There's just enough time between the Christmas holiday and New Year's Eve for people to get bored, but it's not a good time to launch new TV shows or announce new political initiatives, so we have to have something to keep us entertained.

(As a kid this meant me listening to countdowns of the top one billion songs on the charts for that year, and somehow a Celine Dion or Aaron Neville song always made it into the top five...this was painful, but perhaps reflects more poorly on me and the particular genre of music station I was listening to than it does on all of the music produced in those years.)

But it's been an unusually full year for me, so I thought I'd take a moment to reflect back on what that has included:

• Started the year newly engaged to be married to Kelly, a decision we made together on New Year's Eve Day 2010
• Filed as a candidate for Richmond's City Council, campaigned, debated, interviewed, door-to-doored, won in the primary election, didn't win in the general election, and had an amazing experience along the way
• Planned a wedding, got married in May surrounded by the amazing support of friends and family, spent some time relaxing on the beaches of Sanibel Island to celebrate
• Traveled alongside Kelly as she experienced the life-changing symptoms of, and was later diagnosed with, Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), and supported her as she continues to navigate the Western medical system, seeks paths to recovery, and adjusts to the new realities of her day-to-day life
• Lived in Portland, Oregon for a month during the summer, had some amazing adventures in the Northwest, got to participate in a vibrant and progressive city scene, caught up with some dear old friends and made some new ones
• Drove across the country and back, saw some beautiful landscapes and places including Mount Rushmore, Grand Teton and Yellowstone Park, and lived through a hailstorm in the badlands of South Dakota
• Welcomed three great new staff members to my technology company Summersault
• Adopted a wonderful labrador retriever named Chloe
• Read a bunch of books, watched a lot of movies

And those are just the highlights.  Whatever joys and challenges I've experienced this year, I clearly live a privileged life with many things to be thankful for.  At the center of it in 2011 has been the amazing experience of deepening in my love for and commitment to my partner Kelly; I don't know what a "normal" engagement and beginning of a marriage looks like, but we've certainly had a lot of unusual adventures together this year, and I celebrate them all.

That said, I'm ready for 2012 to be here, artificial as that milestone might be.  I hope for more, faster progress in recovering Kelly's health, continued clarity about ways I can make a real and lasting impact in my community and beyond, simplification of my possessions and personal property ownership, and enjoyment of some upcoming opportunities to have some fun.

What has 2011 been like for you?  What hopes or possibilities does the new year hold?  (Or if that's too much to consider, which Celine Dion song is going to top the charts this year?)

There are many things to say about the institution of marriage that I might normally be tempted to blog about; the legal, political, religious, cultural and social norms involved, the zaniness of the logistics involved when one decides to have a celebration with guests for the spectacle of what Ian Hay called "a ghastly public confession of a strictly private intention," the total failure of contemporary wedding rituals to incorporate modern technological tools and devices into their proceedings ("what do you mean I can't read my vows off my smart phone!?"), and so on.

But today, as friends and family gather to witness our commitment to each other and help us celebrate it, I can only speak of my deep appreciation for the community that has held and encouraged our relationship, the sense of adventure and happiness that I feel about what lies ahead, and my tremendous and growing admiration of and gratitude for who Kelly is - in my life and in the lives of so many others.

I am also grateful for the perspective that friends and life experience have helped me cultivate over time, that this commitment is not about "happily ever after" or reaching an end in itself, but instead about a new beginning; a place from which to start and a place to return; a complicated mix of hard work and letting go.

So...here we go!

Thanks to all who have offered words of congratulation and support.

