SPIF Recruitment Task Force
From E-Democracy.org
Contents
SPIF Recruitment Task Force
Volunteers (various levels of commitment):
- David Hutcheson
- Mitch Berg
- Martin Owings
- John Harris
- Eva Young
- - (sign up here) -
- - (sign up here) -
- - (sign up here) -
- - (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:
- To voice your opinion in your community
- To learn about other issues in your community, and other approaches to those issues.
- Because its read by elected officials and community leaders
- (insert here)
- (insert here)
- (insert here)
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