Old German guys…

Awesome Lego Philosophers; Laotzi, Aspacia, Averroes, Thomas of Aquinas, Decartes and Marx (Thanks to Helico on Flickr for offering this under Creative Commons)

It’s been some time since I’ve had to worry about old German philosopher guys, but since I got back to school this week there was no time wasted in dredging them back up.  In my Thursday class, we mumbled our way through some pretty heavy concepts on two forms of community, which a fun German philosopher named Tonnies contributed to the world.  “Gemeinshaft” and “Gesellshaft” plagued my thoughts for several days following the discussion; should I worry about pressing into use my single semester of college German for pronunciation?

But it all linked up today reading a piece assigned for my Technologies (Wednesday) course by danah boyd (no capitals necessary).  Checking out a piece she wrote on social software, I see links!  Oh yes, oh yes.  Mainly, the fact that a push to return the internet to a social space (as compared to a place for shopping, though I like that, too) is also a push to return to roots of community versus commerce (Gemeinshaft vs. Gesellshaft; ta-dah!).

But what does it mean???  If I distill what I’ve got so far, it’s nothing short of miraculously simple:

Act like a neighbor! Mr. Rogers had it right all along.

Imagine you sell knives for a living (we’re playing pretend, c’mon, just do it!); would you walk over to your neighbor’s house and tell them “I’ll only let you use my portion of the sidewalk if you buy these knives I’m hocking.”

OR would you act friendly, discuss your kids, your dogs, the day’s news and IF they ask “how’s work going” mention needing a new kitchen utensil, well then, you’d throw in a thought or two about your knives and offer them a great deal?  Yeah, I thought so.  Well, that’s what we expect you to do as a corporate citizen in our virtual communities, too.

I’m not alone, here.  Online marketing consultant Pistachio writes a fantastic post about how Twitter is her village; and Mark Gehrke (Mandala Life Media blog) agrees that “We’re all in this neighborhood together.”

It’s a global village out there, and the bazaar is only a tract of land.