Last week we were visited by author P.J. Bracegirdle, illustrator Susan Mitchell, their son Ewan and author Kevin Bolger. P.J. was in town to speak at a conference and we’d been talking with him about getting together since we first met him online a few years ago though our currently-on-extended-hiatus children’s book podcast, Just One More Book. It was a great evening talking about favourite children’s books, growing up, movies, careers and team building exercises.
These friendships and that fun evening wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for our blog and podcast. The same is true for our friendships with author Sheree Fitch who has visited us twice this year and author/illustrator Lee Edward Fodi whom I’ve visited a few times in Vancouver and who visited us when he was in Ottawa for the first time a few months ago.
This past weekend, Isabelle Michaud, Dave Brodbeck and their “kids” Madelaine and Jon visited us during their road trip back home to Sault Ste. Marie. They arrived midday Saturday and stayed overnight. We had a great visit with them, a visit that wouldn’t have happened if not for their podcast Broca’s Area, my Electric Sky Podcast and me co-creating the Canadian Podcast Buffet community and the PAB conference (both with Bob Goyetche) some years ago.
Today, Whitney Hoffman and her son Jon are arriving in Ottawa and spending a couple of nights at our place. Besides the adults spending time together at various conferences, our two families have gotten together a few times (Niagara Falls and Montreal). That friendship wouldn’t have happened if not for Whitney’s and my individual passions for podcasting and community building (and the encouragement of the aforementioned Bob) taking me to the first PodCamp Boston in September 2006.
I have many other stories of engagement and friendships I could tell you, all of which came about in a similar way and all of them about having an impact. Most of us connected folk would help (and have helped) out the others without a thought — both online and off. We would spend (and have spent) hours together chatting and developing ideas — both online and off. We may have at one time asked each other to broadcast a message to our extended networks for that quick promotional hit — that was before we knew and understood effective ways of online community building and long-term connections, rather than treating our other online connections as superficial distribution networks (a practice which seems rampant today).
The people who say digital communication and social networking is mundane, and those who direct their exclusive attention to the “key influencers” obviously haven’t tried the tools or figured out how to engage effectively.
Photo: Muchies by Andrea Ross.
The good news is Andrea’s completed two-thirds of her chemo program. If things continue to take place on schedule, we’ll be ringing the bell in the chemotherapy clinic sometime around 3 p.m. on April 1. No doubt I’ll have that event fully documented. (
Social media unconferences have unique advantages over their formal cousins — they attract people who use technology for social engagement. This means that most of the people who attend the event have a desire to connect with others even if their own personalities or anxieties make that difficult for them.
