There is a restaurant in Milwaukee that you may have heard of called AJ Bombers. Many of us here in the Fox Valley have become good friends with the “Bomb Squad” via social media and will often visit when we are in town. Our fondness for the place has caused a group of us to begin a campaign to bring AJ Bombers to Appleton, the heart of the Fox Valley.
As one of the ringleaders of the group, I took it upon myself to take action. The members of the Fox Cities social media community have always talked about going to Milwaukee as a group to have a meal together at AJ Bombers instead of commenting on the Tweets of the one of us who happened to be down on a particular day. After a quick survey of availability, we chose Saturday, Feb 18th for our Road Trip to AJ Bombers.
As the Tweets and invitations began to fly across the Internet more and more of the Milwaukee social media community began to sign on to join the fun!
In a conversation I was having with a friend of mine, a thought came over me. What had started out as a group of friends having a fun time and fantastic lunch, had become a great social media bonding experience between the two communities. Many of the people joining us for lunch are people that, in many cases, we have gotten to know so well, we forget we had never actually met in person!
Funnily enough, this is where the serendipity part come in, I noticed Monday was the first day of Social Media Week 2012. Social Media Week is a global platform connects people, content and conversation around the emerging trends in social and mobile media. Across the world, groups will be meeting to engage with each other to continue the advance of social media.
The timing could not have worked out more perfectly. In social media, getting the chance to meet face to face with the people communicate with online is something that, due to geography, people often don’t get the chance to do. (I’ll be updating you soon about my upcoming trips to Chicago and Coffee Con 2012 and Las Vegas for unGeeked.) So the fact that we will be meeting up this week of all weeks is quite a cherry on top.
With the two communities being less than two hours away from one another, being able to connect in person is something we do more often on a smaller scale, but in this larger format, it is quite exciting. Introductions will be made, networking will be done, Meet-Meme cards will be handed out, beers will be drank, P-Nuts bombed, conversations sprung, and hugs will be sprinkled in along the way. The afternoon will most assuredly end up with everyone who attends having a great time, a full belly and be just a little better at something than they were that morning.
Various members of the group traveling to Milwaukee will be posting across our various channels the stories of our day from our own perspectives. View Tom Clifford’s (@tommytrc) video post about the trip here
I’m looking forward to sharing the trip with you!
How will you be celebrating Social Media Week 2012?
UPDATE – To follow the Tweets from #AJB218 click here for the Stoify page
