I met my neighbors on Twitter!

Ok, not my actual neighbors, but several people who live within five miles of where I live.  I did this at a tweetup.

People like to blame new technology for shortening everyone’s attention spans and for disconnecting them from reality.  This might have been the case when Pong was first released, but now technology is integrating social media in order to more easily draw people together.  There is always that person at the party, the bored guy or girl who has their face buried in their phone.  They never look like they are having fun and that is because they aren’t.  They need to put the phone in their pocket and start connecting with others.  You never know who else is at the party that might have something interesting to say.

Last night, I discovered something called a ‘tweetup.’  It is a meeting of like minded people that live in the same area.  Tweetups can be based on a certain interest, or they can be used to just meet new nearby friends.  From what I gathered, the one I attended last night was the latter.  To be honest, I was really nervous after first arriving at the tweetup, but everyone was very nice.  Everyone at this meeting was at least somewhat involved with social media, but that was almost the only thing we had in common.  What made the group so compelling is the amount of different views and perspectives that were shared.

I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that I would have never heard of this meeting had it not been for Twitter.  That means that I had several meaningful face to face conversations with people I never met previously because of a social media application.  We sat for several hours and had tea, then walked across the street to a bar and enjoyed a beer and a plate of nachos.  Some had laptops out, but others like myself, just showed up with their iPhones and joined into the conversation.

There is something to be said about the type of people that would show up to a tweetup event.  For some people, they have only been interacting with the other members online, and have never met in person.  That definitely made me nervous before showing up last night.  The fact that people can get past the nervous stage means that they are outgoing and brave enough to hold an interesting conversation.

During the tweetup, there was much debate about how some are saying that social media is dead.  We came to the conclusion that social media has circled back to its origin, where a small group of people will get together to joke, debate and share ideas on topics that interest them.  This is exactly how it should be.  Social media is not something that should keep us alone in front of our computer screen.  It is something that should be able to draw those of us together who share common interests.  Social media has now come full circle, providing meaningful one on one relationships with people around the world and down the street.

If you have never gone to a tweetup, you should open up another browser window and find one as soon as you can.  The relationships and connections gained from the meeting is definitely worth the time.  Thanks to all of the cool people that I met a few days ago at #tweetea in Royal Oak!

Tagged as: Detroit, optimism, positivity, social media, twitter