THE MARCH 2012 Limerick OpenCoffee #LOCC confirmed for me that a lot of the connections sustaining this self-organising group of entrepreneurs come through the long form. This conclusion seems so obvious now.
Like many #LOCC sessions, three of four new faces passed through the Riverbank coffee dock scrum in the Absolute Hotel. A few of these new people told me that they were motivated to meet a few people who they had been reading for a few months. The longer someone reads you, the more likely they are to drive to meet up with you. Consumer psychologists proved that theory before the television was invented. I like to use my Kindle to read what #LOCC regulars have to offer and sometimes I discover I'm sitting on part of a book that someone else has started. A third person listening to our conversation often has the cover of the book or they've a mental treatment for how to position the long read in front of an audience I never considered.
I took some things away from #LOCC March 2012 that will serve me well through the rest of my lecturing days. As the image suggests, the most powerful snippets I found started to automagically appear as e-ink in my bag before I left the Absolute. And for that I thank Philip O'Rourke and James Corbett.
Limerick OpenCoffee is a free networking session held from 1100 to 1200 every first Thursday on an open mezzanine in the Absolute Hotel, Limerick, Ireland. Some think #LOCC is the gangsta version of OpenCoffee, if the Twitter search string is credible.
