SPIF Recruitment Task Force

SPIF Recruitment Task Force

Volunteers (various levels of commitment):

1. David Hutcheson
2. Mitch Berg
3. Martin Owings
4. John Harris
5. Eva Young
6. - (sign up here) -
7. - (sign up here) -
8. - (sign up here) -
9. - (sign up here) -

Resources

SPIF or Feedback Discussions

• Participation by Women in SPIF
• Suggestion for the Betterment of SPIF
• Changes for the next year
• More comments....

Ideas

General Recruitment Ideas:

• Using tools like MySpace and Facebook to recruit younger participants
• Working through schools to interact with young people
• Partner with other organizations to increase awareness about SPIF
• Do a better job of demonstrating that its "worth their time"
• Recruit at the various blogger events
  • Come up with some sense of why a blogger would *want* to participate in a forum like this. What's in it for a blogger?
  • Cooperate with blogger groups (like "True North" and/or "Minnesota Monitor", among others) on events, group coverage of elections/candidates/issues.
  • Explicitly recruit (or republish with permission) bloggers to comment on specific SPIF-area issues on the forum. This is the sort of decentralized viral growth that made blogs matter in the first place; when in Rome...
• Speakers bureau - set up presentations for schools and colleges
• Recruit at art events
• Recruit at events like:
  • Gay Pride,
  • Cinco de Mayo
  • Juneteeth
  • Hmong Resource Fair
  • - (insert specific suggestion)
  • - (insert specific suggestion)
• Recruit among republicans and conservatives:
  • - (insert specific suggestion)
  • - (insert specific suggestion)
• Reduce the rules in SPIF
• Have an "anything goes day" every week or month
• In an era where Blogger/MuNu/Typepad, Youtube, BlogTalkRadio, MySpace, and ubiquitous electronics have given *everyone* a medium for communicating in a non-hierarchical, authority-proof, self-driven way about any subject they want, instantly, with society-altering results, what exactly *are* the upsides to being involved in a rigidly-structures hierarchical group like SPIF? To be "on-message" with potential "recruits", the message has to pass the stink test. I think there are ways to *make* it pass, but I don't think SPIF is there yet (from my humble perspective).
  • Possible Answers
  • To reach a St. Paul specific audience that includes community leaders, local journalists, and elected officials.
  • Because SPIF is easy to use and attractive to folks with limited internet skills (or is it??)
  • Because lots of folks don't know how to use those other tools. Almost everyone knows how to read and send an email.
  • Because of the rules, people have some good sense of what to expect in SPIF

Recruiting Women

• Why Women Don't Participate More

• women "have a style that focuses on building personal relationships and Internet media are inherently NOT personal"
• uncomfortable with 'offline' responses (private emails) which can seem abusive and threatening
• too many of the existing women on the forum are such poor models of online discussion. Need some fresh blood.

• Strategies to encourage more women to join and/or post to SPIF:

• Personal invitations (face to face)
• Women only events (face to face)
• Unlimited posting for women
• A women only forum (or online event)
• Personal invitations to women to participate in SPED committee work
• Specifically solicit cross-posts from female bloggers on SPIF-related issues.
• Figure out a way to address specific and personal offline e-attacks on posters from males SPIFers; we can't directly "regulate" that, of course, but if we put our heads together about this we should be able to figure out something
• Do a better job of redirecting "uncivil" or "aggressive" comments towards a civil discussion

Why Participate

When recruiting diverse voices to the forum, what are some reasons that we might give about why someone would participate in SPIF:

1. To voice your opinion in your community
2. To learn about other issues in your community, and other approaches to those issues.
3. Because its read by elected officials and community leaders
4. (insert here)
5. (insert here)
6. (insert here)