First, I want to say that I do offer my genuine congratulations to the youth, their mentors and supporters who put together Richmond's application and saw it through to the win.  To achieve national recognition for our city is commendable, and I know that the passion, time and energy you put into this effort comes from a deep love of this community and its potential.  Richmond needs more people like you who care enough to act, and who do so with a bright future in mind.

Now on to the harder part:

My fellow blogger Jean Harper has written a critique of this effort that raises some very worthy questions about the value of spending our time trying to win this label.  Other people in other candidate cities are asking the same questions. The recurring theme: "why should we put all that time and money into competing for a title that is just a title, when we have real problems to solve back home?"

I think it's a good sign that these questioning conversations are happening, but I have a difficult time with some of Jean's more biting comments:

I would like to take the community leaders aside and say this: Look. Quit lying to our kids. Quit filling their heads with boosterish nonsense. Quit leading them on these exhausting exercises which result in virtually nothing.

I posted a response to her entry on her blog, but I thought I'd share it here too:

Thanks for putting out some challenging thoughts about this award news.

I've been cogitating on similar ideas for a while now, and while I share your concern that the return on investment for this effort might not be justifiable, I'm not sure I can follow you all the way to the point of calling it lying to the youth involved, or to saying that a community improvement effort that doesn't necessarily directly engage the homeless is one to eschew.

This comes from my general philosophy of community improvement, which I think fellow commenter Aaron touched on: "There is no one right way to make Richmond a better place."  That is, it just won't work to say that there's a single plan of action for helping this community solve all of its problems, and then execute it and hope for the best on the other side.

We do need to engage all of the disenfranchised populations you talked about, and re-think our education system and notions of meaningful employment.  But we also need the rallying and the parades and the vague award titles and the hype.  We need all of it, and we need anyone who has a bit of passion and energy for this place to manifest their care in whatever way they think they can bring the most to the rest of us.

Richmond has suffered recently, I think, at the hands of those who preach homogeneity and "one right way, there is no alternative" when it comes to community improvement and economic development.  So I just can't begrudge the successes of someone who is willing to say "well, what if we try something else?  What if we go a different direction and see what happens?"  I may have serious concerns about their particular choice of direction (as I do in this case), but until there are more people taking Richmond's future into their own hands, until there are so many "shovel-ready, high-impact" projects for people to plug into that we don't know where to start, I don't think we have the luxury of criticizing those who are making a go of it in their own way.

Even with limited resources, even knowing there are those with other clear and pressing daily needs that are not being met, I still think there's value in diversity of approach.  We don't know what might spark the kinds of revival and rejuvenation that really will make a big difference.

Thanks again for calling us all out on this, not allowing for unquestioned or unconditional glee when we know reality demands more of us.

WarmShowers.org is a resource for facilitating just that for cyclists, and it's a great way to find or offer lodging.  You can provide as much or as little information about your location and "amenities" as you want, and you're under no obligation to host anyone at any particular time.  It's similar to other resources like CouchSurfing.org or even Mennonite Your Way.

I was a little nervous about how the first hosting experience would go - what would they expect of me, would they stay up late into the night drinking my beer and watching old Weird Al Yankovich movies, etc.  But these folks were very quiet and low-key, and as you might expect from people who have been on the road for two months, they mostly just wanted to rest and take it easy.  I enjoyed doing a bit of cooking and doting to help make their time that much more pleasant.

If you're a cyclist who might take a trip at some point, or if you have some space to spare for those passing through your area, consider checking out WarmShowers.org.

