Thursday, April 27, 2006

Connecting Places


Some places you go... you always meet someone you know. And even better, someone you should know, but don't yet!

These places are magnetic because people know they will meet "birds of feather" there -- people with overlapping interests, but with diverse networks. ACEnet's kitchen incubator is one such place. It mixes and matches people from SE Ohio who are involved, or want to be, in the local food industry.

Another connecting place is the Chicago Mosaic School. On a Sunday afternoon, local mosaic artists stop in to work on their projects, chat, gossip, see what's new, and help each other out. There they mix with artists from other cities who are in town taking classes at the school -- combining similar interests, different networks.

The Executive Director of the School, Karen Ami, is a natural network weaver. She connects mosaic artists and clients both nationally and internationally. People are attracted to Karen for her knowledge and expertise, and also for her ability to connect you to the right other person. Natural network weavers are like that... they attract people, lots of people, who wish to be connected.

3 comments:

Richard said...

Is there an RSS feed for this site? I could not find an XML link anywhere.

George Nemeth said...

Great use of pictures. Keep it up, Valdis!

SteveHabibRose said...

Some organizations are intentionally cultivating places as meeting places. For example, City Repair in Portland/Seattle and the Pomegranate Center east of Seattle.

I don't know the folks at the Pomegranate Center, but the folks associated with City Repair are themselves Network Weavers as well. In fact, they even refer to one of their discussion lists as weavers...