At any rate, my blog is not normally about business, but today I thought it might be appropriate. As many of you know who have been following my writing, my focus these days is in reconnecting with old schoolmates. And I think one of the best ways to conduct this reconnecting process is to enjoy a mini reunion. (By the way, for more information about Mini Reunions, check out my new website, www.minireunion.net.) We’ll get to the business part in a bit.

I see reconnecting with old schoolmates and people from the past as an essential part of life. By reminiscing (in person) about old times with people with whom we share a common bond, we actually create new memories. And I believe that these memories are what sustain us as we grow older, and help to make us happy.

But there is an interesting side benefit that I have recently discovered about these Mini Reunions, to my pleasant surprise. Many of these old schoolmates that I am reconnecting with have potential interest in the work that I do. Conversely, I also frequently have a potential business interest in what they do as well. My point is that reconnecting with subordinates is not only a pleasurable, personal experience, but it can also be a benefit to your business.

They say that the size of your net worth is proportional to the size of your network. Many business professionals are constantly spending time doing various networking activities off for the specific purpose of growing their business. These networking activities take on many forms such as business card exchanges, Chamber of Commerce events, educational seminars, and a wide array of other things all designed to bring professional business people together.

The problem with these meetings is the fact that for the most part, you’re going in unknown. The purpose of these meetings is to encounter new people and add them to your network. This professional networking challenge however can be a big challenge, because everybody there is out to achieve the same thing. Ultimately, conversations can come across as being a little forced—and uncomfortable.

For that reason, I have found that many reunions are a much better way to network for business, even though it is a totally social function. In a Mini Reunion when you are reconnecting with old schoolmates, you already have common ground with the people that you are meeting. Even if you haven’t seen them for many years, it is easy to break the ice by talking about the “good old days.” These discussions serve to break down the barriers that normally separate people who are meeting for the first time.

While I am not suggesting that a Mini Reunion should be turned into a business activity, I do believe that you should be aware of its value as such. Anytime you’re with people who have some kind of common ground with you, there is always potential business value. My suggestion is that a Mini Reunion is an excellent way to augment your business related networking activities.

No matter what you do for a living, as long as you provide value to others, somebody somewhere will always need your services. By attending Mini Reunions with old schoolmates from the past, you will be surprised at the number of potential business connections that you can make.

I’ve always wondered about this day. It’s certainly a day that everybody recognizes—we all know that today is Valentines Day—but it’s not really a holiday. All those people who know that it’s Valentine’s Day know it from work.

Now don’t get me wrong here—I basically like Valentine’s Day. How could you not like a day that is centered around love and relationships. But I’ve also always thought that it was a little bit weird. I mean c’mon—a cherubic little angel that flies around and shoots arrows at you?

You have to admit that someone beaming down from another planet might infer something other than Love from that kind of activity. Particularly since those arrows are aimed at the heart. Of course I understand the symbolism, but I’m just saying that if you take Valentine’s Day out of context, it’s a little bit strange.

So what is it really? Well, the cynical side of me recognizes that Valentine’s Day—as are most “holidays” nowadays—is to a large extent about money. The chocolate makers and greeting card printers and flower shops and restaurants all make a killing today. Good for them—the economy needs a boost every now and then and this is a happy, fun way to do it.

In this regard, the little guy with the wings and the arrows is far more of an economic stimulus than our expansive, expensive and expanding government could ever be. I guess we need more cupids and fewer congressmen.

But I wanted to know a little bit more about this day, so I turned to Wikipedia to see what the day was all about. (I honestly believe that some day you won’t even need to go to school as long as you have Wikipedia. That’s not true of course, but you have to admit that you can find out just about anything there.)

As with many of our holidays, Valentine’s Day has religious origins. It dates back to about 500 AD, and initially came about to honor several Christian martyrs named—as you might expect—Valentinus. But it wasn’t for about another 1,000 years until it became associated with romantic love and the accoutrements that today accompany the celebration—confections, flowers and even hand written verses.

