I once pulled together a team to help with community technology projects. Good people with real skills. We talked through what we could do, and we offered to help anyone who asked: teams, committees, individual members.

Very few people asked. With nothing to work on, the team fell apart.

The Internet was born into a world where many people had already lost their sense of connection to each other.

Looking back, we made an offer and never told a story. Nobody knew who we were, why we were doing it, what it had taken each of us to get there, or how much we cared about the place we lived. We had a list of capabilities and gave nobody a reason to read it.

We needed somewhere to share news, ideas, new tools and examples of what we had done, in articles people would enjoy reading, with a way for people to reply and ask us for help.

If I were starting that team today, I'd report on one team member in each edition: why they do this and what they've built. I'd write up one small project, including what went wrong. And I'd post a Callout asking the community what they wish someone would fix.