LocallyGrownNews.com Tweaking Interface, Sending First Email Newsletter

Monday, June 21, 2010

I officially launched LocallyGrownNews.com last week after a month in soft launch where I invited close friends and collaborators to take a look at the site. I’ve gotten great feedback regarding the design and I love how the community members are front and center on the site.

Last week, my developer and I tweaked the site to add the popup bubbles on the community members. Now when you mouse over who’s online or who’s new, you get their mini bio and how long they’ve been a member. My goal is to allow users to “wave” at one another and trade “gifts” using the bubbles, but that’s on a long list of developments we’re still working through on the site.

I sent my first email newsletter today, using Constant Contact’s free trial. While the interface seemed a bit clunky for a first-time user, I was pleased that CC actually called me when I initiated my account to see if I had any questions or concerns. Then they followed up this morning to make sure I had been able to send my email properly. Now THAT’S customer service! Thanks Erik!

So I’ve been cranking out new articles on the site, using my visits to farmers markets to generate two or three articles from each visit. Plus, I’ve been distributing postcards about the site to vendors in their booths, directing them to the site. So when I write an article about a vendor, I send them a link to the article or photo package and they put the links on their site.

The local food movement conversation has been a great choice for the content on the site. When I look around the farmers markets, I see such a diversity of humanity. I know this is the place to start the conversation about building our local economy, and the way to a community’s heart is through its stomach.

Soft Launch Updates

Friday, May 28, 2010

I’ve been knee deep in launching the platform and doing promotion. We’re still in the *soft launch* mode, but fleshing out content now that the semester has ended. A few updates…

• I’ll be promoting LocallyGrown News at the Detroit Journalism That Matters event next week in our Innovations Expo. Hoping for a few recruits.
• The week after, my platform developer will be highlighting the site in his talk on hyperlocal communities at the Editor and Publisher Interactive Media conference. He will also be distributing literature at his booth at the expo.
• We have interest in Florida (back in Daytona Beach) and in Washington, DC to launch one of the franchises. We’re still in the demonstration phase, so I’m not eager to sell someone a bill of goods when I haven’t demonstrated the viability of the concept. But it is getting traction.
• In Winston-Salem, we’re working with the regional market managers who will be using the site as their main promotion site.
• LocallyGrown News got a $1,000 grant from the Center for Design Innovation in Winston-Salem as part of their Design, Arts, Technology Symposium that focuses on food and foodways this year. LocallyGrown News is one of three projects that will be featured at the conference and we will be providing editorial coverage.

As for the mobile market app, we’re finishing up wireframes and searching for additional development funds. I keep plugging the fundraising locally to foundations in our region. We’re getting some interest from local farm markets looking for solutions to this problem. But we may be attacking state/federal grants rather than local ones… with a much longer time frame for response.

So that’s what’s growing in my neck of the woods!

What is LocallyGrown News?

Monday, April 19, 2010

LocallyGrownNews.com is an online community and mobile application designed to foster conversations around the locavore movement. A locavore is someone who eats locally grown produce within 50 miles of their geographic location. LocallyGrownNews.com uses the eating locally movement to generate conversation around sustainable, healthy lifestyles.

LocallyGrownNews.com is an online community and mobile application designed to foster conversations around the locavore movement. A locavore is someone who eats locally grown produce within 50 miles of their geographic location. LocallyGrownNews.com uses the eating locally movement to generate conversation around sustainable, healthy lifestyles.

The online community features eco-friendly, geo-specific topics about locally grown produce and other products. Robust user profiles allow people to connect with those with similar interests and passions. The mobile application creates a virtual exchange, connecting producers to co-producers (consumers) in a just-in-time manner. Consumers can find out what is being sold by vendors and markets in their area.

We are also interested in restaurants that feature locally grown foods as well as entities that might use surplus produce for charitable purposes such as food kitchens and churches.

Beta tests will be run in both Winston-Salem and Greensboro, NC. We’re currently looking at expansion sites in Daytona Beach, Florida and in Burlington, NC.

Dr. Michelle Ferrier is the initiator behind LocallyGrownNews.com. She is working with InnerEye Studios in Winston-Salem and Creative Circle Advertising Solutions in East Providence, RI on development of the news and market platforms.

