During a brief back and forth on twitter with @ann_imal (a/k/a Ann Robinson) I offered her — and any interested students — some time to chat about the current state of advertising. The last post on Sunday, March 1, read:

@Ann_imal coffee shop on thomasville just renamed from the coffee pub. i’ll be there friday 10-11:30am. anybody wants to show & chat, cool.

Yesterday morning, as I commented on @ethany ‘s post on presence engineering within the enterprise, the reminder dinged on my calendar. I’d forgotten all about it — and I figured Ann had too. Part of me said don’t bother going, you’re busy, no one got back to you, they’re not going to show. The better part, however, made me grab my laptop and head out.

I arrived at RedEye Coffee Shop (formerly The Coffee Pub) at 10am, ordered, and started working. A few minutes later, a young couple walked in and bee-lined to my table. She introduced herself as Ann, he as Rob (a/k/a @annhiliationrob). We grabbed our coffee and sat outside. The weather was perfect and so was the chat. What’s advertising really like? What’s happening to it now? How will social media affect the industry? A few minutes later, @arielle07 arrived. The four of us talked for the better part of an hour, made this 12second vid and said goodbye, thanks for coming, we’ll meet again soon.

As I began writing this post to recount the coffee shop event, I went back and reviewed my comment to Ethan Yarbrough’s post. Part of it read: I am simply fascinated with the idea of how social media will work to highlight personal values and affect behavior overall.

I couldn’t have imagined being shown exactly how social media involvement could change personal behavior for the better within an hour of writing that very idea on Ethan’s blog.

I had posted on twitter where I’d be on a specific day and at a specific time. It wasn’t only a post. It was a promise. Fortunately for me, I kept it.

Thank you, Ann, Rob, and Arielle for trusting I’d be where I said I’d be, and for the great conversation you sparked. And thank you, Ethan, for writing the post that inspired the comment that triggered the lesson. These are truly great times.