Alfred Sirleaf has made a bit of name for himself online with his low-tech-as-it-gets approach to news blogging. But few of the FaceBookers and Twitterers and bloggers writing about his news site will ever actually get to see it.
His audience are the people who pass by his blackboard blog every day, positioned at the side of a busy road in Monrovia, in Liberia. According to Afrigadget.com, Sirleaf started his blackboard news service because "he wanted to get news into the hands of those who couldn't afford newspapers, in the language that they could understand."
That means writing up stories he thinks will interest his readers in chalk, on his giant blackboard, using minimum words and using pictures or symbols where it will help tell the story for the less literate.
Sirleaf reminds us that the web doesn't rule. The need to communicate with each other is what drives us, not the technology. But access to that technology divides us.
Helen Milner, MD of UK Online Centres, speaking at the 2009 Digital Inclusion Conference, pointed out that:
25% of UK adults have never used the Internet
70% of people over 65 have never used the Internet
35% of all households don't have an Internet connection
So, why should stuff like this matter to you, as an information professional? You're online, your mates are online, your boss is online, your customers are (probably) online - you're so far ahead of Albert Sirleaf's curve that you'd be in the transporter beam before he'd even unlocked his bike.
It matters because the world is about those who have access to information and those who don't. Those of us who are guardians, collators, creators or sharers of information each have a role in improving access to it for more people to benefit.
In 2006, I was news editor at a local daily newspaper. It's a tough job, mostly because it's the news editor's job to make sure the front page has a story on it every day that people will pay to read.
Some days, all your potential front page stories crumble away and you're in a desperate search for something, anything that will carry the front page.
This particular day, I ended up settling for a story about a single mum who had escaped (our word) being sent to prison, despite her failure to persuade her tearaway (our word) daughters to go to school. It really only made it onto the front page because we'd got a picture of the mum - snatched as she left court.
She had no way of countering our version of her story. We controlled its writing and, by posting it online, offered up our version for anyone else to use it.
Refining the business model
So, how did that incident prompt me to set up Sweeble Ltd - my company?
It made me think that the world would be a better place if people could tell their own story - with help if they needed it - without an editor re-writing it for politics or prejudice or profits. I left newspapers having decided that what I wanted to do was create tools that would make it easier for people to share their own news.
The first thing we built and launched was a user-generated news website in 2007. It was pretty ahead of the curve at the time - but it bombed.
That site's still here, limping along at www.sweeblenews.com, while I work out what it should become. Sweeblenews failed largely because I'd underestimated people's willingness to write their own story. Most people are scared of writing, they don't trust their ability to write or spell, or they just can't be bothered to write. For all sorts of reasons, they'd much rather be interviewed by a reporter.
But reporters are a bit of dying breed right now. The NUJ estimates that over 1200 jobs have gone and more than 44 newspaper titles have closed in the last twelve months. (NUJ interactive journalism job losses map here)
What this means is less local news as newspaper groups close district offices first, and fewer journalists with the time to investigate local issues or follow-up stories.
Which gave me the idea for our second product, launched April this year. The most active people in local communities aren't bloggers. They're the couple running the PTA and the under-13 football team; they're the village society committee, the book-club mums, the scout leaders, the charity volunteer...
These are the people who generate the local events that used to fill pages of local newspapers. They often know most about what's happening locally and they may already be writing about it in parish newsletters or on school websites.
Print production made easy for volunteers
So we launched www.sweeble.com - an easy to use publishing system designed for the 2 million people in the UK who volunteer at least once a month (plus the 3 million businesses that can only afford to employ their owner). People with news and information to share but little cash to spend doing it.
Sweeble uses a template-based system to make printing your news as easy as blogging it. You do everything online at sweeble.com - from writing and editing articles, to uploading images, to creating your publication and sending it to print. You can publish 4 to 32 pages and 25 to 5,000 full-colour copies.
It uses an intuitive drag-and-drop system to make it easy to work with and gives you the option to add a cover price or sell your own adverts to raise funds, and to simultaneously create a basic news website from your articles stored in sweeble.
This is the beta version, there's a lot more being built in the background. However, sweeble is a print-first product because we believe that, despite the contraction of the newspaper industry, print isn't dead. Remember - thirty-five percent of UK households without an Internet connection. That's almost 9 million homes not able to access news and information posted online.
It's pretty obvious when you think about it. A school that hands out a printed newsletter or information booklet to parents will get a higher attention-response than one that only posts news on its website. A rural council able to post a newsletter through doors, or leave copies in libraries and post offices can be more confident that residents will get the information than if it just sends out press releases.
As information professionals, you'll already be grappling with who your audience is and how you reach them. Ask yourself:
How will you reach the users who don't have Internet access?
Do you have ‘walk-in' customers? Would they be more likely to pick up a leaflet or printed guide than ask your staff a question?
Where do your users/potential users go that you can leave information they can pick up - post offices, pubs, community centres, schools?
Ask yourself which you can spare most - time or cash - to reach more people? If it's cash, pay someone nice to produce all the printed newsletters, magazines, brochures and information guides you think you'll need. But if you can afford more time than money, use sweeble and create them all yourself.
The story so far...
The groups already using sweeble range from sports clubs, to arts groups, to small businesses, to local charities. We've got an increasing number of district and rural councils and community development bodies signing up - groups that are required to communicate with their users.
Using sweeble is cheaper for them than paying someone else to produce their newsletter and means they can work to their own timescale.
The world of news and information is changing rapidly. It's simultaneously getting much bigger (global) and much smaller (hyper-local) - with a black hole opening in the middle around city and regional news.
Sweeble is on the hyper-local side of that which means we have to look at what medium our users are most comfortable with. Right now we think that's print as well as online - but we could be wrong, the future might be in blackboards.
By Sue Greenwood
Sue Greenwood is founder/MD of Sweeble - online software built to make
printing your news as easy as blogging it. She also teaches web-based
journalism at Staffordshire University.
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Alfred Sirleaf has made a bit of name for himself online with his low-tech-as-it-gets approach to news blogging. But few of the FaceBookers and Twitterers and bloggers writing about his news site will ever actually get to see it.
