The internet is changing everything, even local government.  The Village of Shorewood is slowly but surely moving in the direction of more services available over the internet.  You can already view your tax bill online on villageofshorewood.org, and more services are slated for online accessibility in the near future.  Today, however, I believe there is another huge leap forward which we could explore as time goes on. 

My idea would radically upgrade the accessibility of local government meetings to Village residents.  The challenge with accessing Village Board meetings currently, is that you have to do one of three things:

1. Go to the meeting and listen to what happens
2. Read the minutes, which often are not published for weeks after the meeting
3. Go to the library and check out the audio recording, and listen to the whole thing

This combination means citizens are often weeks behind in terms of their information, and many just choose not to participate at all. 

I propose creating a podcast of all meetings of the Village Board.  According to Wikipedia's definition, "A podcast is a collection of digital media files which is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and personal computers."  I believe that a well-organized audio podcast would bring our local government much closer to the citizens they represent. 

How would it work?  All Board meetings would be recorded in audio form, and posted online.  The audio would be broken up into sections, which would reflect the sections outlined in the meeting agenda.  So, for instance, this last weeks meeting would have had separate audio files on The Parks Commission, the Asst. Village Manager position, the intersection on Morris & Menlo, and the SHS National Award.

In this fashion, listeners would not need to listen to the entire meeting to get the to the section of interest.  So, for instance, if I only wanted to listen to the part of the meeting specifically related to The Parks Commission, I could click on that part of the meeting rather than having to search through the whole audio file.

Audio content could be further organized through the use of "Tagging," a user-friendly technology gaining wider and wider use on the internet.  The clouds of words you see in the right hand margin is an example of tagging.  If you click on any of them, you will get all posts I have written on that specific topic.  Village Board audio content could be similarly organized by topic, so citizens could click on a tag, and automatically see all audio content relating to a specific topic from current or past meetings.  So this week's files might have had tags for "Local Parks," "Street Reconstruction," and so forth.

The final product would be a set of audio files that would be:

1. Accessible online for anyone with a web browser
2. Accessible by specific topic
3. Searchable by topic, so Shorewood residents could easily find all instances where a specific topic was discussed

Is it practical?  I am not sure yet.  What do you think? 

I receive the below letter in response to my recent post on the potential of lawsuits against NOW bloggers.

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Dear Steve,

A while back, you wondered why some people responding to your blog remained anonymous--I think you have your answer. Intimidation.

Alas, there are always a few people in a community who call the police or the lawyers before they pick up a phone or knock on a door to discuss a problem with a neighbor. No wonder people are afraid to speak up.

Bloggers play an important role in public discourse in the community. They are not journalists and the ShorewoodNOW disclaimer makes it crystal clear that their opinions are just that--opinions.

As for "getting the facts straight," the Shorewoodians I've talked to would love to have the local government officials find more effective ways to communicate facts to their constituents, but as you've pointed out, the news coverage of Shorewood issues is rare. Village Board meeting minutes are not published, and eventually make their way onto a website weeks later. Village and School Board meetings often run for hours, and many people feel intimidated about going to a meeting for less than the entire time.

I wish the individuals who feel personally attacked would have the courage to speak out and offer their neighbors their point of view and add to the discussion rather than going to lawyers in an attempt to suppress dialogue in the community.

- Nancy Peske Darrow, 9/12/07
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Many of the bloggers from the various NOW sites met last night with the editors of the NOW sites, as well as executives from the Journal Sentinel. During the meeting, NOW Editor Mark Maley mentioned that three individuals have threatened NOW and certain NOW-associated bloggers with lawsuits in the last month.

Maley mentioned personal attacks by bloggers against private individuals and government officials, as well as a lack of fact-checking by the bloggers as possible causes of the lawsuits being threatened. He did not identify either the bloggers who would be named in such lawsuits, or the individuals threatening the legal action.

The mood in the room was considerably more tense during this portion of the discussion than it was when they were showing the soaring page hit statistics for the blogs and the NOW pages in general. The question of whether a blogger can be sued for what s/he writes makes many bloggers (including me) very uncomfortable.

On the one hand, we are writing things about events and people. The writings are put in the public space, and on a newspaper's own website. On the other hand, blogs are in a very grey area between reporting, opinion columns, and letters to the editor. The expectation of each of these forms and the standards for fact checking are very different when these different types of writing appear in print media.

