Can you create a vital community-driven Web site in six months? Now, can you do it from 1,366 miles away?

I’m about to find out using my hometown Marshall, Minn., as my test subject. Using my personal contacts (my family) and some grassroots efforts online I want to create a vibrant user-powered community center. I dub thee “The Shall.”

For at least 6 months I plan to:
- Log in and post something relevant to the community daily
- Document the process (challenges, successes, humorous anecdotes)
- Try and have some fun connecting with the prairie town I grew up in

Residents get their local news and gossip (they hosted who for dinner?) from two primary places: The Marshall Independent (a hard-working and award-winning paper where I did a summer internship) and gomarshall.net (oh, Lord have mercy…that is a marquee).

And while both sites have some sort of social networking/communication going on, it’s no where near something like mnspeak.com.

The Shall is going to aggregate everything related to Marshall (on YouTube, Flickr, news stories, events) and allow citizens to publish their own content (news, questions, garage sales, video from the basketball game).

I was inspired to try this after I saw the Boulder Daily Camera move their community site to Ning.

I’m starting with a loose framework and an open mind. Let’s see what happens!

I had the great fortune to work for Dana Yost a few summers ago as an intern at the Marshall Independent and want to express my gratitude for all of his efforts and time spent there.

It was recently announced he will be taking an indefinite leave of absence.

He has the abilities and insights to work at any major news organization in the world. They all would be lucky to have him. But, Dana chose to dedicate his skills to the community, because it’s where he grew up and what he cared about the most.

In his stories and editorials, he addressed the most important questions we, as journalists, strive to answer. What does it mean? Why does it matter? How will it affect my readers?

For Dana, it was never about himself or winning awards or impressing anyone. The man has no ego.

He’s always had you and your family in mind when putting out the paper.

Now, it’s time to return the favor. The Independent’s readers owe Dana a standing ovation. I hope we should all be so lucky to get an encore someday soon.