Two sides of communities: August 31, 1998 issue of New Thinking

August 31, 1998 New Thinking:
Two sides of communities

Website content management

Home I About I Services I Clients I Contact

New Thinking Home

Subject Classification
Reader Feedback
Subscribing
Unsubscribing
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996

Books by
Gerry McGovern

Content Critical

Gaining competitive advantage through high-quality web content

The Web Content
Style Guide

The essential guide
for online writers, editors and managers

August 31, 1998

Two sides of communities

By Gerry McGovern

I’ve spent the last week or so driving around the North of Ireland. First in Donegal and then in Derry, Antrim, Armagh, Tyrone. For those of you unaware of Irish geography, the latter four counties are in Northern Ireland.

The northern coast of Ireland is rugged and beautiful. Donegal has its many mountains that overlook the sea and Antrim has the Giant’s Causeway, a truly amazing pattern of hexagonal rocks that rise and fall in step formation.

A thing that struck me as we drove was how much physical space there is around us. Ireland is a small country but it would take a long time to visit every town and village, to drive up every mountain pass, to walk on every beach. (If cyberspace ends up being anywhere as large as physical space…)

The subject of communities is a primary focus of mine. Come to Ireland and you will see lots of teenagers wearing Nike and adidas gear. Visit Kildare and Galway over the next month and you are likely to see far more wearing Kildare and Galway gear as the two counties prepare for the All-Ireland Football Final in September. Both teams have not been in an All-Ireland Final for many a year, and the feeling in each county is quite electric. People believe in their locality in a very intense way in this country.

As I drove through Northern Ireland I could feel the loyalty to the locality. I could also see it hanging from telephone and electricity masts, as Union Jacks and Tricolors marked out the territory. In some villages there was an intense quantity of flowers, cramming the edges of the roadway, hanging on every wall. “Ulster in bloom” one of the banners read.

We passed by Portadown where the Orange Order are still demanding to march down through a nationalist estate. We came near Omagh, a place of awful tragedy some weeks back where 28 innocent people were killed by a dissident Republican bomb.

During the week I caught the latter part of a Disney documentary on Irish America. People talked about the strength of the Irish communities there and how they began to dissolve as the Irish moved higher up society. One commented that Irish-American communities often defined themselves as much by their enemies and by what they opposed as by anything else.

In my research about communities I have found that people rarely like to see their communities as exclusionist. They paint all the positive pictures. Indeed, there are many positive things about communities and that is why they are seen as a necessary development for the Internet.

Ireland is a genuinely friendly place and Irish people will often go out of their way to help you. Ireland under the surface can be a very scary place. We hold grudges. We sleep with history. We bide our time. Ireland is changing too, and the recent referendum resulted in an overwhelming vote for peace.

Communities are complex, difficult things. They take time to grow and are slow to change. What makes them strong can make them scary to the outsider or to the member who wishes to be different. Those who seek to work with “online communities” need to understand that they will not be easily packaged into three-year business plans.

Gerry McGovern

Next issue: Packaging
Previous issue: The myth of the individual
New Thinking homepage

New Thinking Newsletter
Subscribe to this free weekly newsletter covering the role and function of content on the Web.
More info | Privacy policy
Read the current issue

Email Address:

 Subscribe  Unsubscribe

Content management seminar feedback
"Gerry's presentation was very well received by the more than 400 higher education delegates. I've chaired this meeting since 1994 and very few speakers have generated the same level of enthusiasm. Wit and wisdom is always an unbeatable combination."
Bob Johnson, American Marketing Association

“Excellent presenter ... thought-provoking and relevant. I hope we can persuade him to visit us again one day.”
Malcolm Davison
The British Association of Communicators in Business

"Hearing Gerry McGovern speaking, one can feel that he truly masters the subject of content management. He was voted ‘best speaker of the conference’ by delegates."
Toon Lowette
European Association of Directory Publishers

Find out more about Gerry McGovern's seminars

What makes communities strong can make them scary to the outsider or to the member who wishes to be different.