So if you talk with me much you will know that my big new statement is that we rule this city. In fact I believe my statement yesterday at lunch that Natalie loved so much was something like “We are the most powerful organization in Little Rock”. Now I know all you have images of Chicago style mobsters running around beating everyone up. While we might send out Bryan Jones and his CJRW posse from time to time, this is a different type of powerful organization so hear me out.

First off, how did this happen? Individually we all had our connections for sure, but we were very spread out throughout the community. A few knew each other but by and large we never crossed over. The lack of cohesion in the beginning which was our biggest weakness became our biggest asset. A few people deciding to go out and have drinks to meet some of their twitter followers changed it all. It brought people together who were online through twitter and had them actually meet up (or tweetup) and talk in person.

What happen is that we are from various pockets of the city. Naturally Twitter users in this city tended to be marketers, communicators, or just people interested in being connected. Collectively we reach every single market in the city. We have manufacturing, law, retail, print, and more. Combine that with having a collective skill set of marketing, design, communications, PR, advertising, and organization. Then throw into the mix our strong connections with print, radio, and television media.

With this unique mix of influence we are able to heavily influence and to some extent shape the opinions of the citizens of Central Arkansas in a way that no other single organization can do.

Now don’t get me wrong, this could easily be a recipe for disaster. In the words of the Spider Man movies “with great power comes great responsibility.” So we are being mindful of that by doing things to help make sure this organization works for the benefit of all. First, thanks to amazing foresight by Bryan Jones and others, we are working to adopt ethical standards to how we work and influence others in the community. Second we are focusing our efforts to good causes. We recently used our influence to help Reach Out and Read through the twestival, coming up we will see a huge collaboration helping Project Our House, and there are other things being talked about every day similar to this.

This is all just the beginning of course, keep in mind we have been going for just 6 months now. I think there is little doubt that our group will very soon be the business leaders in Little Rock. As long as we continue to focus on using our influence to work for the greater good then the possibilities are limitless. We already have the influence and power to build up any company we collectively focus on. We have the power to someday soon make a real difference in the world as a whole. All because a couple of friends decided to go out for a few drinks and meet some other twitter users.