The Sound of Young America

Merlin Mann made the following observation about how to handle community and conversations:

Creating community is not as simple as turning on comments ... That is not a community; that's a public toilet.

The public toilet is not the place where you want to hang out, converse, and connect with your neighbors. It is quite the opposite, you are in and out and don't stop to open your eyes or nose to the environment. This is exactly how I feel every time I venture into the forums of our local paper (why did I come in here and how fast can I get out?).

Merlin continues his observation to support his claim:

If you just give people an opportunity to dive bomb in and say one thing and go away it's not a conversation, it's scrawl. When you turn on comments, when you encourage community, when encourage any of that, you also take on a responsibility to manage a certain expectation. Anytime you turn on a community aspect it not only needs moderation of some kind, but you are obligated to listen, respond and then show how that input had an impact on what you do.

His analogy to a public toilet got me thinking about what the contrasting metaphor could be for cultivating a more engaging platform. In meeting with KUSP, Terry Green suggested that what we are seeking is well aligned with a community garden. The Local Government Commission defines community gardens as "places where neighbors can gather to cultivate plants, vegetables and fruits. Such gardens can improve nutrition, physical activity, community engagement, safety, and economic vitality for a neighborhood and its residents."

As we near the launch of our conversation platform for public radio stations we are working to establish best practices for creating an environment that cultivates a forum for civil discourse. Not every community has the same configuration but these are key areas that seem to distinguish the troll-laden public toilets from the more captivating community gardens.

1. No anonymous users. Reveal the names and faces of the community - user accounts are required for everyone who wants to contribute comments and discussion threads. Even if an avatar and user name is used in place of real names, there are reputation systems in place to expose the behavior of the users.
2. Create the culture. Model desired behavior. Don't turn on comments if you aren't going to participate. If you allow comments, expect to participate. Don't turn on comments and never come back.
3. Allow the community to self-moderate. Provide the ability to flag abusive comments and reward good comments.
4. Reputation system. Highlight comments by showing them on user profiles and throughout the site.

We are looking for more ideas and inspiration as we seek to create the community garden effect for Radio Engage. We invite comments, thoughts and places of inspiration as we craft our solution.

The Background

Joaquin Alvarado presented the plan for National Public Lightpath to public broadcasters at the Integrated Media Association conference last week in Atlanta. He called on the audience to actively build partnerships in their local communities and apply for economic stimulus grant money to make the network a reality. This is a common goal to be shared by NPR, PBS, CPB and all the stations.

Doc Searls followed on with a blog post that expands Leonard Witts vision to turn PBS into a news powerhouse. Robert Patterson took these points and drafted an emerging plan to make this a reality. Key points in Patterson's plan were to lower costs systemically and yet attract resources beyond money - in particular technology resources. I believe this point hinges on two key actions:

1) Wide adoption of Drupal open source platform
2) Call to arms to rally geek talent at the local level

Adoption of Drupal Open Source Platform

With the super-high-speed network in place, one of the key requirements will be a software platform that can support the many organizations connecting to the network and distributing content. This is an opportune moment for the whole system to adopt a common, open source platform.

A survey conducted last fall by PubForge (a collective of public media web developers), concluded that the allocation of resources to web development and maintenance is critically low. Recent cutbacks due to the economic climate don't make that picture look any brighter. This is why adoption of a shared platform is so critical. A shared platform will allow open access to developers to both share common code and also extend the platform to create custom applications for their communities.

Open source platforms have a lower acquisition cost and offer a global development team via the open source community. Drupal is a platform that has gained the support of many public media stations and is used widely by non-profits. In fact, Obama recently launched Recovery.gov on the Drupal platform.

Rally Local Geek Talent

We should advocate for a national call to action among the geek communities of America. Public media stations have long rallied volunteer staff to work in service of their stations. The call to service should be made to geeks to come to the aid of a public service Internet. This should be done in coordination with a national effort to develop a shared platform that could be used throughout the system.

The amount of work needed to digitize our nation's history, create public participatory systems, and to create an information network is not by any means a trivial task. It will take an army of geeks. The first two rounds of Internet innovation (web 1.0 and web 2.0) created a distributed network of talent across the country. This network is currently connected through popular social media tools and in real life via local meet-ups and geek gatherings. There are a growing number of coworking innovation centers around the country that also serve as a geek commons.

As part of the RadioEngage project, we are calling on our local geek community to rally resources around a volunteer public media project. The specifics of the project will be unveiled in the coming weeks. Volunteering on the project will provide participants with the opportunity to support their local media station in a way that best utilizes their talents. The data migration and integration needed to create a rich media archive and interface will require many developer hours. By leveraging the passion of local geeks and providing a place to showcase their efforts, we create an ecosystem that supports a new model of public media volunteerism. The end result could yield a depth and diversity of applications developed to support public media content in a local context and provide a strong case for open source tools.

