I Wasn’t Born the Day You Met Me: A Primer in Building Community

Every day we meet new people. Some online, some in person.

But when we meet them, they aren’t just a new person…a blank slate. No, they have a history. When people form a friendship or engage in some form of relationship, both parties bring baggage with them. They both have a history.

I was reminded of this this past week when I saw some pictures my cousin’s daughter (first cousin once removed?) posted on Facebook. We had an exchange and she emailed me a few pictures that her grandmother (my aunt) had saved. They were pictures of my ancestors that I had never seen. These pictures not only provided some answers as to my history, but also raised a lot more questions.

This is the Yenisch family. The child in the middle is my aunt who was born in 1917. Sitting on either side of her were her grandparents (my great-grandparents on my father’s mother’s side) Gottlieb and Mary Yenisch. On the right is my grandmother, Pauline Mueller, and on the left is her brother, Fritz. My dad came along quite a few years later.

Based on my father’s genealogical research, Gottlieb and Mary were born in Germany, and eventually settled in Philadelphia, coming from Stuttgart in a region known as Swabia. (Swabia was also home to Albert Einstein, so I like to pretend we’re related…) My parents were both born and raised in Northeast Philadelphia, and I was born and raised in the suburbs of Philly.

This is a part of my history, part of what makes me who I am.

Now you know a little bit about me. Like everyone else, I come with a history.

When we engage with others, we need to remember that they aren’t a blank slate. They too have histories, experiences, baggage. If we want to truly relate to them, we should, without prying, try to find out more about their story…who they are. Communities are built by people of diverse backgrounds who share some commonalities.

When you friend someone on Facebook, Twitter, or some other social platform, get to know them. Read their online profiles and look at their pictures. (If they friend you and allow you to see that information, it isn’t a violation of their privacy). And as you engage them in conversation, tactfully ask questions. The more you know about someone, the stronger that relationship can become.

And from a business perspective, those strong connections can be very powerful. That shouldn’t be your motivation, but it is an incredibly strong truth.

What’s your story? And more importantly, what are the stories of those whose paths you cross on a daily basis?

Tagged as: Albert Einstein, facebook, Germany, Northeast Philadelphia, Online Communities, Social Media, Swabia, Twitter