I don’t know, “Scrum,” but I love your analogy, and it’s quite effective in helping me ‘get,’ the true value of ‘Agile.’ (Ummm, it’s about getting from here to there, right)?

-Mark

“I just finished a large collection of essays by Joseph Mitchell, who wrote profiles of New Yorkers and their environs during the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s, many as pieces for The New Yorker. His portraits of people and the various subcultures (gypsies, blacks, homeless, circus freaks, fishermen and fishmongers, pub denizens, bohemians, etc.) were rich with detail and there is a great emphasis on the “old days” and what were the modern days at the time of his writing. But the pieces aren’t maudlin or directly trying to say, “Sigh, life was better then.” Anyway, I was particularly struck by one essay that profiled a black community outside of NYC that had been originally populated by free Negro oystermen in the mid-1800s. An elderly man that Mitchell meets tells him what the community was like when he was a youngster and the town was thriving: very social, heavy church attendance, regular community gatherings and roasts, porch-visiting, and everyone working together in the oyster business. Then when the business declined due to the polluting of the Hudson River oyster beds, the townspeople were forced to look elsewhere for work, usually with long solo commutes and low pay. People lost touch with one other, let the town become neglected, no time or energy for church or parties, and TV replaced porch visits.

I’d say that is pretty much the American story for the second half of the 20th century. Not much out there brings people together as a community and provides a space for shared experience–at least not in comparison to the days before we could so freely and widely roam away from our village. I believe that social networking sites are an attempt to recreate that essential need for humans, but it is still a crude prototype. Facebook is trying to be our new front porch. We must decide whether we want to sit on it and deal with whomever wanders up to chat (even if it is inane), to sit inside but leave the drapes open and peer out (which will invite only the most intimate, curious, or persistent), or shut the blinds completely. Because the concept is so new, I am wondering if by participating in it, I can help shape its evolution to something that is more satisfying and representative of what people like you and I are looking for (rather than what 21st century teens are doing).”

(She’s a writer, if you couldn’t tell.

.. man, she’s cool.

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