Ironic.

Just 24 hours after the Inquirer filed for bankruptcy (http://tinyurl.com/ddrh8e), they ran a story praising the region's major arts organizations for reaching out to "young" people (exactly how old is young, anyway?) by signing up for accounts on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. (http://tinyurl.com/co2kt5)

Out with the old and in with the new? Perhaps. But showing up is just that, showing up. And it's not enough.

Leveraging social media requires partnership that is designed to work with an existing community to achieve common goals. Outreach of any kind is doomed unless the person/organization doing the "reaching" has learned to speak to their intended audience appropriately -- as an invested partner.

And this is where I generally find our community efforts to be lacking.