Ben Huh from I Can Has Cheeseburger has written this really awesome column for Think Vitamin on building community.  He has 15 rock solid tips.  Read it.

(Photo by Jared Goralnick of John Coston, Nick Whitmoyer, Doris Steere, Me, and Tony Via)

Today,  a few of my friends got together and we ate some tasty dim sum style Chinese cuisine at a restaurant in Arlington, Virginia.   We had a fantastic time.   After that, we went to Arlington coffee shop Murky Coffee and just hung out.  It was also fantastic.

This all got me thinking…

It seems like for most of my life the communities I’ve participated in have had some physical location that have gone with them.  With my high school friends, we’d always hang out at this one Mexican restaurant in Lansing, MI.  When I was a freshman in college, one of our friends’ dorm rooms just somehow became the defacto dorm room that we all went to hang out in.  Later in my college years, we all spent our time at the campus coffee shops. Now it’s Murky Coffee.

If you look at popular culture, you will see a similar theme.  I’m currently hooked on the TV show “How I Met Your Mother”.  In the show, the cast spends all their time at the bar MacLarens.   The TV show Frasier had “Cafe Nervosa.”  The TV show Cheers was completely based around the idea of friends getting together at a bar.

In a place like Washington DC, achieving community is tough.   Everyone is super ambitious and super busy.  People live in geographically spread out areas.  Yet, if you want to build community, you need that kitchen table time.

You need that time where you’re just sitting around a table and talking.  You need to do it often.  It shouldn’t be something that’s on a schedule. It should be spontaneous. Life doesn’t live itself by the schedule on my iPhone.

This time is what makes your community strong.

Thus far for me, the place has been Murky Coffee.  Sometimes it’s just me and then I’ll do work on my laptop which is just about always with me.  Often, I’ll tweet about being there, some folks will show up, and we have a great time.  Also… I’ve been telling more folks that I hang out there and when I hang out there so I’ve started just running in to people.

Murky has many of the ingredients for a great common spot.  It has lots of seating, great coffee, free wifi,  kind of centrally located, and it’s pretty chill.

So does your community have a place that it gets together? If so, where?

My buddy Nate Westheimer has a good post about “egoless community organizing.”

There has been all this discussion, especially with in the Washington DC tech community,  around whether someone with a strong personal brand can work on a team where they’re serving the team and not just serving themselves.

I think Nate hits the nail on the head when he writes that they key is, “creating a culture where people ‘stay focused on the mission, as opposed to personal ambition.’ “

I think it’s one of the reasons why Clearspring has been so successful.  Despite there being a lot of industry rockstars here that have had some pretty massive accomplishments,  there is a culture where we’re all focused on the mission of  ”helping publishers and marketers extend their reach to the leading social networks, start pages and blogs and to respond to growing consumer demand for a more personalized desktop, Web, and mobile experience.”

For the last week, I’ve been home in Lansing, MI and spending time with my parents.  It’s been wonderful.  It’s always great spending time with your family.  Bummed my sister and bro-in-law weren’t able to make it up but it was still a great time.

One thing which has made our family so tight and strong is that we spend a lot of time sitting around the kitchen table.  Whether it’s eating, drinking, playing a game, or just talking, we spend a lot of time sitting around the kitchen table. (Our favorite family games are Sequence, Scrabble, and Canasta. )

During this time, we compare notes about what’s going on in each other’s lives.  We talk about what’s going on in the world and locally.

One of the biggest things that I’ve learned in 2008 is that if you want to build a tight community, whether it’s a family, company, or user base,  you need some kitchen table time.

You need to have some type of time where you’re spending time together and just getting to know one another.  You need to be in the position where you look at your community members like members of your family.

This means you need to find your community members and invest in them.  You have to show them that you love them.

It could be as easy as taking someone out for lunch or saying “hey I’m proud of you!”.  You have to show that you care and completely into what they’re saying and doing.

When you have this tight bond, you’ll see communities that will be able to do some pretty amazing things together.

If I mentioned that Michigan has a substantial number of wineries, most of you’d probably say, “Michigan has wineries?!?”  There are actually wineries all over Michigan.  (You can find more info at MichiganWines.com.)

Today I went with my parents to Haslett, Michigan’s Burgdorf Winery to check out their winery.  They don’t grow their own grapes or fruit (they have some awesome fruit wines) but they buy the grape & fruit and then make and sell the wine in this pretty massive addition that put on their house.  It was good.  I walked out of their with a bottle  that I’ll be brining back with me to Washington, DC.

But… unless someone would have told you about Burgdorf, chances are that you would have never have found it.  Much like most Michigan wineries (or so it seems), they completely depend on word-of-mouth as the way to get the word out.

It seems like the Michigan Wine community is in desperate need of a face.  It’s needs an evangelist or a community manager.  It needs a person that you can see and have a relationship with.   It’s in the need of someone who’s going to go out into the world and tell everyone about the wonders of Michigan wine.

Why hasn’t there been more Michigan wine on Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library TV?

It’d be great if someone did a video blog that chronicled their journeys from winery to winery… talking to wine makers along the way.

You could go around the country and hold tasting parties where you showcase Michigan wine.

Have you had Michigan wine?  If so, what do you think?

What’s a community that you think needs a face?