M.T. Bearington. Photo: Chris March/New Haven Register

The idea was simple. Invite a band to the New Haven Register, let them rip, and record every blissful note.

With the help of CT Indie - we invited one of New England's best indie rock groups M.T. Bearington into the New Haven Register to play a 45 minute set last week which was free and watchable for anyone in the world with a broadband internet connection.

The New Haven Register has hosted live chats with public officials and live streamed press conferences quite regularly for a while now, but we had never done any thing like this before. So we learned some very valuable lessons, and have gathered a wealth of great feedback and ideas on how to improve and further develop this new venue for local music.

So how did we do?
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Not a day goes by where Register Entertainment Editor Jordan Fenster and I don't fiendishly concoct outlandish ideas to explore and experiment with. But this is the one that I've wanted to explore the most for a very, very long time.

Tomorrow, The New Haven Register will play host to a live, intimate set by local indie rock vets M.T. Bearington at 6 p.m. Some fans will be in attendance to see the event for themselves (details on how to get a free invite here) while others can watch the set live and for free online (or afterwards too -- the whole set will be recorded).

Please note however, the credit of this project is not mine. I just thought it would be cool. Jordan and our Community Media Lab partner CT Indie are the ones responsible for bringing this to life. We're planning for the set to go for about 45 minutes, starting at 6 p.m.

Of course, our pride in this concept does not mean it's worth doing over and over again. No bands want to perform in the middle of a forest where no one will hear them. (Except maybe that falling tree that nobody hears?) If we're going to bring bands in to play music and capture it as video content -- we need to do it because readers out there want it. So I'll report here on my blog next week the successes (and non-successes) we find from our first session.

If this is the kind of thing you want to see more of from the New Haven Register, there are three things you need to do.

1. Watch it live Wednesday evening at 6 pm right here
2. Tell a friend.
3. Tell another friend, and tell them to tell a friend.

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It's been one year since Journal Register Company (New Haven Register's parent company) launched a partnership with SeeClickFix. Since then, there has been one itty bitty thing that's really nagged me about it. It's an excellent community tool that is under-utilized by most communities. At least in terms of what it is capable of.

But maybe that's our fault -- the local news organizations. It sits on many websites now (like the Register) as a widget, but that's not enough. News organizations have the same responsibility to it that residents do -- it's only useful to the community if we actually use it. Knowing it exists does nothing.
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What is it, exactly? Per Wikipedia:

SeeClickFix is a web tool that allows citizens to report non-emergency neighborhood issues, which are communicated to local government, as a form of community activism.

It creates a hard line between real people who want to get things done and the people who are responsible for getting those things done. It's an accountability machine. And when that hardline can't be established, a news organization can step in to help forge that hard line (with a headline).

And so, that's what the Journal Register Company ideaLab project I've been working on is: Experimenting with ways to Increase SeeClickFix user engagement, and users, by integrating SeeClickFix into the news flow. And by demonstrating it in a way that any newsroom in the world can replicate.

Granted, the Register newsroom is already ahead of the ball in terms of using SeeClickFix to generate stories, with or without me. What I'm doing is measuring what that work is worth, and helping steer the reporters and editors to better (and best) practices and helping them incorporate it into their workflow, so that it's not 'another thing they have to worry about or make time for'.

How do I mean to do that? Well like I said - it's not a website. It's a tool, and a social media platform. I'm going to demonstrate how reporters can use it, how editors can use it.. but most importantly, how the community can use their local newspaper to get even more effective use out of SeeClickFix.

That's not to say The Register doesn't already use it, or that other community news organizations across Journal Register Company and around the world haven't used it beyond it's widget. So let's start with that.

Send me your links to the best uses you've seen of SeeClickFix from news organizations. Leave 'em in the comments or email to me at cmarch@newhavenregister.com. My next post on Monday will be a list to some of the best ways it's already been used.