Friday, October 28, 2011

I created a social media monster!

If you know me at all you've probably heard me use this sentence to describe some of the people I've helped to understand how to use Twitter. And I've meant it every time. It turns out though that I had no idea what the definition of a monster was. This time I really did create a monster!

BrainyQuote defines a Monster as "Something of unnatural size, shape, or quality; a prodigy; an enormity; a marvel."

On Monday September 26th I sent a very innocent tweet out into the world, "#Guelph tweetup this week, lunch anyday. Whose in?"

I immediately received some responses from the usual suspects, Julie, Mark, Sharon, Bang, Rob, which felt like a success. Great, a nice lunch with some friends I haven't seen in the real world for awhile! That night however as we were deciding where to go our little lunch date turned into a massive outing requiring reservations, menu planning, nametags, a hashtag, a facebook page...

Some people say it's because I was the one who suggested lunch. That's very nice of them to think I'm so influential in Guelph that with one tweet I can round up 30+ people. The reality is that each of those 5 people who originally agreed to have lunch with me all have their own network of people too. I rounded up 5 people to hang out with, and then they each rounded up their own 5 or so people to hang out with.

And with that math equation, Lunch Up Guelph was born.

Our first lunch was at Artisanale. 33 people showed up each with donations of non-perishable food items for
the Guelph Food Bank. In total we raised over 100lbs for them.



On top of that many of us met for the first time after spending months talking online. And even better was how many new people I met for the first time and then started following from that day.

Today is the day of our second lunch. We will be at The eBar this time around. This will be a test of what we've created. Will it be as fun, as dynamic, as community building as the first time? Will Lunch Up Guelph become something more than local people having lunch together? Judging by the activity this morning on the #lunchupguelph stream I think everyone else is as excited as I am!

Going back to the definition of monster, this monster is definitely a prodigy and a marvel. I may have started it with one tweet but the awesome people of this community have made it so much more than I anticipated. Almost everyday I marvel at the power of the people I've met through Twitter. They are truly #Guelphtastic!


2 comments:

  1. An awesome monster it has become! Thanks for letting me be one of the Powerful 5 ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Can't wait to come to my first #lunchupguelph! Yay!

    ReplyDelete