Twitter serendipity
Last Friday (November 14), the night before the SNCR research symposium in Cambridge, about 20 social media fans got together at Vox Populi for drinks, food, drinks, camaraderie, and drinks. Did I mention drinks?
John Wall put the event together and spread the word through Twitter, making the gathering an official tweetup. Among those who attended, I’d either already met them, had communicated with them through any number of channels (i.e., friends I hadn’t met yet), or at least knew who they were (I finally got to meet Steve Garfield). But one fellow who attended was an unknown to me.
Turns out he was in town on business from Brussels—just a two-day trip—and caught wind of the tweetup on (where else?) Twitter. It was nearby, so he decided to drop by. His name: Christian De Neef, who works in the knowledge management realm and is also a content management expert.
I sat next to Christian at dinner at Vox; we had a great conversation. He asked about SNCR, I filled him in. Before dinner ended, he said he’d drop by the Hotel Marlowe, site of the symposium, with a box of Belgian chocolate.
Christian didn’t disappoint, showing up with a huge box of Neuhaus. (If Godiva is your idea of Belgian chocolate, wait until you taste Neuhaus.) He tweeted that he was on his way, which I mentioned to Francois Gossieaux, a native of Belgium and Boston resident, who was at the symposium presenting the results of the “Tribalization of Business” study.
Francois recounted another use of Twitter with a Belgian connection. He had just arrived in Brussels to visit his ailing father and wanted nothing more than to get out of the Brussels train station; he said as much in a tweet. A reply came moments later from someone who worked nearby and would be happy to pick Francois up and take him where he needed to go.
When Christian arrived at the symposium, Francois realized it was the same guy.
Even with 3 million people using Twitter, it can still be a small world and a great venue for making new connections. I’ve always been fascinated by knowledge management, so knowing Christian is not just cool from a social perspective, but also from the professional angle. I’m following Christian now on Twitter and plan to move him on LinkedIn from two degrees away to a direct connection.
Do you have a story about Twitter serendipity to share?
Nice example of Twitter’s practical value, Shel. Have delicious’d it. (And my goodness, you must be working late on a Saturday night).
Posted by Al Shaw on 11/23 at 12:33 AMHi Shel—thank you for telling this story. It does feel good when humanity emerges from the use of technology.—Francois
Posted by Francois Gossieaux on 11/23 at 05:38 AMWOW! Thank you for this! I don’t think I deserved this in any way… What your story doesn’t say, is that everyone on the SNCR event was actually quite lucky, because the box of chocolates was originally intended for the Thursday night tweetup, but the chocolates remained waiting in my hotel room! I was not going to travel back home with those chocolates, was I? Which is how they ended up at the SNCR event!
It was great meeting you all, new and valuable connections in an ever more connected world… Thank you again! (and an extra thank you to Andrea Tobor for pointing me to this blog post)
Posted by Christian DE NEEF on 11/23 at 07:41 PMIt was a pleasure meeting you, Christian—and I hope we’ll stay in touch.
Posted by Shel on 11/24 at 05:30 PM
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