General Plan

In my last post, I wrote out a quick list of the ideas that have been floating around in my head. Now I need to get organized. My ideas fall into two main categories:

1) Community interaction. I don't want this site to be just a list of links. I want real people talking to each other. I want a living, breathing community. This is my main goal for the site. To that end, I wrote what will likely become my mission statement:

"Coulee Region ONLINE is a community portal for La Crosse, Wisconsin and surrounding communities. While other local portal sites are focused on links and general information, our focus is the people of the community. With forums, chats, blogs, and other interactive features, our goal is to move beyond just giving information and provide a gathering place where people can interact with their neighbors whether they be next door or across the Coulee Region."

2) The other part to my site is informational. I plan to have a ton of information about the communities that make up the Coulee Region. I'll have business links like the other portals do but I also want to add things like local parks and activities. Plus community news, and more. This part of the site will be interactive as well, with people able to add reviews and ratings to each item.

In my next posts, I'll go into detail about each of these options, detailing the functionality and finding out what I need to implement them.