So let’s review some of the headlines from Knight Soul of the Community project that I’ve covered in the last three blogs. The community features most associated with a loved place are social offerings, aesthetics and openness. Basically people most love places where they enjoy the opportunities for positive social interaction, in an environment that they find attractive, where it feels easy for them and others to belong. And when people love their place, the place grows better economically—just as with people, loved places do better.
When reviewing the community features most associated with the loved place, an easy parallel can be drawn between people with places, and people with people. When we search for a partner, we prioritize someone who we enjoy doing things with and have fun with, find attractive, and feel a sense of belonging and acceptance with.
It was that parallel that, if you’ve read Place Match you know, occurred to me live and on-stage during a keynote in Ottawa, that inspired me talk about place science in terms of finding and keeping the right partner. The more I applied that framework through the book, previous blogs, and talks, the more I found that the application was an easy to digest one.
In recent weeks, I have been beta testing a new, very short quiz that diagnoses your current relationship status with your place and produces a customized prescription for navigating that particular stage. At the end of the quiz, there are six possible outcome relationship statuses with your place:
Dating:
- First Dates
- Exclusively Dating
Married:
- Newlywed
- Old Married Couple
Divorce:
- Looking Around
- Starting Over
You can probably guess some of the meanings, tasks, strengths, and challenges of each of those statuses – because we have all been through some version of each in our interpersonal relationships! My goal with the quiz is to help you better understand what your current relationship status is in your place so you can be more cognizant as you continue to manage that relationship. From there, you can better know where you are, what it means, and the potential impact your status is likely having in your own quality of life so you can be more deliberate in the relationship.
I’m excited to officially launch the quiz today! It’s very short, simple, and user-friendly, so give it a shot below. And though it does not necessarily have the scientific rigor of my research on the ground in places, the beta testing did reveal that users reported it as being highly accurate in predicting their perceived relationship status and the resulting prescriptions as being validating and useful to them.
So what are you waiting for? See what you get, ask your friends and family to take it, share your results on social media, and tag or share with me so I can see too. Soon, I want to start engaging with you in our own online community and social media chats, so your results can serve as your invitation to discuss this more and go even further in the future!