On Wednesday night, we hosted a "soft opening" for The Record's new Community Media Lab.

Guests of honor at the event were people many of you have come to know: Our community bloggers.

The program, which was organized by Tom Caprood, The Record's digital specialist, included some light refreshments and two videos, one featuring some of our bloggers, the other Record employees talking about the newspaper's "digital first" philosophy and its impact on our news cycle.
You can check out both of these videos on our website.

Probably the best part of the evening was the conversation we started with our bloggers. It was a good exchange of ideas and blogging tips, a discussion about how we can all support each other and work together, and ways we all can do a better job serving this community.

I personally enjoyed meeting some of our bloggers for the first time, and I look forward to many more conversations with them in the future.


My thanks to Tina Urzan, who writes "The Way It Is," Sean Wilkes, "Fishing Out Loud"; Peggy "The Dart Lady" Kownack, "Unique Perspective"; Rod Aldrich, "Shamrock Road"; Vito Ciccarelli, "Community Thoughts" and Marcie Prey, "Hellions of Troy Roller Derby," for taking the time to get together with us Wednesday night.

Kudos to Tom for putting together the videos and leading the discussions with me.
By the way, stay tune for details about the official grand opening of our Community Media Lab. We hope it will be a place to be for this community.