Saturday is West Virginia's 146th birthday, and people who blog, tweet or just know how to type in a Web address are invited to a wide-ranging online discussion about the state's future.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Saturday is West Virginia's 146th birthday, and people who blog, tweet or just know how to type in a Web address are invited to a wide-ranging online discussion about the state's future.
It's a social media experiment in the making. And it takes place in the glow of the spotlight thrown on the role of Twitter in the current political upheaval in Iran.
Abetterwestvirginia.com, a site founded by Jason Keeling, poses the following West Virginia Day challenge on Saturday for state residents, expatriates, and the general public who blog or have Twitter, Facebook, Myspace or other social media accounts: "Identify an obstacle that hinders West Virginia and discuss its solution."
If you neither blog nor tweet, you can still follow the discussion by visiting Keeling's blog, where links to all the posts will be archived, or go to 304blogs.com, a compendium of state blogs.
Plus, visit http://search.twitter.com and type in the hash tag '#abetterwv', which will pull up all the Twitter posts (with their related Web links) on the topic.
Keeling, who runs Keeling Strategic Communications in Cross Lanes, launched abetterwestvirginia.com on West Virginia Day in 2007. Last year, he invited the state's bloggers to discuss Mountain State stereotypes. This year, with the explosive growth of Twitter, Facebook and other social media forums, he moved the fences of the discussion farther out.
"The whole idea behind aBetterWestVirginia.com is using the Internet for a constructive dialogue to celebrate our successes and address our challenges," said Keeling.
This year, the idea was to focus on obstacles and solutions in areas ranging from education to health and wellness, environment to government, technology to culture
"The question is: Can social media lead to social change?" said Keeling. "The answer is still unknown. But if we have a common objective and question then we can collectively fill in the answers.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Saturday is West Virginia's 146th birthday, and people who blog, tweet or just know how to type in a Web address are invited to a wide-ranging online discussion about the state's future.
It's a social media experiment in the making. And it takes place in the glow of the spotlight thrown on the role of Twitter in the current political upheaval in Iran.
Abetterwestvirginia.com, a site founded by Jason Keeling, poses the following West Virginia Day challenge on Saturday for state residents, expatriates, and the general public who blog or have Twitter, Facebook, Myspace or other social media accounts: "Identify an obstacle that hinders West Virginia and discuss its solution."
If you neither blog nor tweet, you can still follow the discussion by visiting Keeling's blog, where links to all the posts will be archived, or go to 304blogs.com, a compendium of state blogs.
Plus, visit http://search.twitter.com and type in the hash tag '#abetterwv', which will pull up all the Twitter posts (with their related Web links) on the topic.
Keeling, who runs Keeling Strategic Communications in Cross Lanes, launched abetterwestvirginia.com on West Virginia Day in 2007. Last year, he invited the state's bloggers to discuss Mountain State stereotypes. This year, with the explosive growth of Twitter, Facebook and other social media forums, he moved the fences of the discussion farther out.
"The whole idea behind aBetterWestVirginia.com is using the Internet for a constructive dialogue to celebrate our successes and address our challenges," said Keeling.
This year, the idea was to focus on obstacles and solutions in areas ranging from education to health and wellness, environment to government, technology to culture
"The question is: Can social media lead to social change?" said Keeling. "The answer is still unknown. But if we have a common objective and question then we can collectively fill in the answers.
"What's interesting about this concept is that each person across the state has some area of expertise that they're more familiar with. And so we're asking for those that have expertise and perspective in those respective categories to share their insights."
Don't blog? Don't know a tweet from a twit? If you can get online, you can speak up, Keeling said. "Any Internet user can post a blog comment -- that doesn't require any special technology. Just type in a box and hit 'Submit.'"
He said he knows the idea of a wide-open digital roundtable on West Virginia's future "is a little pie in the sky in terms of this thought that we can really make social change just by logging into our computers.
"At the same time consider that the citizens of Iran right now are using social media to demand fair elections. We are not facing the same circumstances as the Iranian populace, but we do have challenges unique to West Virginia. The question I ask is: 'Why can we not use social media in a similarly productive fashion?'"
For more details, check out Keeling's blog. But if you're a blogger, the simplest way to take part is to do a blogpost this Saturday, then notify Keeling at Ja...@keelingstrategic.com. He will create a master list that day and post it at his site.
Twitter users should include the hash tag '#abetterwv' in their tweets. Then, check out his blog later that day or seek out the Twitter tag and join in the talk, he said. "You can get a pulse on what people are saying."
Keeling's own firm reflects the sea change brought on by Web social media. Asked to describe his work, he puts it this way: "I like to say I'm a public relations consultant who is moving into the realm of social media consulting or Web 2.0 consulting. What's happening is that public relations is going online in many ways because that's where the conversations are happening."
Reach Douglas Imbrogno at doug...@cnpapers.com or 304-348-3017.
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