Here's to the connections

That has to have been the longest day of my life. I have just travelled all the way from Auckland, New Zealand, to my home in South West England, via 3 flights, various bus and car rides and stop overs in Sydney and Singapore. I estimate that for me, Saturday has lasted 35 hours. But in reflecting on all the discomfort of long hours sat upright in cattle-class seats being served almost inedible airline food, with screaming kids and tactless fellow passengers all around, and the inevitable jet-lag, I have to say it has all still been worth it. I have flown over 26,000 miles across 3 continents on 10 airline flights. I never missed a single connection, but the social connections that I made are the ones I want to highlight as the most valuable aspect of my tour. I presented 4 keynotes, 5 invited workshops (image above taken at my keynote speech in Christchurch for Ulearn 2010) and 2 refereed papers and also recorded an Ed Talk for Core Ed, but those I met and talked to during this time will remain the most valuable experiences and best memories of my time downunder.

During my tour downunder, I have met many old friends, and made many new ones, and have shared some amazing experiences with them. I have previously argued that social media are more about connections than content, and these last 3 weeks have affirmed it for me. Here's to my old friendships renewed in Australia including: Philip D. Long (@radhertz), Larry Johnson (@Larry_Pixel) and Alan Levine (@cogdog) the latter two with whom I spent an excellent evening out on the South Bank of Brisbane. I also spent some time with Carol Skyring (@carolskyring) and met up with several of my colleagues from IFIP including Anna Grabowska, Andy Schaer, Phillipa Gerbic and Johannes Magenheim (@_jsm). In New Zealand, I strengthened existing friendships with Joyce Seitzinger (@catspysjamasnz), Jedd Bartlett (@Jedd), Derek Wenmoth (@dwenmoth) Kristina Hoeppner (@anitsirk), Carol Cooper (@TheELsite), Stephen Heppell (@stephenheppell) and Richard Elliott and we had a lot of fun and laughs along the way.

I also encountered many other 'old friends' from Twitter face to face for the first time including Steve Hargadon (@stevehargadon), Toni Twiss (@tonitones), Jenny She (@jshe), Helen Otway (@helenotway), Chris Betcher (@betchaboy), Robyn Pascoe (@serendipitynz), Michael Fawcett (@teachernz) and Erin Freeman (@efreeman). It never ceases to amaze me how much you can get to know people through social media without actually meeting them face to face. When you eventually do, you feel you know them quite well and get into deeper conversation quicker because the ice has already been broken (image on the left taken during my workshop at Waikato University).

It was also great to make so many new friends, including Mark Neal (@markneal100), Nigel Robertson (@easegill), Mark Northover (@kiwimarc), Lane Clark and her partner, Brett and Di Lee, Mary Welsh, Allanah King (@Allanahk), Jane Nicholls (@janenicholls), Jo Fothergill (@dragonsinger57), Megan Iemma (@megsamanda) and Teresa Gibbison (@ To all of you, and those who I have inadvertently left out of this list, thank you for making my stay downunder memorable.

More images of my trip can be found at this Flickr site. Images above courtesy of Kristina Hoeppner and Teresa Gibbison

Here's to the connections by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.