Think about your Twitter stream and the people you follow. How many have you really met, if you take out your friends and colleagues? In my case it's around 40% that I've been lucky to recognise, meet, or bump into at industry events or around the town.
I sometimes think it's amazing at how one can knock down all walls on Twitter and have conversations with strangers yet when it comes to real life, those walls are built as high as the Empire State Building. The honesty, openness and directness to Twitter conversations is mind-boggling. People aren't afraid to open their mouths whether it's to congratulate or hate - loudly - online... yet I'm sure if they met face-to-face, would they really have the guts to be that direct.
Real life 2.0
I know I wonder what some of the people I follow and converse with are like, especially those who I have a lot of respect for. So when the opportunity came up on Monday night to come meet some of them, I grabbed it by the horns... or balls, considering it was one ridiculous 'sausage fest' as the tweetup organiser, Paul Cartmel called it in reply to me.
Long story cut short, Paul from New Media Labs and Mike Sharman decided they were going to attempt the R60 000 challenge at Caprice after the d-list celebrities; Lee-ann Liebenberg and Nicky Van Der Walt got into a huge PR mess with Caprice the week before.
Mike: "@PaulCartmel are we bevving this week - you around?"
Paul "@mikesharman fo shuua, should we klap R60k at Caprice ;) - perhaps @raouldejongh @lifeissavage @mrtuckbox will join us?"
Lots of back and forth between people and Paul's realisation: "Oh god how sad, I think I've organised a tweetup" *&%$
After following Paul, Ben Wagner from Native (Stonewall) and Life is Savage for a while, I got to meet them, along with some other pretty cool people like Mike Sharman, Liesl De Bruin, Secret City Project, Gaby Rosario and Murray Legg. It turned out to be a great night, full of laughter, lots of talking, ridiculous dance moves and being the people we are, snapping away and tweeting the hilarity that ensued.
A little later, I noticed a tweet from the awesome, Life is Savage, where he said this...
"My faith in meeting twitter folks in real life has been restored. What a group of stellar people. #goodtimes"
I couldn't agree with him more.
Let me know what you think?
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