What's Happening With MiamiCountyPost.com?

That’s what this “Blog” section of our site is all about — telling you what we’re up to, where we stand with regards to the goings on in the news industry, and our thoughts on all things journalistic.
So here’s where we’re at:

Right now, MiamiCountyPost is the culmination of 21st century technology and a deep passion for our local communities. Mix in various aspects of the news such as politics and business, and a decent bit of experience in business, building communities, technology, writing, editing, publishing, event coordination, and what we have is more than just another local website...its a community...a way to get connected to our neighbors.

In addition, we’re real people. We have hobbies and interests that we share with other members of the community. We frequent the restaurants and retail businesses in the area, we attend local concerts, farmers markets, recreational events, and club meetings in Miami County. In short, we’re a lot like you.

The goal here is to be not only more informed about the goings on in our communities, but to be more engaged in our communities. It seems that every time I speak to someone, even if they live in the same town as me, each of us has something to share that the other was completely in the dark about. Why is that? Well, because a good bit of the information we each get is by word-of-mouth, usually when it’s too late to do anything about it.

It happens too often. Communities are more vibrant and productive when they have a central point of reference for news and information that affects them or interests them in some way. One big difference with MiamiCountyPost.com is that we’ll be inviting you to participate in shaping the publication, how we deliver content, and how to better serve the community. We hope that this helps insure that the various communities within our larger Miami County community are better able to interact and share news and information.

Still in Beta

“Beta” means “not 100%”. It means we’re still testing features, processes, layout, and new ideas. It means that things are in a state of flux and may change dramatically, for better or for worse, on an ongoing basis as we pursue perfection. It means there might be glitches and perhaps even a little bit of downtime. It means that the content will not be updated as frequently as we’d like in the beginning while we iron out kinks in software, servers, vendors, sponsors, and lots of other stuff that goes into producing a news site.

So why open it up if it’s “not 100%”? Because we hope that our community will offer us feedback on the service sooner rather than later when it might be harder to change direction or implement new features. Because we hope you’ll see where we’re going and be inspired to get involved. Because we believe that building a community-oriented portal without getting input from the community is necessarily and by definition *not* community-oriented!

What Can I Do?

Everything, or nothing at all. It’s up to you. We’re doing this because it’s a useful service to plenty of people we’ve already spoken to, and based on those discussions, we think it’ll be useful to many more. If all you ever do is consume content, that’s fine with us — but we want you to know that you can contribute if you wish.

If you’re a photographer, or happen to find yourself with a camera passing by a protest in front of the safety building, take a shot! If your child’s school is holding an event of interest to people anywhere in Miami County, give us a shout and tell us about it! If you’re a student of journalism who likes hanging around downtown Troy, we’d love to talk to you! If you’re a business owner being affected by new developments in state or local laws, the local economy, infrastructure projects, or traffic, let us know!

Everyone who participates in the community in any way, and can express their ideas either in words, video, photographs, or other ways we haven’t though of yet is a potential contributor.
Where do I send news, ideas, or feedback?

For the moment, send any and all communication to submit@miamicountypost.com