For the next week or two - lets consider some examples of the new local (per our unofficial framework).
Certainly our getting together to blog this subject is an example of the new local - consistent with the points made by Harold and Trevor. It occurs to me that one of the major characteristic changes of the new local is that it can be temporary in nature. Local used to automatically mean someone who lived in the area - you couldn't actually be a "local" until you had lived in a place for a time. It this new definition - the local community could be very temporary - centered around a discussion, then disbanded as the inhabitants "move away."
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I wonder if we can do something about these spam comments. The author of the original post can delete, but perhaps we could limit comments to team members of this blog for now.
This post reminds me of some contrasts, more than specific examples, though I think they will come.
City vs. Country - People in big cities are "cosmopolitan". They're not really local, because they get around, have lots of encounters. The "new local" reminds me of the city-country division.
New World vs. Old World - I've read that in villages in France, they used to not accept you into the community until you had lived there several generations. Yikes! Walter writing about the temporary nature of the new local reminded me of this.
Sophisticated vs. Backward - This is not a judgement, but an observation. For example, there is the phrase "local yokal", implying an uneducated unsophisticated person, without diverse set of connections -- but instead connections limited by the span of a small number of miles.
Harold and Paul - very interesting observations. I was especially drawn to two points. First, the "local Yokal" aspect - typically a view of a person who is believed not to have been exposed to a great deal outside his/her local area. The second was the fact that local doesn't even have to be where you live. Paul's observation of being able to choose which local you belong to is central to some of our original observations about not being limited to geography. My original thinking was that you could expand your vistas beyond your local area. Paul's observation that you don't even have to include your local area is a key point. The new local can be both expansive and limiting at the same time. You can choose and you can grow it or shrink it as you desire.
Fascinating points Paul, Harold and Walter.
When I was a young boy growing up in a rural part of England my local football (soccer) team was the one in my village that I played for. When we played the team from the nearby village - two miles away - there was real intensity and a sense of pride in our own village. Then moving up a gear we used to play teams from the nearest largish town - even though they were only 7 miles from my village it seemed like a million miles to me as a kid. In fact I also realise now the culture was different from my village to the nearest town and then again to the nearest City some fifteen miles away. That place was full of ‘really strange’ people (in my head). We are talking early 60's as I was born in 1952.
In 2005 I communicate with people from all walks of life and from all parts of the world though e mail and Blogs. It is so different. My eyes have been opened and yet as Paul says the communications I have are instant and often very temporary. And yet some people I communicate with from far corners of the world have become ‘friends’ - even if only virtually. Recently I met the first of my real ‘distant contacts’ from Canada. Brian and I never knew each other before e mail and the net but we communicated regularly for 3 years or so and the opportunity to meet and shake hands came when Brian had a business trip to Dublin recently and Annie and I flew out to meet Brian and Judy his wife. This was a great experience and it was wonderful to meet and ‘touch’ someone that you have 'spoken' to only virtually.
If anyone tells me things are really not much different than years ago I am tempted always to ask them if they want me to wake them from their sleep and tranquility.
Apologies for my inane ramblings Walter - I hope you can pick some pieces out of all this for our masterpiece. Hey its good guys that we are getting something going on this don.t you think.
Great comments, all around!
Paul, this sense of impermanence, the transient nature of "the new local", has been something I've lamented. It's not exactly new though. The automobile was a big part of it. Back in my old neighborhood in New York, even though folks were largely from other countries, as children we didn't have cars and our fathers were busy at work (most folks only had one car), so our mothers couldn't be driving us about. For grammar school at least, we went to a school nearby. We walked. We played with the neighbors kids. In the street, on bikes. We played ultimate frisbee in front of our house, stoop ball on each others front steps, and we played "man hunt" in nearby vacant lots.
When I moved to California after college, I lamented how little of this "old world" I saw, even as I revelled in the freedom of my 20's, the easy mobility culture of California. But on my bike trips (a way to see the death of the old local), I lamented I didn't see kids playing in the streets with each other.
My nieces and nephews generally play indoors unless they've been driven to outings or parks or some kind of event or class. One of my nieces back in New York and her best friend have to be driven to play with each other.
