A Twittervite to a Blogger Diner

Yesterday, I noticed a quick "tweet" from Jeremiah Owyang in which he invites locals to a blogger dinner in New York, then uninvites them, then kind of re-invites them to a meeting with Charlene Li.

After a rather cryptic plea to Sam Lawrence to argue my case before Jeremiah, I decided to take my chances and hopped over the George Washington bridge into midtown Manhattan to see if I would be a persona non Grata if I showed up for the event without being formally registered (as registration had already closed).

On the subway I was busy musing about whether I would appear to others as a Zelig character, crashing the party and behaving in a "chameleon like way" as one of the pseudo-blogerati. I started wondering if indeed I had any business calling myself blogger, let alone going to the meet-up, when suddenly a poster caught my eye: "Working for the radical notion of fairness". This is the tag line of freelancers.com an online community for "independent workers, mutual support, advocacy and the spirit of friendship".

I thought about how blogging is a very personal form of expression and decided that working for fairness was exactly who I am and want to be. The radical part was a bit strident but heck, having passions around causes is part of my DNA. Regardless of credentials I felt armed with a real persona even though I see my blogging experience as a modest one.

I got to NYC, attended the meet up, found Charlene Li to be gracious and welcoming, received a copy of her excellent book, Groundswell, which she authored with Josh Bernoff and considered the evening a success. In addition I met with a number of folks who I had hoped to be introduced to for a long while now such as Robin Carey and Jerry Bowles, being a visitor of their Social Media Today and their Energy Collective blogs. Then too, I encountered a number of others who I'd like to add to my twitter buddies and who engage in activities regarding the tracking, creation, and promoting of social media. I'll need to check my "dance cards" for exact names but companies like Razorfish and Monster and Clickster come to mind.

Upon returning home, I went to further reference the event, the hostess, and some of the folks I'd met and found this post in Charlene's blog: Turning radicals into revolutionaries: the key to kick-starting your social strategy Really resonates. I think I'll change that poster tag line for me to read: "Working for the revolutionary notion of fairness".