This old clip from The Pierce Report on Charlotte in 1995 gives a great history lesson on building community online. Steve Snow was talking about building links among people 13 years ago and struggling with funding questions. We're still discussing those questions.
Related links with lessons:
Dallas Morning News, 1999:
Freelance article on politics and funding, 1997.
Letter from Steve Snow offering sage advice.
Case study from the Charlotte library. "It's not about technology, but about people."
3 comments:
I remember those heady days. I had a website called "Charlotte Internet Society", with a bunch of other pages connected thereunto. I was rather surprised, frankly, that my site outlasted theirs. Their site was, by far, the more useful and informative...but it had a lot more people helping. I was cranking mine out on a 486, and yet got 5 stars from Net Guide Magazine. No one works that hard any more, certainly not me. Microblogging is all the rage now.
Steve and his gang are to be commended for their foresight and hard work.
Thanks for reminding us of some of Steve's many accomplishments.
He will be missed, and mourned. Steve was a visionary, pioneer and Renaissance Man who re-invented himself several times over, before re-invention was cool (or necessary).
His best advice, for me right now, in the linked letter from Steve:
"Take care of yourselves physically and emotionally as you build your community networks; know they are part of a matrix of things that will help make your community better, but do not let yourself get dragged into the 'black hole' of the Internet."
So I'm going to go take a long walk in the 'hood, on a beautiful day.
Thanks, Steve.
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