Norgdom

As most of you know norg is short for ‘news organisation’. I came across the term when I was researching my vision for a new media that allowed the public to engage with the news and give them an authentic voice in a way that only the internet could allow.

At the same time that I was developing the model, there was a conference in Philadelphia called “Norg: the unconference”. An unconference in a non-agenda, brain-storming, collaborative excercise to discuss and develop an idea in a democratic way.

The term was orginally coined by Will Bunch (pictured above) over at the blog Attytood on October 24 of 2005 as a way of opening up the debate on the future of news organisations. The amazing thing is I have never read Will’s original article until tonight and I got goosebumps. Have a read and you’ll see why.
Five months later there was the unconference, which you can read about here. It inspired me that I was on the right track, but I didn’t want to wait for one to be built and so I started putting together my own vision of a norg.

For me, Perth was the obvious place to start. For so long we have been brushed out of the media landscape. There were of a couple of people a long the way who told me that Perth would never embrace such an innovative concept. Quite frankly, I think they’re wrong.

I think the world is ready for norgs and I think Perth is the perfect place to start them.

While, believe it or not, I have not been in touch with Will , he has heard about PerthNorg and was a bit chuffed that I used his word.

So Will this is my thanks for what I think is great word! So let’s not let down those Philly visionaries and get posting.

See you round the Norg

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 24th, 2006 at 8:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.