Food For Thought

The proprietors of the Halesworth coffee shop Edwards Restaurant Karen and Kevin Prime have depended on customers' word-of-mouth to advertise their establishment and now they are rated on Trip Advisor as one of the best restaurants in the whole of East Anglia. However, as a working mother and a businesswoman and active citizen, Karen relies on her iPad and her twitter account to keep up with what's going on in her community.

She has a lot of people to follow because despite this country's austerity, or more perhaps because of it, the citizens of this rural Suffolk market town are busy with a Portas project, a Transition group, an Anglia in Bloom entry, implementing a town plan, progressing ambitions for a transport terminus, expanding an arts centre, creating a new health centre and a sports campus. These projects are working together in trying to keep Halesworth a viable place to live and do business. Progress is being made. After three years of hard work by local volunteers, a brand new £200,000 cycle path has just opened connecting the town's park to a nature reserve which will benefit residents and tourists alike.

Like the coffee shops of yore, the town's many restaurant and pub tables is where the latest local news is discussed and shared and Karen and other town traders have, more by accident than design, become an interface between the old and new forms of media. Karen's conversation with her customers naturally bridges what the digerati are saying with those not connected by digital devices. Likewise, her tweets inform the digerati of the views of the man or woman in the Thoroughfare. This kind of exchange is also evident in the tweets by other Halesworth businesses such as the Bay Tree Bistro, Banyan Fairtrade and the Halesworth Toyshop, which was recently honoured for its use of social media by a toy industry magazine.

While this raises their profile and that of the town, some local people have spoken out against social media with the same argument put against Gutenberg's press; that enabling the rapid dissemination of information allows wrong or harmful information to spread as well as good. This is naturally true but it also allows incorrect information to be challenged as well.

So when it was reported on twitter recently that a couple of visitors were upset that the monthly market they had traveled to attend had been cancelled unexpectedly because of another event (it was a bit more complex than that and involved the weather) the reaction of one party involved was to shoot the messenger and complain that such public discussion on social media hurt the reputation of the town. However had that party been as engaged as the messenger was in social media, they could have used it to correct it or explain the decision, or more importantly, offered to hear the complaint. It could be surmised that the reputation the party wanted to protect was their own. People understand nothing works perfectly all the time and mistakes can be made but a negative story thrives in a vacuum of response. Other citizens being alerted to the issue got to the bottom of the matter within an hour and the visitors' complaints were mollified.

Another shopper's comparison of old and new media for connecting and empowering the community was demonstrated recently when the town council at very short notice held an emergency meeting about objections to a long planned bus terminus and they didn't tell the electorate – except by the statutory requirement to post an inconspicuous notice – but social media mobilized the community to take an interest and attend. It turned out by all accounts, though we are still waiting for the official one, to be a very contentious decision.

People quickly realised not all was as well at City Hall as they had believed and, with County Council elections imminent, people began discussing town and county council business on social media and the public attendance at town council meetings leaped by 1000%. There then followed complaints, among others, to the town council and the district monitoring officer that council proceedings were not thoroughly reported in the town clerk's report in the town’s monthly newspaper that came out several weeks later because recent reports did not mention (or did not appear at all) issues that had been brought before the council and already reported in social media. Some found the excuses given for these omissions unsatisfactory.

Exasperated that the dates of council committee meetings were often changed without notice except by a piece of paper on the statutory notice board, a member of the public asked the council if it would embrace digital media and put all advance notices, agendas and draft minutes online. In response one of the councilors spoke out against social media with what can fairly be compared to Luddite opinions then afterwards another councilor phoned the petitioner at home and asked in what capacity they wanted to know the council's business and suggested that if they wanted to know when any meetings were, they only need to telephone the clerk (who works 1.5 days a week). When subsequently those two and three other councilors dramatically resigned last week, personal attacks on them by social media was cited in a prepared resignation speech without any evidence given of it happening. This unsubstantiated allegation was then repeated and not questioned by the local press and no evidence has come to light to date. Besides, by its very nature the perpetrators would be traceable.

The opinion of some citizenry is that these councilors were discovering they no longer had the impunity of public opinion they had before, and so they probably weren't comfortable with such public accountability for their actions.

It was well before these recent events but in conversations with Karen’s customers, some of them asked if Community Action Suffolk could teach them how to use twitter like Karen did. Thus the idea to hold a twitter academy in Karen’s coffee shop was born. After a bit of asking around, on social media in my role as a community development officer, people that had attended a social media workshop for a local tourism body recommended Sean Clark. What with the size of her coffee shop and after the cost of the trainer (though very reasonable) and the hire of equipment there isn't likely to be a profit; Karen sees it as a way she can help her community, even if she can't sit through all their meetings.

The interest in Halesworth has been so great that almost all the places are taken for the first session and so a second session has been booked for the following week.