Yesterday was a very fun day for me. I drove 350 miles, spent time in three cities, and had the privilege of meeting three of our A-Team members in person for the first time. I’m going to apologize in advance for any haphazardness in my writing today . . . this is more of a stream-of-consciousness account than a focused essay.

So here’s how it went down.

8:00am – 8:06am: Hit the road and leave Milwaukee, headed to Chicago.
8:07am – 8:42am: Construction.
8:43am – 8:52am: More construction.
8:53am – 8:54am: Stopping at a tollbooth to pay my $1.50 (love you too, Illinois), I decide to take a lesson from Jan Carroll and do a “Pay It Forward”-type thing. So I offer to pay for the car behind me. Well, the car behind me happens to be a gigantic semi, and the toll for those happens to be $7.50. Did anyone else know that? I didn’t.
8:55am – 8:56am: Speeding away to hide from the shame of rescinding my offer to pay for the semi, since I can’t afford that much.
8:57am – 9:45am: Traffic.
9:46am – 9:55am: Traffic and construction.
9:56am – 9:57am: Miss my exit because I’m in the express lane (overrated, by the way).
9:58am – 10:10am: Weave my way through some Chicago neighborhoods to get to my first meeting, and finally end up in the West Town neighborhood, where I’m supposed to be.

My first meeting was with Derek Shanahan (@dshanahan) of 20 Something Bloggers, who has built a strong community for bloggers aged 20-30. Go ahead and take a look around the site, and if you fit that demographic, I encourage you to join. There’s a lot of good conversation, a lot of interaction among like-minded people, and it’s a really good place to find your niche and hang out with others who share your interests. Derek and I have been kicking around a few ideas over the past couple weeks, so I’m glad he was able to meet me on short notice (I think I emailed him the day before I was going to be down there).

We talked for a couple hours, and let me tell you something: this guy is wicked smart. I have to say it, because he certainly won’t, but I was impressed. He gave me a ton of good ideas for ways to improve ItStartsWith.Us, and hopefully I was able to give him a few as well. The two of us will keep in touch . . . I’m excited to see what we can come up with.

What’s amazing about this meeting is that Derek and I had never even heard of each other three weeks ago. We were only brought together because Mari Madden Luangrath (@foiledcupcakes) realized that we were building slightly similar communities, and she decided to introduce us on Twitter.

Mari arrived around 11:30am, and the three of us spent some time chatting, which was cool. In case you don’t know her from Twitter, or maybe even from seeing her around this site, Mari runs Foiled Cupcakes, the premier specialty cupcake business in Chicago. In fact, the only reason I was in Chicago yesterday in the first place was because of her constant badgering (in a good way) to get me down there and interact with some people, instead of hiding up here in my little office cave. Matt Gelber (@mbgusa) joined in the badgering at one point, and I finally gave in and said that if Matt would buy lunch, and Mari would bring cupcakes, I would drive down to Chicago to see them.

Well, after saying goodbye to Derek, Mari and I hopped in her car, and she drove me downtown to meet Matt for lunch. We walked into a very nice restaurant (thanks, Matt!) with a dozen cupcakes to meet someone neither of us had ever seen before. Oh, and did I mention that I’d never seen Mari before that moment, either? Three new people in one morning! That’s a record for me . . . I’m a big introvert, in case you hadn’t figured it out yet.

Folks, I can’t say enough about Mari and Matt. These two have been with me from the very beginning. I know I met them on Twitter, but I don’t remember when or how. What I do know is that they have been two of my strongest supporters, biggest helpers, and most trusted advisors. They are both very successful in their chosen fields, and certainly didn’t need to spend their time helping me out when I started this project. But help they did, and now the A-Team has grown from just a handful of people emailing each other to the hundreds of people in dozens of countries that it is today. It wouldn’t be nearly as successful without the two of them involved.

We had a great lunch, talking about our lives, our families, our backgrounds, as well as ideas for the future, and what we want to do with our respective businesses. The best part of the conversation for me was when Matt described a moment in his life where he began making a conscious effort to make a difference in people’s lives, and how he’s continued doing that to this day. It was a touching story that I don’t have time to tell here, though I sent an abridged version of it in the A-Team mission email earlier today . . . so our members will see it, anyway.

Lunch ended all too soon, and it was time for Mari and I to take our leave. I want to let Matt know that I never once felt uncomfortable or intimidated in a setting where those feelings could certainly be possible. He was an extremely gracious host to both of us, and I want to offer my sincere gratitude for the hour we were able to spend with him.

Mari drove me around the city for a bit, showing me some of the sights, and then we stopped for ice cream at Bobtail Ice Cream, billed as “the best ice cream in Chicago”. I was expecting the full Chicago flavor, and was a bit surprised when the counter worker spoke to us in a decidedly British accent. He tried to convince us that he was from the South Side, but had just “spent a bit o’ time in England.” We weren’t buying it.

