JewishBoston.com

Facebook vs. Facetime

One of my favorite blogs, WiserEarth, has a great post about the importance of spending time face to face, not just electronically, and their progress on setting up gatherings to augment the online tools that they provide.

This concept is deeply embedded in our approach to JewishBoston.com - our top goal is to make it easier to people to participate in Jewish life.  We want to use technology to support, encourage, and augment in person engagement, not to replace it.

This obviously has design implications for the site.  In particular, it's why we're so focused on calendars and events as part of the first release.   

He said, she said, we all said - the community workshops

One of the things we've been doing in the past six months has been running a series of community and organizational workshops.  It was a great experience.  Collectively, we're not a shy community and people had lots of terrific thoughts about what JewishBoston.com should be doing.

Here are links to two documents from the workshops:

First is the summary of findings.  We've since used this to help inform the RFP for the site.

Second is the detailed list of all the ideas from the community workshops.  (You'll need Microsoft Excel for this one.)

The most inspiring feedback from the sessions was the consistent interest in the same things:  show me all the events, make it easy for me to find them, let me search a complete directory of all resourses, and help me find a path to Jewish life in Boston.

What do YOU want from JewishBoston.com? Take the survey

Welcome to the JewishBoston.com Blog!

Right now, it's not just the blog, it's the entire website.

But over time, we'll be building something more. 

There will be more information about what's going on in the area.  Boston is an incredible hub of Yiddishkite.  More people should know about it.  Jewish life should be easier, more convenient, more personal. 

And we need iReporters... and ideas.  This site needs to be one for all of us; and one that we create together.  We'll be adding ways for you to add your own ideas, pictures, and events.  We're checking on Facebook integration.

Because this is a blog, you don't have to wait to participate!  Comments are very welcome. 

And also, we need your opinion about what would make you use JewishBoston.com once or twice a week.  Please click here to take a quick survey of what you'd like to see.