I’ve been thinking about condominiums.  Or more precisely, about the people in condominiums.

What is a condominium anyway?  Or more precisely, who is a condominium?  What is this human system, this group of people?

You’ve got people living in close proximity to each other — maybe dozens.  Is it a family?  But they don’t have the bonds of biological relation or marriage.  So maybe not.

Many of the people living in condos own their unit, and it’s a big investment — maybe their biggest. So is it a business?  Yet they buy without having done any sort of due diligence really, not the kind they would if they were starting a real business relationship. They may not have even met their neighbors.  So, not really.

People in condos band together in a governing body.  So is it an association? But most of them have joined without having ever been to meetings, without knowing it’s work or it’s mission.  So maybe, not so much.

If it looks like a duck, honks like a goose and swims like a fish, what the heck is it?

I suggest that maybe it’s all these things.  And more.  A condominium association can be as many different things as the people in it see it as.

Some will see it as an extended family or community.  Others will see it as a investment business.  Others as a non-profit association.  Many will not understand that others see it differently.  Many will understand others see it differently, and think that the others are just plain wrong.

Let’s call it a system.  Take all these people, lump them in close proximity together, bind them in a joint economic/investment venture, and stir them up in a governing association.  Give each person a different perception of what the group is, and how it should work.  Now for catalyst, throw in a dash of a man’s home is is castle (careful — a little of this goes a long way).  Now you’ve got a rich mash-up of human interest here!

That’s a lot of energy.  Which means there is great potential, either for generating friction and heat or creating productive work. Want more of one and less of the other? Give me a buzz or drop a line. Let’s talk about it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 25th, 2010 at 11:05 am and is filed under Conflict. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.