jonvox » social media

Take Your Kids to Dickson

Jon Cox — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 09:12:25 +0000

This summer, I’m all about volunteering. Helping out in areas I should be already (Pride Week ’09), areas I always try to help out in (Democratic Candidates), and other random things I can do to help out the city of Fayetteville. A friend told me that it’s awesome that I care that much about Fayetteville to want to make it better, but to me it’s just the no-nonsense obvious choice. I really do love Fayetteville and want to give back to the town as much as I get.

The whole ‘darker side’ of Dickson comment really upset me, and a whole bunch of other people, too. One of them is Heather Kendrick-Gerlaugh, who, unlike me, did something about being mad, and organized the first annual Take Your Kids to Dickson. Last night, because of a tweet she made, I had the opportunity to help her out in the final planning stages, and I sure am glad that I did. I helped paint a few signs for the event, and it was worth it to see into the planning behind the event.

It’s just her, a few of her friends, and her mom doing it. It’s so inspiring to see it happen, too. I love Fayetteville to the extent that it pains me to be in any other town in Arkansas. Most of my volunteering has been orchestrated through twitter, and all of it through social media. People complain that social networking sites divorce us from the real world, but for me, they’ve been a tool that has helped me make lots of new contacts in town, and helped my drive to make Fayetteville a better place.

I’ve got an idea for something big, hopefully, and I’ve met with a few people about it so far. Here’s hoping it works out. And for all of you with kids, make sure to take them to Dickson Street at 3 pm today.

Social Media Becomes Physical

Jon Cox — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:43:05 +0000

Last week, I blogged about how the City of Fayetteville is warming up to social media in at least some respects. Really I was just happy to see those Facebook and Twitter buttons up there in the corner of the site.

Well, I saw this banner in the union yesterday. I guess someone doesn’t understand the idea behind hyperlinking.

I don't think you can click these buttons.

City of Fayetteville warming up to social media

Jon Cox — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:45:53 +0000

Header on accessfayetteville.org

I was looking at a map of the city parks system tonight when I noticed something praiseworthy about http://accessfayetteville.org. In the upper right-hand corner of the header is a link to the city’s respective pages on Twitter and Facebook.

If you read this post, I detail a bit of the controversy about the city of Fayetteville adopting social media as a technique for information distribution. It’s nice to see those links there, even if the matter is a bit undecided as of yet. If I were planning on visiting Fayetteville, I would definitely check out those links to see what was up in the area.

I crunch the numbers on Fayetteville’s Social Media resolution

Jon Cox — Tue, 26 May 2009 07:43:01 +0000

Last Tuesday, largely because of a tweet by Alderman Petty, I went to the Fayetteville City Council meeting to voice my favor for the social media resolution. It had previously been tabled; I didn’t see what the big deal was about. During the public input, a few elderly citizens expressed discomfort at the idea. One woman said that, while at first glance it seemed inclusive, it was one of the “most deeply exclusive” measures that the city could adopt, remarking that approximately 1/4th of the city was under the poverty line and very likely could not afford luxuries such as a computer or internet. Furthermore, she dismissed the possibility of them using the computers at the library by claiming that there would be a rush to the free internet, effectively overwhelming the system.

My retort was plain and simple, largely because I had neither the time nor faculty to research what I wanted to say. What I did say is that, while such technologies are expensive, they are in fact provided for free. A free, if even time-limited, technology is inherently, even infinitely, more free than the city’s current method of using the NWA Times to communicate decisions to the population. I readily owned up to not subscribing to a paper.

Here’s what I would have said, had I been capable of doing the research:

First off, Fayetteville’s population (during the special census of 2006) is 67,158. However, it is ridiculous to assume that all 67,158 of Fayetteville’s residents are politically engaged and particularly care about politics. I think a good number to follow would be the amount of people who voted in the 2008 mayoral runoff election. Why the runoff? They’re drawn in solely for local reasons, and not to cast their vote for president.

According to this post on NWAnews.com, the mayoral runoff had Jordan defeating Coody with 5,796 votes over 4,319. 5,796 and 4,319 equal 10,115, or 15% of the 2006 population. Assuming that the 10,115 voters represent an even cross-section of Fayetteville, we can estimate the number of impoverished citizens who are also locally politically engaged to be 2,528.75 (using the detractor’s own standard of Fayetteville’s poverty).

This library report (pdf link; curiously enough when I first tried to access faylib.org, I was prompted to take a survey on how important having the internet in the public library was to me) from the opening of the Blair Library—almost 5 years ago, and almost certainly outdated—says that the library has 125 “computer workstations.” The library is open for 64 hours a week; 11 on Monday-Thursday, 8 on Friday and Saturday, and 4 on Sundays. According to the library’s computer use policy, “There is a two-hour time limit for the total amount of computer access per day.” Assuming that there is, in fact, the “overwhelming rush” described by the lady at the city council meeting and that the library computers therefore are in full usage 100% of the time, that means that an 11-hour day can see 750 individual users (with the last 125 only getting 1 hour of access), an 8-hour day can see 500 individual users, and a 4-hour day can see 250 individual users. That means that, in any given week, and assuming that each person uses a computer for the full two hours, the library is capable of handling 4250 computer users per week. And while the two-hour policy applies only per day, meaning that theoretically the same 750 people could occupy the library computers 100% of the time, it is highly unlikely. As is, the library presents more than enough opportunities for all 2528.75 impoverished-and-politically-active citizens to access the internet at least once a week.

More statistical fun:

I once saw in an ad on Razorback Transit that 7 in 10 students live off-campus. Given the U of A enrollment of 19,194, this implies that 13,435.8 U of A students do not live on campus. Now, not all of them necessarily live in Fayetteville. Let’s assume that three-fourths of them do. That leaves us with 10,076.85. If we then apply the poverty line, we get 2,519.2125 impoverished college students living within the city. If we then apply the politically active number (15%, achieved by using the results of the mayoral election), we end up with 377.881875. Those 378 politically engaged and impoverished students have free internet at the university, and would not need to use it at the public library. This leaves just 2,150.75 people who would theoretically rely on the library for internet. That’s just slightly more than half of the 4,250 users the library is capable of handling a week, meaning that, theoretically, the non-university impoverished and politically engaged citizens could have 4 hours of free internet access a week at the public library.

4 hours of free internet access a week is hardly crippling.

As a postscript to the elderly woman in front of me who smugly smiled every time someone mentioned the age gap, Facebook’s largest growing segment right now is women older than 55.

But people usually go in with their minds made up and work the facts to support them. After all, I just did.