I feel Fridays

April 2nd, 2010 by

For the next two months, we’re going to pilot a new feature on ReImagine Rural that we’re calling “I Feel Fridays.“  It’s inspired by the work of Jonathan Harris, who created “We Feel Fine,” a project which gather’s impressions of emotions that are expressed on the Internet. (Check out the “We Feel Fine” website and this video interview  from the OTA Sessions for more info.)

 

(Thanks to Ryan Phillips at TIE for producing my interview of Jonathan)

The goal for “I Feel Fridays” is to encourage people to share stories about experiences that have generated an emotional response for them during the past week.   We’re initiating this effort because we’d like to hear the stories that are impacting people who are passionate about rural places.   We hope the stories will help communicate how we feel about rural places to people who may not share our passion. 

Here’s how it works.  I (or someone at the Rural Learning Center) will post a story each Friday about an event that occurred in our daily lives during the last week.  We’d like the story to have a rural context, but anything’s game as long as it generates a feeling. And to highlight the emotion, we’ll try to start the post with “I feel…” or “I felt….” 

But we don’t want the stories to be just about us.  We want to hear what you’re experiencing as well.  For that reason, we’ll invite readers to share a story from their lives.  Long or short, just share your story as a comment. 

Later today, I’ll start the process by sharing an experience from last Friday.  Unfortunately, it’s a negative one.  But I’m sure it’s an experience most small town residents can relate to.

We’re not sure how this will go. Currently, we’re not placing any specific rules on the stories people share, other than we don’t want this to become an opportunity to put anyone down.  Complaining just to complain doesn’t do anybody any good.  We know our regular readers are smart people, so we’re confident everyone will use good judgment.

Let’s have fun with this feature, and tell the rest of the world how we feel about Rural America.

 

Note:  Check out Jonathan’s website.  I love that he’s about “reimaging how we relate to our machines and each other.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Rural, Training and Events | Comments ( 0 )

No comments yet

Leave a Reply