content to your Community Internet site. If you know anyone who has experience with online instructional videos and would be willing to help, let me know.

The other video, an interview with me by Steve Clift of eDemocracy, is on the About page. It is a brief description of what the purpose of the Northern Community Internet is and how eDemocracy fits into it.





I think we need to do more of these as a way for people to talk about what they see as important. Testimonials if you will.

Ross Williams
The Northern Community Internet
http://www.northerncommunityinternet.org/
A project of Northern Community Radio (91.7 KAXE)

New Site Updates

Several new updates have been added: 

Lists of the most recently added web sites, blogs and news sources have been added on the front page. These are just the five most recent additions. The idea is to encourage people to add their content.  

The news page now includes a search of the news articles, similar to the classifieds search. These are simple searches of content based on a single word or string. The search includes the full content of a story where that is included in the feed, even if we are only using a snippet to display the link to the story.

We have received recent requests from several local communities that are interested in having their own web site. The development site now reflects this with communities where we don't yet have active content or a domain displayed. 

Bemidji Community Internet Management Team Meeting

Meeting notes: Thursday, March 19, 2009 – 5 p.m.
Northwest Technical College

Present: Michael Meuers, Jeff Ueland, Katie Carter, Debbie Warne-Jacobson, Dennis Montgomery

The management group meeting was held at Northwest Technical College. The agenda for the meeting was to review the site for those who did not have a chance to do so during the last meeting, assess where we are at as a management group, discuss getting content contributors, and reforming the journalism club. With the attendance of Katie Carter, editor of the Community Supported Journalism project, much of the discussion focused on the CSJ section of the site. We also had an update from Jeff Ueland on plans to grow the eDemocracy forum in Bemidji.

The following items were discussed:

Community Journalism

• Expand the stories on the CSJ page beyond the stories sponsored by the CPB grant and solicit additional stories from the community on topics other than the designated issue.
• Stories would go to Katie for editing and a decision on if the story is appropriate for the site, and the location for the story.
• Katie would also be open to receiving press releases from community members for posting.
• Michael Meuers who works in public relations for the Red Lake Government, is interested in sending the press releases he generates to be posted as stories on the CSJ page. He will start emailing them to Katie.
• There was discussion about what types of news should be on the CSJ page vs. the News Page. It was the consensus that the majority of the stories that appear on that page should be original content that is created either by the CSJ project, or submitted to Katie via stories or press releases, and all content should be directly created by the community.
• We would need to have a way to visually label the stories that are part of the CPB grant.
• It was suggested to avoid confusion that the “News” page and left nav link should be renamed “News Feeds" to distinguish it from the original content on the CSJ page.
• There needs to be an easy way for people to send stories to Katie for inclusion on the site if they don’t have their own blog. A link on the page “Submit a Story to CSJ” or something similar, that links to a form where content contributors can send in stories and photos.
• There was some discussion about having an op-ed section, or whether the blogs feed fulfilled that.
• Add more stories on main front page, instead of just the lead.

Story ideas

• Michael Meuers is interested in doing a story on the recent local election
• Jeff Ueland is going to the Unconference sponsored by eDemocracy, and agreed to write a story about that.
• Interview Barb Meuers about why she consistently votes “no” on the Events Center.

Journalism Club

• There was discussion about restarting the journalism club. Katie would take the lead at meetings. Dennis is going to send out an email to those who have participated in the past and let them know we have an editor, a redesigned site, and are ready to use stories generated by the club.

Other site notes:

• Add a Link under “Your Community Missing?” that says “What do you think about this site?” in order to generate more feedback. Have a page to post the comments
• Local Search – would like to see categories here.
• “Contact Your Elected Officials” - Would like to see a place on the site that lists all local elected officials and links to their sites. There was some discussion about what would be considered a local official, everyone who represents you up to the office of president?
• eDemocracy
  Jeff is attending the unconference in Duluth
  Jeff is going to be working to have people table at parades and other summer gatherings to grow the eDemocracy list
• Management Teams
  We need a stable management team as there are different people at each meeting. We need to talk about how to accomplish that.

Meetings

We’ll continue to meet one Thursday per month. Dennis will email about our next meeting.

Maggie Notes from KAXE staff meeting

Community Internet Meeting
3/24/09

Ross:  working on outreach, creating business cards for those working on the
community websites.  Griff Wigley is coming on April 23-24.  He's looking
for meeting space in Brainerd, Bemidji, Grand Rapids and the Range.  In
addition to daytime presentations, Griff will make an evening presentation,
probably in Bemidji.
       Would like to create more "action areas" when people go to the
website.  Has to discuss this with Debbie W-J.  Also, the search is still
not working properly.  Sam is busy and hasn't notified Ross about when it
will be fixed.
       The problem with getting past the captchas is generally related to
whether a person has "cookies enabled."
       Ross has created an NCI news blog for the website and a NCI updates
blog for organizing.  He also set up a Twitter feed for CSJ stories, but at
this point that feed takes you to the blogsite rather than the website.
There is also a NCICSJ Twitter feed for whenever Katie posts a story.
       Ross needs help publicizing the e-Democracy meeting with Steven
Clift next Thursday in Grand Rapids and would like to do some short "5 new
things on the community website" phoners on the Morning Show.

