Social Serendipity

I’ve been noticing something happening to me more and more often recently: serendipitous social connections being made between me and old friends, strangers, or even between two people I barely know, as a result of some data I put up publicly on the net.

Here’s three examples over just the past few days:

1. I twittered a meeting I was having earlier week with Lisa Congdon at Rare Device, who I met through my pal Kate Bingaman-Burt, and as a result, someone I don’t even know named Beth, was reconnected with Lisa. Beth and I don’t know each other, Lisa and I just met this week, and Kate and I have only communicated through digital means… we’ve never met in person.
2. I posted a photo of a dollar bill I had that reminded me of a side project of a guy that used to work for me… seven years ago. As a result, I got an email from him the next day.
3. I posted this photo of a special bottle of Dr. Pepper I bought back in February. Yesterday, I got this email through Facebook from a gal I don’t know looking for the soda in the Bay Area for a friend who’s obsessed with the drink and has a birthday coming up.

Of course, none of these events are truly serendipitous, they’re all indicative of the incredibly interconnected fabric of social connection we’re weaving online with every piece of information we put out there. The more we open ourselves up, the more we’re weaved into the social fabric, with each piece of information we release becoming a possible point of connection (or re-connection) with old and new friends.