This is Part Four in a series on Connecting to Your Community, inspired by the Salon Discussion on the subject last March. Below is an excerpt. For the whole article, follow the link at the end.

Previously in this series: Learn to Share: A Primer | Part One: Setting the Stage | Part Two: Identifying Your Motives | Part Three: Becoming a Catalyst

Developing Synergy

HYPOTHESIS
The best way to balance our commodity-driven culture is to contribute to the community through the open exchange of knowledge, ideas and information.

Two or more people working well together become more valuable than each person individually. This state is a form of synergy, and is more commonplace than you might think. Musical ensembles bring works to harmonic life in a way that each instrument alone cannot achieve, politicians campaigning together can drum up more votes than either of them can individually gather, and a group of individuals rallying for a united cause can achieve more than one person spending an equivalent amount of time working toward that cause on their own.

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