It's who you know. Not what you know.

Working in the Entertainment Industry, specifically theatre can be a solitary pursuit. The building of fast, intense working relationships is essential. Some of those contracts are the best times of your life or the most lonely and isolating. 13 weeks to work and collaborate giving your heart and soul to a production can be invigorating and exhausting. Reaching the end, the ordeal is over no matter how elating or how depressing. Concluding with the ever familiar farewells and of course,"We must stay in touch".

With the greatest of intentions a time comes when your best friends are mobile phone numbers of people you connected with yet never see because life has carried you down river and the ebb and flow of your career drives you ever forward. This is why "It's who you know, not what you know" proliferates the industry. When the time comes and a new team member is needed that list of phone numbers becomes the way to reach out and return to those friends you thought you might never see again. One chance to revisit a friendship, "Come work for me". At any other time you travel down life's river unable to fight the current but working together you can share the boat for just a little while.

Here we are at the dawn of Social Networking and many other iconic terms floating in the electronic ether like Web 2, Social Media, Social Web. Enterprise 2.0 was new one on me today. But what this means for me is I can live a consistent life, hold on to the valuable people I want in my life. It is tempting to take and hand of friendship when it is offered by a familiar face but ask yourself, Why did I loose contact with this person. Why am I going to connect? The potential for continuance? For learning, business, companionship or life fulfillment?

I see this now and I see what is before me. Since leaving the world of live performance I have immersed myself in a passionate quest to find a new direction. The expanse of the super information highway I find intoxicating, fascinating, tangible and new. Real life, the life of the corporeal self with its five senses is a gift. The new technological age, the digital road is one to be walked with caution, commitment and vigor. These are exciting times. A way to augment real life. A way to reconnect. A way to solidify business, reinforce relationships.

Those of you who know me I hope you are instilled by my wonder and awe for the digital domain and see how it has enriched my real life on an emotional, personal, business and philosophical level. Opportunities have opened up to me I never would have imagined and digital friends, some I have now met in real life are inspiring me to grow and learn. The human condition ultimately drives us to look upon the face of a friends and shake the hand of the business contact.