David and I have been focused on community a lot lately. Communities come together to celebrate and to support each other in challenging times, and there have been opportunities for both lately.
On the celebration side, David spoke at Ignite Portland 4. I was a bit overwhelmed by the last Ignite (most likely because I was doing a presentation of my own). But this time I was free to wander the aisles and check in with my tweeps (as well as the people with whom I primarily engage in (gasp!) face-to-face communication.
On the challenging side, we have a relatively new community members is facing some fairly scary legal issues and is doing so far removed from what has always ben her core support network. But, I am proud to say, our community has stepped up to give her a hand with offers of everything from an unlocked cellphone, a place to crash that is not an hour plus from Portland, a ride to her hearing tomorrow, pledges of cash and offers of general assistance.
It has not been my experience that folks brand new to any community are adopted so quickly and easily. It makes me very proud to live, work and hang-out with the community that I have met through or because of CubeSpace.
But, community is something that needs to be actively maintained, and Chris O'Rourke has instigated an effort for us to get to know each other better. Chris had participated in an interview experiment a few months back, and thought it might be a great way to encourage us to talk about topics that might not otherwise come up. I signed up and I am looking forward to being interviewed by Melissa Lion, who just gave a great presentation on narrative structure for blogs. David brought home her books from the library, and I have read Swollen, and am waiting for him to finish Upstream, so that I can read it.
I get to interview Kelly (aka @Verso & Banana Lee Fishbones), which should be very entertaining. I run into Kelly with great frequency, but she is a popular woman with many folks vying for her attention, and that makes it hard for me to get to know her well. From our interactions, both in real life and on the twitterverse, I know that she is a True Star Wars Fan (as defined by me), loves yarn (even though she crochets more than knits), enjoys bowling (as do I and we are suckage sisters, together) and her IPhone. I also know that she is well-loved and respected in our community, and that alone is enough to make me excited at the prospect of getting to interview her.
Stay tuned for the interview write-up. Interested in joining the interview experiement? You can check it out here: http://cdcstudios.com/2008/11/16/the-great-portland-interview-experiment/
