They'll Talk, I Suppose

I recently learned from young film maker about a project to help young teens together explore issues of growing-up in the information age -- for example how to deal with cyber-bullies, managing time for school and friends and so on.

Nice cause, I thought, "so, how will you engage the kids?" He replied, "Well, we start with a video dramatization [i.e. a movie]. After viewing they can join our stand-alone [Facebook-like] social network." I said, "Cool... and then what?"

The young film-maker paused for a moment to think. "I suppose they'll talk about the story," he said, with its characters and each other."

The dialog, above, is based upon our actual conversation. But this is a story that will continue to be written after the closing credits have rolled. If done right, I can imagine participants getting questions posed by the film's characters as they participate in story-lines that unfold within the developing community. Through it all, participants can learn to develop their own strategies to coming of age challenges.

No doubt, there will be questions about how this will all work. But the approach follows a time-tested means for starting conversations and building relationships: Use a shared experience to facilitate conversations that grow community around a societal need or in-common issue.

For organizations who seek to build community using social media, the watchword is process. Common experiences are a platform for rapport, and a great beginning. The real challenge comes when you ask the question, "what happens next?"