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I had the great pleasure of meeting Christopher on Friday in Burlingame, California. This was the first time we'd ever met, yet it was as if we were simply extending a facet of a relationship we already had.

We already knew quite a bit about each other and how each other thinks, all from our respective blogs.

Christopher Carfi says it all:

Reason #6537 why business folk should write, podcast, or otherwise communicate often, and in their own voice: your customers, vendors, and partners get to know you before they even meet you, so when you do get together, you already have shared context and can get things done 10x faster than you ever have in the past.

Such relationship-development has been in my mind a lot during this past week as I'd met a lot of people at the New Communications Forum 2005 in Napa, nearly all of whom I felt I already knew but had never met.

Such experiences add yet another rich dimension to the distinct value of blogging.

In building relationships with other people, there are many individual things that contribute to the success or otherwise of whether the relationship develops or not. When you first meet someone, especially in a business context, much will depend on literally the first few minutes as to whether things click or not.

Those first few minutes are when you rapidly process your thinking to get to a point when you decide whether you want to develop a relationship or not. In those first few minutes, you ask questions and have dialog as part of the instant-decision steps you take.

So when you have already discovered lots of things from their blog about that person you've just met, and reached some conclusions in your mind, the meeting then serves the better purpose of validating what you've already concluded. It jump-starts the relationship.

What a terrific way to enrich relationships.

Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology. Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson's blog: NevilleHobson.com.