This is a place to follow the progress of MMT's community building project that grew out of ideas4oregon. At some point, it will have its own website but until then, we have created this space for posting updates, asking questions, discussing ideas, and so forth.
Here are some helpful background links:
- MMT's ideas4oregon forum [4]
- MMT's response to ideas4oregon [5]
- The people [6] of the planning group, the group's work [7]and report [8]
- Official launch [9]of the community building project
- Visual representation [10] of this project to date (as of July 15, 2011)
Below we post updates to the project since its launch, with the most recent news at the top.
Commenting on this Forum topic is closed.
Jul 14 2011 - 9:06am
And we have a winner!
Actually, two winners. Well, I'd say we're all winners here... We've selected Context Partners (contextpartners.com) and FMYI (fmyi.com) to work together to launch and lead this project. They have complementary skills and strengths.
Context Partners has nine staff members in Portland, representing more than 50 years of collective experience all aspects of this project, including project management, online and offline community building, supervising website design and engineering, marketing and outreach and planning for fiscal sustainability. CP has direct experience in online community management and launching a public online platform and has worked with diverse clients across the United States and in other countries.
FMYI (for my innovation) is a Portland software company established in 2004 to create "social networks to get things done" that also has the capacity to build a knowledge base of shared resources. It ranks 13th among Oregon's 100 fastest growing private companies, is a certified B corporation and is registered as a State of Oregon Minority Business Enterprise with 15 full time employees. It has already developed an online platform with many of the features our project needs that is used by clients ranging from Nike to Right Brain Initiative. FMYI will open source its platform so it can be adapted for this effort.
We can't wait to get started!
Jul 19 2011 - 2:33pm
excellent news!
I'm so thrilled to see this project taking off with two great local companies. I have some familiarity with FMYI, and I love their work and enthusiasm. I can't wait to see all of the awesome that comes! Kudos, MMT!
Jul 15 2011 - 9:49am
Thanks
We've been having conversations in our organization about how to describe our work to engage more of the community, both online and offline. Your article gave us the words. Thank you. We have a community building campaign that includes an online strategy and a community-based strategy. Whew.
Jul 15 2011 - 10:13am
:)
Happy to be of help!
Jun 30 2011 - 10:24am
Hiring Project Director
We asked for Expressions of Interest for the project director position and invited eight of the applicants (two individuals and six firms/organization) to submit formal proposals. One organization withdrew before applying, and six of the remaining applicants were invited for interviews, which will be concluded on July 5.
Jun 30 2011 - 10:21am
Setting up an Advisory Group
We convened an Advisory Group to oversee this project, which will be administered by Meyer Memorial Trust for at least the first year. Advisory group members include: George Puentes (MMT board member), MMT CEO Doug Stamm, MMT Communication & Learning Director Marie Deatherage, OregonFTW Facilator and Process Specialist Brandon Sanders, DemocracyLab Founder Mark Frischmuth, DemocracyLab Board Member Deb Bryant, Public Opinion Researcher Adam Davis, MMT Software Engineer Grant Kruger, MMT C&L Associate Mike Phillips.