Hey, it's Manou, host of New Tech City.

You're going to get something a little different from us today.

Two stories about trying to figure out how tech is changing the way you can communicate

with the people around you, not your friends, your family, or even your co-workers, but

your neighbors.

That's mad.

I'm living on this block.

31 years.

On this block.

Around the corner.

The rest of my life.

You know?

In a minute, we're going to hit the Appalachian Trail.

But first, let's go back to Brooklyn.

The woman you just heard is my neighbor, Joe.

So that's all I ever did was sit on the stoop with the kids.

Joe spends a lot of her time on the stoop of her apartment building, sitting in her green

canvas folding chair, smoking cigarettes, and keeping tabs on our block in Brooklyn.

I have absolutely no idea what Joe does for a living.

We aren't Facebook friends or LinkedIn.

But I do know that her daughter's home in Staten Island was flooded by Sandy, and that

when he was little, her son, Jeffrey, was very late to potty training.

...