For Rotary and BNI, membership is all about this 'Power Question'

By: Jim Blasingame, Contributing Writer Milwaukee Business Journal

It was 120 years ago when a lawyer named Paul J. Harris moved his practice to Chicago. Harris enjoyed the new opportunity his adopted city afforded, but he missed the friendly relationships he remembered from growing up in a small Vermont town.

One fall day in 1900, while walking around the Windy City’s North Side with Bob Frank, Harris noticed the connections his friend had made with local shopkeepers and it made him long for this kind of interaction. He wondered if, like himself, other professionals who had emigrated from rural America to the big cities might be experiencing the same feeling of loss.

Over the next few years, Harris couldn’t stop asking himself this question: Could such human connection activity be channeled into organized settings for professionals and business people?