I will admit upfront that I’m a pretty prolific Facebook user.  I find it an easy way to keep track of people I’ve met at various stages in my life – through high school in a small rural town in Idaho, to teaching English in Japan, to keeping track of my various successful MBA classmates.  Most of the people I connect to with Facebook are roughly my age – late 20s/early 30s, comfortable with technology.

But every once in a while, Facebook just amazes me.  Like last week, when I logged onto Facebook onto see that it had somehow found my great uncle and great aunt.

Birth dates: Early 1920s

I know that this isn’t really a technological marvel.  We’ve exchanged emails before, and the Facebook API probably used that same email address when they created their Facebook account and voila!  Instant connection.

Still, it’s not the technical marvel that gets to me so much as the fact that Facebook connected us.  Even though they only live 2 hours away, I don’t see my great aunt and uncle very much.  It’s reintroduced me to that connection, and I suddenly want to go see them.  To interact with them.  To keep much better in touch than I have in the last 5 years.

All Internet technology, at its core, is meant to connect.  Whether it connects you to a cheap book at Amazon.com or your long-lost friend in Haiti, the Internet only succeeds as far as it gets you access to things you didn’t have access to before.

Although Fellowstream is not a personal relationship service, it is meant to connect people who work together.  We have a high bar to succeed.  Here’s hoping we create these mini-moments for our customers.

-Deborah Fike

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