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THE WARREN-WATCHUNG CONNECTION
JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2017
Sum mer is the p erfect time t o train a pu ppy! It is hard to avoid social media in today’s world. I use Linkedin a lot for business purposes. Those of you on Facebook are familiar with the “Like” button. Linkedin has adopted similar functionality in recent years. In the latter half of 2016, I was prompted with a pop-up on a person named Linda Ruby, celebrating the anniversary of a company she founded over 30 years ago. Her company was hired by my former employer to provide coaching to our management team. As it turned out, Linda was my per- sonal coach in 2004. She was very helpful. She and I have communicated once or twice since then but haven’t seen one another in almost ten years. So, I clicked on the “like” button to acknowledge her 30 years in business. Within a couple of hours, I was sur- prised when I saw a response from Linda, suggesting that we should meet over coffee or a meal when I was next in New York City. After some back and forth to dove- tail our schedules, we met for break- fast early in 2017. It took a full hour to run through the major events in our lives. As I was telling her about a new venture I may be forming to implement point-of-sale (aka POS) software in retail stores, she yanked her phone from her purse and made a call. She did not reach her party and left the following message, “Gary, I am going to give my friend, Dan, your contact information, as I think the two of you may have some common business interests.” After ending the call, Linda explained that she became friendly with Gary Cronin and his wife, Andrea, after she met Andrea in a cooking class. The Cronins were in the process of moving from New York to Denver, as Gary had taken a leadership position at a compa- ny that develops POS software. Gary and I exchanged email mes- sages and set-up a call a few weeks later, after his move to Denver. A couple days before the call took place I was speaking with my sister, Susie, in Denver. She asked how my new venture was shaping up. I filled her in and mentioned that I was talking to the new CEO of a POS software company, who was moving to Denver. Slowly and with an unusual inflection, Susie said, “What’s his name?” After I replied, she continued, “I thought so. I know him.” Turns out she went to college with Gary and Andrea at the University of Colorado. Andrea was her college sorority sister and they had already been in contact regarding their return to Colorado. Of course, Gary and I had a good laugh about it when we finally met on our phone call. The story doesn’t quite end here. Gary and Andrea, traveling with their children on their relocation from New York to Denver, used some reward trav- el points to upgrade their flight to first class. They had a nice visit with the flight attendant servicing the first-class cabin. Gary told me it was almost embarrassing as the flight attendant pretty much ignored the other passen- gers, because she too was a sorority sister of Andrea and my sister. THIS ONE I LIKED By: Dan Rosenberg www.theconnectionsnj.com