Attention Hurricane Country – A Big Wind is Coming! Be prepared for the threat from wind, rain, storm surge and…Man (Part 2 of 3)

Part 2 of 3
Today, in Part 2 of our introduction of A Big Wind I’d like to pick up where I left off yesterday and talk more about our mission. To read part 1 of our introduction just click here. If you’re skipping ahead, or reading this out of context, our mission is:

Hurricane protection through consumer protection, community involvement, and commerce.

Yeah, we know it doesn’t sound very cool but we do believe what we eventually produce, with your help, will be highly valuable. Yesterday I wrote about the consumer protection role that A Big Wind will serve and today I’ll outline what I mean by community.

By describing some of our goals about creating an online community for people interested in learning more about Hurricane protection, I’ll also be addressing a critical part of how A Big Wind is different from other, highly useful, Hurricane protection information resources. We think what we’re doing will fill a void, rather than seek to replace or compete with resources that you could already use, such as your local newspaper or public safety organization.

Community

The word community probably conjures up a number of images in your head. On the Internet, community often represents a web site where you can visit to research, discuss and share information with other like-minded people, or people with similar interests. The web sites that best facilitate this combine news and information (presented more and more these days on blogs) and also forums, also known as discussion boards. A Big Wind will provide the web site (this blog), a forum or discussion board that we will launch soon, and thereby a community for those meetings and discussions to take place. We plan to facilitate and contribute to this developing community by writing articles about Hurricane protection topics and pointing you to resources where you can learn more about Hurricane protection information that can save both life and property.

Here are some concrete examples of how we will use this blog, and our soon to launch forum, to build this community:

• You’ll start out by reading stories that we write about Hurricane protection.
• You can get involved by voicing your opinions and experiences and how they relate to these stories.
• You can do this by writing comments. You’ll be able to do this on ANY of our stories featured on our blog here at www.abigwind.com.
• These comments will be seen by all members of our community providing they abide to basic rules of decency and aren’t just blatant commercials by manufacturers or service providers posted for commercial aim alone.
• We will also introduce ratings into our blog posts (look for this next week) so that readers can let both us and guest contributors know what they find most useful. That way we’ll all stay relevant, on topic and attuned to our reader’s needs.
• If you’re interested in writing a feature story of some kind to be published on A Big Wind you can contact us by sending us your story idea or content to bigw@abigwind.com. We’ll review your story, commentary, or how-to article and provided that your article helps serve the stated mission of A Big Wind then we’ll publish it. Everyone else who comes to A Big Wind will have the benefit of learning from your knowledge or wisdom.

Think about how valuable it would be to you if an experienced contractor wrote in to tell people how to check on the quality of your contractor’s work, exposing common short cuts or things that us lay people wouldn’t otherwise know to look for when having storm windows installed or a roof put on. Our forum will have sections like ‘Window Tinting for Storm Protection,’ ‘Manufacturer Discussions,’ ‘Fraud Alert,’ ‘Scams and Misleading Sales Practices,’ ‘False claims in advertising,’ ‘Selecting a contractor,’ etc. You can enter those discussions of interest to you and read a wealth of information while also posting your questions. If you already have information to contribute to the forums you can post your information for other community members to read and benefit from.

Why will you do this? Because if you’re here and reading this YOU have an interest, and probably some experience, with Hurricanes and how to protect both yourself and your home or business from the winds, flying missiles, and storm surge associated with our nemesis, not to mention loss of income, work, power, food and time. You also probably want to know more about Hurricane protection and how you can weather the next storm even better than the ones you’ve already encountered. Others, who may have just moved to somewhere in Hurricane country (welcome, now go buy your Hurricane supplies and have a plan to get out!) are all ears, and want to learn as much as they can about what to do and what not to do. Speaking of plans, here’s a good resource from the Florida Division of Emergency Management that actually lets you create a plan online step-by-step. Great, so we have a group of people, all over Hurricane Country that all share an interest. All probably have something to learn and many have something to contribute.

Keep in mind that everything I’m outlining here has been successfully done on the Internet before. But to our knowledge no one has used these revolutionary tools and collaboration strategies to focus on the topic of Hurricane protection. That’s where A Big Wind is different – we’re using the latest tools and technology and ways of interacting to drive positive change in the Hurricane protection world. We’re not going to reinvent the wheel in areas that other public and private organizations have already done a great job with. In fact, we hope we’ll be able to partner with all types of organizations that have similar goals to that of A Big Wind. This season, many newspapers have stepped up to offer some great Hurricane Guides that are wonderful resources. Cities, Counties, and States are all doing much more to educate people about Hurricane protection. But none have created a living, growing community, available 24/7, 365 days a year with all the aspects that we’ve outlined. Or perhaps these companies and organizations don’t have the freedom or flexibility that a truly independent start-up like A Big Wind has? We’re not beholden to anyone – exept our readers and contributors.

And of course we haven’t even talked about the final part of the equation: commerce. That’s for tomorrow. You might be surprised that our plans in this regard may just be the most useful to you. Check back tomorrow for more and in the mean time please don’t hesitate to comment or write us a question via the comment form at the bottom of this story. Of course if you’d like to write a private comment or question directly to us just send your e-mail to bigw@abigwind.com

What do you think so far? Don’t be shy. Remember, use the comment form at the end of any story on A Big Wind to post your comment or question.