To take the How is Your Chamber of Commerce Doing Survey, please click HERE.

Published in the April 2-15, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life

By Marty Cheek

We at Morgan Hill Life believe in pushing the envelope of innovation in developing an interactive news system for a 21st century audience.

One of the exciting developments that in recent years has come out of Silicon Valley is a sophisticated communication system letting the public share its opinions through online surveys. We believe this tool can be used to have a positive impact on the quality of life in Morgan Hill and the South Valley region by empowering our readers to provide their thoughts, opinions and ideas to our local leaders.
When we learned about this powerful Internet-based survey tool, we realized the huge potential it provides to engage our readers to anonymously share with us their feedback on various issues that impact the quality of life in our community.

Starting April 1, Morgan Hill Life will be using the SurveyMonkey system to receive your input on how we can work together to make our fine community even better.

To launch our survey series, we are partnering with the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce in a month-long survey to find out how the public views the Chamber’s effectiveness in serving the local business community and the community at large. The results of the survey will be shared with you in a story published in an upcoming issue of Morgan Hill Life.

We appreciate your taking the time to go to our survey site — which you can find at www.morganhilllife.com — and answer several survey questions that relate to the Chamber’s activities. The survey should take the average reader about two to three minutes to complete. Each question provides an option to comment if you wish to elaborate on your answer.

Here the questions you will find in this month’s survey:

How effective do you think the Chamber is in positively impacting our community’s economy?

How effective do you think the Chamber is in positively impacting the quality of life in Morgan Hill through community events such as the Friday Night Music Series, the Taste of Morgan Hill, and the Celebrate Morgan Hill events?

How effective do you think the Chamber is in positively impacting education in Morgan Hill through its education committee which has created learning events such as Rock the Mock (a mock interview workshop for high school students), Career Day, and the City-wide Science Fair?

How effective is the Chamber in serving the needs of visitors and tourists who travel to the city of Morgan Hill and the surrounding region?

How effective is the Chamber in influencing city policy that has a positive impact on business development in Morgan Hill?

How effective is the Chamber in providing a voice for its members in local (city and county) government issues?

How effective is the Chamber in creating an environment for its members and the public to socialize such as with the monthly mixers and breakfasts?

Are there any comments you would like to share with the Chamber’s CEO/President John Horner and the board of directors?

With our survey series, please help us help you better inform our local leaders on your thoughts, opinions, critique and ideas to maintain and enhance the quality of life in our community.

We want as many citizens as possible to participate in our online community survey series and see the diversity of Morgan Hill and its many aspects.

If this experiment in interactive journalism surveying the Chamber of Commerce works successfully, we intend to do other surveys providing a way for local residents to provide feedback on the state of local education, public safety, county services, the development of downtown Morgan Hill, our arts and entertainment opportunities, regional tourism, and other subjects of relevance.