Bolex (fake) Networking

How many of you have been sitting with a friend or colleague in a 'conversation' and their blackberry is constantly "beeping" with a new text or tweet from god knows who and they over and over again interrupt the conversation with you so they can respond to the message?

Everyone's hands should go up.

At this moment no real engagement is happening. No real conversation is taking place. No real relationship building is happening.

Now why does this even matter? The reason because in life all that matters at the end of the day is the relationships we have that are strong, solid and noteworthy.

If an exciting thought pops into your head how does that idea become great and that great idea become phenomenal: by staying away from the 'blackberry effect' and by getting the idea into the hands of people who want to build strong relationships with one another and then push that idea into the market-sphere. This pretty much is the first part of the recipe to building a long lasting and successful business.

Now my issue is this: there are 1.3 million (not a scientifically researched number) social media gurus saying get on or get left! The social media train is leaving the station. Ride with us to the promise land where business can take advantage of the new media landscape! Well I'll be the first one to say I LOVE Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc, etc. But this is where I have an issue. Everyone is a "how to get followers expert" but who is an expert on communicating why they should pay you any attention, then why they should take that next step and follow you and then what's the value to the follower (if anyone comes across an article, blog post or rant on this, please send it my way...). Very few people are talking about if there is any value behind the Tweets or the Facebook page comments (and how this can bring an upswing to your business). Now on this particular issue I'm going to have to side with my boy Seth. . .