The Evolution of Community

In my current position I have two staff members who are remote workers, working out of their home in Portland, Oregon. They are really solid contributors and very interesting people.

I was talking to one of them the other day about things and since he is from the Marin County area he has a lot of friends and family down here. I asked him if they had made many friends in the Portland area and he said that they aren't really very social so they pretty much keep in contact with the friends they've had for years. He said he keeps up with his friends almost daily via e-mail, instant messaging, and playing X-box over the network together.

This individual's social interactions with old friends only reinforces my theory that the nature of community and friendship is evolving dramatically. In an earlier post I recounted how simply posting old family photos has reunited my Italian family with my U.S. family. Even though I only see them once every few years, I have a small handful of really good friends from high school and grade school. In fact, we've been able to reconnect and have more frequent communication in the last few years as they have become more regular computer users and are using audio and video chat. Obviously you have to have something in common or some sort of connection in the first place but the now ancient art of letter writing is no longer required, spontaneous short conversations are possible without often inconvenient telephone conversations.

Some people might bemoan a lack of depth as a result of the abbreviated instant messaging (IM) or text message conversations but I think without these vehicles that most people would otherwise abandon communication with their geographically distant friends, or at least let them lapse.

Again, my team member's means of keeping in touch with his friends through e-mail, IM, and X-box gaming is neat. No, it's not the same as 'being there' but often times that's not even an option and without these things, it's highly probable that they'd lose touch all together.