Dave Briggs & I were in Belfast last Wednesday.  We had a few meetings planned but a couple of hours downtime in the middle of the day.  I decided to place an open invite on Twitter & the Digital Circle Ning site for people to come along & join us in a “conversation” between 12 & 2pm.  It sounds a bit vain but I thought it would be a good way for Dave to meet some people in Belfast in an informal way that wasn’t either at a conference, at a formal meeting or in the pub in the evening.  Learning Pool is based in Northern Ireland but Dave works from home in the East Midlands of England so I also thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce him to a few people that I know.  We weren’t sure whether anyone would show up.  I’d pitched it a bit like a mini-Tuttle club (anyone can go along to the regular Friday morning Tuttle club in London’s Centre for Creative Collaboration run by the rather fabulous Lloyd Davis & Brian Condon (more info about Lloyd & what he does in one of my very early blogs) – so there was no agenda and no formal topics (although we’d floated social media, public sector and anything you want to know about starting up in business – as I guess those are our specialisms).

We held our “event” in the rather grand Linen Hall Library in the centre of Belfast – it seemed a fitting venue for a Conversation & there’s was a cafe so we avoided any library “shushing”.

It ended up being rather good fun & some people did indeed swing by – a mix of small business owners, tech entrepreneurs and consultants – and conversation flowed for the entire two hours.  There’s Newsrupt’s Lyra McKee pictured above and as you can see, the fifteens in the Linen Hall cafe are pretty impressive too.

Colin Mitchell & I (he’s @pixelpage on Twitter) had some banter later on via Twitter & concluded this would be an ideal way to introduce a visitor to your town or city to a few interesting people.  Dave said he’d come away with an impression that Belfast was very friendly and had a lively start-up community.  As always, interested in your views.

I’m often surprised and pleased by the number of people that hug me the first time I ever meet them; some people even hug me as soon as we’re introduced.  I don’t know why this happens although I must say I’m pleased it does.  In my opinion, hugging shows you feel close to other people in a non-threatening & not too intimate way & it feels nice.  Others in the Learning Pool team have been known to push me forward when there’s hugging to be done.

I’m in Scotland this weekend taking a couple of days out after a busy month of getting Learning Pool’s new Glasgow office up & running.  Dave, Breda & I hosted a breakfast briefing in Edinburgh on Thursday at which one of Learning Pool’s non execs, Donald Clark was speaking.  Donald is pretty much always controversial (read his blog at http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/ to see for yourself if you don’t believe me), especially when he’s talking to people that train others using traditional means – and he didn’t disappoint on Thursday.  At the end of the morning, I could see Sheila Fleetwood (pictured with me above) making a bee-line for me.  She’d been engaging in some lively banter with Donald over the course of his session & I must admit I thought for one second she was coming over to give me a slap.  Instead, to my delight, she hugged me & thanked me for such an interesting & thought provoking morning.  Phew!

A couple of months ago, Dave & I were in Exeter for Likeminds (gosh – was that really February?) and we had a fab night out with some of our local guvvie pals we don’t see anywhere near often enough.  That night I had a great conversation with Martin Howitt & Bill Wells about hugging and how much we like to do it.  The three of us decided that one of the measures of how well Learning Pool is doing could be the number of customer hugs I receive every month – admittedly a rather unusual business metric.  So far it seems to work.

Next week is the company’s annual birthday bash (hard to believe but we’re 4 years old) – we’re having a party on HMS President & I expect to get a lot of hugs that day – tell you what - I’ll count them & post the number back up here as a comment next week.

Conclusion – hugging is good with your business associates – keep doing it & keep those hugs coming for me!