Heard from 2 friends who shun social media:
Who's in danger of being lost, who's being left in the past?
It struck a nerve on Facebook...
I feel connected with both of these people when we do meet up.
Just saw the rough cut of director Amit Raikar's video about the GlobalNiche movement shot this spring. Such great questions, and so many distinctive perspectives to fill in the mosaic of what GlobalNiche is, what it means, where it's going, how it works in our lives. I can't wait to be able to share it more widely! 
Here are some stills from the video (Shirley Rivera, Tanya Monsef Bunger, Loreen Huddleston, Bertita Graebner, me, and Evelyne Michaut), and a few juicy quotes. More to come...Thanks everyone, and Amit and crew for the wonderful work.
.@globalniche i am excited to be surveying, collecting, and sharing case studies of #globalniche experience. gotta love building #community
— shirley r (@anthrocubeology) June 24, 2014
So excited, and grateful, Shirley, for you to apply your special skills to this massive task.
pick me pick me :) RT @globalniche: coolest: @anthrocubeology will be collecting #globalniche #casestudies! hit her up w ur stories..
— Silvana (@SilvanaMondo) June 24, 2014
Shirley will be collecting good news and specifics from everyone. Hope to hear more, like the below...
@globalniche Thank you! It all started with the #globalniche course! A wonderful #community of kindred spirits! xxx
— Sandra Gea (@SoulsNavigator) June 10, 2014
congrats to @brandylucky1 for making it happen with your Evolve Aikido & Movement Center in Antioch!! #globalniche
— GlobalNiche (@globalniche) June 20, 2014
' @globalniche The surprise is in the #eBook in brand #storytelling section. Please download and share feedback. :-) http://t.co/wYGJKtOZjC
— Dr Amit Nagpal (@DrAmitInspires) June 13, 2014
congrats to #novelist @jessicajjlutz, whose A Bride From Holland will be released by #Dutch publisher DeGeus in October! #globalniche
— GlobalNiche (@globalniche) June 7, 2014
From our mailbag: "#GlobalNiche helped me get focused and get better. What do I want/already have/need to make."~ #author @WendyJeanFox
— GlobalNiche (@globalniche) May 3, 2014
A fantastic time with @globalniche @TMonsefBunger @anthrocubeology @SilvanaMondo & more #GlobalNiche #community! Looking fwd to more!
— Amit Raikar (@lifunfe) April 26, 2014
check out freshly launched @theglobalsort http://t.co/bXitHsmufq for inquiries into being #global & how #immersiontravel changes you
— Anastasia Ashman (@AnastasiaAshman) March 4, 2014
save the date #SF peeps! #globalniche meet up on april 24, hosted by @lifunfe pic.twitter.com/y3gx5gcLbV
— GlobalNiche (@globalniche) March 20, 2014
The latest of many F2F gatherings of GlobalNiche people and their friends, around the world! Reading this and want to do your own? Do it!! We'll help you get the word out. Special thanks to Amit Raikar, Shirley Rivera and Tanya Monsef Bunger for event production, transportation, and inspiration and a lot of other wonderful things that made this evening happen. It was a blur of wine, and excitement and twinkling lights, and silver and raspberry and houndstooth, and happy faces and surprise meetings and balloons and cherry pie. There was a lot of hugging and huddling, and we really didn't need the crackling fireplace because we were all on FIRE!
— GlobalNiche (@globalniche) April 25, 2014
Looking forward to the video interviews that Amit Raikar directed and shot along with his full production crew of Jeri Neves, James Pendziszewski, Mike Montoya and Ryan Munevar. Amit asked each of the attendees to share what GlobalNiche is to them, and where it's taking them (and where they're taking GlobalNiche!).
...what this expat, Third Culture, creative entrepreneur, content creator, location independence community and curriculum and study group setting and online presence building and global network tapping and personal culture creating, hybrid life design movement means to each of us.
Great to see Silvana Vukadin-Hoitt, in from Denver, just for this occasion! From the South Bay and beyond, we were excited to welcome Loreen Huddleston, Bertita Graebner, Bonita Banducci, Karen Jaw-Madson, Trish Sewe, Evelyne Michaut and Siddartha and new friends including Heather Franzese.