After another 300 years or so passed the heart shaped symbol we today associate with Valentines Day was introduced. This happened around the time when humankind decided that writing out all of those romantic verses by hand was way too time consuming, and mass produced Valentines printed on presses became the order of the day. (It’s not quite as romantic, but you can send out a lot more of ‘em.)

By the time the industrial revolution happened in the mid 19th century, the titans of industry realized that the financial windfall that happened every Valentine’s Day could be extended to other holidays as well, so that’s what they did. Valentine’s Day therefore has the distinction of being the first commercialized holiday that bred all of the other commercialized holidays.

Ok, enough cynicism. My point is that today is a day about relationships. Hopefully you have a Valentine that you can call your own. I sincerely hope that is the case. You should hug and love and cherish that person every day, because that’s what a relationship is. But since today is extra special, make sure you do it today, and make sure it’s extra special.

If you don’t have a Valentine, don’t worry. That little guy with the arrows has a way of showing up when you least expect him to. He’ll find you, sooner or later.

But remember this—the whole point of Valentine’s Day is to celebrate in person with another person. I really and sincerely believe that your entire life should be like that. The only time you should rely on electronic communications—phone, text, email, Facebook, Twitter, whatever—is when you absolutely, positively can’t get together in person.

Otherwise, there is no excuse. People need to be with other people in order to be happy and to stay healthy. That’s how memories are made. End of story.

Make sure you hug your Valentine Today. Go make some happy memories—in person.

The Internet is a powerful tool that has changed our lives, no doubt about that. It has completely altered global commerce and is used by many to make money and a lot of it. It has also revolutionized the way we do research and has made it pretty easy to find out anything about anything, whenever we want to find it out.

Going online has also become somewhat of a hobby for many people, and I think that’s where the problems creep in. As with any enjoyable pastime too much of a good thing can quickly become a bad thing. I think that this is true for whatever it is that human beings choose to do to get away from what they perceive as the monotony or drudgery of life. It can be TV, listening to music, or reading romance novels.

Now don’t get me wrong here—there is nothing at all wrong with any of this, in reasonable doses. But if you spend all day plopped in front of the TV, or zoned out with your headphones on, or buried in a pile of novels, there are other things that you’re probably not taking care of that need some attention. Like I said too much good is almost invariably bad.

When you start adding vices to the mix like drinking, smoking or gambling, it gets way worse. We generally refer to the excessive indulgence in a vice as an addiction, but I think it applies to anything that we choose to do to excess.

So here’s one of the facts that I uncovered. The 800 plus million people who are members of Facebook click the like button about 2.7 billion times a day. Yes, I said 2.7 billion times. After I saw that number, I was astounded. That’s a lot of clicks.

But I took it a step further and estimated that it probably takes at least 1 second to see something on Facebook, quickly think about it, and then click on it. From the time you first notice whatever it is you’re seeing to when you actually click it, it’s probably more than a second. But let’s just be conservative here.

If you run the numbers on that, Facebook’s members spend 2.7 billion seconds every day, “liking” things. That is 45 million collective minutes, which is 750,000 collective hours—every day—clicking a button on Facebook. That is indeed a heck of a long time.

So what do those collective members of Facebook get for that massive investment in time? Not much. It’s pretty much wasted—gone forever. My point is that Facebook should be a hobby, not an obsession.

I will soon be releasing the report I wrote on all of this, and I think that you might find it interesting. (It’s also totally free, so no worries there.) I’ll post a notice on the blog when it’s ready for download.

As strange as it seems, this happens every day with the thousands of friends that completely dismiss thousands of other friends on the social media sites like Facebook and MySpace.

We see it all the time with people who have lists of hundreds or even thousands of friends on their social media site. But when you think about it, these really aren’t friends at all—at least not in the traditional sense. In most cases, these online friends have never even met their supposed friend in person.

