Dear Mindhub, Fresno Needs You To Evolve
Dear MindHub,
Fresno is calling you to once again serve your community as the best place for community conversation. Our area is in dire need of a better space to discuss our ideas, knowledge and hopes as well as share our concerns and skepticism. Today, a group of friends and I who have used MindHub and care about our community are asking you to evolve into a more relevant platform. We are hoping you and Creative Fresno are open to the idea. We are also trusting our community will see the benefit of an evolved MindHub and help to raise the money to make it a reality.
As you no doubt know know MindHub, you were created by one of the best and brightest talents in our community Suzanne Bertz-Rosa. I am so grateful for her Smartagious idea years ago to create a place for conversation, the exchange of ideas and for creating a platform for creative minded people to support one another. Over the years, you have provided so many memorable exchanges. They have helped so many to think more critically about our community and those of us who have subscribed to you over the years thank you for that.
However, myself and others are concerned about you. One of our concerns MindHub is that you are really starting to show your age. While the listserv used to be hip and cool, there are newer, better technologies now that would really facilitate your original ideals so much more effectively. Many of us envision you with a face lift where community members could have their own profile, be able to post their thoughts online and immediately others would be able to see what they have to say and leave their feedback in a comments section. That immediacy is something that could really make you relevant again.
I’m not sure if you have heard what some have been saying about you behind your back. Don’t take it personally, but some have said that “Twitter is the new MindHub.” I know, it is somewhat insensitive and difficult to hear, but there has been a lot of truth to that lately. I personally think it is because with Twitter, people can get immediate feedback to their thoughts and ideas. The problem though is folks are limited to just 140 characters. That is not a lot of space to have in depth community conversations. A lot of us feel though, if you evolved into a more relevant platform, you would again be the place we go to talk about all things Fresno.
Many of my friends and I do recognize that many ‘hubbers still care about your digest that hits our e-mail box at 10am each morning. We think even with your potential face lift, we can keep a daily digest because let’s face it, the digest is one of the most beautiful things about you. But even the digest could be much more user friendly (and visually appealing) potentially with direct links to each post that was written the day before.
Many of us have also been concerned by how much you have become dominated by events and announcements. We know that being informed that there are great things happening in Fresno is important, but to be honest, it is cluttering up what we grew to love most about you. You are at your best when citizens are engaging you for authentic and meaningful conversation about real issues in our area. We envision that if we can find a way to help you evolve, there could still be a place for announcements and events but people could choose whether they want to receive that information or not. That way, those of us who are just looking for some good old fashioned community dialogue don’t have to be distracted by all of the events if we choose not to be.
MindHub, Our community is facing some pretty big challenges right now and our community needs you. We need you to once again be the place we all go for community dialogue because many of us think that really missing that right now. The conversation is really important, but in the end we also want to encourage all who come to you for conversation to find a way to really make a difference. MindHub, I am hoping that the conversations we have will actually lead to real change in our community.
My friends and I are a collective group of MindHub readers, contributors and Fresno area enthusiasts and we have launched a website for people to share their thoughts. We want folks to share with us how they think you could evolve for better community conversation. They can chime in at www.evolvingmindhub.org. (Special thanks goes to James Collier for his insights on this topic and encouraging online conversation through this website.)
MindHub, many of us are really hoping this idea of helping you to evolve and become more relevant catches on. Of course we all realize though, that it is going to take community support. Your face lift will require buy-in from our community and some financial investment. That said, we think our community would greatly benefit from your evolution and in the end, I personally hope it will contribute to us all having a better place to live, work and play. I am excited for what the future potentially holds for you MindHub!
Sincerely,
Barry
