I love the word potpourri. Because if I am using it, then it means that I get to write about a whole bunch of stuff.

This whole bunch of stuff has a common theme. That theme is really a question. How can we take control of our own fate when the fates seem to conspire against us?

Actually, I am going to focus this column on three things: The CurveCard, the city’s Neighborhood Program and our own My Renton. While disparate, they are intertwined because at their core they unite people at a time when we need to stand together to overcome our challenges.

The CurveCard

Let’s start with the CurveCard, the most visible part of the “Shop Renton, Buy Ahead of the Curve” marketing campaign designed to bring together Renton businesses and shoppers. There’s no need to go into detail why that’s necessary in these recessionary times.

The campaign, launched last summer, is the brainchild of the Renton Community Marketing Campaign, the City of Renton and the Renton Chamber of Commerce. The Renton Reporter gladly helps create “buzz” about this unique campaign.

Now the successful campaign is continuing into this year. There are about 68,000 CurveCards in wallets and about 200 businesses participating with special deals and discounts of their choosing. Look for a Shop Renton decal posted prominently at a participating business.

The city’s economic development team continues to recruit businesses for the campaign. And more CurveCards are going to go out, including hundreds at events this spring involving the Seahawks and The Landing.

There’s a key message for businesses, too. The marketing campaign can provide tools to help grow a business. But it’s the business owner who has to wield that tool.

The campaign will continue as long as the response is strong and the need remains to help local businesses.

I was struck by something Armondo Pavone said in a story I did about a business partnership his restaurant, Armondo’s, has with Uwajimaya, along with Go Deli.

In these tough times, he says, it’s easy to complain about no one sitting in your business. “You need to do something about it,” he said.

To do something about it, contact the City of Renton Department of Community and Economic Development at 425-430-6582 or e-mail dced@rentonwa.gov. That’s how to get the Shop Renton decals or CurveCards.

The neighborhoods

Renton’s neighborhoods need tending, too. That’s why I am a big fan of the Renton’s award-winning Neighborhood Program.

I had the privilege of attending the program’s annual leaders workshop Saturday for the nearly 60 recognized neighborhoods in the city.

“We get a lot of mileage out of our neighborhood program,” Mayor Denis Law told the attendees.

The general topic was something important to me – communications, especially in the Internet age. After some fun with paper airplanes (I am definitely not a Boeing engineer), a representative from each table talked about successful ways to reach out to neighbors and some raised roadblocks faced to good communications.

We all get twisted into knots about how to use a blog or Twitter or a Web site. If you get too twisted, just remember that a low-tech “sandwich board” is effective and easy to use and doesn’t require any power.

Too often, we take for granted one basic tool, an understanding of English.

Renton is diverse; not everyone speaks English. That’s no more apparent than in newer neighborhoods such as Liberty Ridge where it’s possible to walk down the street and hear any number of foreign languages spoken. A successful neighborhood has to figure out how to engage everyone, no matter their native tongue.

Oh, and by the way, the title of the workshop was “Together We Can.”

My Renton

All this brings me to My Renton, a not-so-new addition to rentonreporter.com that allows my staff – and more importantly, you – to drill down into your neighborhood.

Part of my reason for attending the workshop was to speak, along with Sound Publishing’s New Media guru, Seth Long, about My Renton and encourage the neighborhoods to use this free service on our Web site.

My Renton really does belong to you. We just happen to host it and add highly local content to the site as frequently as we can. But the real value of My Renton is that you and your neighborhoods can use My Renton to share your stories, videos and photos amongst yourselves and with the entire city.

My Renton is another tool to use to connect with each other. It’s like the CurveCard in that respect. We are stronger if we stick together.

One final thought: The title of that famous sculpture along the Cedar River near the Renton Senior Center is “We’re all in this boat together.”