Tag: community

Things to know if you follow me online

If you spend any amount of time following my online adventures - through my blog, Twitter, Facebook, or otherwise - then there are some things you need to know:

  1. Please don't assume that you know me because you read my posts or status updates. I'm not saying this because I think I'm mysterious or hard to know, I'm saying it because I believe reading someone's status updates does not constitute an engaged and genuine human relationship.  I do use the Internet to express myself, but only one very particular slice of myself.  I hope we can talk "in real life" or even via more direct online communication if we really want to get to know each other better. Continue reading "Things to know if you follow me online" →

Blog salad

P8200016Most of my blog posts are a main course dish with one primary taste.  This one is more of a salad with a bunch of different tastes thrown together.

I did eat a salad for lunch today (nice transition) - radish, green onion, and goat cheese on spring mix greens, with poppy seed dressing.  Everything but the dressing was grown/made at Abundant Acres Farm, the provider of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share that I bought this season.  Friends Kent and Dori have again done a great job making fresh, local, chemical-free food available, and I'm grateful for it.  I don't have a garden on my own land right now, but having a bag of garden-fresh stuff delivered to me every week is hard to beat.  There's still quite a gap between my ideals about where my food comes from and my actual diet.

Continue reading "Blog salad" →

Charitable giving with Twitter antics

I tried a little experiment with Twitter last week.  I see lots of folks talking about how to make money with social media exposure like Twittering, but hadn't yet seen anyone talking about how to give away money via the same.  So on Wednesday I put out a challenge that for each new Twitter follower I got  on my account between then and 5 PM on Friday, I'd donate $2 to the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County.

What happened?

Continue reading "Charitable giving with Twitter antics" →

Richmond home invasions and robberies

Richmond seems to be experiencing a rise in home invasions and robberies, including one early this morning that happened within shouting distance from where I've lived for 5 years.  It could be the case that the increase is just a matter of perception (because more are being reported and then covered by the media), but the facts seem to bear out some sort of trend, and possibly a serial home invader at work.

It's hard to know what to think about this trend.

Continue reading "Richmond home invasions and robberies" →

Remember that one time?

CanopyOne of the trends that disturbs me about social networking sites and perhaps even online conversations in general is that the experience of interacting in those virtual spaces is seen by some as a substitute for real world experiences and interactions.  Or put another way, it's like we spend more of our time talking about how interesting and good we are at talking to each other, instead of actually talking about something.  I don't say this to discount those who have meaningful online exchanges or who find authentic joy in their online relationships, but I wonder what kind of meaningful definition of humanity we're creating for future generations, when what it has historically meant to "experience the world together" is being replaced with "experiencing Facebook together."

Continue reading "Remember that one time?" →

Brainstorming Richmond community improvement ideas

Every time I go on vacation or get a little bit of time to step back and think, I end up making long "to do" lists for myself.  The lists are about projects I want to start, books to read, things to learn about, people to get in touch with.  It's common for some significant chunk of those lists to be related to how to make my home, Richmond Indiana, a better place to live, work and play.

At the same time, I recognize that other people are out there coming up with their own ideas about how to make Richmond better.  I hear those ideas mentioned at meetings, in casual conversations, in planning documents, and all over.  Sometimes I hear people talk about idea overlap - how something they thought was a new idea was something someone else had worked on in the past.  And then I start to worry that we might not be fully honoring the collective brain power we devote to improving Richmond, and I wanted to create a resource that would allow for some consolidated storage of all of those great ideas.

Thus was created the concept for a new website I launched this week, Richmond Brainstorm.com.  It's a place where people can submit their ideas for how to make Richmond better, and discuss the ideas already on the site.

Continue reading "Brainstorming Richmond community improvement ideas" →

Choosing when to go deeper in conversation

Alive MenuI've been thinking lately about the moments in a conversation when the people participating make a choice - conscious or not - about whether to let it go "deeper," or to keep it at a pleasant and polite level of chit-chat. I'm exploring that because (A) I really enjoy deconstructing how we communicate with each other, and (B) I want to take responsibility for my own part in the cases where more depth would have been a good thing, but was avoided. (I even kind of wrote a little poem about it a few years ago.)

I put "deeper" in quotes because it's one of those touchy-feely words that needs a little more definition to be useful here. When I think of a conversation reaching a new depth, I think of the people involved taking on topics that are significant or meaningful to them in ways that invites personal vulnerability or reflection, where you might have to take a stand, where the stakes are higher and there is something to gain or lose by going there. The topics that achieve this will of course vary widely by personality, community and culture.

So, what do those turning points look like? Here are a few I've noticed:

Continue reading "Choosing when to go deeper in conversation" →

National Day of Listening

Join StoryCorps in the National Day of ListeningThis Friday, when you're gathered with friends and family trying to figure out what to do with yourselves after that meal, consider participating in the National Day of Listening.  It's an opportunity to hear and record the stories that we all have to share about our lives, our greatest and hardest moments, and the lessons we've learned.  (And as some have noted recently in Richmond, the local community could benefit from having a better sense of our own narrative.)

All it takes is some kind of simple audio recording device, a good list of questions to get you started, and some time.  And it's a part of the larger oral history project that is StoryCorps, so there are some neat opportunities to share what you capture with a wider audience, if you want.

If you're in the Richmond area and want to send me some of what you record, I'll consider putting it together into an episode of the Richmond News Review podcast.

4 reasons to start using Gravatars right now

I've said before that to truly participate in public life, we must do so as ourselves, with our identities revealed.  Online discussions are now a part of the public sphere, and when used well, can bring people together in ways that complement and enhance real-world community.

A related trend I'm appreciating is the increasing number of tools available to help make online conversations more personalized.  A particular tool I'd like to encourage you to start using right now is that of a Gravatar - a "globally recognized avatar" - which displays an image of your choosing (sometimes a photo of you) next to your contributions to online conversations.

Here are 4 reasons why you should: Continue reading "4 reasons to start using Gravatars right now" →