Social Media Reflections from SFO

I’m sitting at a high top table littered with empty food containers left behind by hurried travelers running to make their flight to Hong Kong. The international terminal at SFO is truly an interesting place to sit an watch. The mesh of humanity is amazing, excitement raining down on the faces of those either returning home or going to visit relatives across the large ocean that is the Pacific and in some cases going all the way to Europe.

My eyes rove around the area to the couple huddling together over a Foders book describing the must-see attractions of Taipei, then quickly shift to the two JetBlue pilots looking bored as they wait for their over processed ham sandwich, I’m hoping that they enjoy the meal, particularly if they will be commanding my flight in a few hours. Turn around trips to San Francisco are always difficult, I took off on Monday at 11am ET and here I sit in SFO at 11:37pm ET waiting for my flight home. By my count that is about 36 hours, certainly a quick trip, but in this case I have to say it was well worth logging the miles. This morning I participated in my first “Social Media Bootcamp“.

For about a month I’ve been mentally planning for this session and have discussed a bit about the pressure I was feeling. I’ve been in the communications business now for nearly twelve years, I’ve gotten up and presented at major user conferences, given interviews to the top business publications, pitched and won business from Fortune 500 companies…yet leading up to this simple webinar I was actually feeling quite nervous. Now don’t get me wrong, it was the good kind of nervous; the chills that run through your brain while you try to go to sleep at night, demanding that more of your time is spent on this project so that it turns out to be the best it can be. I was often times surprised by the fact that this feeling had come across me and I wasn’t really sure why. As soon as the bootcamp ended however I knew exactly what it was; the community I’ve built within Social Media is so full of talented people that I respect I truly didn’t want to blow this opportunity.

It actually makes a lot of sense because many of you have become a true network of colleagues. People I trust and go to when I need answers and information. In my webinar I highlighted the help that I got from folks like Bryan Person, Doug Haslam, Rich Palmer and others. During the session I was watching great Tweets from folks like Jennifer Leggio, John Czwartacki, Liz Laneri, Lauren Beyer and N’Cho. We even had a great blogger doing some live recaps.

We’ll be posting the webinar in full later this week, but to me the success of the session was watching people Twittering about the different topics, providing feedback on the definition of Social Media, connecting with each other, joining social networks and much more. This is what social media is all about, the ability to communicate effectively with a community of people both online and off. I guess I’m just surprised at what an impact you have all had on me and helped me to reach greater heights in my own career. For that, I say thank you.

I think they are calling my flight…oh wait, I’ve been delayed? WHAT!

/kff

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