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:

1. Those in conversation realize a new common ground. If you're talking and you find out that the other person has had some experience, insight, or wisdom that connects with an experience, insight or bit of wisdom you've gained, it can open up a sense of possibility about where the conversation can go. "Wait, you've been through that too?" or "Wow, it sounds like we both think the same way about that complex issue!"
2. Those in conversation realize an unexpected conflict. If one person says something that runs up against what another thinks or feels, we have the choice to engage that - "Wow, I really disagree with what you just said!" - or to let it go, usually through silence, vagaries ("I see what you mean"), a change of the topic ("Well, I don't know about that, but did you hear about..."), or even lying ("Yeah, totally!"). I've already written some too about how challenges in conversation can play out.
3. The depth of conversation implies or dictates the depth of the relationship. There are some kinds of sharing or engaging that we only do with people with whom we have certain kinds of relationships. If the conversation is headed in a direction that asks us to take on a new kind of relationship with the other person, we have a choice to make about whether that's desirable. For some this is an easy choice, because they tend to be good at being in relationship with people "in the moment," independent of any thoughts about future closeness, whether or not you'll stay in touch, who else they might tell, etc. For others, reaching a new depth requires some sense of accountability and trust that's built over time. So the choice about a conversation can be the choice about the future of the relationship with others participating.
4. A transitional moment in time arrives. Sometimes the choice about whether or not to go deeper is thrust upon us by some external happening. "Oh, well, now that we're done with dinner, it's a natural time to get up and leave...or we could stay and talk more." Of course the choice here will usually be wrapped up in what kind of conversation is happening when the milestone is reached. For me, I have noticed that when I allow for the possibility that just because it's a natural time to have closure on the conversation doesn't mean we have to, I've ended up having some rich conversations in the "next phase" of the time together.

So, those are some of the critical moments I've noticed. I'm curious to know what others think about when and how those choices are made.

What kinds of environments or states of being or topics or relationships allow you to go deeper, and what kinds keep your conversation "at the surface"?

One aspect of board culture that seems to be in total chaos everywhere is how a board member can leave a board of directors before their natural term is up in a positive and professional way. Based on my own experiences - sometimes as a board member who did a poor job of leaving early, sometimes as a board leader who was disappointed in how others parted ways - I've some unsolicited advice to offer:

1. Don't Board Fade. Board Fading is the practice of slowly and quietly starting to disengage from the life of the organization. First you miss a few meetings, then you miss a few more without even sending your regrets, then you stop paying attention to the e-mail listserv, and then you just stop caring altogether. It's a common and tempting practice in the world of ridiculous conflicting priorities, but it leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth, I think. If you find that you cannot serve out your duties as a board member, confront that head on and do something about it.
2. Don't Resign by E-Mail or Voicemail. Ultimately, boards are still groups of people who have relationships with each other as they work to achieve some common goals. I think we owe each other the courtesy and care that comes with talking face-to-face about the things in our relationships that are difficult. To resign from a board with an e-mail or voicemail message is not only unprofessional, it does not provide any closure. You should take the time to meet with the board president or some other representative, and talk about why you're leaving, what kind of relationship you'd like to have with the organization in the future, and what could have been done differently. If you still want to put your resignation in writing for everyone else, that's fine.
3. Don't let past board members become ghosts. If you're in a leadership role on a board that someone is leaving early, or even if you're not, the resignation discussion is not the end of the process. The person was originally on the board for a reason, and so it's worth it to find out why their board experience didn't match up with those original expectations. Your development efforts will also benefit from finding ways to maintain contact with the former board member, so that they can remain an informal spokesperson for the organization, and continue to offer their own support (volunteering, financial contributions, or otherwise). Just because they can't come to board meetings any more doesn't mean they can't still participate.
4. Don't speak ill of your former organizational colleagues. Or, at least don't speak ill of them to others without first communicating your concerns directly to them first. Like all relationships, just because there's a shift in its status, it doesn't mean that you're free to be reckless in your comments about it to others. You may find that you have other connections to those people that matter to you in the future, or that another organization you want to join will hear about how this parting of ways went and what was said. If you have concerns about how things were handled, work that out with the person(s) involved, don't gossip about them.

That's what I've got for now.  The theme here, of course, is to try to live out organizational relationships with the same intentionality, humanity and sensitivity that you would use in personal relationships.  I think we sometimes forget that organizations (even the largest corporate enterprises) are just groups of individual people, most of them trying to do the best they can.

If you have experience in the parting of ways with an organization's board of directors or similar kinds of "endings," feel free to share the practices and principles that you think should help shape those acts.

