It was nice to finally connect some faces to words and meet some new folks. I have been reading Rick Klau, Jim McGee, AKMA and Jenny Levine’s blogs for almost three years since moving to Chicago, but had not met in person.
There were several new faces at the table (at least to me) and it was a pleasure meeting them and they have been added to my aggregator. Jack’s insights on KM have been particularly interesting.
Like John, I was glued to my seat for most of the night and I regret not making it down to the end of the table to meet AKMA and Jenny in person. I have enjoyed reading about Si and Pippa and the intersection of theology and technology and Jenny’s enthusiasm and evangelism for technology has been admirable. We should do this again soon and I promise to move around a bit more.
I also did not get an Activewords demo by the demo god himself, Buzz Bruggeman. I’ll have to download the trial and give it a whirl. It was a pleasure meeting him as well – Jim captured it perfectly – he’s consumate conversationalist and I would want him evangelizing my product as well.
The dinner also made me think about some research I did a few years back on the formation of online communities and how they often migrate to other settings. The research (early to late 90’s) showed that relationships that begin online rarely stay there. It was nice to supplement our computer-mediated communication with some face-to-face contact.