Building up to community engagement
Project Rosie isn’t about creating a crowdsourced information network. It’s about earning trust.
Project Rosie is a big machine with a lot of moving parts. First, there’s the crowdsourcing network that will verify or debunk rumors of immigration enforcement along Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens. Then there’s the newswire that will share this crowd-verified information and other news with the immigrant community. Finally, there’s the revenue engine, which is still too vague to dedicate to Medium.
So where should I start? My initial thought was to connect with shop owners, employees and street vendors — the omnipresent eyes on Roosevelt Avenue that would be the base of Rosie’s crowdsourcing network. I’m a nervous wreck when it comes to cold calling, so I tagged along with a local advocacy group that was canvasing neighborhood businesses. I was there only to listen to the business owners’ interests and concerns. Listening is what I do.
Here’s what I heard from the shopkeepers we encountered:
The boss isn’t here to speak with you. I don’t know when he will be in. Yeah, yeah, leave the flyers [note: plural]. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Okay, leave the flyers here. I will give them to the boss. Okay, thank you, I will give them to the boss. Yeah, yeah.
And here’s what I heard from members of the advocacy group:
Oh well, let’s move on to the next shop. I don’t think this business will be so receptive. The employee said she didn’t speak English. Let’s try the next place. I dunno, the guy said he’d give the flyers to his boss. I guess that’s all we can ask.
I realize that door-to-door community outreach is a tough gig fraught with rejection, so I give credit to the advocacy group for undertaking that work. But I think their efforts would have been more productive (and their expectations more realistic) had they done less talking and more listening.
The owners of mom-and-pop shops are bombarded constantly with requests — from customers, suppliers, delivery people, creditors, inspectors and solicitors, to name a few. It’s likely that the “employees” who spoke with the advocates that evening were in fact the business owners trying to shoo them away. Had the advocates listened, they would have heard, “Please don’t give me any more work to do.”
Instead, the advocates talked on and on, overeager to get their message across: “Here’s one piece of information for you to digest, and another, and another.” Their aim was an immediate conversion to the cause, what The Wall Street Journal once reported as “the short nickel.” They asked too much of the shopkeepers all at once, without giving them reason to trust or tolerate them. In return, the shopkeepers showed little interest.
The advocates should have gone for “the long dollar,” a gradual introduction to themselves and their cause in an effort to earn trust over several visits. And they should have asked less of these shopkeepers in one encounter. Over time, I believe they would have gained more trust and participation from these businesses with a long-dollar approach than with their short-nickel barrage of flyers.
With that, I’m putting my money where my big, fat mouth is. Instead of immediately asking business owners for their participation in Project Rosie’s crowdsourcing network, I’m going to meet with them over weeks, perhaps months, with one simple request:
May I post this flyer in your shop?
The flyer will advertise Rosie’s newswire, describe the journalism to be offered and promote the number to dial in order to subscribe to the text-messaging service. The flyer’s design and content will change weekly, requiring me to visit each store and restaurant on Roosevelt Avenue again (and again) to ask if the owners would mind hosting my updated flyer.
The goal is to get these business owners to recognize my face, make them (and myself) comfortable in our interactions, and understand that my intentions are to serve the community. My goal is to earn their trust. And over the weeks or months, I will learn their names, listen to their concerns and finally ask:
Can I do some reporting for you? And can you do some reporting for me?
In the meantime, I’ve composed a working editorial calendar for Rosie’s newswire. It’s chock full of possible stories, public-service announcements, callouts for audience engagement and opportunities for me to repurpose content for resale.
I’ll have to earn the trust of newswire subscribers as well, which I hope to do with relevant, useful reporting. I could be totally wrong, in which case I will alter my approach, but at least the primary goal of gradually introducing myself to business owners will be met.
I’ve also got a lot of flyers to design.
This approach to building Project Rosie might work best to earn the community’s trust. After all, I’m in it for the long dollar.
