The Local Pub Might be Online

I’ve used the image of the Jury Room in Columbus, Ohio in presentations about social media for years. The point I made usually went something along these lines:

This is a pub that sits across the street from the courthouse in Columbus. It’s been there since 1831. Once upon a time, if you wanted to talk to anyone in the legal profession, or find out what was going on around in the courts, this is where you went. Everyone was there, and that’s where you connected with them.

If you didn’t like bars, didn’t like the service, the food, the price or just the fact that the building was haunted, allegedly, it didn’t matter. If you wanted to connect, again, everyone was there!

So, you can talk all you want about not liking Facebook and Twitter, but that’s where everyone is, and if you want to connect, you should be there too.

Recently, a friend from back in Columbus sent me an article about the new lunch spot opening in downtown near the courthouse, and I realized in reading it, that the Jury Room had gone out of business.

Think about that for a minute. The local pub that was close to the court house, the center of information sharing and connecting for people in that profession, wasn’t needed any longer. It’s become the proverbial buggy whip.

There are still plenty of pubs, and plenty of places to get a drink and a bite to eat, and there always will be. Those are not, however, the main source of networking the way they used to be though. The times have changed, and if you continue to refuse to use social networks, I just don’t know what to tell you. There’s no Jury Room for you to visit instead.

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