My dog is named Charlie. I kind of wish we spelled it differently. She could be Charley, the same spelling that Steinbeck used in "Travels with Charley." But that's not the way we spelled it when we named her. I live with this mistake every day.

Charlie likes to be near me, but not next to me. She wants to be in the same room, or the near vicinity, but not really in touching distance. If I go outside, she goes outside but keeps her distance. When I come back inside, she goes to the other room and lies down in the dark. This is how she shows her affection.

Her community is us, the Buckley family, the kids of Manzanita Court, and the handful of dogs and dog owners she has come to know well in the 10 months since we got her. It has me thinking: what's my community? Who's in it? And how did they get here?

My community is my family, of course. That's obvious. I could say everybody has this but I know that's not really true. People who don't have families find it elsewhere: in sports, at church, or the bar. Older people are more likely to not have family.

Neighbors are my community. I somehow landed in this great neighborhood where I ended up enjoying the company of just about everybody within 20 houses of my own. There's a single woman a few houses down who drives too fast, has earphones on whenever I see her, and has barely said a word to me in five years. We have neighbors across the street whose kids play with my own nearly every day but have I said a word to them recently? Nope.

Then there's the neighborhood dads. For the last 5 years and maybe the next 2, we meet at the bus stop and chat like the old men at Starbucks. How's the snow report? What are your vacation plans? What, this Friday they're letting the kids out early? I live for it. I shuffle my kids out the door because I don't want to be late and miss the chatter. It's six minutes of standing around talking about nothing. I have Charlie with me, in my vicinity, because now she's used to this routine too. We both need that hit of community every morning.

My community is also the people I work with. Unlike my neighbors, who I liked out of luck, I get to design my work community. Being the CEO lets me influence my work community far more than I'd otherwise be able to. So of course I really like my coworkers. This is an important community. I'm going to spend more time with them than my neighbors and on some weeks, even more than my family. We're a community by choice, not by convenience. It feels good that we're all opting into it.

When I think about my place in these communities, I wonder if I'm like Charlie, in the vicinity of it, wanting to be near it, but not in the middle of it. Or do I want to be the center of attention, the orchestrator, the mayor of the community? I think my neighbors may put me closer to the mayor bucket. My coworkers certainly would. My wife is the mayor of the family. I think I'm happy to observe. I want to be known and noticed, but I'm not a center of attention kind of guy. I play the part when I have to, but I like assembling communities more than I like being in the center of them.

Some people build communities so they can be the center of it. The purpose of the community is to be that stage on which they perform. Others build community because that is their gift. Their satisfaction is seeing the community take on a life of its own.

I think I'm in that latter camp. I like to see my neighbors get along. I don't have to do much, and I played a more proactive role when I first moved here; now the social fabric has moved on. In my business, I'm a de facto orchestrator, but it too has assumed a life of its own. In my family, I'm important, but my wife is clearly in the middle of it.

I'm happy to be in the vicinity.