Abstract: This blogpost will identify ways in which to help the City of Ferndale create a more accessible way for its citizens to connect with one another and their city officials, using Web 2.0. This final communications plan has to be affordable and operate within boundaries of Ferndale’s tight, city budget.
With the help of Web 2.0, there is a strong possibility that Ferndale will soon be able to communicate in a more affective way with its citizens. The freedom and unlimited space that Web 2.0 allows, will leave plenty of space for Ferndale’s city council to relay a constant stream of information to its citizens and for its citizens to let council members know what they are and are not concerned about in the community.
When thinking about how to improve Ferndale’s communication system, the first thing that needs to be done is to find out how other cities and communities have managed to do this very same task in the past. Looking over their communications plans and looking at how they have incorporated Web 2.0 within these plans, will provide a much better understanding of how to develop the communications plan for the city of Ferndale. For instance, paying attention to the average citizen’s response time to shared information, calculating the frequency of their visits to that particular city’s website and analyzing a citizen’s thoughts and opinions on social issues are all ways in which to begin developing a successful model for Ferndale.
It is also imperative that research goes into finding out what the City of Ferndale has already done in order to connect with their citizens. When going to Ferndale’s official city page today, one will see that they have no links or “page badges” to any social media sites. Also, the meeting minutes from past city council meetings, award recognitions, news articles and press clippings are all in .pdf files. Already, one can tell that Ferndale’s council members need to discuss the content that is on their website. It is not just about what is on the website, but where the information is placed. The information needs to be in a place where users can know about what is going on in the community without having to “search, search, search” for it. Because Web 2.0 has created a lifestyle that is very fast-paced, citizens want their information quickly and want it to be visibly available. If this cannot be done in one website, then the use of social media should be introduced.
Staying with the topic of social media, if Ferndale does invest time in maintaining social media sites for the city, then it would be very beneficial to find out who is in control of handling these social networks. Knowing just who this person is proves very crucial because distinguishing what kinds of information is and is not permitted to share and post is all part of the development process.
Another step would be to contact Ferndale City Councilwoman, Monica Piana. Since she has direct access to the other council members, Monica would provide specific and detailed input about what an ideal, improved, communications plan would look like. She would also be able to speak about the disadvantages of Ferndale’s current communications system.
After much deliberation, the best strategy, in which to complete the task of improving Ferndale’s community network, would be to consolidate all of Ferndale’s messages, alerts and announcements into one place. Desirably, the information would appear on Ferndale’s main website and then provide “badges” that would allow its citizens to interact with the city through social media sites. Some social media sites that come to mind are Facebook and Twitter because mostly everyone interacts on at least one of them already.
Web 2.0 is not only needed to build the bridge between Ferndale’s council members and its citizens, it is also helping this project to progress to the next level. For instance, it is allowing a space for group members to come together and discuss anything they have found having to do with the improvement of Ferndale’s communications plan. There are many ways in which to do this without using Web 2.0, but at times, group members are not able to be in the same place at the same time. As a result, they rely heavily on technology such as, “Google Documents,” to help them interact with each other. Web 2.0 also provides a space where collective intelligence does not always have to be experienced physically, but can be digital as well.
In conclusion, the use of Web 2.0 is a great way in which to unite the City of Ferndale and this is because almost everyone participates in these acts of “posting” and “sharing.” Interestingly, when researching what had already been done to promote the City of Ferndale, Facebook has many pages and profiles that were created by users about the city of Ferndale. The content of these pages and profiles mainly focused on the types of activities that go on in the city, such as popular events, nightlife, seasonal traditions, etc…In other words, individuals have already began exposing other social network users to the excitement and entertaining events Ferndale has to offer. This shows that Ferndale’s citizens are really proud of their city and want to share their experiences with others. All that is left to do now is to get Ferndale’s city council members on board.
http://www.ferndale-mi.com/
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