Holding Ground

My wife came down with that body-slamming superflu last week. She went from ‘normal-indomitable’ to ‘fetal-just hanging on,’ in about six hours. She’s rebounding now - clear-thinking enough to testify (again) to the inadequacy of our health care system. All she needed was someone to talk with about medicines to take and meds to avoid mixing. I wasn’t that someone. Urgent care clinics aren’t really for this either. Professional help was nowhere to be had.

You used to be able to reach an advice nurse on the phone. You used to have a doctor who would see you when you were fluish. Hell my grandpa was a doctor who would come to your house to check on you. That was an eternity ago.

I’ve been thinking about what’s special and different about HERE, a service invented out of thin air solely on faith about the goodness of Portlanders. I’m not trying to push back the tide that is removing personal relationships from so much of our daily lives. But I am most definitely standing in that outrush, the waters pulling heavily past my shins.

I’m holding my ground.

I’ve now met with well over a hundred Portland freelancers and independent consultants. I can say, with confidence born from an ever-growing sample size, that the people doing this work in the Portland metro are really, really good. The services they’re selling are good, their hearts and minds are lined up, they’re creatively alive, and they’re the reason for the positive vibe you feel walking into any Portland coffee shop out there.

One thing I don’t love about my never-ending coffee meetings is having to repeat my story so many times. I’m so sick of my own repetitiveness. But some things do need repeating, and one of them is this: Portland’s freelancers and independent consultants don’t struggle to find local clients because they aren’t good. They struggle because they’re small and hard to find.

But I love finding them. I love bringing them to the surface. It’s work that is 100 percent personal, for me and for them, and more than intelligence, it calls on patience, belief, and a willingness to pay close attention. I often say it’s an “old school” way of doing business. My grandpa would recognize it, surely. Gone but not forgotten. And so worthwhile, there’s nothing artificial about it.

There’s a place for AI in our work. There’s also a place for something that’s neither artificial nor intelligent. I’m not sure exactly what to call it. Kinship? Loyalty? Devotion? Doesn’t matter really. It’s how HERE works. It’s how I go from being a stranger to an ally or even friend, in 60 minutes. It’s a spark of recognition that a different way, an older way, is open to us.

That’s the space that’s opening up at these coffee tables, through these meetings. It’s how I keep showing up, and it’s the space I’m holding for as many as want to be here with me.