Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?
I felt like Community surrounded me in 2010. I made it a goal early in the year to be more active in my local community here in Houston, and thanks to the always awesome JR Cohen and his brilliant brainchild of Support Local, Grow Together, what seemed like countless opportunities opened up to me to mingle more. It was so wonderful the people I met thanks to the SLGT movement!
I’m so glad that Houston has an active and vibrant community on Twitter and Facebook as well. Somehow, without it all, I just wouldn’t feel as connected as I am, and I wouldn’t have met so many cool people!
In addition to all of that, I’ve gotten to watch the Fast Track Photographer group that we started in August of 2009 grow even more this year. We celebrated our one year birthday in August and we’ve had a whole bunch of great people come and share their knowledge with the group – specifically cool people that I met thanks to SLGT. Love it when things come full circle like that!
In 2011, I want to continue to spend even more time out and about. It is so easy for me to hole up at the house when I’m not working. I’m an introverted extrovert. Once I get out, I’m fine and have a great time, but sometimes I get so freaked out about going out and mingling. I’m working to get over it, and I’ve improved a lot from where I was at. Living 30+ minutes from the center of Houston doesn’t help though, because there are times I just don’t want to drive. I’ve learned this year to be better about stacking appointments to be on the same day as activities that evening so that I’m already out and don’t have the distance issue.
I also want to work on building up the Houston Fast Track Photographer community even more. There are so many great photographers here in Houston, and we all have so much to offer one another. The same goes for the SLGT community. I just see so many great opportunities, and I love connecting people with one another.
I can’t wait to see what 2011 holds!