Steve Golab, Bijoy Goswami and Heather McKissick gave an absolutely wonderful presentation at the last Austin Social Media Club meeting.

Their message was about the Austin experience. This is something that I’ve been thinking about for quite some time and it was only with their help that I was able to really articulate it in any way. And as they were describing it, diagramming it, I was amazed.

At this point, let me just state how important it is to find the words — and I must admit that I am still searching for the right ones to describe their presentation and this “thought” or “feeling” I’ve been stewing over for so long. Having a specific lexicon, being capable to articulate a specific idea or through is incredibly powerful. Not only are you able to share the idea with others, which is critical to get ideas to spread, but it’s only with words that we can really identify what we are thinking. Only after we find the right words will we become capable of manipulating, working with, and using the ideas to do “something.”

And this really gets to the core idea of their presentation. Austin has been trying to identify itself in some way. It’s known as the “live music capital of the world,” but it has also tried on other identities, such as Silicon Hills (trying to be the next Silicon Valley), or being just plain weird.

These are all accurate depictions of Austin. Still each are just part of the puzzle. Music, technology, local businesses, and more are individual scenes and don’t really intersect with other scenes. In other words, there’s no bigger community that brings them together. They don’t mingle.

What is a community? Generally, a community is a group of people who share specific symbols and their meanings. A great example I learned from Milkshake Media during a presentation on how they put together the Livestrong campaign is the community of cancer surviors. They don’t share a specific geography, but they have had a common experience and can identity and understand — more than anyone else — some of the symbols that go with the experience, such as hair loss.

Thus, while a scene within Austin can be a community, some scenes are too fragmented to be pulled together. A great example is in social media. The Austin Interactive Marketing Association had an event the same night at the Social Media Club (or vice versa — it’s not important to identify who stepped on whose toes). There wasn’t enough communication (perhaps other issues as well) to bring the scene together into a collaborative environment. They were distinct territories that didn’t overlap.

Another example is the Austin Independant Business Alliance and the Austin Chamber of Commerce. They have many common causes, yet they are not overtly cooperative — and in some instances they are oppositional (e.g., the Keep Austin’s Word campaign).

So, to continue Austin on a path of growth, and sustainable growth at that, Austin needs to find its identity. We need to help get the different scenes within Austin to be more open, collaborative, and engaged. I’m really excited to have met people who have been able to find the words to articulate the issue … now it’s time to find solutions!

Note: Steve, Bijoy, and Heather will be presenting this is a more complete and in-depth manner at the Interactive Austin 2009 conference in April.