links for 2008-07-10

• Lively – Welcome
  Create an avatar and chat with your friends in rooms you design
  (tags: google virtualworlds 3d secondlife avatar)
• Zazzle custom t-shirts and more, create or shop for unique designs shipped in 24 hours
  instant customizable products from the world’s best brands
  (tags: t-shirts design shopping custom printing)
• bit.ly, a simple small url service
  Shorten Long URLs With bit.ly
  (tags: url tinyurl tools web2.0 short)
• widgenie – Overview
  Widgenie, an EXCElent tool that empowers everyone, from bloggers to business people, to quickly visualize data and share it in many different ways.
  (tags: excel web2.0 visualisation)
• Create free online charts with ChartGizmo.com – Use our chart software for visualizing your data.
  With your free account from ChartGizmo you can now create charts for your website, blog and social network profiles.
  (tags: charts tools web2.0 diagrams webdesign)

Small, but connected world

I’m sitting in the rec room pretending that I’m watching some dance show with my daughter and wife but really have my eye on Vista updates which is now over an hour long and, of course, Twitter.

A Tweet comes from Brian Crosby in Nevada

“Today was relatively smoke free here. Then about 90 minutes ago: http://tinyurl.com/6y8pwq”

Now, I don’t know this person, however he’s in my network so I follow the link to see this:

I do a little math and put it at about 6pm in his time zone. Subsequent tweets talk about the events of the day and how the smoke is getting worse.

Here’s history unfolding, one tweet at a time. Another example of the power of the network.

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Legacies for Small Communities

I had occasion to return to my hometown this past weekend. I grew up in Clinton, Ontario and did so many things that you would normally expect from a small community.

One of my loves has always been baseball. However, once I was old enough to work during summers, the focus of that love changed. I worked at swimming pools and that requires a great deal of evening work. That really precludes from actually playing baseball. But, there was an alternative and that was to become an umpire. It’s a really important part of the game despite the abuse that you sometimes get. No matter what; half of the people agree with you and the other half disagree with each close call. So, in a close game, you hope to break even.

For whatever reason, I ended up pairing myself with a gentleman with a few more years of experience umpiring and we made a great team. We ended up umpiring softball and baseball throughout Huron, Bruce, and Perth counties.

In our return last weekend, I would pause to refresh old memories at ball diamonds as we drove through some of these communities. It was nice to reminisce but it was also interesting to see the state of the ball diamonds. Without a doubt, the nicest baseball diamonds that I was ever on was at the University of Michigan where they truly line them maize and blue!

But that’s to be expected. It’s a big organization with all kinds of people employed to keep the grounds perfect and really off-topic to this post.

This isn’t the same in small rural communities. Here, things are often run by volunteers or service clubs. The quality depends upon the efforts that are put into them.

As we drove around, we noticed some really terrific ball diamonds. Spectacular fields in Brussels, Goderich, Walton, and numerous other places. Just like I remembered them or even better. Then, there were changes. The unique diamond in Wingham is gone completely. Sadly, one of the very best diamonds (which I’ll not name) was completely overrun by weeds. In this particular case, the force behind the sport had passed away and there was nobody to maintain things.

I started to think about the parallel to online communities. There will be the big groups that are organized professionally, and with money behind them. They will survive as long as there is a business plan behind them. But, there will be smaller communities that rely on volunteers who just do what needs to be done. The quality of the community will be based upon the quality of the continued contributions.

A community cannot depend upon one person. Should that person move away or move on to other interests, what becomes of the community? What will stop it from becoming over grown by weeds?

It seems to me that there are two things that need to happen. First, a person who creates the community should encourage other community members to get involved so that no one entity is essential to the continuation of the community. Secondly, community members must realize the power of community. Equality of input will insure that there is sustainability. Everyone needs to step up to the plate and take a shared lead; a shared vision for the community. Not only will the community be able to sustain itself but there will be a diversity of input and that’s a good thing.

Bottom line; treasure your small community and make sure that it remains vibrant and weed-free.

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