by Andy Laub on November 5th, 2007
A little over a month ago, Citizen Wausau was introduced to the community. We weren’t sure what kind of reception there’d be, or what kind of trials we might face. All we knew was that we wanted to reinvent what community in Wausau could be. There have been some definite ups and downs so far, but CW came out swinging and has been surprising all of us. When the curtain closed on October, we were left with over 4,000 visits and 15,000 pageviews from 13 countries. We’ve been immensely pleased and we owe all of our contributors a heartfelt thanks for sticking with us and helping us grow.
Now it’s time for the next step. (more…)
by Jim Rosenberg on October 1st, 2007
Do we need to have another discussion? Of course we do.
At the beginning of the year, I started a blog. It seemed like the right thing to do after being named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year”. Of course, you shared the honor because the cover was simply a mirror and the honoree was simply “You” – so it’s really not just all about me.
It’s pretty obvious that the Internet has changed everybody’s life and it has certainly changed mine. A couple of decades back or more, I remember Jeff Busha telling me about this new media and how my company should have a site on “the worldwide web”. Two local geeks had recently put together a business called Datawave and so everything was in place to get this done.
At first, I couldn’t figure out why we should even do it. We were a small utility with geographically separated, specifically defined service areas in central and eastern Wisconsin. Our stock was closely held. What the heck did I care if someone in Bangladesh could look up our home page? Pick up the stupid phone if you want something, for crying out loud! I had enough hassles dealing with people that it was my business to actually deal with, so why open up the conversation to anyone with a computer, a phone line, an ISP and some time on his or her hands?
Having said all of that, it was obvious that he was right about this stuff and so we developed the site.
A few years later, we met with Bob Weirauch, who had started a company called Wausau Financial Systems. He had partnered with a company in the Twin Cities to develop a product allowing electronic billing and payment so business could be transacted in a virtual environment. By sending out bills electronically and having customers initiate funds transfers with their banks to pay them, there would be significant cost savings on postage and paper.
In retrospect, it was a crude system, but when we forged ahead and installed the system, we became one of the first real, live applications for e-billing and payment. I quickly found myself on the national lecture circuit doing dog and pony shows with the representative from the software company. I flew around the country enough in the 1990s to become an elite level frequent flier on someone else’s money, (which is really nice work, if you can get it.) At the conference the geeks and the suits got together in search of the Holy Grail of the Killer App. At one summer conference, a panel member from an emerging dotcom company reported that they had a fabulous second quarter. They had gone to the market with an IPO and taken in $300 million for the stock of their company, which had absolutely zero revenues. I returned home and moved all of my 401(k) money out of the stock fund and into a conservative, guaranteed fixed return fund. Three months later, the market tanked.
Of course, technology marches on. Web based billing and payment has taken hold to the point where I don’t just pay things that way, but I accept credit card payments myself. I don’t use a travel agent anymore because the systems at my disposal to book airline tickets, hotel rooms and rental cars from my home are more sophisticated than what my agent had available a dozen years ago. E-mail is more important than the telephone and it’s a 24/7 world for research, transactions and interactions of just about any kind.
Something else has changed, too. The early days of the Internet were content-based and mostly static. It was about finding information. It still is, but today, the net is interactive and it is people-based. It’s all about you (and me.) People are having discussions. They’re meeting up. The social networking site “My Space” now gets more daily traffic than Google. Most of this is very good, but like any powerful force, it can be used for things like helping Senator Larry Craig to locate an infamous men’s room in the Minneapolis airport, too. Terrorists post executions and messages of hate.
But let’s accentuate the positive here, because there is plenty. There is the opportunity and the need to improve our public dialogue and broaden the participation in the many issues we face at the local, state, national and global level. You don’t have to go to a boring meeting or listen to long-winded speeches. We have the means right here to do some of that and we have Time’s Person of the Year to help us. You can do it in your bunny slippers and nobody will know. Join in the dialogue. It’s all about you.
by Dino Corvino on October 1st, 2007
Here we go, off and running, the gate has dropped, we are racing for the whole shot, our power band is all wound up, and we’re trying our best. Or something. This is my post number one on Citizen Wausau, brought to you by the Superstarch group, and Andy Laub. All of it cooler than just about anything else on two wheels.
I had thought about this post for a few weeks, and now I am faced with the launch, and as editor I have nothing in the old hopper. So this is struggling, in public, as an editor…very flattering.
I thought I would make this some grand post about our vision, our technology, our goals…yeah that sounds good. As they say…LET LOOSE THE HOUNDS!!! (I am not sure, but someone has to say something like that.)
The Vision for Citizen Wausau is pretty direct. We want you to talk about your city. It’s a great place. A growing group of young professionals, philanthropy, easy places (sometimes) for you to do volunteer activities, the Weston dog park. Its all here. We want all of it. More than that though, we want to encourage personal voices. We want the person to feel comfortable enough to make comments about the things in this city.
