I really feel out of this world today, I never knew that I am so lucky to have such wonderful well wishers and friends who love me so much.

I got more than 987 messages for my birthday wishes today from all my group members & Friends.

I Today feel one of the richest person of this world, even richer than Bill Gates to have such lovely and dear friends and well wishers around me.

with warm regards

Nitin Naresh

I met Nitin, if the word “met” even applies, on Facebook.    I quote him a lot, repost his ideas.   He’s smart, and he’s obviously a good guy–a philanthropist and activist in his early twenties.   Many of his generation–the Millennials–are like that.    Historians who study “turnings”–generational swaths of time–look for patterns that repeat themselves with each new cohort.  Many compare Millennials with the civic-minded G.I. Generation, today’s great-grandparents.   But the G. I. generation didn’t have the Internet, and its members didn’t perceive themselves to be citizens of the world.  Nitin lives in New Delhi, but he can “converse” with anyone anywhere.  I’m not surprised that he was flooded with good wishes.  He gives. What goes around comes around.

The Millennials are inheriting a tough world.  People like Nitin are rising to meet the challenge.   They don’t need a book about consequential strangers.  They talk to anyone and everyone and realize that every conversation counts.   They believe in sharing.  It gives me hope.

I think about such things every day, among other reasons because I traffic in relationships, professionally and personally.  I speak to strangers all the time. During the year, I live in five different homes (counting my same-time-next-year rental in a summer community). I need consequential strangers to live the way I do–often, far away from my most beloved family members and friends.

Thus, even before I researched and discovered the term “consequential strangers” for the book of the same name, I knew enough to launch an “acquaintanceship campaign” when I moved to Massachusetts from Manhattan.  I needed the kind of people I’d left behind who had punctuated my day–the butcher, the neighbor, the doorman, the familiar waitress, the assorted lesser friends I’d see at brunch but would never invite for a weekend sleepover once I moved. In those days, I wasn’t on “the net,” and social media sites were not even on the horizon.I’m good at making acquaintances. But nothing in my social imagination could have prepared me for the impact of Facebook. Since I joined in 2006, my social convoy–the cavalcade of people I meet moving through life–has grown in size and diversity. It’s not that I talk to all of these so-called friends everyday–indeed, most are people not close to me. But when I have the time, I enjoy viewing their photos, exploring links they recommend, and reading their 160-character revelations.  I’m “fed” by our occasional exchanges.

What is more, when I post an idea or comment on another person’s, it is often broadcast to my CS-by-association:  Not pure strangers, and not quite consequential strangers, they’re the friends of friends, and their friends, and they extend out to the infinite edges of the social universe. I know little to nothing about them.  But we’re connected, and suddenly, we’re all talking to one another. What we know and think about and feel becomes more important than who we actually are, how we dress, how much money we make, whom we vote for, or what kind of music we like.

Recently, I posted a link to a fellow writer and psychologist Mindy Greenstein’s sweet essay about losing her dog. It was the kind of post that hits a universal chord. The comments–some from CS-by-association, some from people I actually know–soon began to pour in. The conversation kept shifting–first, about grief, then onto how special dogs are, and now it’s morphing into a “do-we-get-another-one?” discussion.

Insignificant? Maybe, but life is made of such exchanges. And who cares whether a stranger gets a new dog? We do. We’ve always loved other people’s stories. It’s how we gauge our own. The media–print, radio, TV–have always brought us into others’ lives.  Facebook is the Internet incarnation through which we access stories.  But it cuts out the middleman. We hear from others directly.

What you think is important may not be as meaningful to me, but I am nevertheless enriched by learning what you think, how you live, how you deal with and solve problems. It might change my mind completely, or perhaps just open it a crack. Or, it might not affect me at all. Regardless, your thoughts become part of mine. Each conversation, however brief, and even on line, changes us.

Those who aren’t on Facebook, as well as those who are ambivalent about it, fear the lack of privacy, the possibility of hacking, the hucksters. Those are legitimate concerns. We all need to be cautious and, more important, to develop what Howard Rheingold calls “21st century literacies.”

Elsewhere, I’ve likened Facebook to a big cocktail party at which everyone is privvy to everything you say. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But it’s a choice. I could be “on Facebook” and not reveal much about myself, or I could document every moment of my life. I’m somewhere in the middle. Initially, as I’ve admitted in another piece, I was in it for the hype: I saw Facebook as a way of getting people interested in my book. Now, although I still love it when people write to me about my writing, the reason I check my Facebook page most days is the feeling of being connected. I like being able to ask “my” world a question or share an insight. I like feeling that people care.

Why else would I have uploaded that photo of my chicken soup?

I thought I was a Real Estate Broker, but the last few years it’s been all about desk top publishing/marketing and advertising via social networking. Makes “hauling & hoping” not look so bad after all!

So now what?  In the piece I admitted, for all the world to hear, that I felt as if I was no longer a writer, but a publicist–to which a former editor, after telling me that she enjoyed the piece, added these two sentences:

I love that you’re becoming a writer again.  I was starting to run from Melinda the Publicist

I’m not surprised.  I was getting hints of that from friends.   I wanted people to see what I had seen in the research, to appreciate the power of their own social convoys.  Clearly,  I had overdone it!

So now that I’ve metaphorically raised my hand to announce, “I’m Melinda and social media has made my life unmanageable,” what does “recovery” look like? Where does my admission leave me–and this blog?  Here’s what I learned and what I plan to do:

Right-size. I’m not going to abandon all social media, but I will put it in perspective.  When I’m on line, I chat, answer emails, research, read emails, play Lexulous on Facebook–much of it is social time.  I’m soaking up information or  exchanging ideas.   Just as I’d schedule a trip to the library, or an appointment with a colleague–and wouldn’t spend five hours in either place–I will plan and allocate my Internet time as well.