With blogs, it is much more difficult to set reader expectations as far as what standard the blogger is applying to himself or herself. Some blogs are closer to reporting. Others contain more opinion, with perhaps some facts included. Others are purely entertainment or opinion, and make no pretense at reporting factual information. Should each type of blog be held to a different standard, depending on what type of writing it is?

The underlying question in all of this is...to what standard should bloggers be held?

The Journal Sentinel does not edit the blogs that appear on the NOW sites. There is a clear disclaimer on each and every blog on NOW sites which distances the Journal Sentinel from any content appearing in the blogs.

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"The opinions and views expressed by Community Voice writers do not necessarily reflect the opinions of ShorewoodNOW.com, Journal Interactive, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel or Community Newspapers. ShorewoodNOW.com does not control, is not responsible for, and does not guarantee the accuracy, integrity or quality of, the postings on this Web log."
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The Shorewood BID launched a blog 3 weeks ago now, which promised to "to keep residents up to date on what's happening downtown." They stuck with the old BID branding, "Uptown, Upscale, Uncommon" as their blog title. This brand is also used on the Shorewood BID website.

Given the fact that we spent $225,000 on a marketing plan to come up with our new brand, I would argue that any semi-governmental body affiliated with the Village of Shorewood should be using the "Walk Shorewood" branding. Consistent communications and positioning are keys to brand success.



Comments

1. "Hi Steve! The Shorewood BID spent several thousand dollars three years ago on the Uptown brand. While we are supporting the effort of the new Shorewood Village branding, we are slowly implementing on our end. The board felt there was still value to be gained from the investment in the other campaign. I would think by this time next year you will find the BID embracing the "two-feet" and "heart of everything" themes and identities. Hope this help! As always, just ask!"
- Jim Plaisted, Executive Director, Shorewood BID

2. "Steve, Thanks for keeping your eye on things like this that make no sense! While you're at it, you could point out that the poorly branded 'blog' contains not timely observations, but just the same old tired press release blather--not exactly the kind of thing to make people think of Shorewood as up to the minute, or even up to the decade. With a grand total of only two postings in three weeks, one would like to think they could do better. You manage to!"
- Shorewoodian, 7/25/07

3. "Well, for that matter, Steve, what have we gotten out of our $225,000 PR campaign that started two years ago or so? We don't have a brand that sticks or any coordination between Shorewood groups to ensure that we're branded consistently. I haven't seen any evidence that the positive press Shorewood has gotten had anything to do with that campaign, have you? Once in a while the village sends some newsletters telling us what's going on...could someone maybe let us know what we got for our money except for a poll identifying that we think of ourselves as Brad Pitt-esque and a promise to someday do a "direct mail" campaign--an extremely outdated and ineffective way to advertise?"
- Shorewoodian, 7/26/07

Just to warn you, this post is going to rapidly devolve into "inside baseball" talk about Shorewood politics. So if this doesn't interest you, please hit the "back" button on your browser.

Joe Mangiamelli's post questioning whether democracy can work raises some valid points. However, his presentation of the history of the coffee patio idea for seniors needs slight modification. There are a several assertions about my own role in the process which are not entirely accurate.

Joe says this:

"I got two of the three candidates during the campaign at the last election to say that they thought a coffee patio in connection with the senior center sounded like a go idea. But I couldn't get a follow-through after the election."

First off, I was one of the candidates who supported the creation of informal gathering space for Seniors at the Village Center. Since I was not elected, only one person who approved of the idea is now on the board. Jeff Hanewall never supported the idea. I would be happy to follow through on the idea, but unfortunately have no power to do so.

Secondly, there were many influences to my position that seniors need this space. I met with the head of the Senior Resource Center, Elizabeth Price, before the 2005 campaign even started. I was convinced at that time that of the need for expanded space for Senior activities. So although Joe's advocacy of this issue has been consistent, it was certainly not the only thing driving my viewpoint.

All of that aside, Joe's question of whether democracy extend past the election is certainly valid. Mike Maher talked a big game about improving parking before he was elected in 2005, but the Shorewood renters still live with the same old draconian parking regimen. Margaret Hickey talked extensively during the 2006 election about improving the Village's use of technology. But the Village website is still an embarrassment, and Village Hall is still snowed under with paper-based processes. So the question that Joe poses remains valid. Are we electing a person to do what they said they would do? Or are we just choosing who gets to hold the position for the next three years?