And our team’s final report is now available for public release.

Here’s a breakdown of our key recommendations and a summary of Legacy’s responses.

Recommendation: Create a new Web site, Legacy Chronicles, geared to the interests of obituary fans.

Legacy’s response: While the company is not going to create such a site at this time, Legacy has launched a new section of its existing site called “Legacies,” to “address the needs of obituary fans and others who want to explore some of the rich life stories stored in our database,” said Hayes Ferguson, the company’s chief operating officer, in a written response to the class’s recommendations.

The new section organizes obituaries based on common themes, such as actors, poets or Major League Baseball players.

“We plan to expand the number of sites to commemorate people from many walks of life – teachers, police officers, firefighters, doctors, nurses, and others — and to integrate these inspiring sites into every affiliate Web site we host,” said Stopher Bartol, CEO of Legacy.com. “We think this will capture the spirit of what the Medill team envisioned, while expanding the concept’s scope and reach.”

Recommendation: Redesign and reposition Legacy.com to serve grievers and encourage the creation of online memorials to the deceased.

Legacy’s response: The company is making some changes to better serve this audience. For example, Legacy recently added a feature that allows users to “light a virtual candle” in honor of a loved one – an idea specifically suggested by the students. “We had talked about doing something like this for a while, but the Medill team made it clear that the time to do this is now,” Ferguson said.

Recommendation: Improve search technology on Legacy.com

Legacy’s response: By the end of 2010, “we will introduce a powerful new search and notification engine that will provide users easier and faster access to our affiliates’ content, through features such as full text keyword searches, advanced filtering and automated alerts,” Ferguson said. “We appreciate Medill’s focus on the power of our database and for urging us to make search a priority.”

Recommendation: Improve Legacy’s Web analytics system to better understand user behavior.

Legacy’s response: The students’ work “reinforced our desire to improve our Web analytics system to better understand user behavior,” Ferguson said. “We just hired a Web analytics manager to replace one who left Legacy.com shortly before the Medill project got underway.”

Recommendation: Capitalize on newspaper partnerships if possible – but be willing to go it alone if necessary.

Legacy’s response: “We remain steadfast in our belief that our success is intertwined with that of our newspaper affiliates,” Ferguson said. Bartol said that Legacy believes the newspaper relationships are the key to building a successful Web business for both Legacy and its newspaper affiliates.

“While we continue to expand the features and functionality of our memorial products, our emphasis is on building bridges from our newspaper affiliates to funeral homes, social media, and other places where people are paying tribute,” Bartol said. “Ultimately, we’ve found that what makes a memorial the most compelling is the volume and richness of input from those who knew or cared about the deceased, and its reach and accessibility to others. This is something that Legacy.com and its affiliates accomplish like no one else.”

You can read more about the latest developments, and Legacy’s complete response to our recommendations, on the Medill Web site.

For those of you new to our blog, eight students participated in the fall 2009 Medill Interactive Innovation project.  We were charged with two challenging and complex tasks: to (1) perform detailed research of the American obituary, and (2) to reinvent Legacy.com, an obituary publishing company that partners with newspapers across the country and one of the internet’s 100 most visited websites.  For eleven weeks we worked, eventually releasing “The State of the American Obituary”, a report chronicling the history of English-language obituary culture.  Finally, taking into account the changing media landscape and its effect on print media, we released a series of recommendations and design ideas that we believe can transform Legacy into the hub for commemorating loved ones in America.  (Please read more about our project in our first entry of October 2, 2009.)

In this blog we explored not only this project but all things “obituary”.  Read our favorite obituaries of the week posted several Fridays throughout the project.  Read our humorous compilation of synonyms for death, and read our interviews with Washington Post obituary writer Patricia Sullivan and Tribune obituary writer Trevor Jensen. Read about our design process in “Testing the Tests”, and read our series on obituaries from different English-language countries which began with England on November 11.

