Why REAL friends are worth keeping

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Why Facebook friends are worth keeping - tech - 15 July 2010 - New Scientist

Why Real Friends are worth keeping

Help for anyone struggling with getting out of the rut. Just send your best friends (only 1 or 2) an email and ask them out on an outing. It worked for me. Yes, I had all the right conditions set up for success. A free afternoon with no little ones attached. Mrs. SFDaddy was out of town and a promising new movie to see. That's the recipe. But the missing ingredients were a small group of REAL people to enjoy the setting with. Solution: send a quick email out to warn them I'm calling. Wait a few minutes and call them both. Agree on a time with Friend 1 and leave a message for Friend 2.

{There is a point to all of this, bare with me...}

Okay, Friend 2 checks in with a call back. We're really talking to people. No Twitter or Facebook involved. Friend 2 exterminated Facebook for a second time this year and I'm sure it's probably for good this time. It's all set. We're going to see Inception - great movie. This is not going to be the review for the film. Do I review movies, here? Maybe...

I get to the meeting place an hour early to skim a book* I'm wanting to purchase. I want to see if it gives me all the details I feel like I need. It's a business kind of book, so the REAL bookstore is very helpful. A smiling face of a real person helps me find the right shelf since they've rearranged the super mega bookstore again. I bought a coffee--no flavorings, fake sweetener or sugars, but that's another post too. I sat down and read the first couple of chapters. Win. The book I wanted wasn't there, but it turns out the author is a huge company now with many books in the series. Okay, so maybe he has some points. Maybe I'll buy the book after all.

Okay, so it's movie time... {Getting to the point}

Friend 2, greets me with a hug and 1/2 of a confection she had from a coffee shop visit... we're all portioning! Cool. She's excited to see me and has urgent need to discuss a new (actually old) business opportunity she wants me to be a part of. It's not robots or architecture, but it's extremely relevant to who I am and we pledge to get the ideas flowing soon.

Friend 1 and 1/2 (his Mrs. who is also a good pal!) arrive and we all suit up for a thrilling movie. Just fabulous. Afterward, the star align and we agree to have dinner. We're all still free! The server asks if we want a drink. The topic of Martini's comes up. I've never had one, but I've always been fascinated by them. 007 you know. You know. I didn't actually order it like his though. My REAL friends all recommended a dirty one. Actually a dirty-dirty one.

{I thought I was getting to a point.}

One of the things that came up was Facebook. Recently Friend 2 closed off her account and dropped it for good. I supported the idea, but as I do so often, I followed up with a defense of it. {This gets me into trouble a lot, but it doesn't seem to register and I embark on that course of action anyway quite often.}

I have been blessed by a great group of people on Facebook. They are the regular suspects, friends, family, old school friends and acquaintances. I shared with the Friends that I've discovered some very interesting things about these friends. Most recently the things that are catching my eye are their blogs and the Facebook Pages they are creating for their own companies. I love that my writer friends from high school are still writing. I love that a classmate from elementary school is making glass beads and another is a graphic artist. I know scientists, horse farmers and TV executives. Without Facebook, I'd never had any further connection with them. Of course making a connection NOW with those people is the next step. Becoming their customer, cheerleader and advocate come next.

I was hoarding the conversation by now, so I continued with my recent experiences with bloggers. {Oh, yes. I'm talking about you, now! Don't worry, this too is really good! and the point is coming.}

I've found myself on the outside edges of a very supportive network of bloggers. They are doing everything right. Go find the articles about what that means, but they've gotten my interest, they have my "Follow Me" icon on their pages and I do! I'm efforting to keep up with them all. I have plans to buy their books when they come out and their efforts to reach out to new audiences is seeming very successful! I'm hooked in.

Friend 1 mentions to Friend 2 about the book she's writing. WHAT??? So I start into more details about the authors I'm Following. A few of them are involved with a small publisher which is a whole other weird and strange post that may surface one day, but it has to do with Lemurs which are a thing with me you may already know about. She doesn't have a publisher, but we talk about self-publishing and the success a friend of hers had going that route. We all have some great books in us and the ebook sounds so promising. Especially after reading some of the posts about rejection letters from publishers.

Is self-publishing the answer? How is it that I'm suddenly surrounded by authors, would-be authors and actively publishing acquaintances? What is MY book?

So I had a great night out, with real people, saw a great movie, tried a new restaurant, ordered a drink I've never had. Enjoyed it by the way. It led to new business opportunity and recharged my interest in the book I wanted to buy. Bought the ebook instead after closing down the bookstore. Went home and got charged up to start fixing some things with the existing business opportunities.

*The book is the E Myth, but I'm not ready to talk about it yet. {But I do really like it so far.}