by Denise

Last Wednesday, we more or less finalized brainstorming on how to get the word out about The Rapidian. Among the more interesting suggestions for passive adverts were orange chalk stencils on sidewalks, coasters for local bars, and coaxing Rapid drivers to stock the Rapidian version of Sochi cards.

It’s clear that the best way to catch people’s eyes is to make sure how you’re advertising is relevant to their lives. As a regular bike commuter, I’m keen on bringing in the biking community. After much thought, I figured spoke cards would be the cheapest, most effective and mobile way to publicize The Rapidian. Spoke cards are about the size of baseball cards and hang out in the spokes of bike wheels. The crossing spokes pinch them in place.

One thing about spoke cards though, they were originally enmeshed in a countercultural grit. Bike messengers used to be the predominant participants in alleycat races, and the cards were badges of pride in the fixie community. However, my feel has been that in the last several years, the rigidity has slowly crumbled and many now use spoke cards the same way drivers use bumper stickers. But I wasn’t really sure. At least not for Grand Rapids.

When trying to navigate GR bike culture, who better to consult than Dan Koert? Dan is the owner of local bike shop Commute GR and leads at least a hundred participants on a weekly evening ride. For reasons unknown, Dan explained, since last year, spoke cards are no longer in vogue. Since he’s so friendly, I think it was his way of cautioning me. George was more blunt: It’s a horrible idea! We’d be co-opting their culture. Thanks for finally putting in your two cents, George. Message heard: We may be a nonprofit, but we’d be getting off on the wrong foot.

All of this brings up a much bigger issue for me. I appreciate that The Rapidian has a lot of support from the professional, nonprofit and media community, but where are our everyday people? We’re getting a lot of conceptual feedback, but we need reporters, too.

Leading up to the launch, The Rapidian will be visible at festivals, collecting digital story content on what it means to be a Grand Rapidian and doing a lot more community outreach. I can’t help but feel, though, that the best advertising we’ve done is just mingling with people at events after hours, but this too can be hard. There are many people contributing to this project, but as the general staff, George and I make up only 1.5 FTEs for The Rapidian.

So ideas, please. How do we meet potential citizen journalists where they are?

Photo by anabananasplit, used under a Creative Commons license