Why Local?
  • By 2007, a third of all search engine queries were made by people looking for local results. When people search for information, products and services online, most of the time they are intentionally searching for local information, products, and services. This not simply a matter of purchasing convenience; it often includes an intentional motive to build and maintain real world connections with others nearby. In the age of "bowling alone," these connections are a good and needed thing for our communities.
  • Most people, groups, businesses, and markets are rooted in particular places; their most valued and most common interactions are with their their real-world neighbors, constituents, and clients. Currently the web is evolving to cater to the "hyperlocal" reality of regional and metropolitan audiences and markets. The popularity of online social networking is both a model and an influence for this reorganization of the vaguely global "worldwide web" into a more clearly defined network of people and places. The web is gaining depth and value as a market and public communications medium as it grows, reorganizes, and around geographic places and real-world relationships, especially in urban areas.
  • This deepening and localizing process in the online world is happening alongside real-world relocalization (or glocalization?) in the (over-) developed world. There is now a renewed appreciation for and increasing public interest in local economies for their distinctive character, triple-bottom-line benefits, and their importance to sustainability.
  • Local knowledge is what a community's members have in common, and it pervades the language they speak. It can't be faked, and it defines what counts as clear communication delivered in an authentic voice.
  • NLM itself is a consequence of experimentation with open source software and online media to improve the local community by increasing civic engagement and participation through information and knowledge sharing. You can take a look at some of these ongoing experiments at riverwestneighborhood.org and creamcitizen.org.
  • It's the future. The web is becoming part of the air we breathe, the environment we live in, the clothes we wear--all part of one incredibly localized and social network.
Why Open Source?
  • Some of the best and most accessible tools for taking advantage of the opportunities of the digital age are freely available under open source or copyleft licenses. They're supported and improved by communities of millions of Do-It-Yourselfers at all levels of skill and ability that anyone can join.
  • The open source ethic and business model favors collaboration, community-building and a triple-bottom-line ethic which favors the small and the local.
Is "New Media" Still New?
  • Yes and no. The fundamental structures and concepts of new media are no longer new, but they will take a long time to sink into the thickest skulls and work past anti-change agents like corporate and government bureaucracies. Even when the concepts are familiar, when it comes to what people are actually doing with media, real innovation (as opposed to mere novelty) is rare, so it seems new when it happens. Creating and/or facilitating the transfer of real value between people may always be rare, even though large networked systems, chiefly the web, make that possible to an unprecedented degree.
  • The core skills and values of "old media" from the earliest days of printing are as relevant now (valuable and necessary) as ever--probably more so. But the social and technological context in which media exists--specifically commercial news media--has shifted substantially. 
  • The transactional nature of the new media reaches its highest potential when used for cooperative ends through sharing and reciprocity. This is not what you see in environments where beancounters and lawyers hold sway. Standard institutional logic driven by greed, secrecy, deception, paranoia, and butt-covering means there will be a long, difficult resistance to doing truly new things and breaking away from business as usual.
  • "Media" has only ever mattered as public (out-in-the-open) articulation of ideas that, by being made public, stand to define or shape the public-as-people: how we think and act as individuals and members of groups and societies, and how we define those groups and societies. This never really gets old; it is always the only show in town. When it gets boring, it's because too many boring people are just trying to use media in uninteresting ways, probably because they don't understand or care about the obligation that anything you say to a lot of people had better be engaging, worth their time, and what they are looking for. 

Key Ideas and Practices

Relevance

A website is an interface with applications: it's a tool used by people, not machines, to do purposeful things.

  • Good web design does involve underlying code that follows standards and is meaningful to "machines," chiefly search engines. But beyond this, the real key to building and maintaining a website that maximizes its potential is knowing your audience: What does your audience want? What do you want to accomplish with them? NLM can help you ask and answer these questions. Web development, day-to-day operation of your website, and any related marketing/business strategy will follow from the answers.
  • The cluetrain manifesto: the end of business as usual is still an immensely relevant source of insight on making websites that are legitimately relevant, useful, and valued.
    Also of note: "The New Rules of Marketing & PR" in the Social Web Analytics eBook 2008.

Ownership

You are the owner.

  • NLM's clients own their websites, domain names(s), software, source code, data and content solely and entirely.
  • NLM does not require its clients to purchase hosting on any particular server or host.
  • NLM does not require its clients to purchase domain names from any particular registrar.
  • NLM does not require its clients to become involved in ongoing maintenance or support services.
  • NLM does not require a percentage of the revenue generated by the client's website.
  • NLM won't bring additional contractors into a project without the client's knowledge or consent.
  • NLM will offer advice but not attempt to steer clients on any purchasing decisions that are the client's to make
  • NLM will not take on projects it can anticipate will fail and be a waste of the client's money, NLM's time, and an embarrassment to both parties.
  • NLM will not take on clients who are intent on wasting their money on projects that will fail.

Freedom

New systems create new dependencies that will master you if you do not master them.

  • NLM doesn't want to sell or build you something you don't need.
  • NLM won't sell or build you something it wouldn't use for itself.
  • NLM doesn't want to fix things that aren't broken.
  • NLM doesn't want to help you give your users things they don't need and don't want.
  • NLM doesn't want to create systems that make more work for you when there is no benefit in it.
  • NLM wants to help you "keep it simple" and stay in control.
  • NLM believes that what you can learn and afford the time do yourself is best to do yourself.
  • NLM understands that a website is a tool for delivering your content to people. You need an effective content editing/authoring process or your website will soon have no more value than a business card or outdated sales brochure. For sites that aim to maximize online sales, this situation means complete failure. NLM can help you establish an authoring process.

Support

I can help you when you need it, but my goal is to minimize dependencies and client lock-in.

  • After your site is launched, expect occasional inquiries from NLM as to how your site is performing. Like anything, it will need ongoing care that you should be able to provide yourself or through any number of third-party services and contractors in the open source community other than NLM.
  • You can expect NLM to independently monitor your site's performance and care about your site's success.
  • You can expect NLM to offer advice based on your best and bottom-line interests if you ask for it.
  • There are many other sources of support for your open source software other than NLM. If you need advice or referrals, just ask.
  • If you are using an open source technology, you are part of a user community numbering in the millions. NLM can introduce you to that community. If you are willing to get under the hood yourself a little, their insight and advice is always a few clicks away.
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