When you are dot com entrepreneur, working from your home office (or Starbucks, as the case may be), it becomes far too easy to get caught up in your own little world. Chatting with friends on an instant messenger and contacting freelance writing clients via email is one thing, but actually participating in real life is a different matter altogether. To actually see a person’s face and shake their hand is an entirely different experience than typing out a sideway smiley face.
Many will tell you that this is perhaps the greatest shortcoming or downside to having your own work-from-home business: you don’t get the same level of face-to-face interaction as you would if you had a conventional 9-to-5 office job. You don’t get to pull pranks on Dwight Shrute or get peeved about “Corporate accounts payable, Mindy speaking. One moment please.” You typically don’t hop out to lunch with a colleague, because most of your business associates could be half a globe and seven time zones away. Your so-called “connected world” has human isolation as one of its core characteristics.
Not only to prevent you from turning criminally insane, but also to remind you that there is a real world with real people behind all those LOLs and affiliate marketing campaigns, it is incredibly important to leave your computer desk from time to time and actually talk to a regular person, preferably someone who is somewhat removed from the virtual world of the intarwebs. Meet up with one of your “normal” friends for a cup of coffee. Or go eat a bowl of Vietnamese pho.
To illustrate this point, let me tell you about my interaction with Gary Ng, who many of you may know as Gdog of The Daily Kimchi. I don’t remember exactly how I came across his blog in the first place, but I came to be a regular visitor to The Daily Kimchi. I’d read about his Korean exploits, commenting on the occasional post, and he would do the same here at Beyond the Rhetoric. For the longest time, I only knew him as Gdog, not knowing his real name. I also had no idea what he looked or sounded like, other than hearing his voice in a YouTube video.
Let me tell you, when Gary came for one of our weekly pho sessions for the first time, it felt unreal. Imagine that: there’s a real person behind that website. I had a similar experience when I met a certain panda killer in real life (IRL) for the first time. For many budding dot com moguls, the root of all evil is still somewhat of a mythical creature. I know he was for me back when I was still comment whoring on his blog.
There are inherent benefits to engaging with people in real life versus interacting with them over the Internet. Whether you are a freelance writer or a web designer, go meet some real people and shake their hands. It could lead to a business referral, sure, but more importantly, it could lead to a real friendship and not just a virtual one. Not to mention a couple extra boosters to your very real sanity.
Bah…who needs face-to-face interaction? 🙂
Last week I worked from home four of the five days and it was quite different as I didn’t see anyone until talking to a few neighbors at the bus stop waiting for the kids.
One of these days my path will cross with some of the “blog friends” that I have made and I am sure that will be a little weird at first, lol.
How long have you known John? For some reason I had the impression that all of you guys in the Vancouver area have known each other for years and years.
I know that if I bumped into you in real life, it’d be pretty strange. :p
I’ve known John for about 6 or 7 months now, give or take. The rest of them — Ed, Stephen, etc. — seem to have known one another for a lot longer than that. I’m the relative newbie to the group.
Any chance you’re going to be at PubCon? I’ll be in Vegas at the same time as PubCon for a conference on SOA for work. I’m thinking that might present an opportunity to meet a few bloggers face-to-face.
No PubCon for me. I *might* be in Vegas for CES though.
elaborate a bit more on what happened when you met gary.
this post left me with blue balls… just when the really good part was coming you copped out with a concluding paragraph.
I’m not really sure what else I can say. When I met Gary (or John for that matter), it was a very surreal experience, because it’s easy to forget that there is a real person behind that blog. The experience would be similar to having lunch with a cartoon character… it’s like sitting down to pho with Bart Simpson.
Hey Michael, thanks for the shout out, lol!
Yeah, I can totally relate to what you explained above. The first time I showed up for pho with the whole bunch (including the post-whore Leo Chiang ;)) it was pretty crazy meeting the faces behind the blogs. The world has has definitely become a smaller place…
Hmmm, I don’t know…I don’t think I ever experienced any sort of…shock when I met anyone. I guess I’m just like that though.
Its kind of crazy, and an amazing amount of web bloggers and such are from Vancouver.
I’d like to meet some of the bloggers I interact with online face-to-face. I’m not sure what I would expect, but I think it would be a pretty cool experience. In the meantime, I agree that we have to remember to step away from our monitors and walk outside and go interact with real people.