Posts tagged as:

community

Review: Crowds are us

02.05.2010
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How times change: In the 110 years between the work of Gustave Le Bon (1895) and James Surowiecki (2005), crowds went from embodying stupidity to being wise. Compare and contrast:

Le Bon: “In crowds it is stupidity and not mother-wit that is accumulated. [T]he crowd is always intellectually inferior to the isolated individual.”

Surowiecki: “[U]nder the right [...]

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Book review: “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community”

11.06.2009

Robert Putnam’s bestseller Bowling Alone needs little introduction, not to mention another review. Yet despite its publication a decade ago, the volume remains highly relevant for thinking about community as the social aspect of sustainability.
In the 20th century’s final four decades, the vast majority of civic engagement indicators – political, civic, and religious participation, workplace [...]

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Maximizing the impact of your community involvement through public relations

10.27.2009

I’m co-facilitating today a lunch workshop with this title at the Entrepreneurs Foundation of the Northwest. The event description continues:
Come join this round-table discussion about how to make sure your employees, your clients and the public know about the wonderful work you are doing in the community. Learn the best ways you can receive recognition [...]

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Loving your customers means never having to say you’re sorry

10.03.2009

One afternoon last week I arrived for a meeting at The Funky Door Cafe in Southeast Portland to be greeted by a notice on the door: “We’ll be closing at 2 pm today. Sorry for the inconvenience.” No big deal: there’s another coffee shop a few blocks up the road (a Starbucks nonetheless). Still, the [...]

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The five Ws of buying local, Part 2

09.24.2009

The why and where are the trickier parts of buying local, though the conundrum doesn’t end there.
WHO should buy local?
You, of course. You and your wallet have control over the success of local. Because of all the advantages of buying local, your purchases benefit you and your community. You buy local because you care about [...]

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The five Ws of buying local, Part 1

09.21.2009

In their last Business News update, Rivermark Community Credit Union encourages me to consider how my purchases support local businesses and to buy local. Of course, buying local features prominently in sustainable marketing, so my credit union calling to buy local got me thinking. Why is buying local good? Just what is local? Are there [...]

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Why does Portland heart Free Geek and the Rebuilding Center?

09.12.2009

You can’t live in Portland and not know about Free Geek and The  ReBuilding Center. Sustainable businesses can learn a lot from these two nonprofits and their (un)marketing. What makes these two organizations such local darlings?
Free Geek is a nonprofit community organization that refurbishes and promotes reuse of used technology donated by the community. Free [...]

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Micro-communities and ultra-niches as substitutes for community

09.07.2009

Community is a big, daunting concept tossed around everywhere these days, including on this blog.  To succeed in today’s business and to make it sustainable, you must build community, in a wider sense and around your brand. But how do you build community from scratch? How do you engage in existing communities where your target [...]

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Portland’s Designgate and the place of spec work in a sustainable economy

07.25.2009

Despite the summer heat, Portland’s creative community is incensed. What’s going on?
Designgate
On July 13th, the City of Portland launched the PortlandOnline.com Design Concept Contest, which started on July 19th and which is part of the larger and much-needed Refresh Project to redesign the 100K+ page site. Essentially, the contest invites individual designers or firms to [...]

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