Readers of this blog will already know how I spent part of my Canada visit engaged in social networking. But it didn’t stop there.

My wife and I had the chance to meet Glenda Watson-Hyatt in person as well. Glenda and her husband Darrell hosted us for lunch in Surrey, BC. We met at the City Center Brewery.

Glenda is both an author and professional blogger. I came to know her first though through Twitter. Yep, Twitter. She’s a social media maven like me.

Glenda welcomed us with open arms and a smile. I immediately felt like a real friend. As she led my wife and I into the restaurant though, I had to race to keep up. She’s no slow poke.

This lunch proved to be one that Sharon and I were loath to end. The time was one of good food, good stories, and good friends. But it also brought home some lessons for life and social networking about meeting in person.

People are so much more than a few characters in a Twitter message. Sure, people tell you their favorite color or drink, or where they like to eat, or mention their struggles. But until you sit across the table from them at their favorite restaurant, you don’t know the why’s and real what’s of those things. And you begin to understand why sometimes you didn’t get the jokes before.

Hugs and handshakes cement a relationship like few things in life. Yes, you can share your profile, and pictures of your kids and dogs, but that’s all superficial stuff. Stuff your neighbors know and maybe your kids’ friends even. But how many times have you hugged those folks? Hugs, even among gents, are considered a hallmark sign of friendship. Hugs welcome someone closer than any stranger has a right to be.

Appreciation happens. Yes, we say we appreciate each other. But when was the last time you didn’t gripe about picking up your kids, and they’re only ten minutes away. How good does it feel then to have someone travel hundreds of miles to meet in person. Or how much more do you appreciate someone and time with them when you’ve traveled far to share a few minutes with them.

Glenda has cerebral palsy. You’d never know it from her online presence if you didn’t read her blog. She’s feisty and full of more energy than most of us. Her blog is constantly updated, she’s authoring another book, and she’s extremely active on Twitter, other folks’ blogs and more.

She’s the same in person, but wheelchair bound and each syllable a struggle to get out. Meeting her made me feel really humble. I thought I understood the effort she was putting into having such an active life online and off, and now I’m struggling to express myself without feeling to shameful. She wouldn’t want that for me I know.

Glenda hugged me like she meant it. Wow. We’d only ever chatted online with no video sessions and no audio. She’d only heard I was a nice guy, and hopefully thought so from my online presence. But she made me feel welcomed with that hug. Like we were long separated friends. And she had so much energy, it’s hard to tell you that.

Each word was a struggle, yet she shared how happy she was to meet in person. I realized how much our relationship meant to her as well. Not only did she put up with me catching on to her lingo, but Darrell and her had to trek across town in their wheelchairs just to dine with us. Talk about feeling appreciated. To top it off, she gave us a personal copy of her book, I’ll Do It Myself.

Sharing lunch with Glenda was a highlight of my week and vacation. Yeah, we’d exchanged dozens of messages, and postcards even, but wow did I so not know her. Nor did I realize how enjoyable her company would be. Darrell was an added bonus. He not only played translator but was a great lunch companion. Not afraid to make recommendations, nor to put back a cold one with us. You know what I say, the best way to share with friends is over a good meal.

So yeah, chat yourself up, have a thousand friends on Facebook or whatever, but don’t count yourself lucky until you’ve taken that relationship offline as well. This year has been a fantastic series of meeting online contacts in the flesh. There was the MidWest Media Conference, the St. Louis Blogger meet ups, and the Social Media Club St. Louis meet. Then how about the trip to Austin with tweetups, lunches, and breakfast tacos. Oh yeah, and how about the Lo-Fi St. Louis Restart party at the Mad Art Gallery!

To think, the year is just now about half over. I can’t wait to take social networking to the pub, diner, or dance floor next. Where are you meeting your contacts?

My vacation plans started off ordinarily enough, time away from work and visiting with family. In this case, the family is my daughter-in-law and granddaughters up in Washington State. The plan was one week up there, visiting and perhaps drifting up to Seattle for a day or two. Well, things changed!

In my searching around for things to do, I came across some folks that sent me to a link on Jeff Pulver’s next breakfasts. Guess where? Seattle and Vancouver on back to back days! Yeah. We’d thought already about heading into Seattle, Vancouver, or both, so I was excited about this.

As it turned out, Seattle was too hard to make, so we changed plans to make a week day trip to British Columbia and have breakfast the next day. That travel adventure is fodder for another post.

The breakfast was held in down town Vancouver at the Subeez Cafe. Sharon and I arrived about 8:30, and the meet-up portion was already in full swing. There was Jeff, live and in person, elbow deep in schmoozing with the locals. It seems folks from all over the area were interested in this get together.

Minutes after getting there, we were handed our personal social networking tool kits. If you’ve never seen one, then please check out this Facebook video. Jeff explains it all.

Kit in hand, we quickly put on our name tags and gave ourselves tag lines. I labeled myself as a social media gadabout. Sharon chose the oh so true social media widow. This made a great intro for discussions folks had with her. Moments later, someone handed us each some other tags to label ourselves with. Tagging is a big part of these breakfasts.

We spent some moments looking around this rather unique restaurant, but most of the time after our tagging was spent in deep conversations, and there was plenty to talk about. Conversations obviously included social media and networking as topics, but also strayed into all kinds of areas. Sharon ended up talking about our travels, where we’re from and learned plenty about Canada from Ian Hood and Roland Tangloa. These gents made us feel the more like friends than strangers. Of course my wife is like that with folks anyway. Ha.

Everyone was talking and there was a wealth of interesting folks to engage there. Jeff Pulver was going to be my primary target but once I got settled, I found there were others just as interesting. And just so much I couldn’t take it all in. If you get a chance to go, do talk with Jeff, but don’t ignore all the wonderful people like yourself that showed up as well.

Conversation didn’t come to an end even when breakfast arrived. The breakfast was a treat and a nice surprise. Originally this was going to be a continental breakfast. In most places that means bagels, fruit, cereal etc. Not so here.

The Subeez Cafe apparently doesn’t serve breakfast regularly. So for us they whipped special up. Check out this picture.

The first thing to catch my eye was the fresh fruit. Strawberries and apples fresh cut and colorful sat nicely on each plate. This was the first time though I’d had fresh fruit and toast though. Turkey sausage and baked beans nestled nicely with fluffy scrambled eggs between the fruit and toast. To top off the toast, there was a side of peanut butter on each plate. Needless to say, the breakfast drew much of the immediate conversation.

Interesting things besides breakfast included that I’ve been a much busier Twitter user than most in attendance. Most folks there used other social networking tools, though no one had heard of Plurk yet. Facebook seemed popular though, and several folks had full blown websites and blogs. Photography seemed popular as well, with several folks having cameras and video going.

What did I take away from this? What value added did it have in my life? The biggest thing for me was getting face time with folks I’d normally only meet online. In a world where many of us will communicate but never shake hands, this is even more important. Being there in person also allows for more intimate communication, including other forms of personal communication, such as body language and expressions. There’s nothing quite like a real life wink to cement meaning in a message.

Documenting this with words isn’t doing this event justice, so I took some pictures as well. Please check out my pictures of the Vancouver Jeff Pulver breakfast. If you’re on Facebook, be sure to check out the event page. Please feel free to tag the pictures, and leave comments if you know anyone in them.

Now what? Now I start planning on joining Jeff Pulver for breakfast in St. Louis. How about you?