Here’s a good example of how GlobalChicago works when it really works. This happened this week in just under 24 hours:
I met my old friend Brian (1) from Milwaukee, and some others he’d invited, for dinner here in Chicago. At dinner, I reconnect with Ron (2) from Chicago, who mentions that I should check out the work of an old friend of his, Fran (3), last seen in Oakland, CA. This I do, and finding Fran’s work rather amazing, I blog it and download some articles. In one of those articles, I notice that Fran’s co-author, Vivian (4), is in New Zealand. Well, it turns out that Chris (5), my friend and oft co-conspirator in OpenSpace, is leaving Vancouver, BC for Auckland, NZ the very next day, so I call him and mention Vivian. Whereupon Chris, being a google addict, searches and finds Vivian, who it turns out was a keynote speaker two years ago for the very same group (6) that Chris is about to work with next week. So Chris prints a bunch of Vivian’s articles to read on his very long plane ride today. What Brian won’t do to make Chris look good!
Now, what do you suppose the chances are that some of those folks in Chris’ NZ conference are connected with some the folks in Australia who’ve been working with Danielle, from Madison WI, who sat next to me at dinner?
New Zealand is a blast and certainly people know Vivian down here. He didn’t keynote at exactly the same conference, but it was sponsored by the same government group.
Just added a report in Parking Lot with more to come later.