Morning in Carrboro

This morning bright and early, I went to Weaver Street Market (the one in Carrboro, not the one a block away from me), where I met Paul Jones for coffee and a session of people-watching - a Saturday morning tradition.

Carrboro is like a miniature version of San Francisco in a sense. While Chapel Hill is populated by Birckenstock liberals (hey, I am one, so I feel comfortable), in Carrboro you can wear, figuratevily, anything you want: Birckenstocks, sure, but also sneakers, clogs, slippers, high-heels, army boots, cowboy boots, loafers, sandals, Tevas, or go barefoot and, no matter what, nobody cares. Just like in San Francisco, it is a live and let live place, where one can be whatever one is (or whatever one wants to pretend to be) freely, without anyone batting an eye-lash. What a wonderful feeling!

Apart from meeting a bunch of other people (everyone knows Paul around here) and planning the Science Blogging Conference, we also talked about the Web a lot. After all, Paul teaches a course on Online Communities. Geez, my job description is "Online Community Manager"! I got there by the seat of my pants, doing what I like doing and observing how others behave online. It is now time to start reading and learning about what researchers have found out about this as well. Hopefully this will be helpful for my work as well.