The August Meet-Up Review

We had a great meeting last month, primarily because we saw our mission coming to life before us: we used social media tools to address a community problem.

The great folks from Ganthers Place joined us to share their vision of what life in Columbus looks in their neighborhood. In short, Ganthers Place is the area located east of Parsons Avenue and consists of Whittier Street, Reinhard Avenue, and Seibert Street, ending at Heyl Avenue. The community consists of a group of residents that strives to make a difference in their neighborhood.

Thus far, they’ve been spreading the word about their community through pretty “traditional” means of communication: printed newsletters and the best of the best–face-to-face communication! We introduced them to social media tools that might help them as they build their community.

We took at look at Twitter (Ganthers Place); we created a word press site with them, we showed them how to use Utterz and Flickr. The Ganthers Place folks took to social media like ducks to water! We also talked about some of the challenges of social media with them, i.e., sustainability. Once they start twittering and blogging, who will keep the impulse going? Another challenge for them is that their community isn’t entirely online: not everyone has computers. But still, twittering about what they are doing, using Utterz to call attention to problems that need resolution…they’re definitely ahead of the game.

They’ll be back for the October meeting to let us know how things are going for them!

The next meeting is September 30, 6:30-8:30 at the Upper Arlington Library.