I'm working my way slowly through the book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam . In a nutshell, which has to be pretty big because it's a hefty book, it's about social behaviors and the decline of them in the US - things like voting and participating in the political process at all levels, and engaging with volunteer and community efforts. Chapter six looks at Informal Social Connections. At paragraph two of the chapter he mentions the Yiddish words macher and schmoozer . That stopped me in my tracks for a moment. He continued to explain that fundamentally a macher is a doer, someone who makes things happen in the community. Whereas a schmoozer is a talker, a person with an active social life, someone who focuses on informal connections to others. And while it is certainly nice to sit and talk with someone, at the end of the day that's all a schmoozer does. Alternatively, the macher will sit and visit with you and then either your roped into helping or the macher...