Social media is a lot like dancing.  It provides an opportunity for a kind of safe, ritualistic intimacy that might or might not develop into a deeper relationship.  You wouldn't just walk up to someone you didn't know and put your arms around them and start swaying around a room.  But dancing makes it okay. I thought about this as I read Rex Lee's marvelous post on trust.  Being connected in the virtual world allows people from different backgrounds and cultures to connect with each other in the real world--if they pass the first level of  compatibility.  

For top secret reasons, I had some text that had been translated into French by an American colleague but I wanted to have it vetted by a native speaker with a background in marketing and the internet.  But, who?  Then I remembered that one of my favorite bloggers on SMT is Laurent Blondeau, who uses the alias evidencesx.  What makes him stand out in my mind is that he is brave enough to blog in intermediate English and that his posts always reflect a hint of Euro-humanism that I find very appealing.  I often find myself going through his posts and fixing up the English a little.  So, in the spirit of social media, I dashed off my little French translation off to him via e-mail and a couple of hours later back came a copywriter's  dream of a polished text.  Laurent and I had crossed the boundary into buddyhood.

"I like technologies not like a geek who loves their technical beauty but for what they bring to people and how they can help others," Blondeau says.  "The magic thing is, where you can easily speak with a Japanese or Aussie guy, from your chair, and maybe help someone that you nearly don' t know (maybe even translate a text in French...;-)  That is for me the most important thing in social media. Friendship has no boundaries, only not enough time to do it as much you might like."

Laurent is 41, married with four children, and a TV pro, currently head of business development and new sales channels at Canal+, the French premium pay channel. His skills are in marketing, e-business, mobile business, retailing, managing, IT, development and innovation. 

"I decided to blog in English because English is king on the internet," he says.  "I started in French but that didn't go far so I quickly turned towards a more international way. It's an amazing trick, sort of like being able to travel for free. I like the English tongue, even if I must still improve, each day.  I  blog about subjects that interest me: TV, Web, social, people relations, green tech and sustainable development, psychology and weird stuff." 

Laurent is about to enter an MBA program at Hautes Etudes Commerciales, France's most prestiguous business school and has begun a "soft" transition into marketing consulting--with some social media overtones.

"I think web2.0 and social networking is at the first stage in France and Europe," he says.  "There is still a lot of misunderstanding, and too many managers who consider social media tools to be "toys." Networks and communities can bring lots of answers, solutions and innovation to corporations but they are still mostly blind to the possibilities. There isn't that much business yet but I think that will change as more people learn more about the power of social communities."

Meanwhile, Laurent Blondeau keeps making real friends in virtual worlds.