Join our new DMM Forum

We need ALL of you to join us in new discussions about our city and our region – right here on the newest Dayton Forum…

For almost a year and a half, we’ve had this blog going – along with
our Dayton History, Dayton Neighborhoods and Dayton Scene blogs.  It
has been an interesting journey…  We’ve received countless emails
from people who get what we’re doing and enjoy reading our posts (and
sometimes even commenting on them).  Our site’s readership has gone
from a few hits a day to almost 1000 hits a day.  And I’ve gotten to
know many people in this community because of this site – from elected
politicians, organization leaders and regular folks like me.

And now I’m on the Creative Region Initiative Task Force with many of
the region’s leaders and hope to be selected as a community catalyst
that will work with Richard Florida’s Creative Class Group over the
next year.  I had always planned on blogging about the experience, but
I think there is an even more effective tool that will get EVERYBODY
involved in the discussion – regardless if you are an active catalyst
or simply somebody that has something to add to the conversation.
Because after all, if this Creative Class thing is going to be
successful, it is going to have to welcome EVERYBODY to the table.
That is what being a Creative City is all about – embracing not only a
diversity of people, but a diversity of ideas.  And if you don’t think you can make a difference, think again.  Because the discussions on this site are already making some serious waves in this town.  The ideas you share WILL be read by many people – some with the authority to move on them.

So I welcome all of you who would like to get involved in the conversation to join our new DMM Forum.
It is  powered by open source software called Simple Machines and will
require you to register (even if you have registered on DMM or TypePad
– sorry for the inconvenience).  But don’t worry, the forum and all
member data is stored on our own host server so you don’t have to worry
about your email address getting hijacked and spammed.  And we only ask you for a username, password and email address on the registration anyway – you can remain as
anonymous as you want.  Register Here

The benefit to belonging to this new community is that ANYBODY can
begin a conversation – which makes it different than a blog (where only
a few of us can create a topic).  The forum will be moderated so you
don’t have to worry about some of the morons that like to spread their
ignorance on other forums (like the DDN’s).  And it is a very powerful
yet very easy to use communication tool that can really inspire some
great discussion.

Of course, a new forum is exactly the same as a big empty room – not
very inviting or interesting until a bunch of people show up and start
commiserating.  I’ve seen some forums created in the past that simply bombed because they only had a few people involved (a reason we never created one ourselves until now).  So I am asking ALL of you that read this blog – even if
you are not one to comment, we NEED YOU!  Please consider signing up and getting some discussion going. 

Thanks!
-Bill Pote
MostMetro.com