The LJ World in Lawrence, Kan., has long been a fount of innovation in local digital journalism — especially in how to build and foster more and deeper community connections. Jane Stevens, the site’s director of media strategies, is herself a nonstop innovator. In 2010, she and her team launched LJ World’s WellCommons, a highly interactive site where “community and journalism work together to create a healthier Lawrence and Douglas County,” in the northeast corner of the Sunflower State between Topeka, the capital, and Kansas City. The urbanizing region (2010 population: 110,826) is shaped in large part by Lawrence being the home of “KU” – the University of Kansas (enrollment: 29,462, of which 9.4% is international).
I caught up with Stevens recently to talk about the thinking behind WellCommons, and how the site works. (Full disclosure: Stevens is on the advisory board of Local America, the hyperlocal news project-in-development of which I’m editorial director.)
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