Ed Morrison · Web 2.0 and the City of Cleveland

January 27th, 2010

Given the sad state of the web presence for the City’s Sustainability Summit, it may be time for a makeover.

Does Your City Need a Web 2.0 Makeover? Act Now

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3 Responses to “Web 2.0 and the City of Cleveland”

  1. JS Says:
    January 29th, 2010 at 9:23 am

    There are few bandwagons Cleveland has missed. As Cleveland prepares itself as a third-rate Atlantic city, it’s time to evaluate how poorly Cleveland jumps onto each bandwagon as it passes.

    Web 2.0 is made for folly. Nebulous, superficial implementations far outstrip the kind of sophisticated social interaction which would be of real economic benefit to a city.

    The last thing we need is another blatherfest without pragmatic plans, strategy, or any economically detectable action. We’ve done that. And I’ve attended the auditorium sized audience who nodded, agreed, then went back to administer the status quo, decorated with a vapor thin coating of new buzzwords.

    Cleveland is know for its buzzword compliance. Well executed, pragmatic execution …not so much.

  2. skorasaurus Says:
    February 1st, 2010 at 9:36 am

    [This comment makes references to several websites but wordpress had marked my comment as spam. I have removed all of these links from this comment and listed them on my blog which can be accessed if you click on my name above my comment].

    SC2019 [sustainable cleveland 2019] has dropped the ball so far.

    After the 09 summit [not sure when, it was existing in late September, when I first became involved] , the city opened a ning site to organize the online communication. However, the ning platform, in my experience, isn’t very useful for such online organizing like SC2019 and hasn’t established the web presence and facilitated online communication as much as the city hoped.

    They realized it and held a meeting in December to discuss what features are needed to facilitate online communication and collaborate.

    I posted meeting notes from the meeting on Marc Canter’s wiki.

    At the meeting, a design team was formed [I offered to be on it but I haven't heard back] to take the suggestions from the meeting and implement a CMS or other tools to use.

    In the meantime, Marc Canter created a wiki and Marc Lefkowitz of GCBL created a section for SC2019 content on the drupal-powered GCBL site.

    With 3 different places, each with their own setups, [and maybe more one more on the way depending on what the design team does], there isn’t – yet, a place that will attract the SC2019 participants and give them the tools to collaborate online.

    Personally, I’m adding information and contributing where I can [at all 3 places] because with things like this, you can’t wait for the city or a design team to lead the way.

    Unfortunately, as the days pass and momentum from the past summit dies out, the lack of a stronger online presence to help SC2019 execute its goals is hurting the effort.

  3. Ed Morrison Says:
    February 4th, 2010 at 10:31 am

    You might look at how London, ON is using a simple wiki to capture their AgendaCamp, based on the World Cafe process.

    Read about AgendaCamp.

    Go to their wiki.

    Web 2.0 solutions are not expensive or complex. But you need t incorporate them into the planning of a set of strategic conversations. Otherwise, you simply end up with an event that quickly disappears below the surface of everyone’s attention.

    Good example of what not to do: Voices and Choices.