We’ve been working with National Theatre Wales on their online community strategy. Earlier this year we unveiled a social site based on the Ning platform.

It’s similar to Facebook in some ways except that it allows a level of detailed conversation probably not possible before. We’ve had many people join and, importantly, participate on there – actors, writers, directors, technical people and of course audience (like me).

NTW wanted something which would complement and support their work and their ethos of boldness, openness and experimentation. National Theatre Wales are like the host of a party – on the site there’s a great deal of freedom in the topics you can discuss. Feel free to sign up and try it.

If you want to be precise about terminology you could say it’s both a “social network” site and a “social networking” site. It’s a subtle difference in wording but a big difference in practice. In other words, it not only supports existing connections between people (like Facebook friends) but encourages new connections to form between people who wouldn’t otherwise know each other. (If you’re interested in some background to this distinction, check out USA-based researcher danah boyd’s thoughts in this area. Not for everyone but you might like it.)

So it’s been fun to work on the site – with NTW and their visual branding partners Elfen – and now see people discussing things and blogging about theatre and related topics. And it’s genuinely exciting to think that people will meet “in real life” and work on new projects together as a result of this online community and the various groups it now holds.

Currently we’re gearing up to November’s announcements of next year’s theatre events. More news soon.

In the meantime, here’s a great example of a discussion which resulted from a blog post.

Our core belief in starting Native is that regular and meaningful communication is vital. This company blog is a key thing for doing our own communication. It’s a living part of our business, where we model what we endorse.

We will mainly be discussing the wider subjects around our work, which covers social media, the web and the useful aspects of technology.

With this blog we want to avoid a one-way “broadcast” model which is perhaps the strongest temptation with a blog so closely allied with a business. We will listen, read, watch and otherwise check out what everyone else is offering and regularly respond here. We much prefer that way and we suggest that the benefits of real discussion are massive and ever increasing. On that note, anything that is (or resembles) blatant advertising has no place here.

We have deliberately set a broad remit and this will be reflected in the blog, which we plan to guide and shape along the way.

That leads us to our hope for you too – that you enjoy reading it and that it will help you in your work over time.

Native
December 2008