Private online communities among neighbors thrive around Burlington, Vt.
By Bill Densmore
Michael Wood-Lewis took undergraduate engineering and graduate business degrees, added a dash of career experience running non-profits, and then formed Front Porch Forum, in Burlington, Vt. Now the service has expanded to dozens of communities throughout Chittenden County.
In a 30-minute interview
video interview with the Media Giraffe Project's Bill Densmore , conducted at a Bennington, Vt., restaurant on Jan. 28, 2010, Wood-Lewis explains why he started FPF, why it's a for-profit, and why its more than 12,000 users use it, how he makes a living, and how he could see FPF expanding elsewhere.
Download slides of Wood-Lewis' Jan. 28, 2010 talk in Bennington, Vt.
- In Dec, 2009, Wood-Lewis proposed a grant-funded project to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. View his public application HERE. If that doesn't work, try HERE.
- Wood-Lewis provided this excerpted statement about himself in 2008 to the Case Foundation:
\"My wife, Valerie Wood-Lewis, and I, Michael Wood-Lewis, have always been active in community. She is a public school teacher (on leave now) with a Master of Education degree. My career has covered varied ground... inventor, writer, manager, entrepreneur. Most recently, I was the executive director of a three-state trade association (25 employees) for five years. We both have been active in various organizations, on boards, etc. She was a \"teacher of the year\" in Washington, DC prior to our settling in Vermont, and I was honored as Vermont father of the year in 2005. I earned an MBA and MS in engineering.\"
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