Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Homewood Capital Partners

Hm. What should I say about Homewood Capital Partners LLC, and how should I say it?

Well, I suppose the first thing I need to say is that this post, is not an offer to sell, nor a solicitation to buy, units in Homewood Capital Partners LLC.

Okay then - I created Homewood Capital Partners LLC because I believe that Homewood real estate, which has been undervalued for decades, will increase in value significantly within ten years, possibly within five. I believe that a lot of money will be made off Homewood real estate in that time frame. I want some of it, and I want to help my neighbors to get some of it.

I have a King. My King has issued a command - not a suggestion, not a request - to love my neighbor. Helping some of my neighbors to get some of the money that I expect Homewood real estate to generate over the next decade is a way of doing that.

So - units of Homewood Capital Partners LLC will not be available to the general public. It's about me, my neighbors, and people we know.

I don't want to say anything here that ought to be saved for the offering materials, so I'll just say this: I want Homewood Capital Partners to catalyze Homewood's transformation by buying, rehabbing and selling enough homes in Homewood to help raise property values.

And this: I believe that, partly because of the work of the Save Race Street Committee, Race Street is particularly well positioned to lead the renewal of the market for Homewood's existing housing stock.

I need to uncork this genie.

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Three Priorities: The Complete Series
Three Priorities For 2014 - And Beyond
Three Priorities For 2014: 1 - Encouraging The Body Of Christ
Three Priorities For 2014: 2- Growing Businesses.
Three Priorities For 2014: 2.5 - Why Build Businesses?
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Legal Shield
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Homewood Capital Partners
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Luminaria Productions
Three Priorities For 2014: 3 - Redeveloping Race Street
Three Priorities For 2014: Closing Thoughts

From Facebook to faces

Today I posted the following message on Facebook three times, with slight variations each time to keep from boring myself:

GM FB - I'm posting this 3-4 times today (Sunday 6/9) so that as many of my FB friends as possible will see it. In the last couple of days, I've concluded that I rely too much on FB, so I'm going pull WAY back in using it - during the remainder of June, you should only expect to see me post links to "Homewood Nation" or to "ReVisions," my personal blog. If you want to reach me online, please email elwin15208@gmail.com. Also this month, I will work at spending more time with people face to face - especially my neighbors in Homewood (we're in walking distance, for crying out loud). So, if you're in Homewood, and we know each other at all, expect a phone call. I want to get caught up.

I mentioned yesterday that I felt like I was starting to pay too much attention to pageviews and visits; but that was an understatement. What was really sinking in was the realization that Facebook was becoming my primary means of socializing - and that I was spending less time actually chatting with people than waiting for somebody to say something interesting, or browsing my news feed to see who has said something interesting, or worst of all - saying things and then waiting to see if anyone finds what I say interesting. And not just interesting, but interesting enough to reply to with an actual comment or question, rather than just a "Like."

(I don't like "Likes." In fact, I hate them. It amazes me that the term "social" is applied to a platform in which perhaps the majority of interaction may consist of people clicking "Like" and "Share" buttons without saying anything to each other. I consider that deeply unsocial.)

I realized yesterday that I was dying for conversation.

I spend enough time talking with people, but so much of that talk is so task-oriented and project-oriented that if I'm not careful I could have a loneliness attack right in the middle of it.

I find myself yearning for useless discourse - for jokes and stories, for memories and lies (that no one believes), for the kind of wide-ranging, freely-associative conversation that happens when friends hang out at night and they don't have to go to work in the morning. And if it becomes tutorial, because something comes up that is so interesting that I want to learn more about it right then, in that very moment, then so be it.

The conversations that I will seek from my neighbors when I call them this week will not be that free-ranging - part of what I mean by getting caught up is that I want to let them know what I am working on and to see if they want to be part of any of it in any way. After all, I would like for both Homewood Capital Partners and for Luminaria Productions to create some jobs by the end of the year. And I'd like to sign up some Legal Shield associates well before then.

But another part - and I want to make it the first part - is discovering more of what rests inside my fellow humans, within walking distance of my house. What dreams and what wisdom, what folly and what fears.

I think +Mani Saint Victor must have seen my Facebook post this morning; otherwise it is a striking coincidence that he recommended to me a Google+ community on "Conversation - as a skill, literacy, flow and art." I look forward to participating.

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This is kind of random; may as well record it here as anywhere: Good neighbors don't just mind their own business. They mind each other's, in good ways.