The Wilkins are some of our best friends. Ceri and Rolf are a wonderful couple with a beautiful family of 2 boys and a daughter who is roughly Mary Catherine's age. We attend church together, have dinners, go to events. We have a shared passion for good food and wine. What's more interesting is that we've only known the Wilkins for two years, (we met them when we moved to Arkansas) but we might as well have known each other much longer.
Rolf is a life-long entrepreneur who owns a pizza chain called Eureka Pizza (@eurekapizza on twitter). I've always admired his business ability and he doesn't know it, but he helped inspire me to take the biggest chance of my life and leave the corporate world where I've spent my entire career to begin a new chapter in the agency world.
The reason I'm sharing all this is I believe that life presents opportunities and often provides some help along the way. I didn't realize this myself until we attended the Art of Wine event last Saturday and Rolf started asking me about my new job. His questions were very directed and made me think about the process I'm going through building this new company. We also discussed his use of social media to build his business and various tactics both he and his competitors are employing. What was ironic is that our entire discussion didn't involve any technology and was more real and authentic and meaningful than many of the electronic exchanges that seem so important. I think in many of the communication plans I've seen lately, the human element is lost in the rush to influence social platforms.
Shannon and I appreciate the Wilkins friendship and are thankful that they are in our life during this transition. Look for those guides in your life, they may already be there and you don't even know. Sure I'll keep up with Rolf using social tools, but the personal influence will always be more important.
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5 comments:
HERE HERE! I love the personal conversations so much more.. which is why I value the conferences. I love being able to put a face, name and personality to the twitter ID or the email address. It makes working with people a lot easier, and you gain a major element that the online conversations are lacking so often. Great post! Can't wait to see what's in store!
You know what I always say... Companies don't do business with companies, there is always a person in a company doing business with another person in a company. Good business is always about personal relationships.
Congrats on your new venture! And I agree with you: Ceri and Rolf are awesome! I met them when I wrote their (terribly sweet) love story for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette a few years ago. Also agree with you about the importance of in-the-flesh, eye-to-eye conversations.
You are very fortunate to have someone to share those "in life" moments with. I agree, the personal aspect is often missing with all the social tools available to us today. Will we forget how to communicate in person? I hope not. I love human interaction and keeping that alive in my "real life" is vital. Nice post.
Lisa
You are so right! BlogHer was my very first conference and I enjoyed the interaction with other bloggers and brands more than anything.
Kasandria
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