‘Le Tour’, the boy’s annual 3 day hockey trip to Montreal (from Toronto) was a fantastic time. I see friends that I have known most of my life, but now see once a year. The conversation picks up from where we left off exactly a year ago. We actually look forward to the 7 hour bus ride. Just meeting at the rink to play hockey would kill the whole event.
A community is a powerful thing.
I miss my community in Toronto. I have my family and oldest best friends that live there. I have a huge amount of time invested. The good news is the give back. Each time I return to the community, I feel rejuvenated as I see familiar faces and fall easily back onto the community routine. As big a community as I have in Toronto, little changes.
In the internet world, communities are the buzzword but so few have really developed. It’s a combination of time and distance. It is hard to speed up time, but everyday that ticks by helps. The distance issue is being solved with blogs and wicked internet tools like WordPress and MyBlogLog.
On the internet, I have used MyBlogLog to build a small community around my blog. I see the familiar faces and can quickly meet the new faces.
When I visit other blogs that I like (I do not use RSS), I see some familiar faces and some that have never frequented my blog (their faces are familiar to that blog).
If I were to go on a golf or hockey trip with the top 20 readers of my blog that I have not met, it would not be like we were meeting for the first time, even though most would be from differnet cities, even countries, it would be energized and people could fall into good conversation right away as if they were old friends.
That’s power.
It makes me feel like we are so early in this revolution of blogging and the more we invest the more we will get back – finally. Some amazing things are starting to get done with internet communities but it is just getting started. The leverage one should be able to achieve on the internet is both exciting and daunting.
I have lot’s more to say on this subject.
I don’t go golfing with people who come to my site, leave comments that they will add me, and than leave me hanging. :) But you are a father and leaving people hanging is what they are best at, or at least mine was…lol.
But seriously, I got turned on to MBL by you and I must say it has been worth it. Knowing who comes to ones site and being able to look them in the eye so to speak brings, as you mentioned, a closeness that comes just about as close to “meeting” someone short of actually meeting them.
It actually makes me thing of the next step which when I have more time I will tell you about.