Stories, Comments and Tipping Points

This morning I woke up and finished reading The Tipping Point (thanks, bro-ski!). Then, the habitual sit at the computer twitch: checked email. An incoming comment over at my other site. A comment that was not spam. But someone who visited my other site based on a story I told in a comment over on Scoble’s site.

Let me just stop here for a moment and say that today begins well. Very well. Happy are the days when a heartfelt comment of appreciation is one of the first things I read when I check email.

There’s a lesson in there. A kind of create good karma to-do list item for when I’m up late at night surfing the web. Hey– I’ll help start someone’s day off well. What would you rather wake up to: An email telling you, “Oh shit, here’s a minor (or major) emergency you have to handle,” or an email which says, “Hey, I wrote to tell you that I appreciate that thing that you do!” ? Can’t decide? Yeah, life brings both. But this morning breaks with the choice to look for the good and praise it.

This post began with a story. Stories are compelling. I like writing them. I find that I’ve been telling little stories in comments I write elsewhere. Like that one about my Mom I wrote on Scoble’s site.

Today’s a good day to recall the story I told about my mother. Today’s my mother’s birthday.

I think I’ll call her up and read her that story.

Now, this next part ties into that. If I go around writing little stories, how do I remember what I’ve written where? Someone else’s post inspires me, and I think, “yeah!” and get to tap-tap-tapping out a little story. In the last 10 days (since writing a story about the 4th of July), I’ve come to notice another blogger — Stephen Sherlock, at Passion for the Good Customer Experience. He posted comments here, and I went to his site and saw that he’s got a sidebar with all the comments he’s left elsewhere. It’s something called coComment. Which I think I heard about (new! Web 2.0! CoComment is the new black/orange/pink!), but didn’t fully appreciate until I saw his implementation.

So… hm… a way to remember stories and comments, and a further testimony to the way that things make sense in a story context. Not “oh, that comment software. Another thing you have to keep up with,” but “look, here’s the comment he made on my site and it’s on his site as well. Cool.”

It’s in a social and story context. Which is all about The Tipping Point, which is all about the power of stories. I’d say more on that, but I gotta call my Mom.

Then skedaddle.