Our Global Coffee House

We are all in the global coffee house. Over the past hour, I have received emails from four different people who in one way or another had reason to contact me—if I count the spam, then seven people reached out. We plug into the net to and automatically reach out across the city, or the world. Not just business as we know it would halt without the net or the Blackberry, but more importantly people will have to find other ways to stay in touch. By email, instant message and texting we keep the bond alive. Writing for a local newspaper, enables me to touch that part of my soul which demands I write, write something. Who is in the ultimate audience I do not know. A friend who writes books for children head a story about her book being taken to South America and given as a gift to a family there. Now that’s reaching an unexpected audience. Perhaps this little blog will inspire some writer to invent a column nobody else imagined for our Southwest Voice.

Creative minds have found a release online. With the blend of the Internet, modern publication techniques and the access undreamed of a generation ago, more people can contribute. My column was born when I saw friends publishing in The Northwest Voice and told myself that if they could do it, so could I. What angle do you have that I cannot imagine?

Recent history has shown that the limits of the blogosphere are changing every day. Use one of the search engines and put virtually anything and there will be a series of links to it. The Voice is leading the way in citizen journalism—I mean nationally. Have some fun and write a piece that nobody else could write. I have to be honest; the downside is seeing those Voices lying on neighbors’ driveways. Sometime I want to stop and knock on some stranger’s door and hand him the paper from his driveway and say, “Read this, my column is in there!” 

Order another latte and do some people watching because this coffee house with more sites than even Starbucks can match.