Is this a problem for many other folks? If you have met your neighbors, please leave a comment telling me how it happened.

I've lived eight different places in the last couple of decades, and in each place, I didn't know many (or any) of my neighbors. Some of these places were houses, some were apartments.

When I moved into a new place, no one brought cookies or a cake or anything, saying "hello! welcome to the neighborhood." No one even introduced themselves. One man did, he was 70 years old, an HAM radio guy, and the emergency coordinator for our neighborhood (self-appointed). This guy was great; he was clearly from the old school. But he's the only one.

When I moved with my parents to new places (in the 60's & 70's), we had neighbors coming over, introducing themselves, asking if we needed anything, and bringing goodies. PLUS the local Welcome Wagon ladies. Not every neighbor came to meet us, mind you, but more than one in each place did.

Whenever I move, I wonder if I should bake four or five cakes and take them around to my neighbors, saying, "Hey! I just moved in..." but I'm just not brave enough. It seems backward, and I imagine they'd be thinking I'm a kook, because nobody does that. I imagine them saying, "Oh, great, what does this guy want... he's going to invite me to his church next." Knocking on someone's door these days seems to have a real stigma to it. People don't want to be bothered at their homes, people don't have time to talk unless previously scheduled, and people have things to do, TV shows to watch, video games to play, the Internet to type on.

What the heck is going on? I know we don't *need* our neighbors in 2005 in America. We can get everything we need from the store. Heck, all eight neighbors in a cul-de-sac can all have riding lawn mowers thanks to our strong economy. And that's wonderful. But is it really that smart? What are we missing?

Online networks and social networking systems are great, and I love them. But the kinds of exchanges that can happen (thus far) online are limited. Even something as simple as swapping paperback books or DVDs requires postage, wrapping, etc. How can you loan someone your lawn mower / shovel / jumper cables / cup of sugar over the Internet? I can't help my Interent buddy carry his new furniture up the stairs, or feed his cat while he's on vacation, or walk down to the corner store with him to grab a drink on a hot day. I can't juggle or play frisbee or go to the pool with my Internet buddy.

Yet, apparently I can't do any of these things with my neighbors, either, since we all huddle inside our apartments, speculating how everyone else that is hiding out in their apartments must be drug dealers, unibombers, drunks, terrorists, running meth labs, or other seen-it-on-the-news, gee-they-live-next-door-to-you kind of twisted take.

I'm getting really frustrated with the state of community in our cities. Is this just west-coast thing? Is it just a major city thing? Is it just me? Do I just need to shower? Did my goatee really look that scary? Eeeeesh.

If I haven't said it here before, I love the Creating Passionate Users blog. Her ideas are usually formed well, are actually relevant to 'big topics' in business and the philosophy of business and service, and most entries even come with cool litte illustrations and graphics. Some entries are marvelous springboards for additional conversation.

Such is this entry. In it, she talks about how the fast-talking smart-sounding people in meetings can often 'win the crowd' over the slower, deeper thinkers that can't spit out acronyms and corp speak at 300 words per minute. People that need time to articulate their concerns are often right; or at least have really important points to add to the plan.

The end result: the fast talkers get a disproportionate level of credibility, and the folks that take longer to formulate their thoughts are often left out in the cold. This goes beyond kudos or reputation at work as "an ideas person" or "a quick problem solver." The worst part is that half-baked solutions get put into play without deep analysis, costing the company when problems ensue. Hey, problems with the plan is just another chance for the fast-talkers to look smart, right? (read her blog entry)

I think she is right on the button, including her observation that as time lines get shorter in our information age, and companies just want to move fast-faster-faster, this pattern gets amplified.

What I see here is a marvelous opportunity for skilled facilitators to take on more important roles in these kinds of meetings. A trained (and neutral-operating) facilitator can (1) spot the folks that are thinking but not speaking and make space and time for them in the meeting, (2) slow down the fast-talkers with pacing questions, (3) dig deeper into the fast-talkers plan with practical questions that reveal deep concerns and different perspectives of the plan, and (4) ask questions that can help the folks that are formulating their concerns to develop them on speak them on the spot. This isn't a rapid-fire questioning, it is a respectful process that really helps reveal (and manage) all kinds of things.

As all this is going on, the facilitator often also has to be a trainer that shows new participants how the process works, manages their expectations about time issues and round-the-long-way routes that actually get the good answers quicker, and teaches them how to be good participants in the process.

I can see the need now. I can see that people who end up doing this on the fly will start to be recognized and valued for their participation in the meetings. They'll be requested to come and operate in that capacity to more and more meetings. They'll pioneer methods, write books, and maybe get this idea into the mainstream consciousness.

Big-business America is experiencing shrinking profit margins and rising costs - and those two trends will continue to close in on each other in every company that still follows Industrial Age practices.

Maybe someday, there will be positions in companies for professional meeting facilitators that do exactly the above things, plus negotiations and training. Wouldn't that just be too cool?