Welcome back!  We hope the focus of this site, promoting strong local economies, has been clarified and your experience with using it will be enhanced.  You may have noticed that the site emails went on vacation for a while last summer.  It was clearly time for an overhaul, and we hope you like the results.  Click the "Read more" link to see what's new.

None of the site functions have really changed, we’ve just tried to make them more apparent and easy to use.  The site is first and foremost about building local economies, and for entrepreneurs.  The tools that are available for them are laid out pretty clearly now on the home page.  Check the “About” link above if you want more on the site's goals and history.

All of the usual social networking functions are still there, you can still form groups, communicate within groups, receive an email when someone posts to one of your groups, or not if you’d rather just log in and see what’s new from time to time.  And these functions do have a role in building local economies. 

You can find lots of opportunities for social networking on popular sites like Facebook as well as many local foods blogging sites.  By all means use this site to keep a group in touch if its interests include local economies, local food systems and related topics.

But here’s where the real opportunities lie, if you have a business idea or case, no matter how far you think you are from making it a reality, put it on the map and see how it might connect with what others are thinking.  Then connect and launch an entire network of locally owned businesses.  If you’re here because you just want to see more locally owned businesses in your community, see what you can do to help the business cases in your area connect, launch, grow and prosper.   Your community has what it takes, no matter where you live.