Soft launch mode: Talk it up, sign folks up

Monday, April 19, 2010

I’m going into soft launch mode with LocallyGrown News this month. By rolling out the beta version of the hyperlocal online community through private invites to selected users, I can get feedback on any design, content, architecture or function elements of the site…and still have time for adjustments!

My goal is to use local Earth Day events to distribute information on the project to key community people and get them interested. I’ve already started conversations with city officials, photographers, content providers and others generating some buzz about the site.

I’m going into soft launch mode with LocallyGrown News this month. By rolling out the beta version of the hyperlocal online community through private invites to selected users, I can get feedback on any design, content, architecture or function elements of the site…and still have time for adjustments!

My goal is to use local Earth Day events to distribute information on the project to key community people and get them interested. I’ve already started conversations with city officials, photographers, content providers and others generating some buzz about the site.

I’ve designed a simple 4 x 6 postcard that I’ll distribute to vendors/volunteers at the local Earth Day events. I’ll also be able to gather my own intelligence about who is doing what around my core content and gauge reactions on the spot.

Here’s the front of the postcard I’ll distribute for my private invite.

My goals are simple:
1. Use this ready-made event to gather intelligence. I’m much more effective by being a participant rather than purchasing a booth at this stage. I can move quickly through the fair and get information.
2. Find out who has information to share. Are master gardeners using email to distribute information? Is the city having difficulty communicating on ordinance changes for urban gardens? These pain points make LocallyGrownNews a powerful solution for their problem.
3. Look for stories. Everyone has a story. So I’m taking my camera and getting lots of them in one place. Some I’ll follow up on later, with pictures at the farm/store/market. But I can get a lot of information in one place.
4. Recruit passionate users.
The goal is to build an email list of interested users, content providers, passionate participants and others for the site.

Earth Day is April 22. Three days. Gotta go.

Deep into development on site/mobile app

Friday, March 19, 2010

I’m deep into development of LocallyGrownNews after a quarter of brass tacks business development and planning. With partnership agreements in place with an online community platform and one in progress for a mobile application developer (no, they are not the same), I’ve been trading logo designs, wireframes and ideas for the mobile app with my virtual team(s).

February has also been a month of fundraising. While I’m licensing the online community platform, the mobile app is a completely new product to help bring an additional revenue stream to the business model. Development time = money. So I’ve written two additional grants - one with a local foundation call for projects and another with a national foundation source. I’ve also been working with the mobile app team to identify community grant sources as well as angel and venture capital funds to develop version 1 and version 2.

Versions 1 and 2? What happened to beta? I’ll be beta testing the online community in the second quarter of 2010, but I’m building out a business model with some future development in place. In order to compete in any way with the free (or virtually free) platforms like WordPress, I recognized that we have to bring some value-added to the table. That includes planning for new technologies, fresh content and always looking for partnerships to leverage smart people and products.

I’ve also been immersing myself in the markets where I’ll be beta testing the concept. I decided to launch the effort closer to home where I can develop the contacts and content myself (the free labor helps with the budget!). I’m also cultivating some interested contacts in other locales who are just as interested in food and hyperlocal communities.

Spring is here and I’m eager to break out of this winter hibernation. With our anticipated launch on the horizon, I’m preparing simple promotional materials for a soft launch, storing up evergreen content and continuing to share the philosophy of connecting communities through food.

Project Report

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Former MytopiaCafe.com editor Dr. Michelle Ferrier, one of three winners in the New Media Women Entrepreneurs awards,  has been working to develop a complete infrastructure, to be franchised, for those individuals or groups want to launch hyper-local news sites.  Ferrier is an associate professor at Elon University in North Carolina and teaches in the iMedia graduate program.

She reports that she’s had a busy time in the projects first three months.

Ferrier established a business structure as a limited liability partnership called Creative Technologists, LLC based in Greensboro, North Carolina and interviewed and/or visited six potential technology partners for the development of the content management system for the community sites.

Ferrier then researched and received quotes on several different companion print products. As part of the learning process, she made contact with competing companies and products being offered in the hyper-local space to see what they were offering. And then she created nondisclosure and teaming agreements with Creative Circle Advertising Solutions of Providence, Rhode Island.

These negotiations included a licensing agreement for use of their CommunityQ content management system and an exclusive nationwide right to sell the platform to potential hyper-local news operators.