They click on the friend link, maybe post a comment—maybe not—and then go on their merry way. It’s what social media is all about and it has become common practice. I guess for some people it’s a matter of online status to flaunt the number of people who have “friended” you. Kind of like an online popularity contest—that at the end of the day is basically meaningless.

But this is not what human interaction is all about. Human interaction is about getting together with old schoolmates and people from the past, face-to-face, and reminiscing about old times. It’s about enjoying laughter in person and communicating not just verbally, but with your facial expressions and body language as well. In other words, it’s about sharing life and times with other people—in person.

I think the other important thing here though is that time spent online produces nothing. It might be fun for awhile, but it’s an indulgence. Once you log off, that’s it—that time is gone and you have nothing to show for it. But spending time with others in person is different. That time is an investment in memories. Because whenever you get together with other people, no matter what you do or where you do it, you create memories. And memories—the good ones—are what keep us happy and fulfilled. It’s what life is all about.

This is why I have become so passionate about what I call mini reunions and what appears to be a mini reunion revolution that is sweeping the world. Whereas the formal and structured class reunion of old has become somewhat of a boring and tedious undertaking, mini reunions are fun, fast and flexible. They can be set up on the fly and enjoyed it a matter of days and in some cases even a matter of hours.

Mini reunions help people to do what they should have been doing all along—getting together. Sure the social media are fun and it’s a great way to find old schoolmates from the past and to reconnect with them online. But to really share experiences, create memories, and enjoy the sheer pleasure that human beings get from interacting with other people, you need to do it in person.

That’s why many reunions are so much fun to enjoy.

Granted, there are times when people have to share ideas and information remotely. There really is no other way for companies that have many people scattered all over the country, or even all over the world. The ubiquitous e-mail, instant messaging, videoconferencing, and even videoconferencing on Skype have all evolved as essential tools of modern business. And let’s not forget the old standby—the telephone. It’s always easier to pick up the phone and call someone, or get everyone together on a conference call than it is to actually have to go and see someone.

Which is really the problem. It seems like meeting people face-to-face is becoming obsolete. Why waste all that time getting together when we have a plethora of electronic wizardry at our fingertips, waiting to enable a quick and easy e-connection?

The reality is, that communicating this way leaves much to be desired. Sure, you can hear—or read—what people have to say. In the case of a video conference you not only hear them, but you can even see them, and get a little bit of extra information from their body language. But regardless of how slick the technology is, it’s just not the same.

Nothing—nothing at all—even comes close to the richness of experience when you’re meeting up with people face-to-face. Although I can’t really explain exactly why, I can tell you from experience that you will get far more out of an important discussion when you’re talking to the person in person.

That is why in my business dealings, I insist on having face-to-face meetings whenever possible, but particularly when critical and pressing issues are at hand. Granted, sometimes there is some grumbling and sometimes there is a little bit of resistance, but at the end of the day we all know that it is a better way to relate with one another.

More gets done, things get resolved, and I honestly believe that ultimately, less time is wasted, mainly because there is less confusion. People leave a face-to-face meeting with a clear understanding of what just happened, which isn’t always the case when you’re meeting remotely.

This also carries through to my personal life as well. I have found that using social networks to connect with old schoolmates leaves a lot to be desired. I will concede that it’s a viable method of reconnecting and finding out where people are, and revealing a little bit about what you’re doing with your life. But just as in a business meeting where more gets done by meeting face-to-face, this also applies to meeting in a social situation as well. Reconnecting with old schoolmates in person is a lot of fun and much more rewarding. It enriches the process of reconnecting.

Many people believe that they should simply wait for the formal class reunion to roll around in order to do this. I disagree—I’m tired of waiting for the class reunions that happen every 5 years or so. I think that there is a better way.

I prefer to use a mini reunion that can be set up on the fly with very little money. Having a mini reunion with schoolmates from the past is a great way to reconnect. And reconnecting with live human beings, in person, face-to-face, is all what it’s all about.

