Liza With A "Z"

It's About The People, People, Not The Wine

I am writing this on the ride home from Time4Wine. To those of you who
made it to Time4wine, YOU made the weekend. It was a weekend of wine,
food and, yes, debauchery --- but not without the intellectual comfort
of great conversations about social media, technology and all the
gadgetry that makes us tick.

Geeks and wine...why? Don't we spend enough hours together at
conferences, tweetups, et al? Yes, but much of that time is also spent
multitasking, focusing on work or developing new business
relationships. It's not 'our' time and is compromised by professional
distractions and obligations.

Indeed we work together, but we also play together, and those who
could have asked their employers to foot the bill decided to go on
their own dime to ensure that the direction of relationships were
untangled by business objectives. No doubt, we developed valuable
ties, that process never ends, but without name tags, sponsors or
VIP's, conversations began over flights of wine and plates of cheese.
Even geeks bond by breaking bread, and nothing much has really changed
about human nature.

During the wine blending session at Alpha Omega Winery, we learned to
choose a metaphor for wine, relate it to something you already know,
and suddenly wine is less complex. Nothing new, right? Consider
Time4wine our time on the golf course, without the rigidity of
uniforms or the old boys' club.

Take a look at the Twitter and Facebook activity around Time4wine, and
you'll notice there were no keynotes or super stars, and I like it that
way. Even Gordan Getty and Mayor Gavin Newsom made unplanned
appearances, but they didn't steal the spotlight for long. It's about
the people, people, not the wine.

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Rocking the Red Carpet at DEMO

As I stepped onto the long red carpet connecting the conference to the
pavilion, I confessed to the man beside me that the long red carpet
made me uneasy. I joked that I was glad to see there were no paparazzi.
He asked me why.

I love taking photos of others, and I obviously enjoy attention, but I
don’t enjoy having my photo taken. To combat this fear, lately I do it
as much as possible. Thanks to kind photographer friends, I am less
scared of the camera, and sometimes, if I am really enjoying myself, I
hardly notice the camera’s presence. The “faux red carpet”, however, was a
new challenge.

So when a virtual stranger suggested we enjoy our red carpet stroll
and offered his arm, I agreed. Why not, I said, let’s pretend that
there are flashing cameras, that we are dressed in our finest
clothing, and let’s revel in our stardom. I loved it and was dismayed
when the carpet ended. Inside the pavilion we toasted to our red
carpet moment and, only then, did we finally introduce ourselves and
talk business.

There is joy to be had in these small encounters. We think of
“conferences” as uber-networking sessions, but if you open your eyes,
you’ll find endless opportunities to get to know others beyond their
titles.

Isn’t this what counts? Isn’t this why we get on planes at the
crack of dawn, cram onto hotel shuttles, and sit with strangers over
coffee long after we have finished our buffet breakfasts? If these
“moments” did not matter, teleconferences would make conferences
irrelevant.

Would you rather do business with someone who can rock the “faux

red carpet” or someone who only shows you their professional

side and a slidedeck? You know my answer, but what do you think?

An Open Invitation: Show Up (and let me know how it goes...)

Image via Wikipedia

There are hundreds of articles a day about why or why not Twitter and/or other online communities provide the human connectivity that we all crave. For me, a personal story is more effective than a lengthy analysis in proving a point, so let me tell you a story about about Catherine Grison.

Yesterday I met a friend, Adrian Chan, for coffee and coworking at the Creamery. As Adrian's laptop lost juice, and I grew tired of editing a document, we decided to grab a beer at Hotel Utah. It was the first day of the Apple Conference (WWDC), so the wonderfully divey Hotel Utah was filling up with other laptop toting-types. Adrian suggested I send an open tweet and invite others in the area to join us. Catherine Grisone, a name I did not recognize, immediately responded to say she was on the way.

Catherine is a self-proclaimed designer extraordinaire and owner of Your French Accent. She woke up that very morning wondering if Twitter was real or "full of sheet" (imagine the french accent). She saw my tweet while sitting in her office in Potrero Hill and recognized the serendipitous timing - it was a chance to see if the online connections are, in fact, real. Would we welcome her? Would be be anything like the people we claim to be online? Would we be "full of sheet"?

I give a lot of credit to Catherine for showing up. Nowadays more people than ever work from home, cowork or do not work at all. It is easy to feel isolated, to rely on online communities to feel connected and to forget the value of showing up in real life (IRL). It is a snap to become an active part of an online community (or thirty), but it demands far more effort to find a pair of clean jeans and meet people offline. Conversations are indeed going on everyday in restaurants, museums, bars and coffee shops, but an open invitation is the best opportunity I know of to join the conversation and connect in person. The options are unlimited, and often times taking online relationships offline is as easy as heading to a nearby bar at happy hour for a Tweetup.

While discussing how much we enjoyed meeting Catherine, Adrian asked a fair question: Do the same opportunities exist in less digital locales? Perhaps he has a point, so here is my advice: if you aren't able to find an open invitation, extend one. Pick an inexpensive location, and broadcast it to your social network of choice. If no one shows up, try a different strategy, but don't give up.

Show up, smile, contribute to the conversation and repeat. Throw an open invitation out there every now and then for fair measure. And let me know how it goes.

I am curious. I ask a lot of questions.

I write about people. I write about what happens when I ask people questions.

Sometimes I write about well-known people, other times I write about the charming gentleman I met at the doctor's office.If someone enjoys reading about who I consider notable, who am I to deny them a peek?

*Feel free to follow me on Twitter if you think my posts are too infrequent: http://www.twitter.com/lizasperling

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It's About The People, People, Not The Wine

Rocking the Red Carpet at DEMO

An Open Invitation: Show Up (and let me know how it goes...)

I am curious. I ask a lot of questions.