Heidi:  Said she did not send out an NCI Buzz last week, but will do that
this week.  Some things that might go into the Buzz are:  5 new things on
the websites, the e-Democracy meeting, recruiting volunteers to work on the
site.  She is attending the Unconference in Duluth next week and will
participate in the "fish bowl."

Scott:  Said not much is going on.  Discussed putting the "5 new things" on
colored paper on the clipboard to read:  "New today on NCI..."

Dan:  no report/no help needed

Penny:  no report/no help needed

John:  Submitted a grant for $15,000 to Enbridge Energy

Stephanie:  Talking to Iron World

Katie:  Has been ending news articles with a question, hoping to generate
more discussion/feedback.  Covered last Friday's nonprofit survival summit
in Bemidji.  Looking for writers/contributors.  Would like people to comment
on stories to encourage others to contribute their observations and
information to the site.

Jennifer:  Need to promote individual contributions more on the air.

Maggie Montgomery
91.7 KAXE
www.kaxe.org

Local Management Teams

The ultimate goal of the Northern Community Internet project is to strengthen local communities by providing a local internet for each community in the Lakes and Forest Region of northern Minnesota.  

The purpose of the local web sites is to provide a place where people can easily find the content on the internet that is created by and for their local community.  The local sites are inclusive, not competitive with other local content. For instance, while each site has a calendar, it also has links to other community calendars people in the community are maintaining. While it pulls news feeds with links to stories from a variety of sources, it also includes links to the websites of news organizations who do not provide links.  

To include all of a communities content, three needs to be a group of people in each community to solicit, organize and manage content created by and for people in their community.  That is the role of the management teams. Below is a description of some of those roles.  People interested in learning more about the local management team or are interested in getting involved can use the feedback form at:  http://www.northerncommunityinternet.org/register/feedback.php

Community Internet Management Team 

Responsibilities:

The responsibility of the management team is to promote the use of the internet to build and strengthen its local community.

It is responsible for identifying needs in its community and customizing the local Community Internet site where possible to meet those needs or making recommendations for changes to the Northern Community Internet network to better meet community needs. Where appropriate, it may also develop new features unique to its local community. 

It is expected that the role and structure of the management team will evolve as the Northern Community Internet project develops with additional areas of responsibility. Management of local content will be done by local Coordinators who are members of the management team. The management team is responsible establishing guidelines for coordinators regarding local site content and hearing appeals from their decisions.*

Specific Roles (Management team members may take more than one role):

Calendar Coordinator:

The calendar coordinator is responsible for managing content of the local community calendar and links.

Search Coordinator:

The Search Coordinator ensures that the local sites being searched fit the Management Team's definition of local content and reviews search results to identify where they are not returning appropriate results. They will also assign organize and assign sites to categories.

News Coordinator

Responsible for managing links to local news stories and from local news feeds.

eDemocracy Forum Manager

The eDemocracy Forum Manager will fulfill the responsibilities established by eDemocracy and coordinate the eDemocracy forum with other Community Internet efforts.

Training Coordinator

Responsible for identifying local training needs and organizing trainings to allow people in the community to make more and better use of the Community Internet site.

Blog Coordinator

Manages blogs to assure that they meet the management team's guidelines for local blogs.

Photo Coordinator

Manages photo banner and other contributed photographs in consultation with web designer.

*Legal Disclaimer: Decisions are subject to review by the Northern Community Internet staff and ultimately by the Board of Directors of Northern Community Radio.

Maggie's Notes from KAXE Staff Discussion

Some observations about/suggestions for the community internet site 3/13/09

1) It isn’t obvious when you first go to the site that you’re supposed to submit material to it. It looks like a tightly controlled news consumption site—the participation elements are not as readily apparent as they should be. Maybe the text that says “add a blog” should be larger/bolder, for example. Also need a sentence or phrase that makes it obvious (Here’s how to add content or This is your page—we want your content!). The language in the “MORE/community experience” section link at the top of the page is outdated. Would also like it to be clear the CSJ section is soliciting participation and input. Would a poll help? Contest? Etc…

2) There should be a few CSJ stories to choose from on the front page, with a headline and maybe a teaser each, rather than just one at a time. The one story won’t appeal to everyone and not everyone knows to click through to find more.

3) The donation aspect of the site should be more obvious. Need an orange button that says DONATE, and maybe a DONATE or $5 (tip jar) button by each article in the CSJ section. Need some text about micro-sponsorships “building a new economic model—sponsoring a writer, beat or story…”

4) Is there a way to put borders around the photos?

5) An older person has said he could not read the page. The color is maybe too gray and we wondered if a different font might be more legible.

6) There should be a link to the regional classifieds on every town’s individual classified site.

7) The contribution page should go directly to the online payment page rather than the feedback page.

8) Add some “share” buttons for FB and email

9) Katie would like a “contact the editor” button.

10) Would also like a “site manager’s blog” added.

11) Easy way for everyone to look at Google Analytics to evaluate traffic

12) Feedback and “how to” tabs at the top of the page are hard to find.

Other: KAXE role in publicity should be better—Do a “5-new-things-on-the-site” report each week? Micro-sponsorship? Participation? Need to do more work to support journalism clubs and management teams.

Asking your opinion on Want Ads - Dan Houg

From Dan Houg:

As a buying and seller of strange items, I would like to see the want ads for each region featured with Northern Community Internet consolodated so that an item posted from one site is displayed on ALL the sites. I find it cumbersome to navigate to individual towns or back to northerncommunityinternet.org to check the regional ads.