Pretty much every person I know who works in preservation is extraordinarily passionate about their work, and will talk endlessly about the historic places that they've worked to save. But I have a feeling that when my colleagues and I talk to folks who love buildings in a more non-professional capacity, we sound a lot like the teacher from the Peanuts cartoons: "Waah wah waaaah. Waaaah wah wah waaah?"

For a field that depends so heavily on partnerships with community members and local preservationists, we often rely on lingo that is fairly incomprehensible -- and can even be off-putting -- to a layperson. Why is this? And how can we do better?

With those questions in mind, we'll be tackling -- and trying to conquer -- preservation jargon in our next #builtheritage Twitter chat, on Wednesday, October 3 at 4:00 p.m. EDT. If you're a regular participant in our chats, this would be a great time to ask a friend -- especially someone who loves historic places, but isn't a “preservation professional” -- to join you. The more perspectives we can get, the better!

How to participate:

1. Sign in to Twitter, TweetDeck or TweetChat. We (the chat moderators) usually use TweetChat since it adds the hash tag automatically and allows for easy replies and re-tweets.

2. Follow and tweet with the hashtag #builtheritage.

3. Watch for the questions in the Q1 format. Provide answers using the A1 format, and interact with other participants using replies and retweets.

Oh, and what we mean by the Q1/A1 format is this: Questions (we usually have four per chat) are posed by the moderators as Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 about every 15 minutes. We ask that chatters reply with A1, A2, etc. to help everyone stay clear on what they’re responding to. A lot of side conversations and such still break out, but it helps keep things at least a little organized.

I hope you can join us!

Sarah Heffern is the social media strategist for the National Trust’s Public Affairs team. While she embraces all things online and pixel-centric, she’s also a hard-core building hugger, having fallen for preservation in a fifth grade “Built Environment” class.

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