[W]here does this drive for relocalizing come from? Perhaps it has to do with a vague sense of ethical rightness more than anything scientifically verifiable. University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt classifies such efforts as attempts to attain (and potentially guilt others into) a sense of moral purity. "Food," he says, "is becoming extremely moralized these days."

The problem, of course, is that purity is hard to come by in a world as complex as ours, and simplistic answers often have consequences that their proponents do not intend. Consumers should think twice before jumping on the localvore bandwagon.

I'm all for thinking twice before jumping on any sort of wagon, but I think Mr. Hisrich's logic is flawed in a number of places. Read on for my point-by-point analysis of his column:

In April, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University published a study in the journal Environmental Science & Technology that all of the transportation associated with the American food supply chain accounts for only 11 percent of foods' climate impact.

You can view the full study online. The basic conclusion that they make is that the transportation of food isn't as big a factor in carbon footprint as the production and other factors, and so that we might be able to reduce our footprint more by changing our diet -- eating less meat and dairy, which create the most pollution -- than we will by changing where it comes from.

This study seems well done, and convincing in its assertion that food miles are only one part of overall considerations when it comes to the environmental impact of food choices. Of course, carbon footprint is not the only reason many people like to eat local; there are lots of other benefits, including the relationships that come with knowing who is growing your food and how, and the proud self-reliance that comes from being able to eat off of the land we live on.

And, "It's still useful to think about transport," says David Pimentel of Cornell University, an ecologist who has conducted life-cycle analyses of food's energy use. He recently calculated that if a typical American drives home with a 1 pound can of corn, 311 calories of fossil fuel energy are used to transport the 375-calorie corn in the can.

In fact, by focusing on local production, emissions may actually rise. This is because growing foods in the conditions best suited to their production can often offset the relatively small impact of transportation. In the United Kingdom, for instance, fewer emissions are released by importing milk and apples from New Zealand and tomatoes from Spain than devoting the energy and resources necessary to produce them locally.

One of the core tenets of the local food movement is not only to eat food that is produced locally, but to avoid foods that can't be produced locally. Mr. Hisrich is correct that if we try to grow avocados and oranges here in Indiana in the dead of winter, we'll of course use much more energy to do that than someone growing those foods in a climate naturally suited for it. So while the point is technically correct, it unfairly ignores some of the ethos of the local foods movement - few people are suggesting we try to grow every kind of food here just to satisfy our "exotic" cravings.

[W]hat the growing local advocates encourage often has less to do with an actual weighing of the costs and benefits of local farming than it does with a value judgment about what should be good for rural economies. While one might be able to argue that eating local improves the lot of a particular group, it is more difficult to argue that spending more for local produce improves the economic well-being of either local shoppers or the local economy as a whole.

I'd ask Mr. Hisrich to back that assertion up with some data, the "actual weighing of costs and benefits" of which he speaks. By definition, dollars that are spent on locally produced goods and services, given to vendors that live and work here, are dollars that will tend to stay in the geographical region to be spent again on other locally produced goods and services. This is why every economic development organization in the state works to bring businesses to their towns that will pay good wages to local workers who will then turn around and spend it locally. This is why local currency and time banks are popping up everywhere, and why our own Chamber of Commerce has a "buy local" program. Just because we're talking about food, the principles don't become any more mysterious.

What about impoverished farmers in developing countries who merely seek the chance to compete on a level playing field? This movement provides advocates of protectionism another rhetorical tool in their effort to prevent that from happening.

Quite to the contrary, the local food movement is part of a larger cultural perspective that seeks to remove the artificial protections that prevent people from sustaining themselves on their own land-base. If you take into consideration the subsidies, trade tariffs, import/export controls, immigration policies, monopolies and compulsory price controls, and injustices related to wage and labor standards that help create the "impoverished farmer in a developing country" in the first place, it's clear that the leveling of the playing field needs to happen well before we get to the buying choices of the end consumer.

By encouraging communities to be more self-reliant, we actually help all communities move toward being able to make a sustainable living for themselves.

