By Jon Swanson
Nancy and I are on a blogger tour in Hampton, Iowa. A bunch of bloggers are in town to learn more about agriculture and the local community. It’s a great idea for the town and for us.
On Friday night, there is a wine and cheese, star-gazing, coffee-drinking, meet and greet. With live music. A bunch of people from the community, a handful of bloggers. It’s a great evening.
And Nancy and I sit in the dark outside the building, listening to the music. Alone. While the people from the community sit or stand in twos and threes, talking, laughing. Shared jokes, delighted greetings. Stories.
At first you might think, isn’t that terrible? I mean, here are these bloggers, these media people. Shouldn’t you want to impress them with how great your town is? But if the thing you want to show is how great your community is as a community, this relaxed conversation is exactly the thing to do. Especially if I’m choosing to sit in the dark, on the edges.
I’m way more likely to celebrate a community if people are comfortable with each other rather than if they make me the center of attention. I’ll come and go. But these friends and neighbor create the web of relationships that keeps the town, keeps this town, going.
Someone did come and talk, by the way. We were made welcome. And in the course of that conversation we discovered that this event came from several community groups combining forces and events. People cooperated. The number of people in town went up.
And I better understood the smiles. They were people getting together, getting along.
New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Get our updates.
- When the planes are coming in to land - July 18, 2016
- Are you mortgaging your time? - April 24, 2013
- A customer service story - September 12, 2012
- What to do when a blog post is suddenly popular - May 2, 2012
- Review: The official guide to QuickBooks 2012 - January 23, 2012
- Two discussion questions for you - December 8, 2011
- From scrap metal to skilled crafts - November 23, 2011
- How a small business can be huge - November 16, 2011
- Banding together - October 12, 2011
- Show the love - October 1, 2011
