Do you remember the days before Internet, when we used to play bridge with the computer? Although the game was OK, the bids made sense, many times we felt like something was missing there. It was the lack of human touch, the gut feeling that makes you disobey a rule from time to time, the small mistakes that give flavour to our actions. When Internet was here, such games like bridge were available online, with real partners. It felt so great!

I read a post today, on Problogger, in which Darren Rowse brings into attention the power of the virtual space, which makes possible things such as successful associations or close friendships between people who never met in real life. He challenges the readers to name the five bloggers they would like to meet in real life. I see this invitation as an opportunity for me to thank a few people who changed the course of my life, although I never met them in person. Here is my list of bloggers I would love to have a chat with:

  • Guy Kawasaky - because of his charming smile and because whenever my friends come to me with business-related troubles, I can always redirect them to a page on his blog, in order to substantiate my words to them.


  • Darren Rowse - because many times, when reading his posts I recognize myself in his early blogging experiences. Besides, he is so happy sharing his experience and knowledge with all of us, that I really think he can make a great friend and an enjoyable company. (I remember myself 10 years ago, selling software to some clients: my biggest joy was when the client did not know how to handle well programs such as Excel - I was delighted to show them all kind of tricks and I was so happy that they liked them, that I did not care about all the unpaid time I spent on that). Darren’s work made me set up a business of consultancy for corporate blogs in my country, Romania, which has barely 2000 blogs, out of which, maybe less than 10 are corporate. I took this decision yesterday and I am positive it would prove right over time.

    • Later update: I was way ahead the times with this enterprise. Nobody saw the need to have a corporate blog in 2006 in Romania. Today, in mid-2008, even the country’s president has a blog!

  • Seth Godin - because of his half-headed self-portrait. Not to mention here that I would have so much to learn from him that I cannot express now in words. As I have some 5 years experience in marketing, I would enjoy to discuss with him some case studies (mainly the ones where I failed to deliver, as I’m sure I did not learn very much out of them)


  • Hugh MacLeod - because of his ugly but expressive drawings and because I’m sure that if we met over a couple of beers, he would make a special drawing during that meeting - I would love to see that process.


  • Steve Olson - because he is a good story teller and he was one of the first people who welcomed me on Stumble Upon. His blog is quite new, but I’m sure that in a couple of years it will become one of the references of this community.

    • I have a special mention here: many thanks to Steve Pavlina for his outstanding work. Actually his blog determined me two months ago to shift the direction of my personal business, from training and consultancy in real life, to blogging full time, with a strange certitude that I’ll reach some profit before all my savings were gone for good on the deep blogging waters. When I came across his blog, I spent about one week staring at his words and realizing that this is what I want to do from now on, at least for a while.
    Yet, I would not want to meet him in person, because I have the strange feeling that he writes for a million people audience and not for one person at a time. I’m not saying this is bad, but it just happens that I’m not very fond of crowds.

    If I’ll ever meet one of the persons on this list, I’ll remember once more that everything is possible. All we have to do is grab the opportunities as they pass by.

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