I was in Philadelphia the other day, and as I was driving through, I noticed an unfortunate man, trying to stay warm, wrapped in several blankets and huddled in a large cardboard box under a bridge. It was a tragic, pathetic sight. Then the light turned green, I lingered a bit too long, the horns started blowing and I was on my way. It saddened me to realize that there wasn’t much I could do, at least not right then.

I wondered though where that man’s friends were. How could they let him get to that point? Surely somebody in his past cared about him. Surely they wouldn’t let him become homeless if they knew of his plight. It then dawned on me that, for whatever reason, he probably didn’t have any friends.

And that thought, as much as the hunger and the cold, defined his plight, to me at least. It was a very scary thought indeed.

I can’t envision a life without friends.

Of course, not all friendships are forever. People—and their relationships—evolve over time. Change is inevitable in the universe, and people change constantly, as long as they’re alive. Sometimes these changes are slow and deliberate; sometimes they are fast and dramatic. But the change in our lives is inexorable and continuous. Until we move on from this life to wherever it is that we go.

I guess that’s why I’ve become so passionate about reconnecting with old schoolmates. I really enjoy—I thrive on it in fact—the process of forming new friendships with people I really didn’t even know back in the day, or of rekindling old friendships that have fallen by the wayside.

It’s both fascinating to see how people have evolved and healthy to reconnect with them. We, the human species, need this kind of continuous connection. Without it we wither, and ultimately die. And it’s a long, sad process while it’s happening.

Sometimes I like to look at life like those long moving sidewalks you see at the airport. As you’re walking along next to one—I never ride them, I need the exercise frankly—a steady stream of people passes you by. More often than not most people don’t really take notice of who is riding along next to you. I usually do.

Life is the same way. A steady stream of people is constantly moving along with us. Sometimes we notice them, often we don’t. I make it a point to notice as many of them as I can.

People enter our circle, become our friends for a bit, and then life carries them on, to other places and to other friends. But there are always other people to take their place, if we let them. I am always starting new friendships as I’m losing others.

This is why I’ve become so passionate about reconnecting with schoolmates from the past. Some of these folks I didn’t even know when I was in school. Now we reconnect and come to find that we share the same interests or maybe live in the same town, or even work for the same company. Whatever the reconnection brings, it’s always fascinating—and always enjoyable.

For me, this is a lot of fun. I will also say it again—we need to do this. It’s part of living a healthy and happy life.

I graduated from high school in 1971, so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that I’ve probably reached and most likely passed the halfway point in my life’s timeline. With that in mind, I want to make every second of every day count. I want my life to be rich, fulfilling, happy and fun. Meeting up and reconnecting with old schoolmates helps me to do that.

It will help you too. Don’t be shy. Get out there and find those folks from the past that you’ve lost touch with. They’re waiting for you—they want to get together as much as you do. It just takes someone to create the spark that makes people decide to get together. I see it this way—life is a party, waiting to happen.

It’s time to get in touch with people from your past. Just don’t use your keyboard to do it.

That’s just the start of it. After the initial shock of another 5 years flying by passes, the serious planning begins. The venue. The food. The entertainment. After all of that is set up, then the old schoolmates have to actually be located—if that’s even possible—and then contacted.

Once the event is planned and scheduled, and once everybody—who plans to attend—has made their personal arrangements, then it becomes a logistical exercise. On top of everything else is the expense—attendees have not only the cost of the event itself, but probably need to add in some funding for travel and lodging, not to mention some new finery to impress the old schoolmates with.

A reunion takes a lot time, energy, and money—on everybody’s part—to pull off. Who needs it, right? Especially when we have Facebook. After all meeting up with old schoolmates on Facebook is the same thing, isn’t it? And it’s a heck of a lot easier, and free to boot.

So I’ll ask the question again, since most of us have our free Facebook accounts, who really needs a class reunion.

My answer might surprise you—we all do.

