The Essex blog and the Essex doodles (a collaborative project to create Essex guides for architecture, history, recreation, wildlife, etc.) will be merged over the coming months. This decision represents a shift in our original vision and plans. I will try to explain the change in our thinking in a moment, but first here’s a little background on why the two efforts were separate.
We debuted the concept for a Doodler’s Guide to Essex, NY last summer at the Depot Theatre. At the time of our launch we explained that we would exhibit the Essex doodles on EssexNY.us alongside the concurrently launched Essex Events Calendar.
Why two websites?
In truth, the passing months have blurred our thinking. At the time, the logic was partly founded on simplifying and focusing several distinct (albeit complementary) initiatives. There were practical concerns like isolating the two new experimental projects (Essex calendar and what we envisioned as a series of short “doodle guides”) onto separate platforms to avoid any downtime and/or bugs for the blog. And with over four dozen authors contributing content to the blog, and potentially a bunch of new contributors adding events to the Essex calendar (click here to add an event), were wanted to minimize vulnerabilities.
We were also addressing broader editorial concerns. There was already a lot happening on the Essex blog, so we figured that the two new projects ought to stand on their own feet, separate and apart from Essex on Lake Champlain.
Better late than never!
In hindsight, the decision was ill conceived not the least of which is it unnecessarily confused the public and increased the complexity of our editorial workflow. So now we’re migrating all of the non-calendar, content related to the Essex doodles project over to the Essex blog.
The Essex Events Calendar will stay where it is. It was prudent to launch the Essex community calendar on a separate website partly to isolate the data while the experimental application was still in development. (It’s actually still running in beta while we fine tune the submission process, Facebook integration, and the user interface.) It takes time to debug the “machinery”, and despite the relatively minimalist interface, there’s actually a fairly complex infrastructure under the proverbial hood.
Are the Essex Doodles Hibernating?
Infrequent Essex doodle sightings in recent months beg the obvious question: is the Doodler’s Guide to Essex, NY hibernating until spring?
Yes and no. We haven’t been posting new Essex doodles online recently, but we are busy preparing a fun book full of Essex doodles for publication this summer. And with the old Essex doodles migrating from EssexNY.us to Essex on Lake Champlain, you’ll soon see new posts as we try to pull everything together in one tidy, user-friendly bundle. But you don’t have to wait to contribute your own doodles. This beautiful snowy winter offers all sorts of exciting Doodle opportunities. Brainstorm your Essex doodle ideas with us (on Facebook, Twitter and by email), or submit doodles you’ve already created. We can’t wait to discover your creativity!
Essex Doodles Mini Gallery
In case you’ve missed out on the Essex doodles series, here are a few fun ones.
Stay tuned for more Essex doodle news soon (including book launch date!)
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