Out With A Bang

We touched on this subject in the aftermath of the JournalismLeadersForum; it was mentioned again when I travelled down to London the other week; me and my pal Steve were talking about it again on Saturday night.

What is it? It’s the warmth people look for when travelling across the web; a sense of welcome; a feeling of community; the idea that there’s a kindred spirit out there at the end of a keyboard; just waiting to make friends and connect.

I look back now and that was one of the thoughts behind MFW; that rather than all these disconnected Norwich City football fans sitting out there in the cold of their back bedrooms, we would create this shared, communal football news and comment space where all were welcome – a 24/7 reading room, in effect. Only one minus a message-board with its capacity to belittle and intimidate if comment is overly free.

It crossed my mind again in the wake of Eon’s death; I didn’t post that day and felt I owed an explanation; none of your business, really. But I went to a funeral and part of that funeral process came with me out onto the blog. For better or worse, I revealed a chink in my emotional armour.

You got to know me just that little bit better; my guard had slipped. This blog was no longer a naked means to promote our thoughts and products on-line; there was a little bit of human feeling out there for you to feast on.

It helps that the conversation that followed on Saturday night was with an educational psychologist; well-versed in the ways of the younger mind.

But it was still a fascinating insight into what the next generation of potential MyLocalWriter ‘customers’ might look for from their local writer – that, you sense, traits such as humour, warmth, openness and honesty might figure rather larger on punters’ wish-lists than the colder, more distant reporting we have been accustomed to.

We’re heading into a world where people will expect something back; as you do in any ‘friendship’ – be it real or web. People want warmth, want belonging, want community. They don’t want detachment, distance and divide.

The week before and without naming names and places for obvious reasons, our Steve had found himself parachuted into a senior, inner-city school rocked by the sudden death of a popular 14-year-old pupil. She died playing rounders. Bang. Gone.

What is interesting is how the emotional out-pourings of her teenage friends, her family and all her acquaintances found a haven on the web; not just via Facebook, Bebo and all the usual suspects, but new and different avenues of communal engagement.

One, I’d not stumbled across before – www.gone2soon.co.uk

No names, but this girl has two entries – two, open books of condolence. Tap ‘book of condolence’ into you-know-who and you get someone flogging their wares, but the description is telling…

“An increasingly common response to an individual’s death or a tragedy is the signing of books of condolence which are made available in churches, civic offices, shops or are circulated among local communities…

Cos there are those two words again. ‘Local’ and ‘community’, but the circulation is now done via the web; that’s where the mourners gather; that’s where they find warmth, solace, company and connection.

Together those two books of condolence offered her parents 42 photos, 247 tributes and condolences; in all, 288 digital ‘candles’ had been lit; the two books had, together, been visited 5,443 times. In just ten days.

To one site. And that’s without whatever else was kicking off across FaceBook, Bebo, etc, etc.

To me, that’s the web in 21st Century action; that’s the people marching on without us; that’s where your BMDs are now; that’s where those eyeballs have gone – to where they can find the warmth and the support of a community in mourning.

And whatever between us we conjure up in terms of the future of media, that’s what we’ve got to tap into – that’s what MyLocalWriter has to offer. It has to offer warmth; it has to offer community; it has to welcome people into its ‘reading room’ with open arms, with the fire burning and the lights glowing.

That’s the future. The web as a place of warmth and welcome.�

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