I’ll be honest. I used to be pretrified going to conferences. You never know anyone and for those who do know each other, they form their little cliques and keep outsiders out. I would escape the lonliness by looking “busy” on my laptop or blathering in the hallways on my cellphone. All so I could look like I was connected to something, someone.
However, over the past 12-months, I can now go to conferences and know I’ll never be alone. All I need to do is see the list of registrants and I know someone will meet me at the airport or meet me in the lobby of the hotel or meet me for dinner.
My blog and my podcast has done alot to raise my profile. Barbara Bradbury, who I met a year ago in my 90-Day Podcast course, calls this Fast Track Relationships. You get to know someone by reading their thoughts and hearing their voice. You communicate back to them using comments or networking at events. This creates a relationship.
Now, I’m not talking about Twitter, what Mitch Joel calls Permission Based Stalking. There’s a creep factor to Twitter that I’m not comfortable with, especially since I get enough creepy emails from “admirers” in my inbox. The last thing I need as a single woman is for one of them to appear at some event I’m at just because I “twitted” about it. Being watched, followed and gazed at virtually is way too uncomfortable for me.
Some of you may say – Leesa, that’s happening right now with your blog and podcast, so what’s the difference? The difference is that blogs and podcasts seem to encourage a culture of response – people feel compelled to be part of the conversation by leaving their comments or emailing their feedback. My recent post on my troubles getting into my locked hotel room generated 2 comments and 2 emails. It had nothing to do with podcasting, yet due to the culture of response, people felt the need to share their stories.
Just like everything in life, a relationship can only be called that if there’s mutual interaction between both parties. I met Barbara in my course. For 1-hr a week over 12-weeks, we interacted with one another. We then maintained that relationship by commenting on each other’s blogs and podcasts. Then, the icing on the cake was meeting her in person while I was in London.
Fast Track Relationships or Permission Based Stalking – which do you prefer?
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Leesa I can’t imagine you having trouble making friends. You’re a delightful, smart and engaging person. It doesn’t hurt that you also blog and podcast.
While I’ve never been nervous about attending a conference, I do agree that there’s a special feel to our industry events. I too look forward to seeing people I either know or FEELl like I know, because of their new media efforts.
Tacking on to what Jason said, I think there’s one other factor in play here. Since podcasting and its associated stuff is all part of a new industry, there’s a certain chumminess to be found by people sharing an untried trail. The normal comfortable distance maintained by competitors in established industy categories is gone. We’re all busy BUILDING an industry. The competition will come later.
While the competitive forces that drive people apart will no doubt find our corner of the business world, I hope we always (all of us) maintain the spirit of cooperation and friendship we have now.
I, too, used to find it uncomfortable going to conferences when I did not know anyone. I think Jason’s point about social media conferences is accurate – people attending them are used to communicating and are likely to be more sociable at the outset. In addition, if they have already built a relationship with you virtually, by listening to your podcasts, reading your blogs and any of your publications, you are already on the next level of communication.
Your last point reminds me how important it is for people to be authentic in their podcasts and blogs. If not, they will eventually be “found out” – and, I suggest, this may be detrimental to them.
Great meeting you at last!
Your last sentence there, Leesa, makes me comments, because: isn´t there a difference between bloggers and podcasters/bloggers? I think it is easier for people to be false and pretend if they are “only” blogging, whereas you as a podcaster have a lot of other communicative tools, eg. your voice, and that makes it really hard to lie.
Jason, you have a marvelous way of tying my ideas together and making my ramble seem coherent.
I do agree that social media is the ice breaker. In the case of Barbara, I was able to ask about her children by name because over the past year, she has podcasted about them and talked about them in great detail that I feel like I know them.
The drawback to using social media to build relationships is that it creates a false image of who that person is in your mind. Not fake, just false. I remember meeting a guy who seemed so attentive on his blog and then I met him in person and he was scattered. Or, the person may sound articulate on their blog, but then I meet the person and they’re cursing like a sailor.
I was surprised by the number of people who knew who I was in the UK. It was great. I had instant friends. These were people who read my blog or listened to my podcast. And the great thing is that I gained a lot by talking to these people and hope to keep in touch with them.
I think that is something unique about podcasting, blogging and social media conferences–they deal with an industry that is about interacting and connecting online. By the time you hit the conference, the “heavy-lifting” of breaking the ice is taken care of and you can connect in some really interesting ways with other attendees.
If you go to at least 1 a year, you must head out to the Podcast Expo held in California each September. If you’re a podcaster, you can’t miss that one.
Like you, Norvell, I too prefer Fast Track Relationships.
I would like to make to the conferences but with financial responsibilities as well a healthy young family it’s hard. I have two podcasts on is “Gospel Jazz Podcast” which is blessed beyond measure. The second is the podcast above “The Jazz Suite” which does well and I’m trying to grow them both and create an online community with both but with no luck. I would like to meet other pod caster’s and just have discussions on what we podcast and our personal interests, because when the opportunity arise and my wife and I get to travel it would be wonderful to visit some of these on line friends and fellow podcaster s to share and help with there programs if possible plus just to build friendships and memories for years to come! Basically I’m for Fast Track Relationships.