Over the last few blog posts, I’ve been recounting my experiences with the Transeuropa Network, from starting up in a former hangout for matchstick factory workers, developing the idea of the good life, to prototyping the social market concept, all the way to creating a pledge bank.
But given the Festival was going to be simultaneously, surely we should be using digital technology to make everything real-time? The Transeuropa Festival website played a key role in the social and the transnational.
A Twitter board were from across Europe messengers were posting thoughts and reactions so much so that often you didn’t know which event they were in, not just because the event was taking place simultaneously, but because the event had been co-designed across borders, it was going to be similar to the one you were taking part in.
Live streaming meant that wherever you were, you could take a peek at what was going on in the festival in…10 different cities.
At the meeting in Bologna, just a few days before the start of the festival, the creative tension was kicking in.
Ideas on how to communicate the festival included cycling around the city on a rickshaw, Facebook bombing, live streaming, and daily newspaper of the festival.
We decided that every evening of the festival, we would send our 60 words to be integrated along with other people’s texts from the other cities and turned into the Transeuropa Daily.
Planning digital engagement for a festival is as much about connecting up your personal story to the collective story of others around you as it is the big plan.
This story epitomises that. When Transeuropa Cluj commented on their Facebook page about needing a flower to brighten their place up, little did they know that in Transeuropa Bologna, Claudia had found a rose that she was going to bring to Cluj, as she said “I found Cluj in Bologna, in my house, in a little red flower”?
This epitomises the connection people have developed by working together. We also produced a film on what the Network was all about in which each member expressed what the festival was to them in their language here.
So what can we learn?
Go where the people are — adapt the messenger, not the message
It’s not only about attracting people to come to your website or events. It’s about reaching out to where they are — on their blogs and at their events.
Reach out to the different groups you want to engage, but rather than going yourself, see if you have friends who are active in those groups and get them to spread the message to the people that trust them. If they’re journalists or bloggers, even better!
