About the Project
by Jake McKee
I’m a bit of an online community buff. I truly believe in the power of online communities to bring together people and place for amazing results. Over the years, I’ve seen community members band together in times of triumph and tragedy. I’ve seen people meet and marry through online communities, and I’ve been constantly excited by meeting people in person I’ve only interacted with on twitter or facebook. If I try to pick a favorite online community story, I find myself having a hard time choosing just one.
I constantly find myself wanting to share my online community stories and more importantly wanting to hear similar stories from others.
The goal of this site is two-fold:
- Create an ongoing, long-term source of fantastic stories about all the amazing, wonderful things that can and do happen within online communities.
- Collect 50 of the best stories submitted to this site and edit them into book form.
I’m positive you have a great story, and I’d love to help you remember it and share it. If you participate, your story may be included in the collection along with your name and URL of your choosing. They don’t need to be terribly long (~600 words or so), and there’s no particular direction, theme, or topic (other than “online community does great things”). Make me laugh, make me cry, make me ask “how did we ever function without message forums, twitter, facebook, and/or YahooGroups.” These are not stories about why online community will help your business. They’re stories that show how our world is changing, stories that move us, stories that show how amazing we can be for and with each other when we are connected.
Here’s to not only changing the world for the better, but to being able to tell a great story afterward.
~ Jake McKee, Connected by Distance creator and Community Guy