"I felt truly blessed to be among a group of such strong, smart, interesting women (and men)," says Loreen.
with @TMonsefBunger and @SilvanaMondo at the #globalniche Bay Area meetup... #expats #community pic.twitter.com/pjGuVQcXYl — Anastasia Ashman (@AnastasiaAshman) April 25, 2014
....this video production crew, led by @lifunfe! #globalniche pic.twitter.com/LC98pjCXhj
— GlobalNiche (@globalniche) April 25, 2014
"I'd like to see #globalniche become a life philosophy" ~ @anthrocubeology pic.twitter.com/1vSL4t2nne
— Anastasia Ashman (@AnastasiaAshman) April 25, 2014
Excited about a new chapter at GlobalNiche. One year after launching our program, we're equipping our graduates to build out their own communities.
In doing so, we're hitting a major, longterm milestone: GlobalNiche is an online platform to build community. We're equipping our graduates with the infrastructure and support you need to bring our continuity practice to your wider communities....to the very people in your lives you want to build something with.
So proud to see the study group Silvana Vukadin-Hoitt is hosting in November for the creative, entrepreneurial and global nomad women in her world. (If this sounds like a work community for someone you know, pass it on!)
As Silvana writes,
"Increasing your online visibility at your own pace, creating a digital presence that looks, sounds and feels like you and that helps you meet your aims is key to the age we’re now living in. In theory, yes, we all want to belong to a productive group of people who understand us and our aims. In practice, it’s difficult to be accountable to your plans and to keep showing up for yourself and for others. What would it be like to have a practical foundation to further your current artistic endeavors?"
That's why, just like me and my cofounder Tara, our graduates see themselves as 'leading learners'.
That's something I heard Natalie Sisson of The Suitcase Entrepreneur describe this summer about her role in the Freedom Business movement. It's being the person who's just a couple steps ahead of the people you're making a path for.
You can show others in your life what you DO know, and you can work alongside them learning what you don't yet know.
Part of the GlobalNiche experience is practicing finding what you need by tapping into a network of people ahead of you on the path. Googling stuff to find out how people got answers to the same question you have today.
Our group leaders are also servant leaders. (Thanks to grad Shirley Rivera for bringing this concept to my attention!) Helping the people in your life develop and improve, using a non dogmatic system that you just so happened to find out about before others did.
Besides the infrastructure we set up for our grads (including access to the multimedia curriculum and material for several-times-a-week prompts, a branded G+ community for their study group, and all the back-end invoicing and payment structure ) we have also created a support community at G+ for study group leaders.
During September's two week training for grads considering leading a study group I believe I was the one who learned the most! Leading learners learn more.
This month we're acknowledging that where we come from counts (see this urban psychology article on the geography of temperament, and take this quiz to pinpoint how to make life choices "congruent with your temperament") -- and by bringing what we uniquely have to offer, we're cross-pollinating the culture. And we extra-extra-extra love to hear this => Pluralism is always practical: when we draw on our own mixed identities we're more creative!
+++++ AT expat+HAREM
Meanwhile a Third Culture Kid and food activist in Colorado says no to the American predilection for huge cups of coffee consumed in the car, and yes to the communion found in ethnic dining rituals from her childhood and travels.
An American born and raised in Japan finds a way to bridge the cultural divide through the whimsical folk art of etegami.
So much good stuff coming our way, impossible to share it all....here's another way to get on the same page with us: we're now attempting to round up the zillions of resonant links that fly past us every day -- like these ones about global careers, and international politics and the hybrid souls we all possess.
+++++ AROUND THE WORLD & AROUND THE WEB
If you're in New York on the 25th, don't miss an evening about "How to Run the World & Hybrid Reality", presented by expat+HAREM's global nomad salon coproducer Janera Soerel. Global adventurer-scholar Parag Khanna and his wife Ayesha will introduce their new institute exploring human-tech co-evolution.
And for the collectors, from the filmmaker, author, producer, and musician known as DJ Spooky comes this compilation of essays examining 500 years of collaborative creation, "from the history of stop-motion photography to Muslim influences on early hip-hop."
+++++ YOUR THOUGHTS