Merging Online with Face to Face

Before the Wii, there was a lot of criticism that video games were creating a fat and lazy generation of social and physically inept kids and young adults.

I've also noticed concerns about social media creating non-social hermits who can only communicate by text, tweet, or updating their Facebook status.

I'm sure there are a few of those around, but my experience has been the opposite.

Last week I took a road trip to Indianapolis, about 120 miles from my home in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The purpose?

I wanted to attend a mini-tweetup that was an informal gathering over dinner organized by Randy Clark.

The first time I met Randy face to face we were both panelists for a Social Media Fort Wayne Breakfast and he made the trip to town in blizzard conditions the night before. Randy, Kevin Mullett and I grabbed a late dinner the night before and formed a real traditional friendship.

My travels to Indianapolis last Thursday were in bright, sunny weather. I decided to combine business with pleasure and scheduled some meetings during the day with a couple of clients and future clients.

That evening as the 5 of us gathered and ate fried pickles and other goodies from Scotty's Brewhouse, I was thinking about how Randy was merging the online world with the offline world and keeping it real.

The focus of our conversation was, how can each of us help the others, or as Randy would say, what do you need, how can we (as individuals) help.

Several ideas and thoughts were exchanged.

This was not a bragging or competitive gathering, although for a few minutes we compared Klout scores.

(I found it surprising that others knew my Klout score and theirs and I had no idea what mine was since I had not checked for a few weeks.)

My challenge to you is to use social media to expand your world, not just for money, but for relationships.

I will be taking another trip to Indy next month to hang out with a few more of my twitter friends and make some new ones, and like this trip, I will combine it with some business meetings before hand.

And I also want to introduce you to people I've mentioned in today's update.

First the 5 who met for food and friendship:

Randy Clark. http://twitter.com/randyclarktko/

Allison Carter. http://twitter.com/AllisonLCarter/

Don Kincaid. http://twitter.com/DonKincaid/

Kit Wessendorf. http://twitter.com/KitWessendorf/

and me, Scott Howard. http://twitter.com/ScLoHo/

I also need to mention the place we met, Scotty's Brewhouse, in downtown Indy http://twitter.com/brewhouse

Two others:

Kevin Mullett http://twitter.com/kmullett Kevin has volunteered to keep the Social Media Breakfast Fort Wayne organized and is the one who introduced me to Randy.

The April #SMBFW is tomorrow morning. Click here for info: http://twitter.com/smbfw

And Amy Stark. http://twitter.com/AmyStark/ Amy is one of the first people in Indianapolis that I met through Twitter, and we grabbed lunch and while I was in town last week.

Coming Tuesday, I've got a chart that lists the pros and cons of the most popular social media platforms so you can decide which is best for you and your purposes.