Mari and I had a good chat about community, both online and off, and also talked business growth for a while (her in the for-profit sector, me in the non-profit sector). As she always seems to do, she came through with a few more people for me to talk to that could possibly help out. Seriously, that girl knows everybody.

I said goodbye to Mari around 2:45pm and headed back up to Milwaukee. I had about an hour at home to gather my wits about me, and then my wife and I headed out to pick up two friends (also team members) and make the trek out to Madison, WI. About a month ago, Kat Cole (@KatColeATL), one of my favorite people on the team, invited us to a VIP grand opening party for a new Hooters restaurant in Madison. Kat is a vice president with the organization and travels around to attend many of these events, so she invited us over to say hi and meet us in person.

Again, not something I’m really comfortable with, having A) never been to a Hooters restaurant, much less a VIP party, and B) going to meet someone for the first time. But yesterday was a day for me to break out of my comfort zone a bit and say “yes” to every opportunity presented, so I jumped right in.

The place was jam-packed, but we managed to find the last open table back in the corner. I was scanning the crowd, but couldn’t pick out Kat (I had seen a picture of her, but I am horribly bad at remembering faces). So I walked over to a hostess, asked where I could find Kat, and was directed over near the bar.

Nate St. Pierre and Kat Cole

She came over to our table to say hi to the group, and we talked for a while about who we are, what we do, and how we got there. You know, people stuff. I asked Kat how long she’d been with the company, and she told me that it’s been 14 years now. She started as a hostess for the restaurant, just doing it on the side for extra money while she pursued an engineering degree. But over time she took on more and more responsibility and fell in love with the company . . . with the fun atmosphere, the great people, and also with the partnerships for social good. I didn’t know this before, but Hooters raises a ton of money for charitable causes, most notably breast cancer research, the Make-a-Wish foundation, and the Special Olympics.

After our initial conversation, Kat came and went, making appearances, shaking hands, talking to people . . . basically doing the meet-and-greet activities you would expect from a VP. But another thing I noticed is that she would also clear dishes from the occasional table, take some orders, bring out drinks, etc. Someone in her position certainly doesn’t have to do anything like that, but it was very cool to see . . . and very indicative of the kind of person she is.

We were treated like royalty the rest of the night by the entire staff, and we left around 9:00pm, with a final goodbye to Kat at the door. The two of us will continue our conversation as well — I have some ideas on where to take the ItStartsWith.Us project in its next phase, and she has agreed to help provide some advice and direction.

So to Kat I would like to say thank you so much for the invitation, it was a pleasure meeting you, and I am more than impressed with both you and your organization. I really appreciate the time and effort you’ve put into this group so far, and I’m excited to hear more about what you think in the future. We’ll be in touch.

In closing (since it’s 12:16am, and I’ve been writing for over two hours), I’d like to bring up part of a conversation that Mari and I had while we were sitting in the ice cream shop.

We’re both tired of hearing the term “social media.” Far too many people think of it as an end unto itself, or as a skill you can be good at. Every other Twitter bio we read seems to claim that the person is a “social media guru” of some sort or another.

Whatever.

You see everything I’ve written above? All the interactions, all the discussions, all the thoughts, the events, the meals, the fun, the laughter, the hopes, the dreams . . . the big plans and small seeds . . . all of that is the real stuff. It’s true that I met every single person in this story through a few random exchanges on Twitter, and that’s partially how we’ve stayed in touch, so in that sense the relationships were formed on and through social media.

But here’s the deal: social media is simply one more tool. It’s just another way for one human to connect and interact with another human. Those Twitter exchanges turn into emails, emails turn into phone calls, phone calls turn into a face-to-face meetings, which then evolve into friendships, business partnerships, or whatever else you decide it should become. And that, friends, is how this stuff really works.

So the next time someone says they’re an expert at social media, don’t ask them how many Twitter followers they have or how many times they’ve had an article hit the front page of Digg. Ask them if they care about people. Ask them if they take the time to inquire into their lives, share their own insights, and offer help when needed. Ask them what they would do if Facebook crashed tomorrow. Would they still have relationships with the thousands of people they claim as “friends?”

This is what ItStartsWith.Us is all about — this is why I conceived the project in the first place. We all gathered together yesterday to share a part of ourselves . . . not because of Twitter, but because we all share a common vision — to make a difference in the lives of those around us. We care about others, and we care about each other. When you have a group of people like that, and you also throw in the connection, outreach and growth opportunities provided by the web and social media, then you can truly accomplish great things. And that’s what we plan on doing.

Who else out there wants to help? Let’s chat. I’m always here.

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