Erin Albert's Blog

So, I went to dinner at my brother’s house tonight (don’t let him know I said this, but he’s an AWESOME cook! I don’t cook.  I burn things.)  Anyway, his girlfriend, Traci, had a cut out laminated cartoon of a boy on the kitchen table.  I found this…odd.  Enquiring minds wanted to know.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It’s a flat Stanley,” she replied.

Ok, I usually think I’m semi-hip to stuff, but I had no idea what the hell a flat Stanley was.

Now I know.

One of her nephews was working on the project, where Flat Stanley had to travel to other places and have someone record his journey.  Kind of like the garden gnome in Amelie (LOVED that movie, BTW..!)  She was getting ready to send her nephew’s flat Stanley back to her nephew with a list of adventures he partook within while here in Indianapolis.

I have my very own little flat Stanley project – but sssshhhh…it’s top secret.  I can barely share it here on my blog.  But I think the Garden Gnome, or Flat Stanley projects can tell us something about ourselves. They are extraordinary tales about how we are all one, or how we are all socially connected to each other.  And this is the favorite part about such adventures by Flat Stanleys, Garden Gnomes, or…Bobbleheads (that’s as far as I can go on my own project).  These are fantastic exercises in social capitalism at its finest.  It is Whuffie!  It is a literal measurement of the power of social capital…and that rocks!

If you ever get a Garden Gnome, or a flat Stanley in your life, take it on a wild adventure!  You’ll surprise yourself at just how creative you can be, and all the while, you get to share your adventure with someone else along for the ride…

…not just flat Stanley, either!