Thanking, Blogging, Learning & Eating: Resolutions of a Social Capitalist

Yes, I have some of the basics on my list--more exercise, fruits & veggies, etc.  Three things I'll be focusing on in 2011 to move forward on these five Social Capital Inc. priorities and more:  

More thanking, updating & sharing: We talk about this a lot when training on cultivating one's social network--it is so important to be in touch with people when you don't need something or have a task to talk about.  Yet it is so easy to get caught up in our tasks and wind up communicating primarily around needs.  I try to be mindful of this, but seek to be more consistent on this front in 2011.  Two things to help me stay on track--1) practicing "Thankful Thursday" to remind myself to pause and think who I can thank or appreciate; 2) using tags to organize my LinkedIn contacts to make it easier to share articles and updates with people based on their interests.

More blogging: We want SCI to be a go-to resource for people on subjects of social capital and leveraging social networks for social impact.  Creating and sharing useful content based on our community building work is one important way to do this.  One downside of using Twitter frequently is that it can have you feeling you can check "idea sharing" off the day's to do list.  While Twitter certainly is a great place to share ideas, one of course can't get into much depth in 140.  Thus I'm committing to blogging at least once to make sure I'm going deeper on a consistent basis.

More focus on our learning network:  I'm excited about some new ideas we'll be pursuing to combine our internal training & learning with our AmeriCorps group with our agenda to be a social capital resource for the broader community.  I've been thinking about it as "open source learning", where we invite others into our conversation using Twitter and other tools.  More on that to come--the general idea here is to be very intentional about how we create effective learning internally & share that learning with the world.

These first three resolutions are practices and priorities I'll be bringing to my daily work at Social Capital Inc.  I have one more social capital resolution for myself--which is to make sure the neighborhood progressive dinner we talked about last year really happens in 2011!  During the past year I enjoyed doing more to combine my personal interest in cooking with my social capital pursuits, and this dinner is one tangible way I look forward to continuing with that in the new year.