Comments on: Decatur Strategic Plan: Session #3 – Communicate!

By: Decatur Metro

Decatur Metro — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:25:51 +0000

From what I’ve heard, I believe the commission videos will be available once the website is overhauled and relaunched.

By: Decatur Metro

Decatur Metro — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 13:39:05 +0000

I think you’re spot on regarding this Diane.

If you ask a person if they’d like more info they’ll say “yes!”. But in actuality they have a limited amount of time in a day. And as an information source – be it a taped commission meeting or a blog – you compete with everything else that person has to do in a day.

So it’s gotta be good, which runs the gamut from good writing to interesting topics to important topics. The filter is key.

Your observation is also why automated aggregators just don’t work. Sure, it’s much cheaper and easier to let a computer do the work for you, but you end up with too much news about Decatur, Illinois and Decatur, Alabama. Too much crap.

One of the good things that’s come out of this “media revolution” is the reassurance that news and info sources need to have a human voice behind them. Computer generated anything just doesn’t cut it.

By: Judd

Judd — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 13:23:55 +0000

The City could archive the videos on its site.

By: Deanne

Deanne — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:57:02 +0000

I’d love to see the City add some old school communications to ensure all Decatur folks are able to get updates. It’d be terrific to have community bulletin boards in neighborhoods & other spots. It’d also be wonderful to have a weekly radio program sharing community news. And I sure wish they’d work on making the Commission Meeting broadcasts available to non cable customers too.

By: Diane

Diane — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:56:55 +0000

There’s a possibility that there’s TOO much information out there. People are busy, and not going to spend their free time watching a city commission meeting. The value of DM, newspapers and other media is that somebody you trust condenses stuff.

I’m the secretary of a neighborhood association, and we have a devil of a time communicating with the neighbors. We have an email list, we’ve put stuff in every mailbox. Not much response….unless the topic is crime in the neighborhood. People want to know about that.