A lot of social media content elicits “rants,” “vents” and snark these days.  But today I am overwhelmed by the positive feelings flowing from the blogosphere.  Let me back up a step.

This has been a difficult couple of weeks. I have been very sick, had a string of daily technology disasters, and the perfect storm of critical customer deadlines.  By today I am exhausted.

Then this amazing thing happened.  I started getting all of these little “Follow Friday” love notes.  About every 10 minutes or so my computer would “ping” with an unsolicited little ‘atta boy. I think maybe 30 or so floated in with very touching and generous sentiments on many of them.  How did you know I needed this today?

Did you ever think we could live in a time when you could get 30 love notes from people you’ve never met?

Even more important are the growing friendships I am developing with you. When I see your comments on my blog, tweets or Facebook posts, I get a smile on my face because I think of the special relationships I’m developing with so many people, and it has been so powerful and unexpected.

I began on Twitter eight months ago. In that time I have:

Collaborated on videos, articles and books with Rebel Brown, Ben Hanna, John Bottom, Jamie Wallace, Robin Frank, Shane Mac, Neicole Crepeau, Kimmo Linkama, Jayme Soulati, Anne Giles Clelland, Jenn Whinnem, Venessa Miemis, Nancy Scott, Rebecca Denison, Michael Winn, Jeremy Victor and Steve Farnsworth.

Started working on customer projects with Steve Dodd and Jeremy Floyd.

Donated to charitable causes with the inspiration of Danny Brown, Billy Mitchell and Kacy Maxwell.

Created a video (you’ll see it soon!) with Michelle Chmielewski.

Wrote a case study with Nathan Dube.

Provided potential new business opportunities to Trey Pennington, Nitin Gupta, Tim Knight, Stuart Mease, Lisa Foote, Michele Linn, Rebecca Renner, Christina Kerley, and Rebekkah Hilgraves.

Received new business opportunities from Nathan Egan, Lisa Worley, and Leil Lowndes.

Worked through problems on phone calls and meetings with Jason Falls, Dianna Huff, Olivier Blanchard,  Joseph Fiore, Christina Kerley, Gavin Baker, Karl Yeh, Dean Holmes, Jen McClurg-Roth, Dan Levine, Sidney Eve Matrix, Gregg Morris, Bill Sledzik, Jennifer Yeager and many others.

In less than a year, there been nearly 2,000 comments on my blog from hundreds of people.  Thank you so very much.

If you’re not on the list and we’re connected, it’s just a matter of time until we find some way to work together.  Let’s make it happen!

Thanks for making {grow} the greatest community on the social web.

P.S. I’m sorry if i missed somebody. Remind me and I’ll add you to the list!