The event
I attended my first ever Social Media Breakfast today, having missed the first two… being overseas and all. I hear it’s been getting better and better, so kudos to the team, especially Daryl and Claudia for holding the fort this weekend! Have I missed out any hidden backstage heroes? Give a shoutout and that will be rectified, fast!

I guess it is always nice to be able to put a face to all the online characters that we converse with daily, because face-to face interaction still remains top priority for me at the end of the day. The internet and all it’s connectivity is just a tool for me to sustain certain relationships that are important for me, but certainly no substitute.

Bringing online communities offline
I thought it was pretty timely then, that I came across this post- Why Bringing Your Online Community Offline is So Crucial“, because it is true. At the end of the day, we are all social beings (Online social media geeks or not, ha!) and getting to meet like minded people who believe in what you do is basically analogous to having a gym buddy. We all need that periodic encouragement and boost, someone we are “accountable” to or someone to motivate us to keep going, and vise versa of course!

Personally, I’ve always found it easier to sustain friendships that were cultivated offline first, then taken online, rather than vise versa. Of course, I attribute this to the older ways of interaction that we are all accustomed to, and I would not be surprised if there would be (or already is) a directional change in the flow of interactions.

Perhaps this is different in working relationships. Many of the people I work with now, I either have never met, or have only interacted with online, or mostly online. And at the end of the day, the job still gets done. The beauty of technology (when it works!).

Feedback?

My only comment about the event would be about the slightly disruptive “announcements” that occurred in the middle of the introductions and brunch, in which people had already started to mingle and chat. Everyone sat down to listen, and I had been expecting some sort of guided discussion, since they had put out a topic…but I did feel a little “lost” when we all realized after the announcements, that we could still go on with our own conversations.

I guess it was because everyone gathered and sat around the little separate islands of chairs around the ballroom, and something in the dynamics just changed there and then for me.

Other than that, food was great, central location, comfortable ambiance and wonderful hosts who made sure that everyone was comfortable as promised! It was fun. Pictures coming in next post!