200: As in The Committee of 200, a group of highly successful and highly influential female professionals. Last week, I was a guest speaker at The Committee of 200's (C200) annual conference outside of Dallas. Have you ever heard of the C200? Probably not - membership is by invitation only for women who either own businesses larger than $15 million or wield corporate responsibility over a budget larger than $250 million. Those aren't easy things to do, regardless of gender.


I heard some powerful stories while in Texas and was impressed by the close bonds within the community.
Earlier in the week, I attended the Web 2.0 Expo in New York. The event unfolded on a Javits-sized scale - which anyone who attends conferences knows means "pretty big." (LVCC-scale would be the West coast equivalent, maybe). Almost all of the people I met there were people who I first met online - through blogs, tweets, or social networks. And subsequently seeing them in person almost seems like meeting a long lost pen pal in person.
Consider a third example of community - the readers of this blog, many of whom are going to meet up next month in Arizona. I'm sure the people who attend will be energized and excited to meet the people they've been exchanging comments with and maybe even debate an issue or two in person.
It strikes me that no matter how many awesome features and user interface changes roll out on web community sites - like "social media advertising" - our need to connect face-to-face does not diminish. Probably gets even stronger.