Changes to the Website
When I decided to put together an online community for green residential builders, many things went through my mind. What would my website look like? How could I pull together the elements I needed quickly enough to launch the site? Who would it serve? How would I reach them?
I was extremely fortunate to learn some key lessons from my recent job with Integnology. This is a company built around communities of senior executives at (generally) very large companies. One lesson is that communities need privacy as much as they need to be able to communicate. This is why Green Making provides a secure area for professionals who design and build residences. It provides a protected space where these people can meet and communicate with each other.
The architects, engineers and construction company executives from this group are not cut off from the rest of the community. They can still reach out through links on the site and get to the resources they need, and also see postings by the wider community. But, at the same time, they need to be free to communicate amongst themselves without being bombarded with messages about what they might want.
To rapidly build the site, I had to efficiently use existing services. I started with blogs, wikis and simple web pages that could provide a nexus for communication about green resources. But, in order to provide some coherence and consistency, I used frames rather than a traditional open webpage. I’d be very interested in your feedback on how you like this. A number of people have told me that they like the clean, uncluttered look of the site. I know it doesn’t have much in the way of graphics, but I’m hoping to fix that as I go on. Also, I know that the blog format is limiting and may be difficult for some to use, since it requires a bit of effort to write for a blog. There are plans to ease this burden in the future.
And I know that the frames also take up some screen real estate that users may prefer was available for other things. If you want to see something I’m loading into the main frame on the full screen, I suggest alternate-clicking on it and selecting “new tab” (or “new window”).
Another area of some contention is how descriptive the titles on the home page should be. I’ve chosen short, evocative titles (I hope they’re evocative) rather than longer descriptive ones because I want to keep the space requirements for them small and I believe that anyone who visits the website more than a couple of times will easily come to remember what they do. If you don’t know what something is, pause your cursor over the title and you should see a pop-up caption to tell you what it is. For example, if you hover over “On the Horizon”, you should see “News on coming green techniques and technology” pop up. If you have any suggestions, however, please let me know. Click on where it says “n Comments” at the end of a post on this blog (where “n” is “No” or a number).
The biggest hole right now, from my point of view, is that I need more bloggers! You may notice that I’m the only one blogging in The Greens at the moment. Well, I’m very much hoping to bring in others to blog about their experiences, and I’m currently in talks with a number of people on that very topic (writing here). But please don’t wait for them. Be the first to join me by signing up and writing for The Greens. It’s very easy to get an account. Just click on our sign up page.
It hasn’t been especially hard, given my background blogging and writing HTML to put together a website. The question of who to serve was a bit more difficult. In some ways, I’ve been looking for a good business opportunity for many years, and I’ve tried a number of different avenues. I’ve had an interest in building a green home for a long time (as you can see from other posts here). But, the specific impetus to create a service for the residential green building community came when I started looking for a job this year. I need to find a way to use my experience in Information Technology and my business management experience, and (as you may have noticed) the job market can be quite unfriendly to job seekers, especially when most companies are laying off.
“Green” is the one bright spot in the jobs picture. As I looked around for green jobs, my business coach, (Angel Rampy, suggested looking for jobs as a business manager in the green building trades. This clicked because I knew I could leverage what I’ve learned over the years about passive solar designs and various kinds of building and remodeling projects.
Still, there’s enormous activity in the green building area, even in the residential area. I know that there are several excellent organizations (such as Build It Green) already providing access to resources. So, how is this service different? Well, my aim is something quite different from what I’ve seen. I want people to be able to communicate with those who could reasonably help them out in a direct way. That implies a localized site, where the people you meet are within a day’s drive so that you can work directly with them. And, I don’t want it to break down into silos, so that architects only talk with architects, and so on.
Of course, many resources are available nationwide, or even worldwide. For example, the good folks at The Old Fashioned Milk Paint Company may be in Massachusetts, but they sell products here in the San Francisco Bay Area. And, the people at Deltec Homes in Asheville, NC, sell home kits that have traveled around the world.
But, if you are planning to build a home, then you want to be sure that the people and companies you are talking to can reasonably help you where you want to plant your home. For right now, our “area” is the Silicon Valley Area, which consists of Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Benito, and San Luis Obispo counties. (I’m not fussy about it; so I also include things I’m finding in nearby areas.) After establishing the service for this area, I want to expand it to others.
One immediate objection I’ve run into is, “But I want to see everything.” Of course! Not a problem. Right now, nothing is limited in any way, other than that I’m pre-selecting content that focuses on Silicon Valley. But, as the website expands I expect to give each member a default location that will preselect their content by their area and allow them to expand or manipulate that area as they wish.
So, for example, if you live in Toledo, OH, I’m expecting that you will have a default in the Toledo-Fremont statistical area, which includes Lucas, Wood, Fulton, and Ottawa Counties. When you log in, you will see resources for that area. But, if you select an option, then you will see resources from other areas, depending on your choice. The filtering should include blog posts and other services, as well.
There’s a big advantage to focusing on local areas. If you go looking for resources with a web search, it is very difficult to filter out things you can’t get to. Do you want to see recycled doors and windows from remote areas? Not by default! You might want to see them if you can’t find something you want close by. That’s why we’ll provide an option.
So, the parameters of our service are fairly simple: We want to include anyone interested in green homes, building or remodeling. We want to support communities that allow people from different disciplines to work together. We want to build our forums and other services around local areas, so that searching is minimized and finding is maximized. We want to encourage those who want to construct a green home to talk with architects, engineers, home builders, real estate agents, building material suppliers, and anyone else who can help them out. And, in doing so, we believe we provide the opportunity for people to learn about the others they will need to work with in a way that makes everyone comfortable and confident about each other.
Please help me build those communities!
–Rich Wingerter
Tags: Green Making Community, Green Making Website, LinkedIn, Metropolitan Statistical Areas