…never knew it would come to this<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike Hot Chocolate’s<\/em> romance, my involvement online started with a click, rather than a kiss. In the early to mid -90s I only ever used computers as\u00a0standalone\u00a0word processors. I enjoyed doing it, and they helped me both with writing and\u00a0graphics, but it was an\u00a0isolated\u00a0experience. Later on in the 90s I moved to a church with a well -established website, and got involved with writing a monthly online column and discussing new content. Over time my time spent online grew, and in late 2009 I started a blog, shortly followed by a Twitter account. One thing led to another, the blog grew beyond all expectations, \u00a0and this afternoon I find myself addressing the #medialit11<\/a> conference as a real live minister who engages online about my views on digital authenticity. How did that happen?<\/p>\n

It happened, I think, not because of the kind of technology on offer but because of the kind of person I am. \u00a0I am passionate about communication, fascinated by people and proud to wear the ‘L<\/strong><\/span>‘ plate of a discipL<\/strong><\/span>e who still has lots to learn. My online\u00a0involvement\u00a0is an extension of what I do offline – meeting people, hearing their stories, winning the world more by embracing it than by confronting it.<\/p>\n

I have written on here before about magpies<\/a> and giraffes <\/a>online -so I won’t repeat it. As I think about how to introduce myself in 15 seconds to #medialit this afternoon,maybe a seal might be the best image. They are reputed to be naturally curious and to enjoy human company. For me that is the same online as well as offline.<\/p>\n

There has been a good deal of discussion recently about whether we should drop the labels ‘virtual’ and ‘real’ and adopt ‘online’ and offline’ instead. Overall, I think the latter are preferable. However, the trouble is that ‘offline’ sounds like a rather poor cousin to ‘online’, and as if it is the thing which happens when you haven’t paid your electricity bill. Maybe as disciples of a foot-washing messiah we should go for ‘online’ and ‘on foot’. What do you think?<\/p>\n

Image: news.bbc.co.uk<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…never knew it would come to this Unlike Hot Chocolate’s romance, my involvement online started with a click, rather than a kiss. In the early to mid -90s I only ever used computers as\u00a0standalone\u00a0word processors. I enjoyed doing it, and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2825"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}