Putting the Personal Back In My Relationships

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I’m the On The Road Correspondent for a local radio show called The Business Makers (Talk Radio 950, KPRC – a Clear Channel Station), and the last question I always ask my guests is, “What Do You Want Your Legacy To Be?”. I’ve noticed that there is a similar theme among most of the answers.  People want to make a difference in the world.  If nothing else they want to change the life of at least one person for the better.  This is especially true of Entrepreneurs.

Over the years I’ve had the honor and privilege to interview some pretty amazing people.  I love to give interviews because I love people.  I love learning about them, I love sharing ideas, and most of all I love building friendships. Chris Brogan once told me that our interview was the best he’d ever had the privilege of participating in (Awesome praise from one of the superheroes of my life).

The Problem With Social Media & Personal Legacy

When I first got started in Social Media (circa 1998), the online world was a very different place.  It was much easier to connect with people on an intimate level.  Why?  Because there was simply less online activity.  There were hundreds of blogs instead of hundreds of thousands.  There were only a few online forums dedicated to a particular topic instead of dozens.  When you started participating in a community you could quickly and easily get to know all of the key players and form 3-dimensional relationships with them.  You knew about their families, their day jobs, their hopes, their dreams, and their fears.

Today this is much harder.  There are just too many of us.  As Bruce Sterling said at his State of the World Address in 2006,

“You are too big, this year. You are too professional, this year. Even the tech panels are no longer intimate and personal, this year. I have been to standing room only Web 2.0 tech panels at this gig; this is a huge gig.”

I couldn’t agree more.  Social Media, Technology, The Glitterati, Twitterati, Technorati, there are just too many of us.  Social Media, like BarCamp, does not scale well on an intimate & personal level.

Whether your goal is to Change the World, or Change the Life of One Person, an intimate & personal connection with as many people as possible is crucial.

An Experiment

So I’ve decided to conduct a personal experiment to try and figure out if personal and intimate connections are possible on a massive scale?  And if so, what does that look like?  Each week I’ll be direct messaging 10 people on Twitter asking you for some information.  If you’d like to participate in this experiment just send your reply.  If not, feel free to ignore my message.  No hard feelings, promise.

This experiment will take exactly 60 weeks to complete, and once the experiment is underway, I’ll be reporting back here each week on what I’ve learned.

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Erica OGrady is the CXO of Peanut Butter Media. She is currently HOMELESS while working on a project called Twilight & Tea. Erica is a Writer, Adventurer, Explorer who Still Believes in Santa and Following Your Bliss -- For more information Text ERICAOGRADY to 50500

Tagged as: bruce sterling, chris brogan, relationships, Twitter