Rust Valley

Perhaps the best life hack I’ve ever been involved with. This genius algorithm was invented by my partner, Beth, and it solves that basic problem that anyone who moves to a new town has: where the heck is the $X here (for values of $X to include (”dentist”, “zoo”, “mechanic”, “Thai place”, “cheap beer” and so on).  In short, how does this new town work?

The Rules

We implemented this algorithm this past weekend and it worked astonishingly well. I strongly recommend this process for anyone moving to a new city. In short:

1. Move to a new city.
2. Unpack like mad (you have to eventually so just do it up front)
3. Schedule a housewarming party. Invite anyone you know and many that you don’t.
4. Ask that people bring references, suggestions, helpful tips as housewarming presents.
5. Give them presents from your previous town, neighborhood, city or country as thanks.

It really is that simple. Let me outline the whole process in considerably more detail for those of you inclined to replicate our success in your own relocation experience.

1. I think you have to start by moving to a new city, but I’m not positive it wouldn’t work somewhere that you already lived. The essence is that you don’t know much about your general surroundings and any information (even recommendations of unknown quality from untrusted sources) is preferable to nothing.

2. Unpacking is a nice side-benefit to the process. It’s important that you be mostly unpacked and settled when you have a bunch of people over to your house, but it’s also important that you do this quickly, or you’ll lose momentum. In our case, we moved to Pittsburgh at the beginning of July and had the party on Sunday, the 20th. So we only had about 2.5 weeks for settling in.

3. This part may involve some Pittsburgh magic, I’ll admit, but I honestly believe you can carry this off in a less-fantastic town, although probably with more effort. You schedule a party and invite people. If you know anyone at all in the new town, you should invite them. Your neighbors on all sides? Invite them. The person you have spoken to twice at the neighborhood cafe? Invite them. The plumber who fixed that horrible leak in the ceiling and seemed like a nice guy? Invite him.

In our case we had two amazing advantages that did start us off ahead of the pack: Claire Shanley and Pittsburgh.

Claire is a connector in the social graph sense. She knows 10 times as many people as you. Maybe 100 times as many. Seriously. And unlike you and I, who can barely successfully maintain relationships with a handful of friends and family, Claire actually maintains her relationships with thousands of people. Beth and I know Claire from College. Claire is from Pittsburgh, so when we decided to move here, we got introductions to tons of great people. Unquestionably this whole endeavor would have been harder without her assistance.

The second great advantage we had in this project was Pittsburgh itself. I think Ted Kaczynski could show up in this city drunk, homeless and holding a bomb and could make three friends by the end of the day. People here are crazy friendly.

Amazing Robot Art

Example:  on Friday night we went to meet Andrea (friend of the aforementioned Claire, of course) at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts for the opening of an incredibly cool robot art exhibit. At the event Andrea introduced us to Jason Simmons who runs This is Happening. We invited Jason to the party two days hence and he arrived with his S.O., Nikki, who brought the most bad-ass ginger rhubarb coffeecake ever. They also brought a wealth of fantastic suggestions. Invite strangers. What do you have to lose?

The Recommendations

4. Ask for suggestions for how to settle in to your new city. Our evite text read:

What to bring: Bring a referral for something in Pittsburgh (dentists, babysitters, car mechanic, fun stuff to do, pediatrician, grocery store, breakfast place, pizza place, noodle shop, Indian take-out, place on the Strip, hair dresser, park, playground, etc.) and be entered into our raffle — fun prizes can be yours! We know nothing, we need referrals for everything!

But the suggestions ran far afield of that. The fun part is that people will tell you what they think you should know rather than what you have asked for. Which makes more sense anyway, since you don’t know anything anyway.

Gifts for the Guests

5. Give your guests gifts to thank them for their generosity. We moved here from New Hampshire and Beth procured a ton of local products before we left, with this specific scheme in mind. Have I mentioned how wily she is yet? She bought Farnum Hill hard cider, Long Trail beer, Lake Champlain chocolates and so on. We had gifts for 20 or so contributors and managed to give out almost all of them.

The gifts are a nice way of bridging your old life and your new. You don’t have much of value to offer to your house guests at this point in your new life but you can give them something small, tangible, and tasty from your old life. People seemed to appreciate that.

That’s the whole story.  Try this the next time you move.  It’s simple and amazingly successful.

But wait, I hear you saying, “Where the heck are all of these suggestions?” If you want to know what our house guests recommended for Pittsburgh, swing by tomorrow and I’ll have something ready to show.