Easy mobility has enabled us to easily connect with people "far away", and has also disconnected us from those "near by".
So what is the "new local". Is it just blogs and email lists? I like this examples thread, though I seem to be posting more old examples than new ones.
Do you remember the Alan Kay comment, the best way to predict the future is to invent it? Perhaps there is some invention needed here, not just some old style objective value free scientific observation. I think I've got a separate post coming out of me from this examples thread, but perhaps we need to think about what we want the new local to be. Maybe that can be something, like Paul seems to yearn for and I feel too, something permanent we can contribute, we can create - and not just 5 minute comments that are here today and forgotten tomorrow.
Trevor, your comments are awesome, hardly inane rambings! You seem to have developed a beautiful example of what the new local can be. You've developed long term lasting friendships via your long distance communications. You're own "simplicity blog" is a very nice place. It's a "new locale" of its own. Perhaps we can do that here as well. It looks like we're on our way -- on our way to "the new local". All aboard?
Trevor - ramble on please! I find your observations insightful and uncluttered. I do believe we are off to a great start - the challenge will be to create something that actually proves useful rather than just an exercise in intellectual discussion. (We'll let others decide if it is intellectual in the end - until then we'll just assume it is. (grin)) I look at this exercise like a book. The ideas conveyed by a book are nothing unless they are made real through action. From the comments it would appear that all share this desire to create a tangible end product.
A sort of common theme underlying our comments is the fact that many of the issues brought about by the new local are not new. Local has been redefined every time there has been a major advance in terms of communications or transportation. Here are just a few examples. Trains, automobile, planes, printing press,telegraph, radio, television, internet...each advance has increased the speed of communication to the point that on many levels communication is ubiquitous. We have more choices than every available to us at all times and now we are even able to define when we will recieve our communications. I read only today that some of the major US TV networks will be offering rebroadcasts of current prime time shows on Ipods for a price. This gives us the ability to choose when and where we will interact. More and more we are able to define our world to fit our desires or our vision.
We have also identified some concerns - how do maintain the sense of humanity and belonging noted by Paul in a world that provides as many disparate paths as there are people? We used to share common paths because their were only a few to choose from. What is the impact of having such choices? Harold's comment-
Easy mobility has enabled us to easily connect with people "far away", and has also disconnected us from those "near by".
is certainly illustrative of this issue.
At the same time, the new local has allowed us to expand our relationships in a much broader sense, as evidenced by Trevor's account of his distant friend from Canada.
At this stage, I am envisioning an end product that is grounded in a business perspective. There are certainly elements of sociology and other disciplines at work here but given that our formation was at TP.com (business-oriented) I think that is our common element. In broad, general terms I am thinking that our aim should be to produce an article / powerpoint that educates people as to what the "new local" is and its impacts on their business strategy (remember the "all strategy is local" origin of this conversation).
According to our framework our next step would be to move to a discussion centered around the impact of the new local on individuals. That should elicit some interesting thoughts! Anyway, this is just a waypoint, please comment on our general direction and let's determine if we are going where we want or we need to change bearings.
I love the way we are going guys - I am very happy with it. I am sure we can emerge with an intersting product from this. God knows how it can all be pulled together :-)
Great point, Paul. There's something about "time" versus "place". The "old local" was indeed a place, but it had the blessings of time - generations passed and created the locality, and it has geographic roots that reach back for aeons. It's kind of cool talking about the geological origins of a location, like where I live was at the bottom of Lake Missoula, an enormous inland sea that disappears after the last ice age.
The "new local" needs to have either a time element, or an equivalent depth element, to truly be satisfying. There are many who may pine for the old times. To restore old neighborhoods, and long term relationships. But maybe what's needed is to bring the values of "the old local" into cyberspace.
And that requires some time.
Another thought you raise is about conflict. I just saw one shut down between two active and famous bloggers on a third bloggers website. That's a lot easier to do in cyberspace, so often times conflict gets shut down. And it's also possible for conflicts to "blaze on" endlessly and pointlessly -- often times because it's so easy to disconnect from the fact that there are real human beings at the other end of the keyboard.
Anyway, enough ramblings, there's a new entry Walter started to keep us on track. To business!
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