A vital component of effective community leadership is getting feedback from the people who are most impacted by the quality of that leadership. Leaders need to know if what they are doing is working and taking the community in the right direction. If it isn’t working, they need to know the reasons for that failure. They also need to be open to hearing ideas from the public that can improve their organizations.
We at MHAT-19 believe strongly that it’s absolutely essential for the public to provide its candid critique to the decision-makers in a community. That’s why, through our video production service Studio 82, we are partnering with the Morgan Hill Times in an experiment enabling residents and businesses to voice their thoughts and opinions in an online survey.
Each month, the Morgan Hill Times will ask local residents to respond to a survey designed to get the big picture of a specific segment of the community’s structure. These segments will include Morgan Hill’s schools, parks and recreation opportunities, public safety issues, government effectiveness, transportation issues and overall quality of life. The survey is designed to enable responders to have 100 percent anonymity, assuring that they can voice their opinions as honestly and freely as they wish. Each of the survey questions also provides a text box for responders to share their opinions or elaborate with a comment about their thoughts on the specific issue addressed by that question.
Morgan Hill residents have one month to respond to each of these “quality of the community” survey. After the survey closes, an article will appear in the Morgan Hill Times detailing what the public thinks based on the results.
The first survey was launched on April 20 and will run until May 20. It focuses on the effectiveness of the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce in serving its mission of promoting a strong economic environment in the community. Responders can answer 10 questions on how well the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce promotes the region’s wine industry and the city’s dining and entertainment opportunities, the effectiveness of the Chamber’s staff and board of directors, and its effectiveness in advocating economic development and tourism in Morgan Hill. To view the survey, visit www.surveymonkey.com/s/MorganHillChamber.
The Times’ experiment in digital journalism might be a first. A search of the Internet was unable to find any other newspapers using regular online quality of community surveys to better serve their readers. Perhaps the reason why is because it’s only been fairly recently that the technology has developed – much of it created locally in Silicon Valley – to enable people to participate in these types of surveys.
The days of ink journalism are fast coming to a close. Fewer people are receiving their news from actual printed newspapers. More of us are relying on digital devices to stay informed.
A survey of 3,000 adults released in January by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that more American news consumers are turning to multiplatform digital devices (laptops, smartphones, PCs) for their daily dose of information. About 54 percent of Americans get their news on desktop or laptop computers. And nearly a quarter of adults in the U.S. get news on at least two devices, such as a laptop and a smartphone.
The evolution of modern media distribution technology is providing ways for news consumers to be more engaged with the news. We at MHAT-19 believe the system developed by the Morgan Hill Times is an excellent method to empower the public to be more proactive in voicing their opinion to their community leaders.
