Bringing Small Town Back

Sep 17, 2010 | blog

Small towns. I grew up in one, and wish many more folks had that opportunity to really get to know the people in your community. Unfortunately, that’s not the reality in our neighborhoods today, where the urban landscape seems to run unendingly into the horizon.

It was in small towns that communities were, more often than not, strong and supportive. In these small communities, people looked out for each other and most of the time made it easy for people to succeed. You relied on your neighbor because of the challenges and demands that were common to everyone.

For many of us, this kind of community didn’t exist. Or some of us started in those small communities and moved to much, much larger ones. The differences are profound and complex. Large communities tend to seem about numbers rather than people, and coming from an environment where you know everyone to one where you’re lost in the crowd can be overwhelming.

However, we’ve found another way to create unique, small communities that have tremendous value through the Internet. These innumerable, special-interest communities are not unlike small towns. They’re made up of many different individuals with wide-ranging perspectives and experiences, and they are the better for it.

I very much like to compare online communities to those small towns I speak so favorably about. Mainly because they reward the members as they participate and interact with each other. They open up new worlds of opportunity and knowledge that seem daunting at the outset, making friendships and acquaintances easier for many people lost in larger physical communities.

I see a number of small communities I belong to today, each one unique, offering something the others do not. These communities help define and direct who I am and what I do much like the small town I grew up in helped shape my world view and direction in life.

I truly hope you have great experiences with your small communities and help others to discover theirs.

Photo credit: Kodama (home)

Why We Need Peers

Aug 24, 2010 | blog

Untitiled by johnkoEver take a minute and think about all the people in your life? Often we recognize so few – mostly family and friends. In life, though, there are many, many people who we interact with, are influenced by, and work with.

The people we know and interact with bring so many things to our lives. What we think, how we do things, the way we learn. It’s these things that expand our horizons and allow us to grow as individuals.

Our peers are not only our friends and coworkers. They are clerks at stores we visit and buy things from. They are our mail carriers and delivery people. They are our representatives in government, and teachers in our education system.  They are leaders in business, and in faith. They are the women and men who protect our country, and help us in emergencies.

Each of the people bring something unique, something special to the mix. Knowledge, leadership, compassion, guidance, strength, or camaraderie – our peers provide all this above and beyond our friendships.

In short, our peers make up the communities we participate in, both offline and online, which give us all such great resources to do great things together. I’m grateful to have so many people in my life, and to have the privilege of learning from them and with them.

Photo credit: johnko

Communication, or the lack thereof

Aug 17, 2010 | blog

'Communication Problem' by JoshFlassbind.comSo an interesting thing happened yesterday. I failed at something I know how to do.

It’s easy to let happen, get too many things demanding too much attention and you take your eye off the ball. Something we help our clients work through and watch out for, and here I did the classic lack of communication mistake.

It should be okay, I mean, that happens to everyone.

And it does. However, the real issue here is that I let myself get distracted from what I’ve been thinking about for some time, and that’s really the ‘shame on me’ part.

When you’re passionate about something and really want to make something more of it, you need to communicate, and do so often so there’s no confusion to the intention and direction you’re going. That is the classic, ultimate rule and one should stick to that as closely as is possible.

So, instead of working on those things that would move the ball down the field, I spent yesterday answering questions and putting out fires that needn’t have been. A blog post, an email blast and some tweets pointing folks to that information would have put much of the discussion to rest before it started.

Live and learn I suppose. Take my lesson (really, please take it – I’ll sell cheap) and learn from it instead of making the same mistake yourself. Call if you have questions, I’m still always learning and love to share those things I learn.

Photo credit: JoshFassbind.com

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