Hyperlocal Business Blog
I always enjoy visiting David St Lawrence’s Ripples blog.
It’s a great example of how one person in a small community can use this marvellous technology to communicate to a wider world about that community and its way of life and and about the particular challenges of doing business in small communities.
This is hyperlocal blogging at work.
David St Lawrence explains the blog’s name:
It all has to do with change, the persistence of ideas, and the fact that every change telegraphs its arrival by creating ripples.
All one has to do is to watch for ripples of a certain kind and one will see social tsunamis coming while they are still far over the visible horizon.
David’s blog is a continuing essay in words and pictures about living and working in the decidedly small (pop. around 434) town of Floyd, Virginia.
I love reading David’s posts on various arts and music events and his restaurant reviews.
But there’s more than guitars, banjoes and pot-throwing.
There are business events like the obviously very buzzy recent Chamber of Commerce event in Floyd:
Animated conversations ran non-stop from 5:30 to well beyond 8:00 pm. I saw people from all segments of our Floyd economy. We were all there together, old hippies, old techies, independent crafters, contractors, local business owners and a handful of local government officials.
I’d like to see that sort of event in our town. And here’s the funny thing - we’ve got more people.
It would be great to have some more examples of business-focused hyperlocal blogs - we could have a special local business blogs link page on this site.
Technorati Tags: hyperlocal, Ripples, David St Lawrence, Floyd, Virginia, business blogging
Related Stories
POSTED IN: General, Small Business, Social Media, Social Networking
1 opinion for Hyperlocal Business Blog
David St Lawrence
May 31, 2007 at 5:18 am
Des,
At one time I thought hyperlocal blogging might be too confining, but I quickly learned that we can see the entire universe in a Chamber of Commerce event or in a potter’s attempt to develop a new item for sale, if we care to look closely.
Vast concerns are sometimes best understood in the context of a local situation involving real people with a problem that we can get our wits around.
The census data about Floyd’s population (434) hides the fact that this one stoplight county has about 14,789 inhabitants and it operates as one community. About one person in 10 is self-employed and a high percentage are artisans or musicians. It is a community that provides a supportive environment for creative activity.
Add to this the fact that there is no local industry of any size and many people hold multiple jobs in order to make ends meet and you have an interesting model for a small town in the 21st Century. Arts and crafts, telecommuting professionals and a growing tourist population…all drawn together by the Internet.
This could be happening anywhere and bloggers can play an important part in it. I wish you great success in energizing your community.
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: