Louisville’s Finest

Image via Wikipedia

The one pillar of awesomeness that I have historically had a tough time with has been “Meeting People.” Its something that I’ve really had to work on over the years, as I am not particularly comfortable around new people. Awkward silences make me self conscious.  I usually have the thought in the back of my head that I’m coming across as a complete idiot.

I know its silly… but what are you going to do, right?

Which is why I’ve enjoyed using Twitter to reach out to new people online. It’s a total ice breaker and something I’ve been really working on of late. The extra bonus comes when the people I reach out to actually live within driving proximity so that I can meet them in person.  I have especially put myself out there this month and I feel that it has paid some huge dividends with regards to the caliber of people I’ve been able to meet here in Louisville.  I want to share, so here is a rundown:

@robmay – I reached out to Rob via twitter and have met with him in person more than once over the course of the last few weeks and I really enjoy our conversations. He has created a service called Lifestream Backup that I think is an awesome concept. The idea is that you provide your log-in credentials to the social media sites that you wish to back up and you can rest assured that all of your photos, videos, blog posts, etc. will exist if you get hacked, banned, or the site ceases to exist.

@dgregoire - I reached out to Dannie via twitter after stumbling upon Digital Louisvlle.  We have met in person more than once throughout the last few weeks and I think that he is a really cool guy. The concept behind Digital Louisville is to provide a birds-eye view of the conversations going on in Louisville from twitter users in Louisville.

@earwood & @kevinfrey – I met Todd and Kevin at a small social gathering last week and discovered that they were both really cool guys who recently created the Lending Tree for small businesses in MoneyPath. I spoke with them both for a while and found out that Todd is a serial entrepreneur with a blog dedicated to the insights he gains from his experiences with start-ups.

@joewheeler – I met Joe at the same social gathering and found out that he is helping his wife get her line of cosmetics, Tallulah, off the ground and into boutiques and department stores around the country.

So my take-away is that when I open myself up to meeting new people, I meet cool people. I am inspired by these guys’ stories which motivates me to keep moving forward with my own personal projects.

Who have you met recently?