And please, keep exploring — there’s so much more on this blog and beyond.

Thanks for following us!

Sincerely,

The Team

PRESS RELEASE
Nov 30, 2009
7:00 a.m., CDT

– FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE –

To better understand the nature of our project and the role of Legacy.com in today’s obituary publishing industry, the Fall 2009 Interactive Innovation Project team at the Medill School of Journalism has been diligently researching the history and trends of American obituary writing. We have summarized our findings in a report that we have released this morning. In this report, we examine the nature of the contemporary American obituary, a phenomenon that constitutes an important content category for modern newspapers – and, increasingly, for publishers in other media.

Like many content categories, obituaries are being transformed by changes in audience behavior and media technology. Once just a concise piece of text reserved for the elite members of society, an obituary can now be created for anyone and can now include multimedia. Mourners can gather not just in a church or funeral home, but also on social networking sites and memorial pages that live on long after the lives that inspired them have ended. This report tracks these changes as they have evolved.

We would like to thank Ian, Ming and Ashley as the principal writers and researchers of the report.

Read report: “The State of the American Obituary”

– END RELEASE –

About the Interactive Innovation Project team

Meet the Interactive Innovation Project team

A Chicago-native and World War II vet, Hunt first worked in advertising but lost interest in the field. Instead he became enchanted with a pop-up book from Czechoslovakia. He went on to design a pop-up ad for Wrigley’s gum, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Read more about Waldo Hunt’s life in his full obituary from the Los Angeles Times.

• Most people don’t like the brown color. They prefer something warmer and upbeat, such as orange or other welcoming colors.
• At the first glance, they couldn’t get the point of the editorial page, especially the name of “featured lives”. But when they further explored on that page, they found it valuable to read. So it seems the most important thing is how to impress the first-time user and lead them to check that page.
• Almost everyone loves the memorial page. Someone said, “It’s very warm, personal, and well-organized without any unnessary ‘flash’.” They all believe that a lof of bereaved and friends/family would like this page a lot and highly potentially pay for this service. Also, they really appreciated the virtual candle idea.

One of the more interesting and relatively fair articles I found about Perry came from NPR in 2006 on the occasion of Mel Watkins’ biography of Stepin Fetchit.

Here’s the link to “Stepin Fetchit, Hollywood’s First Black Film Star”.

And here’s Perry’s IMDB page, too.

Bear with me for a moment and check out the beginning portion of a potential feature on former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, revolutionary for his use of policy analysis in his post and controversial for his role in the Vietnam War:

—

“At 5:15 one afternoon last week,” TIME wrote on Nov 12, 1965, “Norman Morrison, 31, his clothing doused in kerosene and his youngest child, 18-month-old Emily, cradled in his arms, stood outside the river entrance to the Pentagon and burned himself to death.”

He was a war protester, this Morrison.  This was the unraveling of the public debate, from marching to self-immolation.  This was the polarization that, no matter his intention, Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, contributed to an increasingly fractured public during America’s most divisive war, clouding a unique résumé that made him one of the most fascinating men to hold the post.

McNamara’s managerial and analytical brilliance was indisputable.  As the eventual star of the “Whiz Kids”, a group of post-World War II ex-military that ascended Ford Motor Company’s executive ladder and righted the ship, he displayed a first-class aptitude for organizational capability, becoming the corporation’s president in 1960.  Although the Kennedy administration soon targeted him to head the Department of the Treasury, McNamara, despite his lack of military command, was recommended by Truman’s Secretary of Defense, Robert A. Lovett, for the same post.

“Mr. President, it’s absurd.  I’m not qualified,” McNamara humbly told Kennedy.   ”Look, Bob,” the president replied, “I don’t think there’s any school for Presidents either.”

McNamara was a rare figure in the administration—one of the few men who had John Kennedy’s ear in matters of national security, initially evidenced by his involvement in the backroom dealings of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  As such, his role as a policymaker was legitimized, leading him to cut waste, carve out a more efficient department and establish new guidelines for nuclear warfare.  In fact, it was McNamara who first clarified the once prevalent concept of “mutual assured destruction” (MAD).

