Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Connection Stories - Andrew Cantwell

Welcome back to all in 2009 and to the first connection thought for the year.

A few weeks ago, Garry (an old school friend) and I were putting together the invitation list for the 30th Anniversary School Reunion this year. As we looked through the names of our school mates, Garry wondered if I knew where "Andrew C" (surname withheld) was these days. 

Both Garry and I had lost touch with him when we left school in 1979 and despite regularly 'googling' his name over the years, no results came up. While we were talking - and on a whim - I decided to search for him on Facebook. Of the 25 search results for his name, there was one with this photo that looked like our man. 

A quick message from me to him to confirm that he was the right guy and we were connected. He told me that he had joined Facebook a few months ago for no particular reason and was now residing on a beach in a small coastal town in Queensland - and one of the fastest growing regions in Australia. 

 I realised that it took me three online minutes to connect to someone I hadn't heard from in 30 years. I was so impressed that I told the story to a few people and to my surprise, it happens quite frequently to a lot of people. So I thought that.... If you have a connection story or experience you'd like to share, please leave a comment below (I moderate the comments before publishing them) or send me an email. I'll formally publish the best stories in future posts.

1 comment:

Sally Rose said...

Recently a friend of mine locked herself out of her flat. Her local friends and family who had her emergency spare set of keys were all interstate for the holidays. With no keys, mobile or wallet she was at a loss of how to connect with any of the people in her life who could help her out. She walked to the local libray, logged on to Facebook and updated her profile to "Mary" is locked out of the house, can somebody come pick me up from the library? Within minutes her problem was solved. Useful eh?
Much more disturbing is what I read in this mornings's papers about Facebooks plan to sell our connections and profile info to direct marketers. I wonder if this will be their undoing and make way for one of the other social networking sites to rise to the top of the pile?