John Cloud, however, points out that local does not necessarily mean safe. When he asked Joseph Mendelson III, legal director of the Center for Food Safety, a liberal Washington group that supports strong organic standards, whether local food should be favored, Mendelson replied, "I don't know what local means. Do they use local pesticides? Does that mean the food is better because they produce local cancers?"

This is an unnecessarily flippant remark in a serious conversation, but I'll address it anyway. Not every local food effort advocates the banning of all pesticides and chemicals from the growing process, and communities can set their own standards as they see fit.

The point is that when you can visit your local grower and see what practices they use to create the food you eat (or perhaps even help yourself!), you have much more control over and knowledge about what you put in your body. We only have to look back to this past summer and remember the food-borne illnesses that came from unsupervised, poorly conducted growing processes in an industrial agriculture setting to see how the safety of our food is improved when we're more engaged in where it comes from.

So, back to the original suggestion Mr. Hisrich shared:

So where does this drive for relocalizing come from? Perhaps it has to do with a vague sense of ethical rightness more than anything scientifically verifiable.

I'll promise not to be insulted by the suggestion that people in the relocalization movement only make certain decisions just because it might be the right thing to do, if Mr. Hisrich promises not to be insulted by my suggestion that he doesn't quite know what he's talking about here.

All across the country and world, communities are experiencing the forced contraction that comes with rising energy costs, failures of over-dependence on the global economy, and the isolation and disconnection of the culture of "suburbia." Communities that are working to reclaim their identities and self-reliance are finding positive ways to move past those contractions, taking matters back into their own hands instead of waiting for the next factory closure or government bailout to set the course.

The local food movement is a core part of this, and while participating in it will mean different things for different communities, it deserves a bit more consideration than Mr. Hisrich's column gives.  I do really appreciate that he's taken this issue on and generated some conversation around it! I hope he'll join us at the next 100-Mile Radius Potluck here in Richmond so we can continue that conversation together.

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:

1. If you're someone who participates in online discussions (responding to blog comments, adding forum posts, etc.), uploading your gravatar image is a way of creating a consistent and personalized online identity across all of the sites you visit.  Just sign up, upload your image, and you're done.
2. If you're a content publisher (blogger, forum administrator, chat room host), using gravatars gives your participants the ability to express their identity beyond just text characters on a page or a clever nickname.  This strengthens your online community, adds some color and flare, and is a free, easy way to do it.  Some people are even using them on technical conference badges.
3. Gravatars are secure and consolidated - gravatar owners aren't able to tell when you make use of their images, and you can always change or remove your image later if you decide you don't want it public.  The images are hosted on the Gravatar.com server, so a change in that one place instantly takes effect on any site where you've contributed.
4. Gravatars are easy to implement - there are plugins available for most known content publishing platforms (e.g. WordPress, Movable Type, Drupal, Joomla) and even some desktop applications (e.g. the Mac OS X Addressbook).  There are reference implementations available for most languages used to build web pages and online applications.  This means that we can leave behind the days of implementing our own profile image management systems, or at least start to come to a better standard about how they should work.

I'm posting below the Gravatars of the last 9 people who commented on this blog.  As of this initial writing, only one of them has uploaded their image, the rest are just the default image - won't you help me make that square (or any comments you might post below) a little more pretty by showing us your smiling mugshot?  (The images below will update as people upload, so check back.)

But really, he didn't want smudges on the cover and he didn't want to break the spine, and that was great with me because I would have demanded the same. I might not have even brought the book to school - who knows what could happen to it!? We whispered about holodecks and warp drives, and let our minds wonder. Though we didn't use the word at the time, we were totally geeked out, in awe of this seeming bridge between science fiction and real life. Craig and I only saw each other for this brief period a few times per week, and we'd only seen each other outside of school once or twice, but we had a connection that only comes with being a bit (or, okay, a lot) uncool together.

On the first day of the next school year, I looked for Craig in the morning before classes started, and didn't see him. As we sat in the cafeteria pretending to listen to announcements, I heard his name over the loudspeaker.

