I think this is wonderful. I agree living at ones own pace, able to wear pyjamas at work is divine. I do it Toronto and so does Astrid. However, one day Astrid was out walking the dogs in her pyjamas and a woman she knows casually said to her,” no wonder you aren’t married if you go around dressed like that!”
Astrid came home and was a little upset. She then recalled her previous boyfriend telling her that one of her greatest mistakes was not to wear lipstick one day!!!

Recently, I read something that caught my eye, I can’t remember where I read it but it went like this. ” Love is when you are thrilled to introduce the woman you love to your friends when she is wearing a track suit!!”

In the past 20 yrs, all the men I have met and fallen in love with, and they with me, I was wearing some ghastly work outfit. One of them described me in a tattered, paint soiled down coat over grubby pink track suit bottoms sodden with the blood and after birth of seven sheep that I had just attended giving birth to their lambs. He was chief of surgery at a prominent New York Hospital. He later told me that he was so attracted to me that he could hardly restrain himself one day from throwing himself upon me, while doing some simple surgery on my legs. You knew him. He was very Elegant and brought up in France.

It doesn’t matter what a woman wears, to be attractive to men, it is who she is……..Your devoted sister, Di (grubby)

There are so many stories that support you Joe

Here is my favorite about a company called Printing for Less (We are located a stone’s throw from the Yellowstone River in scenic Livingston, Montana, 50 miles north of Yellowstone National Park in the heart of the recreational paradise of southwestern Montana) http://www.printingforless.com/management.html

PFL has set up a global print firm in the middle of Montana surrounded by old mining ghost towns - Thanks to Christian Long and his trusty camera man - Robert Scoble!! Christian saw this place as a model not just for a more human business but for a school.

Great pics in the post and lots of color

http://thinklab.typepad.com/think_lab/2006/08/what_a_printing.html

There is daycare, dogs are allowed (no cats!!!) housing is cheap and the view is breathtaking. You can do this in the middle of Montana but not in a big city

I also believe that technology/social computing also is saving communities as well. In times gone by, many remote communities have been cut off from the economic mainstream, and often remained depressed, economically. Native North American reservations, for example, did not have access to opportunities or educational resources, and thus could not advance or provide for their citizens. Or, a town relying on a single employer, such as an auto factory or a mine, would suffer when those operations were closed down. Now, it’s possible to enter the global economic mainstream without residents being forced to physically leave these communities.

"It is that Social Software is making it possible for a return to living in beauty, in nature and in a scale of human society that fits our deepest needs to be connected and known. While at the same time it is making it possible for those of us to live like this while also being connected to the wider world. The world is becoming more urban every year. But Social Software is starting a new trickle “Home” to a way of life that is better for us." (Emphasis mine)

I hope that one of these days I would be able to catch up with you in real life to expand further on this, because as I was reading through the article you just nailed it as to why I have been so excited about social software all along. Plus whenever that face to face meetup takes place (I am sure it would at some point!) you will find out why I am an islander like yourself. Quite an interesting story, I tell you. One of those stories to share over a nice cup of coffee, or tea, while enjoying that sunset with some nice chill-out background music. Sounds like a plan, eh?
Well, that is just exactly what social software has started already for everyone out there making use of it, for sure. Let’s keep it going!