Gungahlin Community Council Website
Posted on June 23, 2010 by by madepercy
I’m a little surprised that the Gungahlin Community Council website has not received much attention from residents. The newest website provides a great deal of information in a friendly Web 2.0 format. It reminds me of one of the first regional websites to attempt this format – the organisation formerly known as the Murray Region Development Board. But Gungahlin residents haven’t flocked to the GCC site despite the incredible amount of effort which has gone into developing this local community portal.
Apparently (according to the latest Gunsmoke), there will be a meeting in July with Telstra to discuss broadband issues in the area. I couldn’t find any mention of this on the website. But there is the capability for anyone to add items to the GCC forum, much like here.
It seems there needs to be some form of entertainment value in these types of forums to keep people interested. I find this with my lecture attendance – make the lecture interesting and people turn up, be boring and you get nothing!
But is it a case of ‘lack of interest’ or is it just poor marketing that leaves community forums unattended? Or is it a case of not providing the right level of entertainment?
We really don’t have answers to these questions just yet. But if you like living in the Gungahlin area (as I do) and you want to know more about what is happening in the community, try joining the GCC website and see what happens.
And if you have any ideas about how to improve participation in these community initiatives, I would be very happy to hear from you!
6 Comments to “Gungahlin Community Council Website”
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Typeboard and Michael de Percy, Valeri Rojas. Valeri Rojas said: RT @madepercy: Have you visited the Gungahlin Community Council website lately? http://bit.ly/aUc9w3 #yam [...]
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I think the Gungahlin Community Council site is a great initiative, I read it but I don’t live in that area, having said that I have told friends who live there about it.
Thanks for sharing your concerns about community engagement website. Unfortunately Canberrans just don’t seem to engage enough with social media sites of that type. I am sure some don’t agree with me but it is true.
Let me see if I can answer your questions:
is it a case of ‘lack of interest’ or is it just poor marketing that leaves community forums unattended?
I think it’s a bit of both and a few other issues.
Lack of interest is one of the major problems, but I think that’s because of the lack of understanding. Social Media in Australia is still very new and only now we are seeing newspapers and businesses embracing the concept but people still don’t understand what they can or can’t share and what they can do in sites like the Gungahlin one. The good news is that other countries are embracing this concept and Australians/Canberrans will definitely follow.
Sure there are many bloggers in Canberra that understand social media but many just want to share their news and information in their own sites and share their links in sites such as twitter for example. The only problem is that not everyone uses Twitter. An example is the latest Australian Government debate on Twitter, apparently most none Twitter or techno users couldn’t follow it and thought it was a waste of time.
Marketing is also a big problem, but I am not sure if it’s poor marketing, I think it’s more about not having enough money to market these sites, word of mouth would depend on the community and how close they work with each other.
We also need to remember that community journalism/hyper local sites work well in other countries because people want to be heard, here people are more relax and like to keep things to themselves, there is nothing to worry about. :
I believe the ACT Government should probably help projects such as the Gungahlin site because they are actually providing the community with lots of good information, it’s not a forum where people can have a go at the government, it’s a community website where they are actually sharing informing for the community and the government should take advantage of that.
right level of entertainment?
Well, it depends on the concept of the site right? I am sure the Gungahlin site could easily have content to argue the government all the time and challenge them on their decisions and I am sure that many trolls and online bullies would join the site at no time.
Community driven websites will only be as entertaining as the users can make them, right?
Did all that make any sense?
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Thanks Valeri, some food for thought there. Cheers, Michael.
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Thanks for the feedback on our GCC website. Much appreciated.
I have now posted an article on the Telstra Countrywide boss coming to our July 14 meeting: http://www.gcc.asn.au/Meetings-notices/
Everyone is welcome to come to this – more the merrier! We have a large room for this meeting as we expect strong interest from Gungahlin residents wishing to give Telstra a piece of their minds over the woeful service they have been receiving from Telstra over the years.
Dave and I do our best to keep the GCC website ticking over, but we have spurts of activity (and available time!) so it doesn’t get the ‘must view every day’ return traffic that might result if we could keep the content ticking over. But the simple reality is that we both have day jobs and families.
RSS readers like Google Reader are a good ways to make sure you don’t miss new content though.
It has been disappointing though that the wider community hasn’t embraced the opportunity to upload their own articles and notices – we’ve certainly made sure the functionality is there.
Occasionally we get an article (like the Telstra one) that gets a good deal of comments coming through, but they are rare.
interestingly, our Facebook page is getting a stronger following almost every day. We now have 299 fans, which is getting close to 1% of the Gungahlin population. facebook.com/gungahlin
We have established a model with our website (and a number of other web 2 tools we use behind the scenes like Google Apps) that the other ACT community councils are following.
But we could do much more with a little more help – from volunteers and from the ACT Government. The total assistance we get from the government is about $10,000 per year. One issue of our newsletter costs almost that much to print and distribute.
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Congratulations to you and David, you guys are doing a great job for your community.
It has been disappointing though that the wider community hasn’t embraced the opportunity to upload their own articles and notices – we’ve certainly made sure the functionality is there.
You’ll find that the community is probably a little shy about it as the concept of community driven content as a form of news/information is still very new in Australia. As I previously said, sure people understand forums, blogs, facebook but there is a difference when it comes to what some call citizen journalism/hyperlocal websites. That concept is huge in the States right now and in other parts of the Americas and also Europe.
For people to understand the concept you just have to keep pushing it until people will see the benefits of it.
That’s why we are also encouraging community groups to use Typeboard. When it comes to Canberra, I believe Typeboard is the only community driven website where all the articles are indexed by Google News, in other words if you were to share your GCC meeting on Typeboard. It will appear under Google News right next to articles from the CanberraTimes, News.com.au, SMH, NY Times and any other article anywhere in the world, which will provide you with more visitors and hopefully users to your site.
Regarding the Facebook page, you’ll find that Canberrans love social networks/facebook, and so they would be more than happy to join your group if you are already there, you guys could look at integrating facebook connect or even openid sign on to your GCC site, just a thought.
Anyway, as I said before Typeboard is open to any community groups or people who want to share their news with others. We will also be adding new features such as creating groups like in facebook, creating forums and becoming friends with others in the site, we are also looking at Facebook and Twitter integration.
Keep up the good work with the GCC site and feel free to share your info on Typeboard, as the GCC is a community group website you could always write a few paragraphs of your article on Typeboard and share a link to your site for the full stories or information.
Regards
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Thanks Alan,
I am coming to the meeting – after today’s announcement that Gungahlin is on NBN release #2 I am a little concerned about what this means for my current TWO YEAR contract!! Keep up the great work and look forward to meeting you on 14 July.
Cheers, Michael.
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