think local.

In a discussion with some of my more thoughtful clients yesterday, someone said “there are necessities in life that are simply local.”  With all of this recent talk about online community building and using technology to find commonality, I found this statement refreshing and true.  

So much of what I need and want doesn’t come from my community.  Just today I allowed my daughter to purchase an instant download on Amazon.com of the one television show she couldn’t find on our 100+ cable channels.  Even when I do mundane things like shop at the grocery store or buy clothes, hardware or furniture, I’m almost always buying something that originated outside of Cincinnati, often half way around the globe. 

But there are certain needs that can only be met by a neighbor or a neighborhood.  Safety immediately comes to mind -concern for your home and property is better met by a caring neighbor than the local police or ADT.  Along those lines, who is looking out for your kids while they play outside and you're distracted by one thing or another, if not for a neighbor?  Information about your neighbors and neighborhood is best sourced from the people who live within its boundaries. Then of course there is human contact - the face to face, hand to hand, gesture to gesture contact that you can't get over the Web.  The possibilities that this contact affords are endless, moving us beyond our basic needs to true satisfaction.   

Perhaps the statement, "there are necessities in life that are simply local" resonates more if it’s modified as “if you want a to feel connected, there are necessities in life that you should look for locally."  Too many times we hear news reports about a tragic incident where if neighbors were better connected, the tragedy could have been avoided.  Or, we hear people say, "he seemed like a nice fellow but stayed to himself a lot."  

Think globally, act locally?  Maybe it's time to reinvigorate that phrase.