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.
2. Please don't assume that I know you because of your posts or status updates. I sometimes try to keep up with what people are saying about their lives on social networking sites, but sometimes I definitely don't bother.  If there's something exciting, hard, important, or otherwise noteworthy happening in your life, you should assume you need to tell me about it in an "old fashion way" (e-mail, phone, letter, in person) if you want me to know or care. (Hopefully I will also be asking you how you are doing once in a while too.)
3. I have a sense of humor that sometimes doesn't translate very well to written electronic form. Sometimes I type things that sound absolutely hilarious in my head, and come out quite confusing (or even worse, alarming) in pixel form.  I guess you should assume that if something I type sounds weird or problematic, it's just a poorly executed attempt at humor, but you're still welcome to call me out on it.
4. I don't act on ambient invitations. Just because you think I may have heard about your (non-public) event, gathering or party because other people are mentioning it online or because you mentioned it on Facebook, please don't assume that I think of myself as invited.  This may be old fashioned or even self-absorbed of me, but I generally still want to know directly from someone if they want me in attendance somewhere (and will generally give you back the courtesy of a direct RSVP).
5. I don't really use Facebook for anything other than status updates.  I generally do not respond to requests for joining causes or groups, and I never accept requests to take quizzes, play games, or send or receive strange little objects via applications.  I often don't have time or interest in responding to comments people post on my status updates.  I know, I know, some people will be like "Dude, you're DOING it wrong," and maybe I am.  Just don't take it personally.
6. I use Delicious.com for social bookmarking, and you should too. If I see a website link that I think you might enjoy, I'm 27% more likely to follow through on that thought and make you aware of it if you have a Delicious.com account so that I can bookmark it for you there.   If I have to send you an e-mail message, I'm less likely to bother.  I'm sorry, it's lazy, I know, I know.

I realize that this may sound curmudgeonly, especially coming from someone who works with the Internet for a living and who encourages people to use it as a tool for better communication.  But if you do read my blog, you know I feel strongly that we need to be very careful about replacing genuine human interaction with stalking each other on Facebook.

I know it may be futile, but it's important for me to draw some of these lines in the sand about what kind of life I will and will not live online.

If you maintain some sort of presence on the Internet (via Facebook, Twitter, a blog or otherwise), what are some ground rules you set for yourself, and what should people expect (or not expect) from that online existence?

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.

This past week I took a vacation from the office to focus on...not being at the office for a week.  It was a brief but effective period of rest and catching up on life's other projects - I spent some time hiking, traveling, exploring, unpacking and rearranging the new house, working in the yard, reading and researching, responding to old e-mail messages (I'm down to just 2 personal inbox items, YAY!), spending time with friends, getting my old house ready to rent, journaling, sleeping, lounging, and planning for the future.  I'm grateful to have co-workers and a work life that makes this kind of break possible and easy.

Yesterday I heard a clicking/chirping/screeching noise in the hallway outside where I was sitting, and emerged to find that the cats had surrounded a bat on the floor of my bedroom.  After swearing lightly a few times, I went back into the room I'd been in to compose myself.  When I emerged again, the bat had moved to the window frame in the bedroom, cats plotting their ascent, and I'm pretty sure it was looking at me.  "Your move, help me out here," I think it was saying. I swore again and then shooed the cats out and closed the door behind me.  Then I did what anyone in my position would do: I Twittered about it.  The immediate responses varied in their helpfulness, from some genuine offers to come assist, to naming the bat Howard, to, "Bats carry rabies and if they bite you in your sleep, you'd NEVER KNOW! I heard it on NPR."  Gee, thanks.  By the time Becky arrived to take charge of the situation, the bat had gone into hiding, and has yet to re-emerge.  Part of me honestly believes that it intercepted my Twitter feed and knew what it might be in for.  Oh well.  Sleeping in a bee-keeper suit was not too uncomfortable.

Despite being on vacation, I had a few great organizational meetings, and I joined two new organizations/projects this week.  The Creative Industries Task Force is a working group sprung from the city's comprehensive plan, helping to prepare the ground for a county-wide organization that can support, celebrate and coordinate the arts and cultural environment of Richmond and Wayne County.  The Earlham College Alumni Council works to advance the College's development and keep its alumni engaged with the life of the institution.  In both cases, I'm honored to be asked to contribute, and am optimistic that both efforts are already so much in line with work I am already doing informally that I won't notice any additional time commitment. 

Doors are opening all around me with opportunities to dive into more of the community building work that I know I want to do.  I'm still working on some implementation plans following my Transition Training conference last month.  Coming up in June the Imago folks in Cincinnati are putting on a conference on ecology, spirituality and living economies that I've registered for, and just a week later the Earth Charter folks are having a conference in Indianapolis to help people create an ethical framework for sustainability in their communities.  I see excitement building locally around local food, alternative transportation, better communication and dialog, alternative media and citizen journalism, and a general openness to new ways of making the community better.  The hard part is no longer trying to get something moving - the hard part is figuring out what I have to say "no" to because there are so many things moving.  I'll take it!