The facts—to me at least—are pretty clear. Reconnecting and reminiscing with old schoolmates makes us feel good. These encounters are the stuff of fond memories. Even if we tend to dread the upcoming event in the days prior, when we get our collective butts off the couch or out of the computer chair and actually go somewhere else and actually socialize with other living human beings, we are doing what we were biologically intended to do.

Facebook is tool and nothing more. A reunion is an event. And memories are created by events, not by tools.

I’ll even take it a step farther. Why wait until a 5-year reunion rolls around? Why not just get together, spontaneously if need be, with people you haven’t seen in awhile? Doing this doesn’t have to be a complex, tedious, expensive process.

A mini reunion is an easy, simple and inexpensive way to reconnect with old schoolmates, and make some great memories in the process. I personally believe, by the way, that this kind of thing is essential to a healthy and happy life, particularly as the years fly by.

By creating new memories based on old ones—the mutually shared experiences of the past—we are also creating happiness, both for ourselves, and for our schoolmates. And science has shown, time and time again, that happiness is a key ingredient of healthiness.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not knocking technology and the power it wields. But as a member of a generation who grew up without computers, cell phones and yes, Facebook, I am abundantly aware that personal, shared experiences are far more enduring—and powerful—than fleeting electronic impulses.

So I’ll answer my own question. Who needs reunions? I think we all do. Class reunions are fine. Mini reunions are even better. Regardless of how you do it though, get out of the house and reconnect with old schoolmates. You’ll be a lot happier if you do.

But I’m working on an article right now about social media, and my research seems to tell a slightly different story. Yes, social media is free, at least in terms of membership. A valid email address is all it takes. But there are hidden costs, and they are astounding.

These costs are in the form of time spent indulging in social media, and the figures are astronomical. I call it indulging, by the way, for a very good reason—that’s exactly what it is.

Surfing a social media site, visiting and communicating with your online buddies, is not an investment of time. It’s time spent, perhaps even wasted, but not invested, as it would be if you were writing, or creating content for your blog or for an article. Social media surfing is the same as any other kind of Internet surfing. It’s a pastime that can rapidly become an addiction, and for many folks, it already has. Bluntly stated, spending too much time with social media is flat out wasteful.

In my article, I analyze how all of this time adds up, and the overall impact it has on the economy. Again, as I said before, the numbers are astounding.

Now I suppose there are going to be readers out there saying that here is some grumpy old guy who doesn’t really understand what social media is all about and how much fun it is. To set the record straight, I’m not really grumpy, I’m not even 60 yet, and I love to surf social media sites.

I have social media accounts, and unlike some folks my age, spend a fair amount of time on them. Which is how I identified the problem. I was spending too much time on them. And it wasn’t until a friend of mine pointed out how he thought that he might actually be addicted to social media, when I realized that there might be a problem here.

Let’s face it, sitting at the keyboard, staring at the monitor for hours on end, particularly into the wee hours of the morning, is not really any different than spending endless hours doing Internet gambling or even visiting porn sites. It’s a flat out waste of time.

Do I sound anti-social? If so, sorry, but I’m really not. I’m just the opposite. I love spending time with people under one condition—that we do it face-to-face.

And that is precisely my point. All that time you spend interacting with your keyboard and monitor, even if you are sending electronic impulses to another human being somewhere else, is still just interacting with your keyboard and monitor. And when you get right down to it, how fulfilling can that really be?

I think—in fact I honestly believe—that if we as a society spent as much time meeting up with schoolmates and friends in person, as opposed to chatting with them online, the world would be a different place. Indeed, I’m certain it would be a better one.

More on this to come. Be sure to watch for my next published article on the true cost of social media. In the meantime, go out and have a mini reunion or something.

He mentioned how amazing it was that now, some 40 years later, he was beginning to reconnect with old schoolmates. (For the record, I prefer the term “schoolmates” to classmates. We all seem to have a lot of friends from different grades or even different schools who were all getting our educations in roughly the same place at roughly the same time. So while these folks aren’t technically classmates, I think schoolmates defines them perfectly.)