However, his name would forever be etched in controversy for his authority in the planning and execution of the Vietnam War, colloquially known by many as “McNamara’s War”—blame that would trouble him in the years following his service.

…

What about it?  Are we on point in assessing that this is the type of story the obituary reader, whether intense or more fleeting in her interests, wants to read?

Two newspapers did include obituary sections: The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. Examples of obituaries in these newspapers, however, only reinforce the point that obituaries don’t seem to play as big of a role in Australia’s newspaper culture.

In my opinion, the obituaries I saw in these newspapers were not particularly well written. For example, this Sydney Morning News obit of Nancy Petyarre, an aboriginal artist, was overly formulaic and kind of dry. Instead of an interesting article about this person’s life and achievements, this obit reads like a lengthy version of a death notice.

Another obit from the Age about Joseph Lester “Jody” Powell, White House Secretary under Jimmy Carter, is a bit more similar to British obituaries in its acknowledgment of controversy and scandal. For example:

“On the campaign trail he began by revealing that Carter’s net personal wealth was $US810,000 and his peanut farm was worth $US348,000 – but was soon confronted by Carter’s admission in a Playboy interview that he had committed ‘adultery in his heart many times’. Asked if such bluntness would hurt the Carter campaign, he calmly replied: ‘I can’t imagine that it would.’”

But aside from a few of those amusing glimpses into Powell’s career, the rest of the obit also sticks to the generic obit formula and it didn’t particularly hold my interest.

These obituaries definitely exhibit some influence from British obituary culture. Unfortunately they’re not nearly as interesting.

Here’s a national paper South Wales Echo, whose obituaries seem more like resumes to me. I’ll show you an example.

Obituary: Emyr Currie-Jones

Dec 2 2008 by Catherine Mary Evans, South Wales Echo

EMYR CURRIE-JONES was one of the most worthy and estimable figures in local government, especially in educational affairs in Cardiff and Glamorgan, during the past half century.

He figured prominently in the resolution of several highly controversial issues during that period.

He was also the first chairman of the newly-created South Glamorgan County Council, serving from 1973 to 1975, and a member for the city’s Ely ward from 1981 to 1989.

Mr Currie-Jones, beloved husband of the late Mary, was born in Caernarfon and became a well-known and highly respected solicitor in Cardiff.

He acted as prosecuting solicitor for the Cardiff City Council from 1950 to 1955 and subsequently as partner in the practice of Rees, Currie-Jones, Davies and Evans in the Castle Arcade Chambers North until his retirement in 1987, later as consultant solicitor.

He was a past president of the Cardiff and District Law Society and a member of numerous councils and committees including the Welsh Joint Education Committee and Welsh Language Council.

For more than 20 years, Mr Currie-Jones was also a member of the Council of the then University College of Cardiff.

A fluent Welsh speaker, he had been involved in the affairs of his chapel at Minny Street, devoting many years to the chapel as its secretary.

He also served as a member of the Council of the Welsh Congregational Churches.

He was a past member of the Courts of Governors of the University Colleges of Swansea, the Council of the Welsh National School of Medicine, the Court of the National Library of Wales and the Welsh Books Council.

He also served for years on the Council of the Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales and was the chairman of the executive committee of the National Eisteddfod when it was held in Cardiff in 1978.

He received a warm welcome when he attended some of the sessions of the Eisteddfod held in Pontcanna this year.

Mr Currie-Jones was awarded the CBE for his work in local government in 1976. He died on October 13.

It’s not an exception. All the obituaries I read from this newspaper mostly focused on the job titles of the deceased and whether he/she was awarded any kind of honorship without the detailed stories. So they didn’t really tell what this person’s life meant to the society, but a list of big titles.