Then she created nondisclosure and teaming agreements with Inner Eye Studios of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Inner Eye Studios will be Ferrier’s technology partner in the development of the mobile application and other ancillary technologies to the content management system platform.

She established a project blog at http://www.digitalcontentarchitects.com that details the project development along with informational content of use to hyperlocal developers. She wrote a series of blogs on the pros/cons of content management systems resulting in significant buzz and viewership that extended to the Reynolds Journalism Institute Collaboratory site and Journalism That Matters Collaboratory, two potential audiences for the franchise project content and services.

Finally, she found a physical location for the business in the Wagon Works Digital Media Incubator, developed by Inner Eye Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

“The principals of the incubator will help establish the technological supports for the franchise project and provide marketing and business support for the development of the franchise business,” said Ferrier. “They will also assist in the development of a pitch package for local venture capital firms.

“By December 30, 2009, I intend to begin the design and development of the content management system front-end and back-end systems. In addition, a design for the mobile application system will be developed in conjunction with the above partners.”

For all the good things that have happened, Ferrier says that she has experienced a significant setback. Foreclosures, as well as business closures, in the West Volusia, Florida area have had a direct effect on the advertising and readership of a potential hyper-local publication that Ferrier had planned to help launch in the area. Due to the economic downturn, Ferrier and the content partner that she works with in the area both felt that the problems with starting a new enterprise in the area would serious compromise its chances of being successful.

“Due to this loss, I have been assessing other locations for the viability of the hyper-local concept,” says Ferrier. “I’m going to use an online contest to solicit interested hyper-local operators, and to develop a prospect list for potential clients. The contest will held in January 2010, with the winner of will begin development of their local site by March 2010.”

Ferrier plans to attend the Journalism That Matters regional event in Seattle, Washington on January 7-10, 2010. She’ll distribute promotional materials for the contest and the Women’s Community News Franchise effort. And she plans to attend the Journalism That Matters conference in Detroit June 4-7, 2010, where she will be one of the principal organizers.

“This ‘mashup’  conference is designed to stimulate and incubate innovative journalism ventures,” says Ferrier.” I intend to cultivate additional contacts for content, technology and distribution.”

Ferrier also plans to continue to explore a variety of funding sources such as foundation, venture and personal, to sustain the franchise development in subsequent years.  The development of a venture capital package is on the drawing board.

The next three months will see more work to build the hyper-local “toolbox,” including the design and development of the content management system/mobile application and contest/marketing materials for the franchise idea. Ferrier will also launch a proof of concept site and select a partner for the site.

Reflections on Slow News Movement at JTM-PNW

Sunday, January 10, 2010

After several days at the Journalism that Matters -Pacific Northwest gathering, we’ve been asked to reflect on what ah-ha moments, actions and emotions we’ve developed during our time. One of the most intriguing ideas to come out of the JTM session I hosted on Locally Grown News was the idea of slow news.

The first ah-ha moment for me came when I looked at what was happening nationally and the movement toward producing fewer papers—going from a daily metro newspaper to perhaps three or four times a week publication. While this has reduced expenditures and is often accompanied by layoffs, I began to think that the change signaled a difference in how news was produced. Even with fewer employees, do the news staffs feel that they can produce more thoughtful, context-filled, richly sourced stories with the additional time they now have?

This thought carried into the Locally Grown News session where we examined using the locavore movement—eating locally—as an opening for conversations and sharing of news in a community. The idea is to use the analogy of the farmer’s market, rather than the town square, as the metaphor for doing news differently in a hyperlocal space.

Our group found the food metaphor a rich way to explore not only how hyperlocals might use this content niche as a focal point, but began to examine the food cycle itself and how it maps to the roles, practices, behaviors, rituals that define a different way of doing journalism. What rich, fertile ground (oh, the puns!) that helped to grow our vision of a new kind of news process.

Slow news is the deliberate, thoughtful, context-filled, nurturing journalistic enterprise. It is news as food, news and information that feeds a community. My initial thoughts generated multiple questions that we could ask ourselves as journalists and media producers:

1. Who is fed by this information? Who is starved?
2. How does this information nurture the community?
3. Where did the seeds of this idea come from?
4. Who contributed to the preparation of this story?
5. Where else/how else/in what other forms might this story be produced?

Our collective passion for what we do as journalists and foodies led us to produce a diagram that maps our roles as media in the food cycle.