I saw this Maya Angelou quote recently and found it useful: "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."  I've been paying a lot of attention since to how each person I encounter makes me feel, and how I might make them feel.  My attentiveness has not been about striving for the answer to be "good" all the time, but at least to know that something is being felt, that there's some emotional engagement we can both find worth remembering.

Those are a few of the ingredients tossed into my salad of life lately.  How about you?

Sometime during my college experience, I decided that I was going to run for the Presidency of the United States of America.  I was mostly serious. I mean, I announced it on the Internet for crying out loud, so you know I wasn't just messing around.  I figured out that I would be old enough to be elected President in the 2012 elections, and I dreamed my dream from there.

I've since figured out that national politics is probably not for me, at least not anytime soon.

It's not because I dismiss the importance that the political process at that level plays - indeed, I think it's having quite an impact on our lives every day, and needs people of integrity, values and passion to participate.  But when I wrote about the things that I thought a successful politician needed to be or do, I didn't realize how incompatible they are with the current state of the national political scene:

This will mean not campaigning about issues, but rather exposing the wounds of our culture and offering suggestions for healing. This will mean recognizing positive social interaction as the most important part of successful citizenship and promoting such interaction to the end that the will of the people may be more clearly and immediately heard. This will mean refusing to propose "programs" and budget changes as possible solutions to our country's many problems, but rather addressing the problems at their source and empowering the individual citizen to get passionate enough, excited enough, and angry enough to enact positive change. This will mean refusing to participate in the handicapped, ineffective political process, but instead inventing new and creative ways to create a government that is truly belongs to its people and not to its own members or processes.

What I believe now is "right here" is the place I can be most effective and rewarded in my desire to contribute something significant in my time on Earth.  In other words, changing the world is, for me, no longer about going "out there" and making a difference for "those people."   It's not that I don't care about out there and those people, it's that I know I can help them the most by being attentive to the land I call home.  This feels more sustainable ("what if we all cared more deeply and actively for the people and places in our own communities?") than what national and global politics tend to be about ("what if we all went out and tried to make laws and coerced agreements about how everyone should live, enforced with fear and oppression?").

The sayings are cliche, but it's because they ring true: "All politics is local."  "Think globally, act locally."

None of this negates my passion for politics at all levels.  I can't help but follow the daily goings on of Washington D.C., the dreams, successes and missteps of our President, the behind the scenes power plays in Congress, the drowning pool that is our news media.

And that translates very much to the local level - even though there may not seem like a lot that can stir one's blood in a City Council meeting in Richmond, Indiana, or in the finer points of comparing two mayoral candidates, this is where I now find the real fascination with political influence and maneuvering.  These are the people who live around me, who know this place for what it is, who have to look me and our neighbors in the eye every day and think about how well we're doing.  Local politicians are the ones who can (if they want) care enough to actually make a difference.

So am I going to get involved in local politics?  A run for Mayor or City Council, maybe?   I don't know.  There's certainly part of me that thinks I have some skills and perspectives that could make a positive difference in the community, and I would be honored to be able to pursue them in that context.  But there's another part of me that wonders how it might limit me, how it might change my ability to actually get things done.  What would I have to sacrifice?  How frustrated would I be with enmeshing myself in the political realities of a firmly entrenched governmental and social structure that isn't serving all of its citizens (let alone other forms of life) very well?

And then there's the possible meanness.  The person I was talking to at tonight's event noted that Richmond is a town where people can get beat up upon pretty badly when they dive into the political scene.  Whether it's party politics or personal agendas, fear or ego, I could imagine that things could get pretty nasty pretty quickly.  I'm not afraid of standing up for what I believe, and doing so against tough challenges, but I'd need a good reason to put myself in those particular tough situations.

All of these considerations plus some logistical concerns (e.g. a business to run) lead me to no firm conclusion at the moment, and if I figure that if I'm going to jump into politics, I need to be darn ready and sure about it.  The last thing I want is to have another "I will run for President!" moment only to realize later that I would have been more effective following another path.  But there remains a rumbling in my heart and mind that says "hmm, you might be able to do that, do it well, and make a difference that matters."

