Our conclusion? You can tell when you're in a community. You can tell when you're out. The feelings are usually strongly mixed and not the stuff of black and white analysis. Community is where the benefit of smallness is always balanced with the implicit level of intrusion. Some people like smallness, others tolerate it and still others flee. In that way, community is relatively self defining.

Community is an ongoing conversation, whether you participate in it, watch it or ignore it. It evolves. It engages. It protects itself. It is likely to appear cruel to some who don't fit. It is likely to feel embracing to the lucky ones who do. It's hard to see when you're in the thick of it. It's easy to see from outside.

There are some things a community isn't.

It isn't a database. It isn't a direct mail campaign tactic. It isn't a clever marketing spin on the same old crap. It isn't a one way relationship. It isn't entirely manageable by an owner. It isn't cold although it might be calculating. It isn't easy to schedule.

For now, we find ourselves in a vibrant community. It's a bizarre mix of electrons and molecules; people we see and those we don't; and, incoming (sometimes unanswered) and outgoing mail. It's a group who are trying, in a variety of ways, to shape new ideas, feeling their way through the darkness while creating businesses and departments of businesses.

"Thanks" for letting us be a part of it.

 -John Sumser

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