The Best Connections – Part II

In my last entry I talked about the unexpected professional benefits that friendships can bring into your life. Over the course of your life, you’ve probably known a lot more people than you know right now. So I’d like to talk a bit about the benefits of reconnecting with long lost friends.

Ever since I was in junior high I’ve had a hobby of writing horror/thrillers and science fiction. I never imagined myself becoming the next Stephen King or Dean Koontz. I never even imagined that my job would ever be writing novels. But I always dreamed that one day I’d be able to walk into a book store or log on to Amazon.com, see something I wrote, and quietly whisper to myself, “That’s mine. I did that.” Beyond that, I always hoped that someday something I’d written would be adapted to the big screen. And that’s where I left my hobby, my dream, because like everyone else, I’ve got bills to pay.

Recently URC created a page on Facebook. I wasn’t a Facebook user at the time, and I admit that like many of you, I snickered when I heard what we were doing. Social networking? What was that? It seemed goofy to me. But the guy at URC who came up with the idea asked us to check out Facebook so we’d know what it was all about. Maybe we might want to create our own page there. I did.

Now I just wish I had been the person who came up with the idea.

Within days of joining Facebook, I reconnected with dozens of friends I’d lost contact with. I didn’t know where to start, but that was okay, because mostly they found me. People I never thought would remember me came calling with open arms. I learned of a high school reunion I would otherwise have missed. I told everyone my ups and downs, what I’ve done for all these years, and what I’m up to now.

And I learned their stories too. Some of them, it turns out, use some of the software I helped design or wrote the manuals for in my positions at previous jobs. Some even use the very products I help to design for URC. Once again, I got to feel like a rock star for half an hour. A few of my old friends remembered my writing from school and asked if I’d ever finished any of those book ideas I’d always talked about. So I told them about the books I’ve completed and some that are still in the oven.

One friend asked where she could buy a copy of a novel I mentioned, so I sent her a copy. She read the novel and enjoyed it. And then she said she’d told a close friend about the book, and he wanted to read it too. So she asked if I would mind if she shared the book with him. I agreed because hey, I love it when anyone reads my writing. (Shameless plug: Search the Books section on Amazon.com for “Dale Crawford The Price,” or check out the first 35 pages at http://www.lulu.com/browse/preview.php?fCID=6561409. I’d love to hear your thoughts!)

An amazing opportunity came about due to that long-lost friend asking about my novel. It turns out that her good friend just so happened to be an executive at a major film studio. He wasn’t just wanting to read the book… he wanted to consider it. So there I was, mailing off a requested copy of my novel to a person whose in-box I could otherwise never have seen without breaking and entering.

I’m not getting too worked up about where things might go from here, of course—the studio probably discards a hundred novels like mine a day. But it was pretty exciting for me to know it was even being read by someone at that level! If everything worked out the best it could, the sale of the movie rights wouldn’t mean a career change for a first-time author. I’d still be right here designing remote controls, and loving it! But I’d have the opportunity to do something else I’ve dreamed of since childhood: I could walk by a movie poster, smile, and know inside, “I did that!”

But that’s just a dream. That same Facebook page has allowed me to help one friend find a job in this tough economy. Another of my friends is now a client of an installer I know. But I never set out to “market” to anyone or to “expand my contact list.” No, all I did was say, “hello world,” in a medium that was new to me. I’m still amazed at how much the world has said in reply.

So go check out URC’s Facebook page. Friend it. Start your networking circle there, then maybe expand to LinkedIn or some of the other more “serious” social networking sites. It’s a digital world out there, and if you’re not participating in the social aspect of it, you’re missing a big part of what’s going on.

But more importantly, it will build and rebuild the best connections. It will open you up to new opportunities—probably ones you will never realize exist until you hop on the social networking bandwagon.