The principal said that Craig had died over the summer while at camp. His cabin had caught on fire in the night and he was unable to get free from his sleeping bag, apparently because the zipper stuck.

I was in some sort of shock. After some silence, the principal moved on to other announcements. I somehow went through the day, not really sure what to do. I didn't know Craig's family or even how to get in touch with them. None of my other friends knew Craig, and after the announcement, the school didn't really seem to notice. Without any ceremony or closure, without anyone to share in this loss, I buried Craig in my mind, and I went on.

Today:

I don't ever zip up my sleeping bag all the way when I'm camping.

Sometimes I have dreams about being trapped in a burning cabin.

I keep a copy of the Technical Manual on my bookshelf, and I handle it quite gingerly when I do take it out.

I try, and fail, to not take people for granted. I try not to assume that they will always be there when the summer ends. I try not to worry about whether or not we're being watched by someone disapproving of our giddiness. I fail at these things, but I try.

I feel no shame in claiming my Star Trek fandom.

Craig was the kindest of souls, always the best he could be. Our friendship was fleeting, but it stays with me.

Rest in peace Craig Brill, 1/2/1977 – 8/7/1992.

Since then, I've used a few other handles that were more appropriate and cool (to me, anyway), but lately, I've decided that the handle that best represents of my personality online is the same one that represents it offline: my real name. And in most cases, I'm of the opinion that we should all use our real names when engaging in online discussion and community-building.

It's sometimes a suggestion that makes people uncomfortable, so I want to provide some additional reasoning to consider and discuss:

Participating in a healthy public life is an important part of the human experience. 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.

To truly participate in public life, we must do so as ourselves, with our identities revealed. Part of the usefulness of the public conversation about issues that matter to us is the accountability that it demands. If we really want to make a certain neighborhood better, then we need to hear from people who live in that neighborhood and know that they speak from experience. If we really want to flesh out the best ways to approach sustainable economic policy, we need to know who is at the table and what resources, interests, and agendas they bring. If we just want to get to know each other better, we need trust and intimacy before we can form any real bonds. As Duc Francois de La Rochefoucauld wrote, "almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to to hide them."

The corollary to the great accountability that comes with real names, as Amitai Etzioni notes, is that "people who use aliases are on average much more abusive, unfair, and intemperate than those who disclose their true identity." I've found this to be true in 100% of the online communities I've participated in. When you can dismiss or berate someone's views without any real accountability to them, it is likely to happen more often (even at the hand of those who wish to be accountable). When you can attack an institution or business or person or idea from behind the shield of a pseudonym, it is so much easier to take off the gloves of civil interaction and dialogue that most of us wear and trade them for sharp words, hyperbole, and points made only to harm, not to inform or improve. When we do not have to consider the impact of our words on another, even if only through a facial expression or grunted response, we can be reckless with their hearts.

I hear some recurring responses to the suggestion that we user our real names online:

Bad people will exploit my vulnerability and come after me. If I am a woman, I will be stalked. If I am a liberal, Bill O'Reilly will have FOX security drag me away.

Maybe they will. In all my years of having personal information posted on the Internet, I have never had a problem where the voluntary online availability of that information was itself the cause for some sort of personal invasion of privacy. Anecdotally speaking, this seems to be true for the Internet as a whole; in the "nightmare scenarios" you hear about, either the perpetrating party already had it out for the victim, or the victim disregarded advice like "don't trust strangers with the pass-code to your life savings account." We are rarely targeted for just "being somewhere" in the real world (where not only might our names be available, but our appearances, habits, and quirks), so why do we expect to be targeted for just "being somewhere" as our real selves, online?

I can't fully point out the faults of my employer/family/government/neighbor if they know who I am - the possibility for retaliation demands anonymity.

In some cases, perhaps. I find that any system which cannot stand up to the criticism of those who participate in it, or any relationship which does not permit respectful and faithfully-engaged conflicts, does not deserve to survive. If you're at the point of wanting to enumerate your grievances in an online discussion, then presumably you've already gone through the standard approaches - direct confrontation, letter writing, reporting concerns to the equivalent of an ombudsman of an organization, etc. By that time in most cases, everyone who would care about finding out your identity because of what you say online should already know your point of view anyway.

