Local Resolutions Part 27 of 29

This is the twenty-seventh in a series of 29 ways to help your local community online in 2010. If you missed it, you may wish to read the introductory post.

In this post, I suggest that listening and conversing online is a great way to help strengthen your community from behind the comfort of your keyboard. This series has included recent posts about creating a Google map tour, displaying a local-pride bumper sticker, and sharing the link love.

It may surprise you that this simple but powerful suggestion is only now appearing in this series, third from the end.

Frankly, it surprises me, too. I outlined all twenty-nine resolutions before I announced the series, and each day I have chosen the one I most feel like writing about. There have been so many cool tools and shiny toys, so many theories and ideas, that kept me from this fundamental resolution until today.

Today’s resolution goes like this: Listen to other members of your community online. And talk to them.

That’s it. Today’s resolution is conversation.

Broadcasting isn’t enough

As many, many others have said, online media are not one-way. They’re not even two-way. Communication online is many-to-many, the first time in human history we’ve had the ability for the masses to talk to the masses.

Good social media consultants advise their clients to begin by listening. But that doesn’t just go for businesses. It goes for citizens as well.

To me, the greatest power of a medium like Twitter is its ability to serve as a finely-tuned ear to the ground. It’s like sitting around a dozen proverbial cracker barrels throughout your town. You can catch up on what’s happening and what’s on people’s minds, just by overhearing.

If you really care about your local community and want to make it better, that means you care about the people in your community and want the best for them. The most fundamental way of caring for (indeed of loving) other people is by hearing them and seeing them. You can’t love what you don’t know. To put it the opposite way, to know is to love.

So get online and pay attention.

Passively listening isn’t enough

And yet, care and concern without action is inadequate. It’s vital to precede action with listening, because otherwise all you’re doing is imposing your own plans and ideas on others. It is just as vital, though, to follow listening with action.

Many times, responding with words is action enough. Many of you reading this have more than once given me the gift of encouragement, of laughter, of sympathy, of imagination, and of appreciation through what you have said to me online—here in the comments on my blog, on Facebook, on Twitter, by instant message, and through e-mail.

If you hear that I’m struggling because I’m overwhelmed with housework, sure, you could come over and do laundry for me. In addition to being highly unlikely, it is often unnecessary. Encouraging me to take it one step at a time, to put less pressure on myself, or to find something to laugh about may be enough to get me through.

Another example of responding to people online is to answer when someone asks for feedback. Twitter and Facebook are packed with people who live in our area asking what you think of their latest idea, requesting help with a computer problem, and seeking recommendations of where to look for a specific product. Answering them is helping members of your community. Helping members of your community is serving your community, whether you’re doing so online or off.

When the Web first took hold, we thought its potential was in its ability to eliminate vast distances of geography. New York could now stay in touch with Syndney, Shanghai, and Moscow constantly, in real time. It turns out that we under-appreciated the Internet’s ability to eliminate (in some senses) much smaller distances of geography. With most of us in an office all day, it has become a chore to keep up with the community outside. The conversations the Internet allows are making that a lot easier. All we have to do is listen to one another and, when appropriate, respond.

Local Resolutions Part 26 of 29

This is the twenty-sixth in a series of 29 ways to help your local community online in 2010. If you missed it, you may wish to read the introductory post.

In this post, I suggest that making online maps of sights to see is a great way to help strengthen your community while you’re online. This series has included recent posts about displaying a local-pride bumper sticker, sharing the link love, and inspiring others to buy local.

Lancaster is a great place to wander.

That’s especially true in the city, where you can wander on foot, and it’s also true for the rest of the county, where you need a car, bike, or horse and buggy.

When you wanderings have led you to many good (and under-discovered) places, why not collect those place on a map and share them with others?

Map it out

That’s what Jen Siegrist did a year ago with her Google map Lancaster City – Things To Do. It’s a great little map because she took the time to annotate the points of interest, even if some of the information has become a little outdated.

One of my favorite examples of such Google maps is the Richmond (VA) Tacky Lights Tour. An example from the realm of business would be Paul Stoltzfus’s map of show lawns from his Lancaster lawn care service, WiseGrass.

So, today’s resolution for making your local community better through online means is to make a Google map of great places to visit.

It’s simple. Go to Google Maps, log in with your Gmail account, and then look for the “My Maps” link below the search bar and to the left. Click it, then click “Create map.” Give it a name and description and you’re off and running. Use the pushpins to add points of interest and the lines to draw routes. You can even invite others to add to the map by clicking “collaborators.”

To make it easier, just search the name of each location you want to add. In the information box that pops up, click “Save to My Maps,” and you’ll be adding points of interest in no time.

The possibilities are endless

I’m sure you can do this with other mapping/direction sites as well, and feel free to let us know about them in the comments. Also please share links to any maps you’ve already created.

The more I think about it, the more possibilities there are here. Maybe next month we can do a collaborative map, “A Locals’ Guide to Lancaster,” for tourists who don’t want to be touristy. Would you be interested in that?

