Drinking Red Wine on the Red Couch
Shel finally arrived back from his world tour which is providing the research for his upcoming book Global Neighborhoods. For those that don’t know, he co-authored Naked Conversations with Scoble. (I was able to get everyone in Marketing a copy) I like the focus of Global Hoods it documents the end results of how the internet is changing the world, how the world gets smaller, how we connect and communicate.
Over two glasses of wine, Shel was very interested in hearing about my China trip. I used the internet to connect my extended family from Wikipedia to a Yahoo group. Some of our family have never met. It was good to have a catch up talk…it’s been a while.
I’m always thankful for the time I get to spend with Shel, he always passes on tremendous knowledge and insight from his years of working in the valley. Did you know Shel was a former colleague of Jennifer Jones, who I’ll be working with at Podtech. Shel describes himself as a “recovering PR professional” heh. By spreading the business blogging good news, he’s helping to strip down the spin and let the real voices of people talk to other real people.
I’m suffering from an infected gum, and the right side of my face is a bit sore, as such, I started to slur, Shel and his wife Paula were concerned I was really sloshed after two drinks.
I remember meeting Shel just about one year at Syndicate conference. Jeeez we’ve been through a lot in one year. I’ve got serious about blogging, he gave me a preview copy, I went to the Naked Convos Party at Techcrunch, we’ve co-hosted blogger dinners, I hired him to help me at Hitachi Data Systems. Shel’s been great, he’s introduced me to some pretty important people in the valley, folks that I never would have met without him.
I know why Shel Israel has a red couch (and the URL of his blog) it’s for when I come over and his dog Brewster attacks me while I drink red wine…
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“I’m always thankful for the time I get to spend with Shel, he always passes on tremendous knowledge and insight from his years of working in the valley.”
Jeremiah, I second that sentiment.
Shel came to Canada just before he left on his whirlwind globetrot. And you are right. Boy, does he give back to the community. Thanks to Shel’s generosity of spirit (and willingness to be dragged to five events in two cities in less than three days), he helped us to pull together the social media community in both Ottawa and Toronto. And he inspired both veteran bloggers and novices alike.
He’s a great guy. And if anyone has a chance to meet Shel, I hope they will grab the opportunity. You’ll learn a lot both about social media and about what the spirit of sharing.
Damn, I missed a chance to drink wine with Shel? It’s been too long. Unfortunately now I’m off to London so that’ll have to wait. I totally agree that he’s a good conversationalist and a great human being.
Thanks Joseph, Shel is a knowledge gatherer and giver.
Robert, you’re such a busy guy. I’ll setup something for us 6 when we’re all available.
I changed the title to make it say “red wine” rather than just ‘red’
Shel linked to this post, but it’s not showing in the trackbacks.
Read here:
http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2006/11/happy_anniversa.html
[…] Jennifer runs Marketing Voices, a podcast series that gives the behind the scenes strategy and experience of folks that work hard to reach out to customers. I enjoyed her radio quality voice, intelligent questions, and how she captures rare and unique interviews such as this one with James Druckery of Seagate on their Social Media commitment. I shared this interview with several folks, it tells the world that the new mediums are here, real, and companies are and will use them, social media is not going away. Back to Jennifer, I found out that she used to work with Shel Israel, whom I just enjoyed red wine on his red couch earlier this week. There are other subscribed fans of Marketing Voices, such as DJHowatt, A respected Silicon Valley Marketing Director. During my discussions with him he suggests that suspension of disbelief is broken when the podcast refers to the audience as ‘people out there’. Marketing Voices does a great job of bringing the listener into the discussion, so by reminding the audience that they are indeed separate alienates listeners. This is me, fulfilling my promise to pass on his feedback. […]