It's just too uncomfortable to use my real name online.

Of course, if you're uncomfortable using your real name, don't. I'm not saying we can't have authentic interactions as anonymous parties, and in most cases I would rather we participate in the conversation as an alias than not at all. But in doing so, I hope we reflect on what we're withholding from those around us, and what we're missing out on as a result.

Different people have different degrees of comfort with what they'll reveal online, even when they are trying to use their real identity. For some, a full name is as far as they'll go, while others will post intimate details of their daily routines, love lives, financial doings. There's certainly a line we can cross from "being ourselves online" to exhibitionism.

There are plenty of times when it is appropriate (or more fun) to use an alias online. For example:

• The subject of discussion or the existence of the discussion itself is illegal or ethically vague (assume that your communications are being read by an NSA analyst or even your local law enforcement)
• The discussion centers around revealing information where sources need protection (e.g. journalistic or crime solving endeavors)
• The quality of the exchange is enhanced by abstracting online personality from real-world personality (areas where discrimination has traditionally been present, or where power dynamics would typically prevent authentic conversation)

My hope, though, is that where possible, we will tend toward being ourselves in our online personalities. The world is complicated enough and we're isolated from each other enough that anything we can do to make the world a little smaller, including using our real names, is for the better.

"The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and
hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives
of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods
of light and life no longer flow into our souls."
--Elizabeth Cady Stanton

It's important to me to distinguish this way of being from the classical definition of what it means to be an introvert, "a person who is more interested in his or her own self than in in other people." I know plenty of people who fit this definition well - they become so occupied with their inner existence and interests that they forget (or never learn) how to respond well to external stimuli, how to be sensitive to the physical and verbal signals given off by those around them, how to communicate well with others. While I understand and respect the ways that someone could manifest that personality, and while I see that they can find other ways to be brilliant communicators or express themselves magnificently, it's very important to me to be sensitive to and interested in the beings and happenings in the world around me, as much as I am in my own self.

So if I'm not a classic introvert, what am I? I think I'm just someone who prefers to be quiet in settings where quiet is not always the norm. I do this in part as a way of bearing witness to the many kinds of ways in which there is not enough quiet in our lives.

I'm sometimes a quiet owner and principal of a small business, when so many of my counterparts have personalities or roles that require them to be loud and dominating in business meetings because that is what we are taught about how to be a good leader.

I'm sometimes a quiet man because so many man are taught that they must be loud (and manly in their loudness) in all but the most extreme circumstances. I'm quiet because I do not want to be a man who uses loudness as a way to play my manly part.

I'm sometimes quiet in conversations before I respond to something someone else has said, because when we get into a mode of speaking in rapid response or speaking out of a need to fill the silence, we aren't able (I believe) to fully speak from the heart. When I allow a pause of a few seconds or even longer, I speak more from my true self.

I'm sometimes quiet around women because they have often experienced or been taught the same things about Real Men: they're loud and in charge and the conversation will follow their pace, tone, and volume. I'm quiet here because I want to be in conversations with women that are not dominated by my volume or my gender, and where they can be loud if they want to without having to compete against me.

I'm sometimes a quiet friend in a circle of friends, because so often friendships are defined and enacted by making sure we all have enough to say to each other, that there is sufficient gossip, personal updates, and random observations to fill the time. I'm quiet because sometimes I want to experience friendship and be a friend without using the stream of words on which we are used to depending.

Learning to find my not-so-quiet voice and my louder noises for the times when loudness and firm voices are appropriate is another kind of growth that I'm still working on. But I enjoy practicing and refining the art and invigorating discipline of quietness, even in a world that does not often cherish such things.

Some of the most warm and genuine people I know are those who look deeply and decide that they want to be connected to you because of who you are right now. They may learn later about your past and how you got here, but nothing is as important in their consideration as how you live your life right now.

How do you figure out how much you care about someone's past compared to their present life and intended future? How do you decide what makes someone a person you want to get to know better?