Part of the beauty of communities is that once formed, the bonds can remain between members in the community for a long time. 

Over the years, I've played with the concept of virtual communities, through this blog and another blog for my coaching biz, and more recently, with social networking sites used for my work for alumni associations. If I were to draw these different communities, they might look like slightly overlapping Venn diagrams–very few people are part of all of these communities, but combined, it represents a lot of people. Combined, this is my brand community–the people who know the value I bring and the unique way of delivering that value, and are willing to tell others about me.

So it's been a joy recently to re-connect with members of my brand community, some of whom I had only known through phone or email or social networking sites. A few of my favorite moments in the last month:

That's me with Tim Wendel, one of our original participants in the pilot for A Bigger Voice.  I've interviewed Tim and his brother, Chris Wendel, for this blog more than once and even met Chris twice in Traverse City, MI.  But this was the first time meeting Tim on his home turf in Washington, DC.

Tim was gracious enough to meet me for a very early morning (6:30am!) coffee (although neither of us drinks coffee) and then gave me a ride to the airport, complete with historical commentary of DC sites along the way.

I was in DC to do a two networking workshops, so it was only natural that two participants from my Networking Naturally webinar series showed up. (A big shout out to @krekkas for coming to the event!) 

That's me with Yvette Owo and notice how she towers over me (with no heels!)  While Yvette and I had talked over the phone, emailed and chatted via a social networking site set up for the webinar series, we had never met in person.  So when I first met her, my first words were something like, "You are SO tall!"  An honest reaction, don't you think?

While traveling to new places can trigger a connection with someone in your virtual community, being online can be the catalyst for catching up with someone who used to be in your physical community.  Finding high school friends on Facebook is a great example of this. 

I'm providing to several university alumni associations a webinar series on using social media to enhance your career opportunities. One of the universities is my alma mater, Northwestern.  A few days before the first webinar, I received a LinkedIn invitation, with the following note:

"… just signed up for your webinar on the 16th… what a thrill to see your name! You might not remember me but you probably remember my wife…"

Turns out he's married to one of my sorority sisters who was a few years behind me. He was dating her when I was still around. We caught up on the last 25+ years in the course of a few LinkedIn messages (well, not entirely!) 

The biggest surprise of all came when I read the survey responses after I delivered that same webinar.  There's always an open question on these feedback forms that basically says, "Any other comments?"  So one respondent provided the following:

"Kudos to Carol on her very successful career transition! And, thanks, for the great information. It has been a very long time since our freshman year in Allison Hall!"

It was a woman who lived down the hall from me, who I remember as being an extremely accomplished flute player, even though she was not a music major.  I was always envious hearing her play difficult pieces with what seemed like relative ease. I struggled to play flute at the competency expected in one of the college ensembles, while trying to keep up with my course load and the studying that came along with it. I eventually stopped playing in my sophomore year.

Again, we caught up virtually through email, and at least for me, by looking at LinkedIn profiles. We talked about the twists and turns of our careers.  (No one ever expects an engineer to become a career coach.)

And finally, I received an email from a former coaching client who I had not spoken to in over a year.  She mentioned that she had been keeping up with what I've been up to through our LinkedIn connection. I replied back with a link to the aforementioned webinar, as I thought she could benefit from some of the information.  I got a response that same day.  She had already listened to the recording and was thrilled to get the information. But what struck me was when she mentioned how hearing my voice brought back so many memories of work we had done together.  I was touched.

It's truly been a blessing to connect and re-connect with so many people in my brand community over time.  Whether virtually or in-person, there's nothing quite like that feeling of having a common bond not only reinforced, but deepened.

You don't need to be doing webinars or speaking engagements to connect with your community.  But it does mean reaching out to others when you are in new places (e.g., arranging a meetup at a local coffee shop) and staying active on social media.

We now have many more ways to connect with kindred spirits, than even just a few years ago.  This is good news for wisdom entrepreneurs and other builders of communities.  It happens one post, one status update, one email, one webinar, one Skype call, one YouTube video, at a time.

PS. I was surprised to see that it had been over two months since I last posted here.  My apologies for the long absence. It feels good to be back.