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Homeowners Association (HOA) Community Site

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Homeowners Association (HOA) Community Site

5/28/2009 9:45 PM EDT
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By Matt Rajkowski

Concursive Corporation
Product Design

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I'm looking to build a community web site for my neighborhood so I've started by making notes about the functionality required. I'm looking for more insight, however, so please share your thoughts.

Here's what I'd like to have in the community site:

- A place where the association can provide information about the neighborhood... guidelines, calendar events, and more.
- A place where residents can share information of interest with each other... what's going on in and around the neighborhood
- A place where non-residents can learn more about the neighborhood, from a marketing perspective, but not let them see personal information about the residents and committees

Using ConcourseConnect, these categories can be used:
- Businesses: located around the neighborhood and of particular interest to the residents and non-residents
- Organizations: government/municipal information, libraries, schools, churches, and more for residents and non-residents
- Committees: the HOA committees including the Board, specifically for residents
- Groups: An area where residents can create a group and optionally a private group -- Moms, Books, Tennis, Gardening, New Residents, Carpooling, etc.
- Events: Events in and around the neighborhood... could include Clubhouse activity and more
- Ideas: A place to share positive thoughts to make the neighborhood better
- People: Basic profiles of people who live in the neighborhood, for residents only

So far so good. We have the basic system up and running and customized. The permissions are working well too. This is just a starting point and it definitely replaces Yahoo Groups and the Google Calendar we were using.

As it is, we're going to take it live and see what the neighbors think. I'll also report back on what they say.

So, as a general purpose neighborhood site, what else do you think it should or could have?

Are there other features besides those included that would be helpful to residents?

Thanks,
Matt

1. 6/2/2009 2:21 PM EDT
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By Matt Rajkowski

Concursive Corporation
Product Design

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Next, I want to make sure the categories are good enough. The default sub-categories for Businesses have been used and the sub-categories for Organizations have been created based on Fred's project for the Chamber of Commerce:

Charity
Civic
Community
Environmental
Historical
Religious
Social
Other

2. 7/17/2009 10:06 AM EDT
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By Matt Rajkowski

Concursive Corporation
Product Design

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Thanks for your feedback, both online and offline.

The HOA implementation is complete. What the customer has implemented is a combination public/private website that allows visitors to learn about the neighborhood, access information on local businesses, schools, organizations, and news, as well as request to sign up as a resident in order to access more information. News is provided by a local TV station's RSS feed.

Once the resident is approved and logs in, they have access to a neighborhood watch activity stream, neighborhood events, and access to HOA Committees and Groups that are both viewable by residents or completely private for specific residents. The HOA Committee members now have a centralized area for blogging and documenting information in a wiki. The ideas page allows for residents to post ideas and collaborate. Residents can also upload photos and videos in any of these areas: Businesses, Organizations, Committees, Groups, Events and Ideas.

In the end, the idea was to get the neighborhood online... and to entice residents with a dynamic experience so they would come back for more. The neighborhood watch activity stream, news from the tv station, and areas for collaboration will likely do that. Furthermore, this example of an ultra-local community allows the residents to share and trust information about local businesses and organizations because they know one-another.

If you're interested in setting up an ultra-local community, let us help. We've put together a starter template that can be re-used for your community.

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