I will pay attention to this rumbling and see where it takes me, be it toward politics or in some other direction entirely.  Stay tuned.

Recently, as a part of getting ready for some staff training, I tried to write down 10 things that might be helpful for a new member of the team to know about how I approach this role.  For better or worse, I now present them to you.  I don’t necessarily expect you to think that they’re good practices; I offer them as self-reflection, not advice.

1. I prefer to interact with you as a co-worker collaborating on shared goals, not as a boss telling you what to do or think; please try to do the same for me.
2. By default, I will have very high standards for your performance here.  I expect that you will always be open to finding ways to challenge yourself and grow.
3. I prefer to confront difficult or challenging situations head on and as early as possible.  If there’s a conflict, I want to work to resolve it, even if it’s hard or uncomfortable.  If there’s a problem, I want to analyze it until we understand it the best we can and know how to keep it from happening again.
4. I place a lot of value on practicing good communication and intentional framing – being articulate, concise, prepared, engaged, and knowledgeable.  If I see you being “lazy” about these things, I will try to call you out on it, and hope you’ll do the same for me.
5. I expect you to take the initiative in solving problems, answering questions, and being more effective/efficient as a staff member.  I want us to rise above the standard of “do my part and then wait for everyone else to do theirs” – we all have unique gifts to contribute, and we all share equal responsibility for finding ways, unprompted, to be successful.
6. There will likely be few times when I seem totally “available” for unscheduled conversations.  It’s still your responsibility to make sure you get what you need from me to do your job.  Unless I’ve explicitly indicated that I’m not to be disturbed, don’t be afraid to interrupt me - I will tell you if I need to defer a conversation until another time.
7. I will take it for granted that you are always acting in good faith, with honesty and integrity that serves the best interests of the company, its clients, and staff.
8. Sometimes I have very particular ways that I want things done, and sometimes it will feel like I’m micro managing.  I hope that eventually you’ll come to trust that I only do this when it’s important to the big picture, but you’re still welcome to challenge it.
9. I want and need your feedback.  If you think of ways I could improve and be more effective, or if you think I’ve done a good job with something, I hope you’ll tell me.  Even if your remarks are critical or uncomfortable, I’d rather talk that through than not have you share it at all.
10. I expect that we’ll engage each other as complex beings with more to us than just our lives at the office.   I’m happy to hear about things going on in your life outside of Summersault, and especially so if they’re affecting your life at Summersault.

That's ten things about how I approach management at my business, and I think they're serving me well so far.

What works for you?

So that's why I chose to walk to and from work today - a "walk to work day" if you will.  I represented one less bike on the road, and it felt good.

Think about all of the ways that bikes are harming our environment, our culture, our communities:

• The raw materials used to produce bikes is significant, and the refining/production process they undergo is full of waste and harmful emissions.  The tire manufacturing process is particularly egregious, and think of the oil required to keep those bike chains moving.  You won't find anything like that with a trusty pair of sandals on your feet.
• Think about all of the asphalt poured every year to make special bike lanes - and the construction, the traffic hassles, and the destruction of green space that goes along with it.  We need to start organizing the layout of our communities around people, not their modes of transportation.
• As I said above, bike culture is getting out of hand.  Everyone's obsessed with how sleek and shiny their bikes are, how well accessorized they can be, how much stuff they can haul around, and how fast they can go.  We've come to judge each others` success based solely on the model and styling of bikes we ride around, instead of really looking at what's on the inside, or at our average walking pace - these are the things that really matter.
• When we bike everywhere, we really lose touch with our surroundings and our humanity.  If you're zooming by your neighborhood park or the community grocery store at 12 miles an hour, how do you expect to stay connected to your fellow humans and what's going on in their lives?  Walking is the way to really be a part of the community you live in.
• Bike racks are everywhere now, and they're taking up land that could be used for green areas, community spaces, etc.  We really have paved paradise so that we can put up our precious bike parking lots.

Of course, these are just a few of the ways in which this dominating bike culture is taking over our lives.  We really do have to stand up against it, and find a more just and sustainable way of getting around.  Walking is less wasteful and more fun.

