#239days

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America on the Horizon

As the Cedric neared American shores, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá received Marconi wireless messages from California and Chicago. “We shall be at sea another day,” he said to his travel companions. “Steam power is truly a wonderful thing. If there were no such power, how would the vast oceans have been crossed?”

 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá spent much of the final days of the trip talking about the need for love and unity among humankind, and the destructive effects of prejudice, blind imitation, and disunity. Each morning, he said prayers with his travel companions. While the long journey from Egypt had mostly been recuperative, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá found he had little appetite, limiting himself to tea and soup. 

On April 10, a wireless message arrived from New York welcoming ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to America. The Cedric was just over a hundred miles from shore. At 9 p.m. that night, the lights of Long Island and New Jersey appeared in the distance. The Cedric anchored offshore near the breakwater, ready to enter New York harbor the next morning.

239 Days in America begins April 11. Please join us!

[239days]

The Making Of: How It All Began (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this blog post, I told the story of how my good friend Jonathan Menon and I decided to use Twitter to deliver “real time history” about the centenary of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit to America. All this despite a confession that I loathe Twitter. This was two years ago. Now, a few days from launch, I thought I’d share something of how 239 Days in America evolved. 

My disdain for Twitter arose from the fact that I saw it as part of the continuing slide of literacy and communication that has come with technologies such as email and texting. (I once got an email resume from a student looking for job in the media industry with the one word subject heading: “hey...”)

But Jonathan and I quickly realized that Twitter just couldn't do the story justice on its own, and that unfolding a narrative solely via hourly tweets would grow thin pretty quickly. We decided to focus Twitter’s use on delivering a “real-time itinerary” of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s journey, so you could follow his activities—where he goes and whom he meets—every day. Daily magazine-style articles would accompany it. Twitter would present events in a real-time flow, while the articles would flesh out the story in rich biographical detail.

You'll get to read these articles starting April 11th. We hope you enjoy them. 

Here's the rest of the story in fast-forward: We got considerable advice on evolving our social media strategy from a guru in the field, found an executive producer who chased much needed resources and money, added discussion forums, and added two wonderful full-time staff to coordinate details, develop content, manage the social media strategy, and promote it all. I’d like to send out a BIG THANKS to all of them now.

239 Days in America has only just begun. It will unfold over 239 days. We will present a range of content each day, but a social media project depends on an active network of interested people to make it successful. 

We hope you join the conversation. And please, share us with your own social networks!

Rob Sockett Producer