Small is Beautiful

In the social world, small is beautiful

I watched a live chat the other day with Pete Cashmore from Mashable and Gary Veynerchuk. Gary was tired, in bed, but on FIRE! He was talking about customer service and talked about how we all are living in a small town again. I love that idea. We’ve tried big. Big failed! Big didn’t work. Big became too impersonal and our humanity was not taken care of in the ways that it requires. Small is beautiful.

One of the reasons why urban environments like New York City are so connected via social media is that we are recreating the experience of a small town. The experience of seeing you neighbors on a daily basis. Of running into them at the store, at the market, at school. In a city as big as New York, you just don’t get that experience. We can go days on end commuting to and from work without ever running into people we know or actually want to see. Colleagues don’t count, sorry!

Stories are Small

I am someone who likes to meet new people, engage in conversation and get stories. Stories are what I am interested in. Everyone’s got one. That means there are roughly 6 billion stories on this planet. I want to eat them up; all of them. I don’t care if someone is important or not, wealthy or poor, ambitious or passive. I just want their story, I want to know their story, because that’s what humanizes me.

I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a bartender at a chic restaurant downtown. I introduced myself as I was waiting for a meeting and we started chatting about the restaurant business. It wasn’t long before he asked what I did and I told him that I am a food blogger but that I also do social media strategy for businesses in the hospitality industry.

He immediately seemed perplexed. I told him exactly what I do, helping businesses make the most of the social networks and instruments to get their narratives and offerings out to the public. Out to their constituencies. He wanted to know why I was focused on restaurants primarily.

I told him that I loved working with small businesses because of the people involved. I’ve been corporate, and I’ve seen how the individual can get marginalized in such settings. But in small business, the people are accountable every day and don’t have the same kind of protections that a corporate atmosphere provides. As his skepticism turned to curiosity, I told him furthermore that I loved working with people in the service business because they used food and wine to tell their stories. As a foodie and social media strategist, what better work could there be. Telling people who you are through their bellies? Man, I’m lucky!