It’s impossible to take this on, without mention of the now-defunct WausauBlog. We owe the inspiration for this endeavor to Bill at WausauBlog. If you look at the work that he did, and the success he had all by himself, it’s pretty substantial. I have known Bill for a few years. When I started out he was a stay at home Dad, and now Bill has grown into an editor for the Buyers Guide, and I am pretty sure he is selling a ton of pictures… even a highlight of the Exhibitours of recent memory.
So, we are not trying to replace the work Bill did, we are trying to do something completely different. More contributors, different technology, a bigger sort of focus. But at the end of the day, the Wausaublog is our Uncle, and we hope that our Uncle approves.
I have some simple goals for Citizen Wausau, and I think they are attainable, I want to change the world. I want to make as much noise as possible and I want to change the world. Aside from that though, I want to meet the contributors and I hope that we can all see each other at the Citizen Desk launch party.
But I also see this as a place for critical engagement. I want us to be open to new ideas, and I want people to bring their voices of criticism to the table. I think that it’s possible that those folks in leadership might not know what you want – because you didn’t have a tool to communicate it to them. We intend to change that. If you think the Pool Proposal is wrong, we want an article on why you think that. A smart, engaged, well written, personal article.
I want to raise the level of debate in this city. I am a Sorkin-esque discussor. I want to have the better angels of our nature come through, and I want to see what others think. Nothing is set, everything is up for discussion.
So, like Lincoln, I want Citizen Wausau to shoot for the better angels of our nature. I want to see what you have to think. And I want you to respect what I have to say. Together anything is possible.
by Marcus Nelson on October 1st, 2007
Dear Everyone,
Welcome Citizens! Thank you for stopping by – as you see, Citizen Wausau is alive! I wanted to take a moment, and introduce ourselves.
First off, my name is Marcus Nelson. I am a native of Wausau, having grown up on the southeast side and attended Wausau East High School. But past is prologue, and now I am a husband and father of two, back in my hometown after many trips and homes elsewhere. Wausau is a special place, a place on the cusp of something amazing, and with Citizen Wausau I want to be part of that. So I am back now – having formed a design/technology consultancy – and am proud to be home again.
Citizen Wausau has been in the making for a couple months. During this time, I have had a chance to work with my friends Andy Laub and Dino Corvino. Andy agreed to take on the role of Creative Director and Dino as the Editor for Citizen Wausau. It’s been amazing to work with these guys, both in their attitude and ability to do anything I’ve come up with… “Hey, can we make this three columns, and blah, blah, blah?” Andy always says, “Sure.” Then quietly and expertly makes it a reality. “Dino, can you rewrite this post and make me sound coherent?” And with the wave of his Powerbook, it’s completed. Both of their involvement have been hugely instrumental, and I cannot thank them enough.
I’d also like to thank Emily, my enduring wife of nine years. I’m astonished she enables me to pursue these crazy ideas. She understands my creativity, even pitching in as administrator to keep things on schedule, allowing me to pour myself into this endeavor. She’s an amazing woman – if any you men could find a nice gal with half her graces, you’d be in pretty good shape. I love you sweetheart.
So, what is Citizen Wausau?
Check out our Mission Statement for a brief overview, but to put it bluntly, it’s “citizen journalism”: the idea that everybody has a story to tell; they just need the platform to do so. Wanting to use the technology that I love so much to provide a forum for this very thing, I am really excited about what has come out of it. This idea of giving voice to every person, providing a platform, building community… it’s all right here!
Wausau is a great place, a growing place, but with growth come the challenges of balancing lots of opinions and ideas, conflict and resolution, and all the rest. We hope to be a place where everyone can wrestle with these things openly – in a civil exchange. The Internet has been a place where tempers can flare, and people have acted out in ways that would normally not be replicated in real life. We ask that as a contributor you be responsible for your words. As a commenter, we ask that you not post something that you would feel uncomfortable saying in front of your real-life colleagues; people who know you as more than just a username.
We want that free-flowing idea exchange, but we want to provide a place that is about the idea, not the personality. With that, in extreme cases we reserve the right to pull anything we feel takes away from the civility of the forum. We have an Editorial Policy, but we should all know how to be polite, disagree without being disagreeable, and move ideas around the table in a constructive way.
This is post number one, and we make no apologies for being bit rough around the edges. This means we are going to be experimenting, making mistakes, adding things, and taking things away. Our focus will always remain on the contributions of our community. Contributors are the lifeblood of this project and we intend to support them, to give them opportunities, to put their ideas out there for as much discussion as possible. We hope you become one of those contributors, and we hope that you contribute often. So please allow for those changes, and we hope that even our missteps are interesting to watch. We’ll be down at Citizen Desk in case you’d like to stop by and say hello.
We have big goals ahead. Podcasts, videos, personal blogs, networking, all that stuff. This is our social media. I hope you take the time to stick around, enjoy the ride, and shoot me an email if you have any ideas for making this site a happier place.
Thanks.
Day 1, and we are proud of our work.
Marcus Nelson
publisher of citizenwausau.com
