Lancaster, PA Blog

Shut up about yourself. That’s my recommendation for your 2010 new year’s resolutions.

Instead…

Resolve to help your community

I’m sure you’ve seen smart people already saying that 2010 will be a year of

• mainstream social media,
• a local emphasis on information and commerce, and
• entrepreneurship.

Combine the three and you get my recommended new year’s resolution for you. Repeat after me:

I will use my influence in social media to support my local economy by sharing information and supporting other local go-getters.

If you think you’re small in the social media scene, you’re wrong. By being an active user, you’re a member of an elite. You can shape the course of our local community forever.

Improve your community to improve yourself

Most new year’s resolutions are about self improvement. That’s OK. It’s also small-minded. Think of it this way:

• If you want to eat better in 2010, improve your chances of success by improving the chances of success for locally-owned restaurants that serve healthy food.
• If you want to exercise more in 2010, ask your public officials to make the place you live more walkable and more bicycle-friendly.
• If you want to get out more in 2010, support people who organize fun and worthwhile events.
• If you want to make more friends in 2010, start online, where it’s easier, then find a chance to meet up IRL (in real life).
• If you want to receive more of the professional recognition you deserve in 2010, help foster a culture of appreciation by recognizing others’ unique skills and contributions. Publicly.
• If you want to find a better job in 2010, make choices that will benefit local entrepreneurs whose success will mean more good jobs.

That’s just common sense, right? Make it easier to be a good, healthy, successful person by doing your part to shape where we live into a good, healthy, successful community.

Like many of you, I’m bursting with ideas here. There are so many ways to improve the community we share. It’s hard to find focus. That’s why I’m bringing you this series of

29 Ways to Help Your Community in 2010: The Online-Only Edition

If it’s not something you can do while sitting in front of a computer, standing behind a digital camera, tapping on a iPhone (or Droid, or Blackberry, or plain-jane cellular telephone), or in some other digitally-mediated way, it’s not going to appear in this series.

Part of the reason I will be writing one entry a day for the rest of this entire month on this topic is that I’m tired of people referring to all online activities as a time-suck.

When you write a glowing review of a new restaurant on Google Local, hundreds or thousands of other people see that. Some of them will be moved to check out the place and spend money there. You’ve just helped a new business succeed, in a very real way. How is that a time-suck?

When you spread the word to your Twitter followers that a child is missing who was last scene in our region, how is that a time-suck?

When you help a gifted but unknown local artist get more attention than a lazy local TV celebrity, how is that a time-suck?

And so, I say to you,

Let’s resolve to hang out online in 2010

For the good of our community. For the health of our families. For the sustainability of our local economy.

I’ll be sharing my ideas with you, one at a time, in detail, every day for the next twenty-nine days. I hope you’ll join me and share your own ideas, dreams, and plans.

Whatever you do, please share with the rest of us when you give one of these ideas a shot, so that we can celebrate our success together.

Who’s in? Will you hang out with me on the Internet this year for the good of our community?

Photo credits: Calvin, Tim Morgan (Flickr)