Blogging and Friendship and Trust

Today has been a funny day. I was driving home from a meeting and was thinking of a blogging friend from PEI that I had lost touch with. Just minutes ago I received an email from him - he had moved to Toronto from PEI and was letting me know. He had been on Blog Sabbatical for over a year but he keeps in touch with me by reading my blog.

Earlier this week another blogging friend Stuart Henshall finally broke months of blog silence and whispered that he might be back, I commented with a quiet Welcome Home and he then posted this.

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A trust and set of relationships that has allowed him to do the unthinkable for many. Not much more than a month ago Rob had never met Johnnie, Dina or myself. Johnnie met with Rob just over a month ago for the first time. While for our small roles in this theater we met on Sunday before the kickoff. For many that's a risk they wouldn't take. For me, like Rob, it is increasingly one I find myself taking with my blogging buddies. We've read each other often for years, probably Skyped and chatted off and on; perhaps met at a number of conferences. For me this small assignment is just the proof that 1) a new way of working is emerging, and 2) given the chance a few bloggers can often out strategise, out perform, and simply do a better job than the most expensive consulting firms around.

Something weird and wonderful is going on in the background of the debate about the meaning of blogging. Yes it is an important feature of a new type of journalism. Yes it will change marketing and product development. As interesting to me as these major trends is how blogging is also creating new kinds of trusting relationships. It is enabling an entirely new way to make friends - from the inside out.

No longer are we reliant on face to face and local space to guide our relationships. This is surely a revolution. To all those that don't know - the success rate of "knowing" whom you can trust as a product of blogging is far higher than the traditional. I am not alone in finding that I can work with people that I have never met - such as Johnnie, Stuart and Dina.

I find that I "know" my blogging friends better than most of my traditional friends - why is this - what do you think?