When it comes to making valuable local content online, the more geo-relevant it is, the better. That’s why earlier in this series I wrote about adding Lancaster to the FourSquare map (FourSquare is an application for GPS-enabled mobile devices). I think that making specialized Google maps as guides has a really valuable place, too.

Local Resolutions Part 22 of 29

This is the twenty-second in a series of 29 ways to help your local community online in 2010. If you missed it, you may wish to read the introductory post.

In this post, I suggest that publishing lists online is a great way to help strengthen your community while you’re online. This series has included recent posts about leaving comments on local blogs, reviewing local restaurants and service providers, and shopping local on Etsy.

This post may seem lame.

And yes, while the idea is so obvious as to be banal and the time it takes to say it is brief, it’s also powerful.

Make a list

If you read yesterday’s post, you saw that I ended it with a list of locally-oriented blogs that I recommend. I did the same thing when I wrote earlier in this series about becoming a fan of local Facebook pages.

Those posts got attention and comments. When you’re introducing an idea to others, it’s helpful to break it down, to give examples, and to suggest where to start. The list, that amazing little invention of formatting, is perfectly suited for such tasks.

I’ll also share that the list of Lancaster Twitter users on this site is the most popular piece of content on here. It continues to receive views every day, even when it’s been too long since I’ve updated it (like right now).

There are all kinds of lists

Lists of local things are great ways of giving a shoutout to places and people you like, and they also provide quick value to others in your community.

So today’s resolution for making our local community better through online activities is to write and share lists this year.

You can make a list of nearly anything, in a few styles, including:

Rankings – List, in order, your top ten local beers, sushi restaurants, parks, doctors, art galleries.

Comprehensive – Attempt to create an annotated list of everything. To keep it up-to-date and authoritative, ask others to let you know of additions and corrections.

Examples – Most of the time, it’s ridiculous to expect yourself to have the time to create a comprehensive list, or even to rank items. A simple list of a few examples is still helpful. You can spotlight the ones you missed another time (and, I’ve learned, it’s also best to encourage people to add to the list by leaving a comment).

What comes to mind when you think of a list of things you’d like to share? Where do you already create lists? On Twitter? On your blog? On Amazon?

Local Resolutions Part 21 of 29

This is the twenty-first in a series of 29 ways to help your local community online in 2010. If you missed it, you may wish to read the introductory post.

In this post, I suggest that leaving comments on local blogs is a great way to help strengthen your community while you’re online. This series has included recent posts about reviewing local restaurants and service providers,  shopping local on Etsy, and sharing certain photos.

Today I saw yet another blog post titled “How to Get More Comments on Your Blog.”

Bloggers love them some comments

The post, by Alisa Bowman, mostly contained the usual warmed-over tips (bribe people, say something controversial, go off-topic, ask specific questions), but it was remarkable for her over-the-top description of how much bloggers love getting comments.

Bowman tells of her first post that “generated 23 comments. As the comments flowed in, I danced around my room saying, ‘Who-hoo. People really do read my blog. Who-ho. People love me.’ Let me tell you something. I. Did. Not. Want. To. Come. Down. From. That. 23 Comments. High.”

Yes, she described the sensation of getting blog comments as a “high.”

Preserving local assets

Learning that all it takes is comments to keep your community’s bloggers going is kind of like learning that all it takes is a few cups of water to keep your community’s park green.

Writing comments on blogs you already read is easy. And, by and large, comments are all it takes to preserve the local assets that bloggers are. If you offered me the choice between $50/week to blog or at least five comments on every entry I wrote, there would be no contest. It’s the comments that keep us inspired, on track, and ready to produce more.

Blog recommendations

If you’re not currently following any other Lancaster blog besides this one, here is a selection of what I read that are often specifically relevant to our geographic community and worth your time and attention (and comments!):

• SCORE Lancaster is the local chapter of the Service Corp of Retired Executives
• Matt Groff has a strong personality and good humor
• Brian Allain is almost always funny
• Lo-Fi Tribe is Shawn Anthony’s blog on a different sort of current-day Christianity
• Lancaster PA Real Estate Blog is Jeff Geoghan’s look at the county from a real estate agent’s perspective
• Lancaster from the Inn Side tells stories of tourists and a bed and breakfast
• The Traveling Food Critic is written by the Sunday News‘s Lina Bierker
• Keystone Conservative covers Pennsylvania-wide politics but is edited locally by Ethan Demme
• Capitol Punmanship is also about local, state-wide, and national politics, by Tom Murse
• B.B. Bellezza tells of hand-made jewelry and crafts, by Kimberlie Burkhart
• Sara Bozich writes of things to do in the mid-state
• That’s What I Was Going To Say is Bryan Rutt’s blog on music
• The Mad African is Hiram Ring, musician and world traveler

Bloggers: Do you agree with me that you’d rather get comments than cash?

Readers: What other Lancaster blogs you recommend to others?