Balance. It’s not all bad.  I have connected with tens (that’s not a typo!) of new people through Facebook, Twitter and this blog–people whose ideas resonate with my own, people I wouldn’t have otherwise met.  They are younger or older, they live all over the world, and I love the exchange of ideas.  One of my new social media buddies captured this–in 480 characters:

I just read your article. I agree that we can easily fall into the “hype” and lose track of other things. But, without that hype I may not…have found Consequential Strangers. That “hype” has allowed me to appreciate the people in my life who I didn’t realize mattered. I have…also met tons of other people who have changed my thoughts. So, thank you for the Hype! I look forward to more in 2010.

Broaden. This is what you can expect in 2010. I will continue to tweet, write, and comment, here and on other blogs, but I won’t just write about consequential strangers.  (That said, almost every discussion involves social connections!)   But I needn’t limit myself.   Right now, in fact, I’m mulling over a post entitled, “Sixty-five Is the New Black.”   (Don’t ask. I won’t tell.)

“The Wednesday 10 comprised, at various points, more than 20 men; the goal was a number small enough to maintain intimacy yet large enough to ensure that at least 10 members would show up for each of the monthly Wednesday-night meetings. No more than two representatives of any one industry were permitted. The idea was to combat insularity, to keep the men connected to people and events outside their own professions.”

Sounds like a group of consequential strangers to me!  Near the end of the piece, the reporter notes, “The men had hoped their sons would create an adjunct group that would one day assume the Wednesday 10 mantle but none took the initiative.”  But perhaps their daughters have.  Marci has been part of two writers’ groups.  And in 2007,  when I first interviewed writer Karen Robinovitz she had co-founded a similar organization of women,  “Secret Weapon.”  A different aspect of Karen’s story is featured in Chapter 5 but here’s how she explained the idea:

“I know a lot of women in my industry but not a lot of doctors, financiers, lawyers.  I was talking to two of my best friends,  an event planner and a person in the candy industry.  We wanted to create a forum [comprised of] women at the top of their game, who have a lot to offer intellectually and spiritually, and who could trust and support each other.”

Although the membership of the Wednesday 10 and Secret Weapon couldn’t be more different, both derive their strength from similar qualities.

Diversity. These groups are formed around a common interest or need–in this case, career development–and yet the members are  different from each other.  Even if they’re all men or all women, even if they are all upwardly mobile, some came from humble beginnings, some led more advantaged lives.  And of course in both groups members were from different fields.

Elasticity. Meeting new people on common ground stretches us, helps us see the world through a different lens. Like Karen Robinovitz, Ed Meyer, a former chief executive of Gray Advertising, found that each meeting gave him insights into fields other than his own. “It was like reading a newspaper cover to cover.”

Generosity. People have to be willing to open doors to opportunity.  Although they were “aspiring” when they first joined, it’s no accident that fifty years later, the surviving members  of the Wednesday 10 are highly accomplished. They gave each other leads, made introductions.  Secret Weapon strove for a similiar ethic: “We’re the types in high school who didn’t mind sharing their notes,” Karen told me. “Everyone is incredibly successful dynamic, giving, open and to be in an atmosphere  where everyone else is, too.”

I can’t remember the name of the free site that I signed up with several years ago, but thanks to their reliable emails I never have to forget anyone’s birthday, not even my consequential strangers’.  (Ironically, in parsing the difference between CS and good friends, I often remark that a CS doesn’t get insulted when you forget her birthday! So much for birthdays as a yardstick. )

The trouble is, the birthday reminders keep coming, even after the person is no longer here to celebrate.  But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Tracy–the Baby Whisperer–whose work and wisdom filled three books, succumbed to esophageal cancer at the untimely and unfair age of 44 (just as we were about to write a fourth book together).  The email was like some sort of digital yahrzeit candle, making me feel the loss and reflect on our five-year collaboration.  (I suspect as more of us rely on social media to keep in touch, online memorials will take numerous forms and become more common.  For example, read Adam Cohen’s touching New York Times editorial, “A New Kind of Memorial for the Internet Age.”)

Tracy and I had a close–and complex– relationship, and yet, we never went beyond consequential stranger territory.  We were twenty years apart and from different worlds.  Our paths would never have crossed–she the Yorkshire lass with the hardscrabble life, me the privileged New Yorker.  And yet, I was able to capture her on paper, so accurately that she cried when she read the first page I wrote in her voice. Tracy and I would never have spent the holidays together, but we shared a great deal of time and conversation.   She was the star nanny; I was her voice.  We needed each other.  I was her “shrink”–I asked many personal questions that she loved to answer–and she my family baby whisperer.  I remember fondly how Tracy talked my daughter through the occasional rough spots with her new baby–my first grandson.

I wish Tracy could have gotten to know my other two grandsons. I wish she could have watched her own two daughters grow up. I wish I could talk with her about consequential strangers–she would have loved the concept.  And I wish that Tracy– who was firm with parents but never mean, wise but never a know-it-all–had lived to eclipse those stern television nannies who rushed in to fill the void.  (At least, viewers in the U.K. got to see her on the Discovery Health network.)  But most of all, I wish she could see that her dream, of building a community of “mums” who would give each other support, has come true in ways she couldn’t have imagined in 2002.   Her website lives on and, more recently, her fans created a group on  Facebook, as one of the founders explained, “so we’d have a place to go to when the Baby Whisperer site is down.”  This, too, is an example of foreverism:  Tracy will be eternally alive in those mothers hearts as they trade her tips and use her techniques.

Tracy, we all miss you.  Happy birthday forever.