Another national paper, the Evening Post, has a different approach. Its obituaries mainly focus on the interaction between the deceased and his/her family or friends. The article always starts with the funeral information, like this:

“MOURNERS are tomorrow expected to pay their final respects to a man who was allegedly murdered at his Llanelli home.

Richard Shrapnell, aged 36, died after an incident at his Ty Elizabeth flat on March 4.”

It’s a very typical lede of obituaries on the Evening Post. And the full article got a lot of the quotes from someone close to the deceased to talk about their feelings toward the person, like this:

“Richard was popular with a lot of people around here, and I’ll always remember him as a lovely man who would always help you out,” she said.

“He liked a laugh and a joke, and was full of life. I really feel for the family, especially his father — I don’t think it has sunk in for them yet.”

However, the obituaries didn’t tell the life story of the deceased. You may get a sense by reading these two examples.

• Death leaves friends ‘shaken and numb’
• ‘Remember Richard for how he lived, not how he died’

The obituaries on one of its local newspapers, Western Mail, tell more stories. Those are not in a British way, which is my favorite style. But still, there is something interesting to explore. Like this one about Tony Whitehead, a local film programmer:

Whitehead, a former Ormskirk Grammar School boy, doubtless garnered some of his writing and lecturing skills as a student at East Anglia University where he fell under the beguiling spell of Charles Barr, all-round British film expert and author of a definitive book on Ealing Studios. Whitehead revered those studio comedies of the late ’40s and early ’50s but he was equally loquacious discussing the merits of the Boulting Bros, with their scabrous, sometimes ambivalent, satires on social mores, or Launder and Gilliat.

See, this is a story, not something put on resume…However, one thing I’m so confused with this paper. It’s really uncommon to see the author writes as “the first person”. Like this:

He made me realise that Leigh was a Dickensian satirist – or more pertinently perhaps satirist in the Cruikshank, Hablot Browne (Phiz) or Hogarth mould with his propensity for drawing larger-than-life idiosyncratic characters or quintessential types, frayed with life or curling at the edges.

Hmmm, interesting…What do you think?

The difference I noticed, though, came in the language of death notices. I looked at the death notices in the Irish Times (the major paper in Dublin) and the New York Times to see how the language in Irish death notices is different than the language in American death notices.

For example:

EMILY MINOR
MINOR–Emily Chadbourne, 94, died October 30 in Rye, NY. Survived by her son John and daughters Kathleen, Jane and Caroline, 14 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren. Service at Christ’s Church Rye, NY, December 3, 11am.

This is a death notice from the New York Times. And while the language in the paid death notices varies some, mostly the notices are pretty straightforward, maybe saying that the deceased died “peacefully” or that the person was loved, but the

Irish death noticed seemed much different to me.

This is a typical death notice from the Irish Times:

JOHNSTON (Nephin Road, Dublin 7) – November 11, 2009, (peacefully), at St. Francis Hospice, Raheny, Ellen, much loved sister of the late Sheila, Patrick and Desmond; deeply regretted by her loving nephew Desmond, relatives and friends. Rest in peace. Removal from St. Francis Hospice to the Church of Our Lady Help of Christians, Navan Road this (Friday) evening arriving at 5 o’clock Funeral tomorrow (Saturday) after 10 o’clock Mass to Glasnevin Crematorium. Donations in lieu of flowers to St. Francis Hospice, Raheny.

The differences that I noticed were, in general, Irish death notices are longer. They also use language that seems more emotional, almost effusive. “sadly missed,” “treasured” and something about the cause- “peacefully” or “unexpectedly.”

I would like to find out if it’s cheaper to post death notices in Ireland, and that’s why they are generally longer, or if they are important enough for people to pay for many lines.

Mostly, from the little browsing I’ve done, Irish and American obituaries and death notices are pretty similar. Irish obits seems similar also in that they don’t usually show “worts and all.” Maybe one of you has first-hand knowledge you can share with me.