At any rate, my friend was explaining how when he was a senior in high school, he and two buddies enlisted in the Marine Corps under what was then called delayed enlistment. They signed up, got sworn in, and were then allowed to finish school before reporting for duty. Then, under what was called the Buddy Program, they all went off to enjoy Marine boot camp together. Sounds like a great way to spend your first summer out of high school, no?

At any rate, after boot camp they were all assigned to different duty stations, but pretty much kept in touch. When their 3 years were up though, they all went their separate ways, and pretty much lost contact with each other.

My friend got out, went to college and became a successful entrepreneur. He’s been married twice and has 3 kids. The second friend got, went to college, and went back in, this time as an officer. He got married—also two times—along the way, has 2 kids, and now works for Homeland Security, after a 20+ year military career. The third friend got out, went to college, joined the CIA, was never married—but was often romanced—and traveled to over 80 countries. Friend #3 retired from the CIA after 28 years and now works as a security consultant for a government contractor.

After several decades of separation, these three schoolmates, best friends back in the day, all happened to reconnect with one another. It happened more by accident than anything, but once they were all in contact, they decided to get together for a drink and to catch up.

Well, the drink turned into dinner—a long dinner—and they realized that after spending several hours together that they hadn’t even really scratched the surface. During the mini reunion, they realized how different they now were, but how much the same also. (Again for the record, they’ve acquired an average of 1.3 wives and 1.6 kids between them, and have visited an average of 30 countries each.)

Well before the mini reunion ended, the newly reacquainted friends were planning the next one, and even the one after that. Mini reunion #2 will be a full-on dinner at a nice restaurant, and mini reunion #3 will be a family camping trip, planned for the spring.

They also decided, during the course of their informal get together, to start looking up other old schoolmates so that they could join them.

My friend’s point to me in all of this was how much fun these former Marines had on their mini reunion, and how much they were looking forward to the next one. He said though that the mini reunion came about out of necessity—none of them even know how to use Facebook.

Maybe there’s a lesson there for all of us.

I started to realize this at my last class reunion. I graduated from high school in 1971, so my old class goes back away. Like most schools, my peers had friends in the grade before us and the one behind us, so some of those folks were there as well. We wound up with a pretty good turnout. My guess is that about 200 people or so actually showed up.

Of course the run up to this massive event made planning a major military campaign look easy, and was probably more dangerous. There were a lot of things to decide, and a lot of things to argue about. So as we were moving along, decisions were made and arguments happened. It’s all part of the process.

We got it all together though and held our huge event. But like most of the things that you invest a lot of energy and time in planning though—and that you really begin to anticipate and look forward to—after all of that hard work and excitement, the class reunion itself was a bit of a let down. It’s not necessarily easy for me to say that because I played a major role in putting it together. But the reality is that it was a let down—it just wasn’t as much fun as everybody thought it would be.

Don’t get me wrong, we all enjoyed ourselves and had a pretty good time. But when we all actually got together, face to face, you could just tell that some folks really didn’t want to be there. Since I’m not a bashful guy and I’ve always been known as someone who speaks his mind, I wanted to know why some folks weren’t all that happy with the event.

The answers were pretty interesting. Probably the most common reason was that some folks didn’t really like some of the other folks—the same kind of petty rivalries and perceptions that exist any time 3 or more people get together. So that one was to be expected.

What I wasn’t expecting were the other things that were bothering people. They were complaining about the cost of attending the class reunion. They complained about all of the effort it took to get there. Some didn’t like the food, and some didn’t like the band. And although this is to be expected at any event like this, I was a little surprised, especially since I had invested so much of me into making it happen.

That’s why I’ve changed my approach. From here on in I’m sticking with mini reunions. They’re much easier to plan and to hold, and better yet, they’re a lot more fun to attend.

In my next post, I’ll tell you why.