So, the next time someone starts trying to convince you to wrap up your identity and your freedom in some overpriced piece of carbon fiber, say no.  Say, "because of me, there will be one less bike on the road today."  It's the right thing to do.

What happened?

I honestly didn't expect anyone to really notice the challenge, but a few people did, and "retweeted it" [what's that?] to their own Twitter followers accordingly.  In the end, I had 10 new followers in that time period, about a 7% increase in my relatively modest following.  Who knows which of them came because of my challenge and which would have followed me anyway; it doesn't really matter.

Today I'll write a donation check for $20 to the Boys and Girls Club.

As I said, this was just an experiment to see what would happen.  I think there are some great opportunities to "harness the power of social media" for charitable giving campaigns, especially with great tools out there like Fundable.org, and I look forward to playing around more with what's possible.

Thanks to all who noticed the challenge, stay tuned for others like it.

Around the same time I noted a historical reference to a 1959 headline in the Earlhamite, "Southern religious leader visits Earlham."  It was about a then only mildly well known Martin Luther King, Jr. visiting the College and speaking at the Meetinghouse there.  Being a religious leader from the South surely had different connotations then than it does now, but I was still struck by the headline's focus on the origin and destination of the speaker, less on his message or credentials.

Ever since, I've been thinking about the role that travel plays in establishing credibility and expertise for someone when they come to speak or teach on a given topic.

Based at least on my observations, it seems that we're generally willing to assign some extra credibility to someone when they've come over a distance to be present, and we tend to defer to them at least a little bit more because of it.

At first, this seemed a little strange to me.  In a highly connected world where almost anyone has some kind of access to the knowledge and expertise of people around the globe, let alone the artistic and cultural insights of the same, you wouldn't think we'd still be so enlivened by encountering someone from afar.  "Why bother flying someone in when we can just watch their powerpoint slides online and listen to their podcast?"

But I think there's still some innate human curiosity about those who are not from our own communities, who might represent a peek into a world we do not know.  Even in a largely culturally homogenized world, we still wonder what we might learn from encountering someone from another town, another country, another way of life.  "What will they be wearing?  How will they speak and present their information?  What experiences have they had access to that I never will?  How are my fellow humans getting along in other parts of the world?"   These are questions we might be able to answer academically through Wikipedia, but there's no substitute for a face-to-face encounter that provides the experience of something a little new, a little different.

The actual act of traveling has some significance too.  I've noted that when I'm asked to speak to groups or organizations outside of Richmond, there's much more of a sense of adventure and exhileration for me and for the group I'm speaking to.  We talk about the details of the travel experience in a way that we wouldn't if I was coming from across town.  "Chris is here all the way from Richmond, and he drove or flew X hours, and let's just soak that in for a few seconds."  Maybe we just want to honor the effort and time that's been exerted to get there, or maybe it's again a desire to hear about an experience we don't all have every day.  I can't quantify it, but I sense a deeper sense of engagement and benefit of the doubt in those situations than I get from an audience who already knows me, or knows that I came from just a little further down their own street.

Of course, we have to be careful about assigning too much inherent value to someone's words or thoughts just because they are not from around here.  (Certainly from one perspective, it might be worth being additionally skeptical of their insights if they're not connected to the values and culture established in our own land.)  I cringe sometimes when I hear of local groups paying significant amounts of money to bring in an expert speaker on a given topic, where part of the primary appeal is that they are from another place with different perspectives, not that they will actually provide $10,000 worth of value in their visit.

Generally, though, I think it's a good thing that we still find some exhileration in encountering "the other, unlike us" and that we look to those experiences for insight and perspective on our own lives.  In some ways, having traveled or been on other kinds of journeys does give us a wisdom and expertise that we can't obtain otherwise, and it's a great part of the human tradition to share in that with each other.

It's the blog post that only exists to note that I haven't been blogging much lately. Gasp.

Sometimes it can be a sign of a dying blog, or a lack of personal creativity, but I assure you that's not the case here.  No, I think we all get to have at least one of these kinds of posts once every few years or so.  I think my last one was in 2005, so I'm due.

For now, talk amongst yourselves, and check out my inane procrastinatory ramblings on Twitter.