Today I attended my first New Media Cincinnati meetup at Panera Bread. The topic for the meetup was Virtual Teams and Kristen Beireis was the guest speaker. I really don't know much about this topic and was able to learn many things are got some good tips in a short amount of time. Kristen did a great job explaining how to use virtual teams and the fact that you need to know what you want.

I remember the founder Daniel Johnson Jr. from junior high / high school days through a mutual family we grew up with. I wanted to connect with him because it's been many, many years and I also knew he was a SQL Server Developer. Daniel and I had some "geek talk" to break the ice and he introduced me to some of the members of the group. I ended up staying and chatting with a few members for a while.

I met a few people around me but things happened pretty quickly. I was really impressed and a bit freaked out. I know I'm a shy person until I get to know people better and this was a bit more difficult that I expected. Still a great experience and good preparation for PodCamp Ohio.  Reconnecting with Daniel has given my hope that shy people can come out of there shell. I remember day as he was and was pleasantly suprised to find out who he is.

If you're interested in blogging, podcasting, and/or social networking this is a great group of people to connect with.