Why does your community need to talk about cats?

June 24th, 2011 by

Have you ever attended public hearing on a controversial topic?  If you have, you’ll recognize the typical process.  First, a person from one side of the issue rises to the microphone to make their argument.  Then someone from the other side reciprocates. With each comment, tensions rise; too often the debate denigrates into a shouting match.  The end result is that nobody is “listening” at the public “hearing.” Twenty years ago, such displays of disharmony only took place in face-to-face settings.  Now we have to worry about blogs and social media.  If you don’t like the stance of a public official on an issue, create your own blog or Facebook page and let the public official have it.  Others, hiding behind the veil of anonymity, will quickly jump aboard with their comments.  And the fight is on. Every community, large and small, has potentially divisive issues that can explode into these shouting matches.   So, what can be done to reduce the chances of their occurrence? There is no simple answer to that question.  But Michael Wood-Lewis offers some advice:  start a Front Porch Forum and begin talking about lost cats, yard sales, and babysitters.

Think Front Porch Forum

I’ve written previously about how Wood-Lewis has created an online tool dedicated to connecting people in local neighborhoods.  In a recent post on his blog, Wood-Lewis takes on criticism that his tool, the Front Porch Forum, can’t build “community” because conversations in the forums appear to focus on trivial matters, like a neighbor's lost cat. But Wood-Lewis makes no apologies for conversations of this nature.  In fact, he calls them the bedrock for building relationships and increasing people’s sense of ownership of their community.  He goes on to offer an example of a rural community with a Front Page Forum where one resident took county officials to task over road conditions.  Instead of allowing the topic to denigrate into a shouting match, however, residents jumped on board and turned it into civil discourse.  According to Wood-Lewis, there has even been talk about the community banding together for a “work day.” Although I’ve not witnessed the Front Porch Forum in action first-hand, I’m a big fan of its potential.  And I think Wood-Lewis is right when he defends the seemingly trivial conversations as the base for more productive, serious discussions.  It just might explain why some pretty good community blogs don't inspire more comments on serious topics, and why still other blogs inspire nothing but divisive comments. If you want to grow a stronger sense of community in your community, it's definitely something worth thinking about. Photo credit: CesarOntar - Flickr

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Posted in Community Development, Community Engagement, Leadership, Rural | Comments ( 1 )

One Response to “Why does your community need to talk about cats?”

  1. Like a lively Town Meeting… FPF in Calais #VT at Ghost of Midnight Says:
    June 24th, 2011 at 5:46 pm

    [...] UPDATE: Mike Knutson weighed in about this post on Reimagine Rural. [...]

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