Connection: a personal family example

Our family has a wonderful event this weekend. My parents celebrated 50 years of marriage (yes, I’m bragging a bit, but it is a life event that is happening less and less). We held a fairly intimate 4 hour celebration dinner (for 24!) at the Lighthouse, laughing, recounting stories, and generally enjoying everyone’s company. My parents had a good time, so we have chalked it up as a success.

Being relatively typical Iowans, my parents were hardly looking for much of a fuss to made over this. They are such typical under-stated people. Being typical non-compliant children, however, we were certainly not going to let their desire for “no fuss” stop us. The linked picture above (digital screen scrape from the Gazette e-Edition) is the reason for this post. It was the lone public recognition of the event and I could not have been more astounded by the number and variety of congratulations that poured in to my parents, including several dozen phone calls, multiple flower arrangements and a stack of cards over 6″ inches high (minus the envelopes). I’m terribly biased in saying my parents are great folks, but the response generated by a single Milestones entry was staggering.

I have wander a bit, so let me focus on the “so what” point of this. Connecting with the community is the point. It was not hard-hitting political news, it was not a scandal, and it was not a championship trophy – just two people who love each other and have stuck together through thick and thin. Granted the Gazette was not initiator of the announcement, they didn’t host the dinner, etc. – that’s not the point and if you were thinking along those lines, you are missing the concept. The Milestones section is not a new invention, but it clearly demonstrates the incredible reach a small piece of content can have in a short period of time. The Gazette served only as a conduit for the information, but it was an incredibly vital role. We could have sent letters or announcements, we could have made phone calls, but we certainly would not have achieved the breadth of reach accomplished with the Milestone announcement. My parents heard from people that they hadn’t seen or heard from for years (meaning we wouldn’t have known where to send a letter or what phone number to call). If you think that kind of result isn’t critical to achieving a Complete Community Connection, you are sadly and deeply mistaken.

As we continue our institutional change of mindset, this will definitely resonate in my mind. The Gazette played a vital, albeit quiet, role in facilitating a critical action: a publicly available announcement that allowed interested readers to send congratulatory sentiments. In the end, my parents were very touched and a bit surprised at the response. There was a breadth of connection made in this instance that could not be replicated through other means. Before someone misinterprets this post as an implication that only a printed Milestones section is capable of these results, I will note several of the well-wishers specifically mentioned the seeing it in the e-Edition.