Tazzu Blog

There is nothing better than the business of bringing people together! Communities are what hold small businesses together!

One would think that with the rise of online communication people will increasingly hide inside their cocoons and replace face-to-face human interaction with less personal electronic communications. I personally don’t buy into that argument at all!

We’ve all quickly managed to turn our blogs and content management systems into social networking mediums. And recently, I have noticed that more and more people are organizing real world group meetings through online communities such as Tazzu, Meetup, Facebook, BarCamp and so on.

There are several networking communities in Vancouver, each with a slightly different focus and agenda, but all have one common goal: bringing people and businesses together.

Connectivity and Diversity are the two important factors that make community based commerce happen. Businesses need to be exposed to as many opportunities as possible; that’s how they can learn about the latest innovations, creations, wants and needs of each other. It is also important to be in touch with people outside your areas of activities.

Diversity is strength. Diversity energizes communities. There is no point for web designers to sell services to other web designers, writers to other writers, or marketers to other marketers. However, when a designer, a writer, and a developer team-up and decide to collaborate on projects, that’s where the magic of collaboration is realized. In fact that is one of the ways that small teams of business associates can outdo the larger companies, by having lower operation costs, not having to deal with workplace politics, and being able to deliver more high-end results.

In order to find the right business associates, community members need to be active in as many communities as possible. That way they have a higher chance of meeting people with the right set of facilities, skills, and chemistry who can become potential collaborators or clients.

There are several communities and and networking companies that I have known or attended:

• 3rd Tuesday - organized by Joseph Thornley, Tanya Davis, Tod Maffin
• Techvibes - by the new management Robert Lewis
• Massive Technology Show - managed by Linsay Smith
• DemoCamp Vancouver - an unconference organized by Boris Mann, Megan Cole (Kinzin/Uniserve) and sponsored by WorkSpace
• VanDev - organized by Guy Lancaster
• Vancouver Ruby on Rails community - organized by Peter Armstrong
• Vancouver Social Network Web Developer Group - Organized by Gerald Bauer
• Vancouver Web Design Meetup Group - organized by Jeremy
• Soho - Managed by Moe Somani
• etc…

I am a technology person so those are the ones I could come up with. I’m sure many of you could name few Vancouver communities which have a different focus, my response is: Please bring them on!

We may consider one of these communities to be our “home”. To many of us “Tazzu” is home, where we feel most acquainted with the community culture and its members, however limiting our activities to only one community goes against the idea of Connectivity and Diversity.

I once met someone in one of these meetings who said: “These online communities are not competitors. We are all part of the open web!” ( Boris Mann ) and how true that is! Community governors do not own the community members. The Internet is a democratic place, and it is beneficial to community members to meet as many opportunities and people as possible.

I would like to encourage community members ( Tazzu or other ) to expand their activities to other communities as well. When you do that, please be respectful to other community’s culture, rules and regulations. If you don’t like their ways, please just leave gracefully! Bashing their values isn’t going to make your “Home Community” look any better, not to mention that bad karma is quit viral, and will come to get you at some point. On the other hand, your positive footprint in other communities will bring you many positive results in terms of social well being, business growth and wealth.

And to other community governors: I would like to invite you to our great community Tazzu, where you could let us know about your events, activities, and practices. This way we could facilitate Connectivity and Diversity among the communities which will benefit everybody in the end.

Rastin Mehr - Tazzu™ DOT

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