Saved by the Bell: Our Conscious Community

It’s all about being a part of something bigger than ourselves, embracing the magic of authentic community, thriving with people who share different interests, bound together with a common goal —that is, to rediscover humanity at its very best.

~D.J. Pitocco

The city of Texarkana sits squarely on the state border between Texas and Arkansas. The city of 70,000 inhabitants has two mayors, two city councils, and two police and fire departments. The cross-town sporting rivalry between high schools draws an uncommonly high attendance, reflecting the deep allegiance each has to their own state’s school. More significant challenges arise as well, such as disputes over the shared water system, governed by two sets of state laws. Yet the town is known for its unity despite the line that divides it. Residents gather annually for a dinner held on State Line Avenue to share a meal in celebration of their oneness as a community.

Oneness of a community —what a brilliant sentiment and worthy celebration. And precisely our objective over many years of developing what we like to refer to as our “conscious community”, where folks can be seen, valued, and heard without judgment, and where authenticity and genuine relationships reign supreme. A community built upon the kind of connection that makes this big, chaotic world feel like our own, very special little village, populated by “like-hearted” people. Real people bringing real compassion, commitment, and openness. Real people communicating with their heads and their hearts via their writing, their comments, and their online voices.  It’s not about how many show up, but about who shows up with a spirit of inquiry and curiosity. Because depth and breadth of engagement are, and always will be our “secret sauce” in the recipe for inspiring real relationships. And because when all the dust settles and the day is done, that’s what really matters within our community —and that’s how we embrace and celebrate our special brand of “oneness”.

And Then Came Tags

As one way of inspiring community engagement across LinkedIn, we —like so many others began using tags to alert folks of new posts. A great tool, but one that brought with it over time the challenge of  “tagging fatigue”. We’ve written about time and again as have certain of our authors and have collectively done our very best over time to scale back tagging by being a bit more selective — a real balancing act given our publishing volume and the thirst of many folks who don’t want to miss anything.  On one hand, it’s a great way to alert folks about a new post. On the other hand, it can be overwhelming to those who tag and those that are tagged. How much is enough? Have we left someone out? Etc. Etc. Along the way, we even came up with a streamlined way for folks to get a daily recap (beyond LinkedIn) of all that we’ve published. But that didn’t resolve the tagging dilemma. With this as a backdrop, we were very pleased to discover a new LinkedIn feature —as our collective opportunity literally be “saved by the bell”…

Saved By The Bell

A new feature has been gradually rolled out by LinkedIn over the past few months in the form of a Profile “Bell”. If you are a first-degree connection with someone on LinkedIn, you can click at the top right part of their profile and change the (newly pictured) Bell from white to gray (to receive notifications). If you change your mind, you can click it again, turning it back to white (to turn off notifications). If you do click the Bell, this will signify that you want to receive a notification (alert) whenever this person publishes something new and you want to see their content in your feed. It’s as simple as that.

We’re told that the “Bell” is not available across all Profiles just yet. But it IS now available on my/our Profile. So here’s your chance to signal us that you would really like to be notified when we share a new post, by clicking on our Bell.  See the illustration below ⤵︎

It doesn’t mean that we’ll immediately stop tagging, as we want to be sure that no one is left out when we introduce a new writer or perhaps share a special article, such as this one. But it does mean that we can continue to scale back / be more selective and intentional with our tagging, hopefully lowering the “fatigue” on both ends of the process. And by the way, the bell feature is also available for LinkedIn Groups and there are three choices: all new posts, highlights, or no new posts. This will come in handy if you are a Member of any of our 30+ Groups.  Thanks in advance if you decide to ring our bell :-).
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BizCats Unite!

Time for some fun. We’ve been asked repeatedly over the past decade to come up with a moniker for our rapidly growing conscious community or “tribe”. Well, here goes —officially introducing our new BIZCAT community Mascot.

Anyone “ringing our bell” above is hereby proclaimed an official BIZCAT community Member —with the rights, privileges, and honors appertaining thereunto. And along with that comes your opportunity to give our new friend above a name. Please take a moment to leave your ideas below!