College Sorority 101

Atlanta Panhellenic has announced its annual College Sorority 101 informational event for high school girls and their families. Click the image above to download your own flyer.

No doubt if you are headed to college you've heard about sorority life - either from friends or relatives, or from TV and movies.

This is your chance to meet sorority women in person, including collegians, alumnae and some national leaders of NPC sororities and ask any question you have about recruitment, requirements and what to expect from sorority life in the 21st century.  And I do mean any questions.

This informational is important for anyone considering formal recruitment for sorority membership.  If you are not familiar with sororities in real life, you will learn first-hand what you can expect.  If your mom or aunt or other older relative were in a sorority, AAPA would love to see all of you because a lot has changed since their college days.

Please RSVP online at www.atlantapanhellenic.org.
Your information will not be shared; it is only to plan for the number of guests and to contact you in case of any changes.

MS Office Live free business websites is going off into the sunset

If you have been using Microsoft Office Live Small Business and their "free" small business DIY website service, get ready for a change.

Office Live is morphing into Office 365.  The key difference for you is that now it costs money to host your site with Microsoft.  The FAQ section at the site above quotes $15 per month with a free trial period.  You have until April 30, 2012 to decide what to do with your website.

If you stick with MS, you still have to manually move all of your text and images and whatever else you have on your Office Live website onto the new one with Office 365.

Before you decide make sure to read up on all of the features that are going to be available and take some time to determine if they are going to meet your needs.

If MS Office 365 has the interactive features that you need, then all you have to do is recreate your website.

Is the new offering is too much tool (or the wrong tools) for too much money?  You have other low-cost options.    Some small businesses can get away with using WordPress or even Google's Blogger to create their sites.  Or you may need a custom hosted solution.  Either way, don't forget a custom design to broadcast your brand.

Drop me a line if you need to review your options for your MS Office business site.  I can create a theme for your solution that looks just like or better than what you created in Microsoft.  While we're at it, let's make sure that all of your business communication needs are met in the transfer process.

Dunwoody Rezoning: T minus 7 hours and counting

It's finally here, the beginning of the zoning rewrite.  A standing group meeting on a large project has monopolized  my Tuesday nights so I doubt I'll be one of the throng at Dunwoody Baptist Church tonight.

Here's the news announcement from Patch:
http://dunwoody.patch.com/articles/city-begins-zoning-rewrite-process-tonight-with-public-input-meeting

Here's Duncan|Associates that Dunwoody City Hall hired for the project.  (No relation)
http://www.duncanassociates.com/index.php

Here's the guy heading up the project in Dunwoody.  You'll probably see him around tonight
http://www.duncanassociates.com/index.php?page=resume&resume=KirkBishop&name=Kirk%20Bishop&position=Vice-President

Here's his email address:  kirk@duncanassociates.com

The descriptions of the company's past projects aren't specific as to how they rewrote codes, only that they did to make them more internally consistent, streamlined, etc.  This is a good thing.  But there's no clue as to how they're going to implement that here.  As I type this there are closed door meetings happening with the usual groups, which will probably be speaking again at the public meeting tonight.

I've already posted what type of approach to zoning will benefit the most residents in the long term.

Specifically, a solid zoning code has to have a clear, practical definition of "nuisance".  Find a way to make that word an objective, measurable benchmark by which all activities and complaints are measured.  As long as "nuisance" is subjective, any ordinance built on it is a house of cards waiting to fall.

Every resident in Dunwoody wants their neighborhood to be an enjoyable one where it is peaceful to live.  The problem comes from the fact that there is no unified agreement as to what that entails.  There has always been a spectrum of opinions on what constitutes "residential" and that spectrum became clearer after incorporation.  My personal thing about home businesses is only one of the questions being raised.  Don't forget the "urban farmers", the "backyard chickens", the "alternate transportation" and other causes that are questioning the definition of a "residential" activity.  Those questions are not going away.  Fighting at City Hall every single time a new idea comes into fashion is a waste of the city's time and money and residents' energy.

There is one thing that will decimate a community's quality of life more than home businesses, more than backyard chickens, and more than any other "new" activity to be dreamed up.  That one thing is a reputation as "The City Of 'NO' ".  When the entire life of a city is defined by one group within it, and anyone deviating from it is considered an "auslander" to be avoided or suppressed you're going to end up attracting fewer and fewer people to be a part of the city.  The result is, the quality of life that is supposed to be preserved becones "groupthink" and crosses over into stagnation.  What some will find ironic is to preserve a certain lifestyle, it's necessary to find common ground and coexistence within that spectrum of thought.

Not every lifestyle or activity is going to be workable within the city.  I would like to see the starting point of the discussion be an attempt at coexistence, rather than immediate barriers to growth and differentiation.

For tonight, I hope those attending avoid three "H"s:
Hysteria
Hyperreaction
Hyperbole

Let's see if we can get through the night without overreacting to different opinions, dire warnings about "slippery slopes" or just making up a bunch of nonsense because someone doesn't like another idea.

Hell, if this ordinance code ends up getting written well enough, you might even convince me that chickens aren't so bad!