Perfect strangers connecting

[tweetmeme]I’ve just added another perfect stranger to my blogging team.  He’s John Sawyer, and I met him on LinkedIn, specifically the Word Press Group.  He was among a group of strangers who were offering me advice when I ran into problems upgrading WordPress to the newest version.

He was so helpful I paid him to get me going again.  Now he’s my friend.  Have you noticed that you can become almost instant friends with perfect strangers you meet on the Internet?  I mean real people you want to have in your life.  The Internet has become a matchmaker.

There’s Bea Fields who was and still is my blogging coach and one of the most helpful and giving people I know.  I’ve never met her, but it hardly matters.  We talk every week on her “Blogging Mentor” program where other strangers I have never met convene to share tips.  I don’t want to forget Nina East, who set up my first blog for me.  Or Jeff Simpkins, a banking consultant whom I met through Bea and who co-hosts a weekly webinar with cool speakers on social media and other business topics.  Annie Hart is another pal who believes story telling can change the world.  Pat Weber is a new friend I connected with on LinkedIn’s Bloggers Helping Bloggers Group.  We’re cooking up an idea (that I won’t give away) for a series of guest posts on each others’ blogs.

Masses of Communicators

As I soon as I publish this, I’m sure I’ll remember a few more people I should have included (I’ll come back and add them).  But social media is taking the word “stranger” and modifying its meaning from “a person with whom one has had no personal acquaintance” to “a person one has not met in person.”  IBM’s social media policy coins a new term about their employees on social networks, “these individual interactions represent a new model:  not mass communications, but masses of communicators.” That is what we have become, masses of perfect strangers interacting with other individuals, learning about each other, influencing each others’ behaviors — and changing the world?

Communications and training are essential for any company.  Based on my experience as SVP Marketing Director of the Bowery Savings Bank, I have direct knowledge of how important it is for community bankers.  If you’re interested, you can read two blogs I wrote for the Community Bank Consulting Blog  “Why Community Bankers have never had it so good and 10 things they can do to make it even better” and “Why banks can’t afford not to train their employees.”  Your comments are welcomed.

Jeff Simpkins, CEO of Community Bank Consulting, also hosts a free weekly webinar Free Webinar Wednesdays that features guests who talk about a variety of topics of interest to all businesses.  Recent topics included Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in Plain English” and “Using Facebook for Promotion — Both Personally and Professionally.”  Click on the link to register for the webinars.

My colleague Amy Dean, president of Key Word Communication, and I will be presenting  “Inside Out Public Relations” on Wednesday, August 19th.  Stay tuned for  more details.

My colleague Jeff Simpkins recently wrote a post, Ideal Clients, that was quite touching in its definition of an ideal client.  Jeff is CEO of Community Bank Consulting and Book Yourself Solid and here is what he said:

I am currently leading a group through a program called Book Yourself Solid.  The program is based on the book of the same name written by Michael Port.  I have modified the work for community banks and am seeing amazing results!

I have been a teacher/instructor, consultant/coach for nearly twenty years.  One of the things I love most about my work is when I am reminded how helping others be successful teaches me as much or more than I am teaching them.

I was working with someone earlier today on an exercise in which we describe our ideal clients.  Here is an answer I received:  “When I am working with an ideal client my heart overflows with warmth and love for them.”

It’s sometimes easy to forget that we do our best work when our hearts overflow with warmth and love!

Wishing you only ideal clients!