
Are u building Social Capital? (c) 2013 Amberwood Media Group
CHARLOTTE, NC. June 2013, by Chris Jones
As builders start building again and we resume the race to keep up with the 21st century, I’m compelled to ask: how long has it been since we’ve felt truly connected with our communities? Many I know are reporting gaps .. whether it be with their church, gym, PTA, or even the local neighborhood association. Oh sure, we may still be there physically. But ..
To what extent are we participating? How many of the people around us do we actually know? Are we in the crowd going through the motions, obsessively checking our smart phones, but not engaged?
Chances are we know the answer to that one. Here’s another key question:
If and when we DO engage in our communities, what are our motivations?
If we answered the second question: to “survive”, “fit in” or “claim our rightful share” I’d argue that we’ve lost touch with what’s important. Where once we knew our neighbors well and we knew what we stood for .. ok, I may be going back a few decades .. now it seems we find ourselves more and more isolated, cut off from the deep and nurturing social connections that humans thrive on. Our consumer and work-saturated culture seems to have trumped our core values, and the path to a better place is less than clear. We’re in a bit of a pickle.
A Clarion Call for Leadership. We need a new vision, to me that’s clear. But leadership in the societal (not using “social” here on purpose) space is tricky. For community leadership to work, the energy must come from the rank and file .. from the inside out and the bottom up. Seth Godin in “Tribes” builds strong arguments around the need for leadership from the inside .. getting people who are used to not leading to start leading .. sometimes, by creating spaces and situations and cultures that empower.
No small task, that. But one that holds significant possibilities.
Why? Because it’s an approach that can scale.
But that means some of the leaders, if not the vast majority, will be folks like you and me. Working types. And for many of us, leadership is not something we’re used to. Can we play? I say yes.
Social Possibilities. Communities offer a broad landscape of opportunity, really. I’d argue that we need to invest our time and energy before we find our social systems past a point of no return. Cynics have declared that we’re too late. But ..
I believe we are just now starting to mobilize our thinking. We’re learning to focus our energies, and .. this is important .. connecting people in ways that literally unlock their creative potential.
It’s time for us to stop being alone with our televisions and to start engaging in our communities again. The applies both offline (in real life) and online (virtual). It’s not so hard. We learned how to do it on the playground. If our kids are out their having fun, taking chances, building sand castles, and making new friends, why can’t we?
When we engage in a real way, we’re building social capital .. putting together the skills, resources and networks that can help us learn, in turn helping us to help others.
As that happens, we start raising the water level of what’s possible.
Ultimately, we can change the game.
Get Started Getting Social. This post starts a new blog series on social capital. In coming posts we’ll take the notions apart so we can rebuild them into something that we’ll find practical and useful. And we’ll tap some of the approaches in my book, helping us to take inventory of the barriers and enablers we’ll need to master along the way ..
I’ll post links to subsequent posts here, as well as in the sidebar Editorial Calendar.
In the meantime? No waiting around. Connect. Engage. Get social. We’ve lost ground, and some precious time. If you have to, ask your kids how they do it !! [ .. on that note? .. cue Angela Maiers and her Sandbox Manifesto .. ]
I hope you’ll stop back in. We’ve got work to do.