Whats wrong in Wv? ‘A Better West Virginia Challenge’

A week ago I drove to Charleston to meet up with some other like minded people from Twitter, at a coffee shop in town. I parked, went in, sat down, and was right at home in the discussions. One of the guys there, Jason Keeling, who runs A Better West Virginia, asked me to write a blog post about what i feel hinders the advancement of our state of West Virginia.

Ive thought about this and came to a conclusion. The tweetup. Thats whats wrong with West Virginia. Now, dont think I mean that having tweetup’s is bad for the state. What I mean, is that in order for me to have an intelligent discussion with people in my state about technology and culture, i had to drive 50 miles. Were there people in my home town (beckley, btw) who are up on internet trends and technology? Sure. Where are they? Thats the issue.

West Virginia suffers from a big little city complex in most regions ive visited. There is a certain feeling of being disconnected from the rest of the world once you step outside or turn off the TV. Ive lived in Beckley my whole life and dont know the vast majority of the people in this city let alone and who share common interests. I bet nobody in this town knows my history on the internet or what i do for a living. At the same time, im just as uninformed about what other people in the area do or are capable of.

All of this relates to culture too. Not just e-culture, but any kind of culture. Large parts of West Virginia lack public outlets for creativity and thus are losing first dibs on talent to the internet or larger cities with a cultural scene.

I am taking steps to try to get a handle on the area’s talent atleast online. I have launched the website wvurl as a free service to everyone in hopes that people will have a tool to help share what they want to share. I do want to say that i am very proud of the state’s adoption of twitter. I was just telling a friend how West Virginia seems to miss out on all big things but it was our time, we were due for a kick in the pants and when we stepped up to the plate, we swung and knocked twitter out of the park.

In closing i just want to say that communication and networking are key. I have no doubt that we are on the right track to overcoming the problems i mentioned above, time is the only factor at play. How long do we want to wait for change? Personally, i dont want to wait. I try every day to make my own world a better place. I suggest we all start doing the same.