I am not an Internet or social media native. I am 40 years old and remember using our encyclopedia set for school papers and had a well-worn library card. I am an Internet and social media enthusiast.

Recently I was helping my 10-year old daughter with a research paper on Nelson Mandela. We started by reading the Wikipedia overview page. While it provided a good overview, it did not reveal the passion that Nelson Mandela inspired. After a bit of sleuthing, I discovered a page on NPR.org, titled Mandela: An Audio History.

As we started listening to the audio, my daughter's eyes grew large, as she could hardly believe "is that REALLY him speaking"? She was captivated and asked if she could stay up and listen to more. Audio did what a flat HTML page could never do; it engaged her mind, her emotion and connected her to a moment in history. Thank you NPR. Thank you public radio for enriching my child's education.

It is with that passion that I endeavor to assist in building the future of public radio. I am not a Santa Cruz native, but I am a Santa Cruz enthusiast. I have lived in many cities (Portland, Tulsa, Los Angeles, Washington, DC and now Santa Cruz). Santa Cruz is the first city I have called home. It resonates with my heart and soul. I am able to cultivate my passions here. It is that passion for community that has captured my attention in cultivating the Santa Cruz Geeks, NextSpace and now RadioEngage.

Santa Cruz is well known for its surf and alternative lifestyles. Quoting Wikipedia: "Now known for its alternative community lifestyles and liberal political leanings, Santa Cruz is a bastion for many sub-cultures and counter-culture". But just as the entry on Nelson Mandela missed the essence of his contribution to the world, Wikipedia misses the essence of what is it to experience daily life in Santa Cruz. This essence is what I hope to raise out of RadioEngage - the digital heart of Santa Cruz.

RadioEngage will make existing content more widely available and encourage active participation by providing tools and applications that make that possible. This interaction will allow for fuller participation and sets forth a mission shared by many public radio stations. For example, KUSP's mission includes the following statement:

"Our programs will engage listeners in the civic and cultural life of the communities in which they live and work. In turn, the civic and cultural institutions of our communities will be enriched by the engagement of our listeners."

In rolling out this the prototype and vision to different groups, most feedback has been quite positive. However, there have been a few who have expressed hesitation and fear that we would create the wrong thing for public radio. It made me realize that it is important to state that we aren't changing the core values of public radio, but rather building on and adding to the core experience of public radio. We are opening doors to participation in hopes of building a more engaged community.

Our first task was to comprehend the universe of a Knight grantee. We began with a visit to MIT Media Lab in June where we were exposed to a wealth of innovation in the civic media space. A meeting of Knight grantees from around the country in Chicago provided an opening to a community of journalistic thought leaders.

In September, I attended a Knight panel exploring public information needs in the Silicon Valley. RadioEngage continues to be represented at other events along the way, including Blogher, CopyCamp and a Public Press fundraiser. Each event brings more perspective and exploration to our project.

In the midst of this we have explored the world of public radio past, present and future. Many individuals along the way have helped to educate us on the intrinsic values of public radio and the political challenges that have plagued its history. Terry Green at KUSP knows more about public radio than God (ok, maybe not) and he has been invaluable in navigating the space that is public media. Another invaluable voice in radio, Doc Searls, provides great insight into how public radio of the future could be experienced and even funded through work happening with ProjectVRM.

A long conversation and interview with Steve Behrens at Current magazine was thought provoking and informative as we explored the intersection of public radio and technology. My often-sporadic membership with the PubForge group has resulted in extraordinary findings from a public radio station survey that provided great affirmation for the need for an easy to use CMS for radio stations. Steve Laufer, KUSP's web/new media director and our station liaison has given great consult about the current status of public radio websites and has been instrumental in helping us plan the specifics of RadioEngage.

We have been like sponges as we gain understanding and insight into the inner workings of public radio stations. We've interviewed radio show hosts, producers, staff, and listeners at both KUSP and KALW as we determine the best Drupal toolset for RadioEngage. The conversations have been a process in understanding the world from inside the public radio station and how the listeners intersect with that world.

In November we hosted an open space event, Public Media Camp which was designed to explore the public media landscape. The event was attended by over 80 participants representing local Santa Cruz residents, technologists and public radio enthusiasts. The outcome of the camp will be the launch of a conversation platform for Radio Engage. This site will provide the many communities we serve with a place to explore as we build the future toolset for public media. Watch this space for new developments.