• Survey
  • Book Becky to speak
  • The book: Small Town Rules
  • Shop Local video
  • SaveYour.Town

Small Biz Survival

The small town and rural business resource

A row of small town shops
  • Front Page
  • Latest stories
  • About
  • Guided Tour
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • RSS

A community of Six

By Becky McCray

Thanks, Chris Brogan for dropping by to comment on “Not Free Agents. Guild Members!”

This is great! It’s exciting to see the conversation carry on. I’m interested in the number six part of the discussion. I can’t disagree, but am wondering why that number works.

I happened to read Chris’ original post and one over on BlogHer on the same day. They seemed to fit together to me. Nancy White quotes Marnie Webb in a post called “Size DOES Matter: The Magic Number is Six“:

We don’t make communities for 1M, 100K, 10K or even 1K. The communities we make are for 6 people. Make that—share it, write it, meet with it—and let each of those spawn more communities of 6. Keep it small enough to really care about and relate to.
That’s one of the things that Mena Trott said the acquisition of LiveJournal taught her. The average number of people in a community is six. And that is a comfortable number. And one we can imagine.

Nancy continued:

As humans, we can relate to smaller groups of people, stories of a size that we can internalize. As we seek to create change in our families, towns, non profits, states, countries, the world, think about who the first six you want to reach.

Rural and Small Town folks often lament that we have STP, the Same Ten People or even Same Two or Three, doing everything. That is not necessarily a disadvantage. Another thought drummed into us is, if you can’t do something big, it doesn’t count. That’s wrong, too.

The secret is that there is more magic in the smaller group. Six is a magic number; you plus five makes a very effective group. So be proud of your Small Town’s small activist group. Gather up no more than five friends and change the world! That’s what we are doing here.

[small biz] [rural]

  • About the Author
  • Latest Posts

About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
  • Zoom Towns: attracting and supporting remote workers in rural small towns - December 10, 2020
  • In an economic crisis, spend your brainpower before your dollars - November 25, 2020
  • Video: How to fill empty car dealership buildings for the holidays - November 6, 2020
  • How has 2020 changed the challenges rural small towns face? Tell us here - October 20, 2020
  • The Idea Friendly Method to surviving a business crisis - October 6, 2020
  • Join me for the Rural Renewal Symposium online Oct 13 - September 26, 2020
  • Cheap placemaking idea: instant murals - September 11, 2020
  • Refilling the rural business pipeline - July 7, 2020
  • Huge vacant buildings: grants to renovate? - June 9, 2020
  • Economic self defense for small towns  - June 7, 2020

March 3, 2006 Filed Under: community, rural Tagged With: Climate

Wondering what is and is not allowed in the comments?
Or how to get a nifty photo beside your name?
Check our commenting policy.
Use your real name, not a business name.


Don't see the comment form?
Comments are automatically closed on older posts, but you can send me your comment via this contact form and I'll add it manually for you. Thanks!

Comments

  1. Chris says

    March 3, 2006 at 3:32 pm

    I find that the internet, especially the blogosphere helps open rural areas up to more outside influence. Though “where” still matters, it’s interesting that we can overlay ideas and friends and outside influences with our small town realities, and open things up to new possibilities.

    This is such a timely idea, especially the basic pretext of your blog. I believe small businesses that are looking for force multipliers, or ways to improve beyond the scope of what traditionally was possible, MUST involve “virtual Chamber of Commerce” members, or guild members, as per our other discussion, outside the locale. It’s a must.

    This has been a great discussion.

  2. Nancy White says

    March 6, 2006 at 4:29 am

    Becky, I wandered and found your link and enjoyed how you have intepreted this idea in the context of rural communities. I found myself vigorously nodding at my computer screen. The other interesting idea is when these small communities network, with their power of small, dense relationship connections, to the wider network. Lots of magic there!

Howdy!

Glad you dropped in to the rural and small town business blog, established in 2006.

We want you to feel at home, so please take our guided tour.

Meet our authors on the About page.

Have something to say? You can give us a holler on the contact form.

If you would like permission to re-use an article you've read here, please make a Reprint Request.

Want to search our past articles? Catch up with the latest stories? Browse through the categories? All the good stuff is on the Front Page.

Shop Local

Buy local buttonReady to set up a shop local campaign in your small town? You'll need a guide who understands how we're different and what really works: Shop Local Campaigns for Small Towns.

Best of Small Biz Survival

What is holding us back? Why does every project take so long in small towns?

How any business can be part of downtown events by going mobile

Concert-goers talking and enjoying the evening in downtown Webster City, Iowa.

Why do people say there’s nothing to do here then not come to our concerts?

Retailers: Fill all empty space, floor to ceiling

More of the best of Small Biz Survival

Copyright © 2021 Becky McCray
Front Page · Log in