Sean Wallbridge
I was in the grocery store the other day and ended up in the checkout line behind my next door neighbour, Steve. We got to yakking and as his order was going through the checkout I realized that I had left my wallet at home. I was going to take all the items in my cart and put them back when Steve told me to just put them through with his order. He said I could pay him back when we got home and I thanked him profusely. Steve did the neighbourly thing and helped me out when I needed it because that’s what good neighbours do. So, thanks, Steve! You’re a great neighbour!
Now you may be asking yourself what this little yarn has to do with the normal things you see in my blog as well as all the other itgroove blogs? I’ll tell you, it’s about being a good neighbour and, in the case of our blogs and our company, being a good “digital” neighbour. After all, the Internet makes all of us next door neighbours regardless of where we live and work. I’m in British Columbia, you could be in Britain or Burundi; it makes no difference as we are side-by-side on the ‘Net. So, how do we be good neighbours and help each other out? In our (itgroove’s) case it is by blogging (amongst other things).
All of us who blog at itgroove do so to help spread knowledge, freely and without reservation, to our digital neighbours. It is very much a modern take on the traditional “sysadmin” knowledge sharing that has gone on in the digital world since the dawn of the PC. I can remember finding helpful answers on UNIX BBS’s back in the 80’s (yes, we had computers back then) and even phoning some of the posters for help; that was the way we did it back then. We were a small fraternity that helped each other whenever possible. Fast forward to 2013 and the amount of knowledge that is available on the ‘Net is staggering but the helpful intent is still there. If I have a problem that I need help with the first thing I do is to hit Google and start searching as I know someone out there has probably already hit the problem and described the fix. Conversely, if I (or any of us internally at itgroove) hit an interesting problem and find a fix there is a pretty good chance that we’ll blog it so that others, like you, can benefit.
So, if you’re wondering how to be a good digital neighbour, there is a pretty good template for you in the itgroove blogs. Go ahead, share your knowledge and skills in a blog or via some other digital forum. Someone out there will benefit from it and that simple fact helps to make the ‘Net, and the world as a whole, a better place. Having good neighbours makes life better and more enjoyable.
And it helps to have a good neighbour when you are in a fix! Uh, anyone seen my wallet? …