The term "hyperlocal" suggests several things: Very granular content on specific places, aggregated content that depicts a new local picture, or subject matter or content that deals with geographic organization, among them. Sarah Hartley, who runs the city blogs for The Guardian, thinks we need to reconsider the term.

She thinks it's more about an attitude than about geography. She's identified 10 features of hyperlocal:

1. The author's participation.
2. The blurring of opinion and fact.
3. The community's participation.
4. Small in scale but large in impact.
5. Medium-agnostic.
6. Obsessive.
7. Independent.
8. Link-loving.
9. Passion.
10. Frugal and economically fledgling.

Are there others? What do you think?

The Knight News Entrepreneur Boot Camp is under way and one of the institute's leaders, Robert Niles, has outlined the opportunity for news publishers to become  community organizers.

Not organizers in the sense of political activism, but organizers as engaging the community in dialogue. Niles outlines several steps necessary, and how repetition is further necessary, to achieve the goals.

In broad outline, Niles suggests:

1.  Assessing the community and understanding its needs.
2. Creating a team to tackle the issues.
3. Developing a plan to use particular techniques to deal with the challenges.
4. Mobilizing the community to get noticed.
5. Tactics to gain participation.
6. Evaluating your success.

It's a solid framework on how newsrooms can treat community organization as a project.