In the process of tidying my study this afternoon, I found a proposal paper I wrote in January 1999, concerning how the company I was working for should develop community activity and engagement.

I won’t bore you with the whole thing, but some bits made for interesting reading….

People who use [name of service] are gradually beginning to see it as a way to foster feelings of community, through the use of real-time chat, comments left on messageboards and a more general feeling of incidental interconnectedness. People like to discover that there are others like them “out there” - people who share the same interests, passions, opinions and territory. In the intimidating vastness presented by the Internet, the temptation for many users is to seek out the familiar, the local and the recognisable. People cope with the unknown by finding familiar and recognisable elements within it. The idea of “common ground” is especially important in [name of service] as geographical regions can be strongly identified.

…we are in a position to provide content and experiences ‘with a twist’; taking relevant issues and themes and presenting them with a uniquely local and topical flavour, powered from the grassroots.

User-driven features
People like to feel that they are contributing something to the online community. At present, well over two thirds of the messages in the [service] messageboards (and across the internet, I suspect) are of the “me too” variety. This may seem useless, but serves to demonstrate effectively a fundermental truth about social use of the internet: people like to see their names on the screen.
As simple as that seems, the fact is that self-publication (and subsequent viewing by a wide unknown audience) has been an activity denied to most people until now, save for perennial opportunities such as grafitti and writing ones name in the front of a book. And then the web came along. All of a sudden, ordinary people without much in the way of resources or training were able to publish their opinions, thoughts, or simply names (in a guestbook, of example) in a format that will endure - and which is (mostly) legal. The sheer quantities of personal homepages which amount to nothing more than shameless self-promotion (of the “I am Bob, this is my dog” variety) provide proof that any fool can live forever.

The [service] should be encouraging users to publish in constructive and creative ways, in the messageboards and elsewhere. By stimulating discussion, encouraging regular posters to write more often, more thoughtfully and at greater length, users themselves will be generating the sort of content that they themselves would like to consume. This phenomenon can be seen in the popular “Letters to the Editor” newspaper feature, and is an inexpensive, simple and valuable way to generate content for [service]. Curators of [service] should be encouraged to feel a responsibility for improving the level of permanently recorded conversations (i.e. messageboards) as well as devoting energy and time to chat.

In the same vein, a similar opportunity to increase both user input and interest would be the creation and nurture of online journals (’Email Diaries’ or eDiaries) written by people across the country. A quick search in Yahoo.com for online journals shows over 2000 sites listed - and this must be the tip of the journal iceberg. Each of these pages has the potential to be visited by dozens - in some cases, hundreds - of people daily. Some come as a form of voyeurism. Some come out of curiosity. Most come for the same reason that people regularly tune in to watch the dreaded (but insanely popular) docu-soaps which have invaded television channels in recent years. It is the same reason that the BBC’s video diaries project is now in its seventh season: we like the taste of other people’s lives. Contrary to expectations, this is especially true of normal, seemingly boring people - just like our users. It seems simplistic, but it seems to be that people feel supported and encouraged to contribute by a low level of entry - the normalcy of everyday lives recorded in public encouraged mass participation: “if he can do it, so can I…”

My proposal involves inviting users from all over the UK to apply to be eDiarists for a period. It would be unpaid (perhaps we could chuck them a t-shirt? Other freebies?) but would involve a regular committment over a fixed time….Ideally, ediarists would come from diverse, everyday backgrounds and locations, represenative of membership of [service]. A teacher, MP. student, office drone, stay-home parent and public service worker (Police? Ambulance? Other medical?) would be a great start. Each would be required to write a short (200-300 word) email summary of their week past, and possibly also submit their favourite locally-flavoured or topical website of the week to support their diary. Not only would this feature be interesting and attractive to current and future users, but it also serves as a good opportunity to promote the service. It’s a publicity-friendly feature which underlines the message that real people use [service].

In addition, I was thinking that we could create a [service] guestbook on which users can make their mark in a unique and striking way. We should get a detailed map of the UK (possibly partner with someone?) and enable users of [service] to put a virtual flag stating “Meg is here” or whatever. In this way, a sense of the breadth and scale of the community is created as well as providing useful data for editorial teams on the location of regular, enthusiastic visitors.

Bear in mind this was early 1999. Before Blogger. Before mashups. Before that stuff had a toehold in the collective consciousness. Before I even started blogging.

To those of you from the company in question that read this blog: I hate to say I told you so, but…. well, as you can see, I’ve been saying this stuff since the last millennium. And I’m still saying it. OK, so the ideas have changed, but the conviction hasn’t. Let’s DO it, FFS.