Sunday October 6, 2013 I find myself sitting in Buckley’s in Belltown, just North of downtown Seattle. It is 9:15 AM and the bar is starting to get crowded. The first wave of NFL games start at 10 and people want to get their preferred seats before they are gone.

One section is reserved for the Seattle Philadelphia Eagles Meet Up Group. By the time the game starts there will be 40+ Eagles fans eating breakfast, drinking beer and other adult beverages. The reason this group chose Buckley’s is because of the reserved section. It appears there is a section on the other side of the bar for Packers fans and most of the rest of the bar caters to the home team Seahawks.

I found this group interesting on two levels:

1 – The behavior of the group that I witnessed during the game was worth a story in itself.

2 – How did they manage to get together and the bigger question, how did I end up in this group at this time?

I’m sure the fans were extra charged up because the Eagles were playing the New York Giants. This is a big rivalry in sports and they were playing in the Giant’s home stadium. I saw adults walking around the bar flapping their arms pretending to be Eagles and singing the Eagles’ fight song like they were members of The Village People. It was a good show at the bar and a better showing by the Eagles who stomped The Giants. Soon there were revived hopes for making the playoffs, all left happy.

But how did I get to be there at this time. A few months ago I met Marc on the 12th hole of West Seattle Golf Course. He recently moved out to Seattle from Philly. Now Marc’s story is worth several blog posts on his own merit and I’ll get to him later. All I will say about him right now is that he is 67, not very shy, an avid golfer and he hit a deer on his drive from Philly to Seattle. Marc found the Eagles Meet Up Group online doing a Google search. I came to Buckley’s to experience something. I wanted to experience the impact of social media and the internet. I wanted to be a part of being there because my 67 year old friend has embraced technology. Now don’t get me wrong about Marc, he is young at heart and everyone who meets him thinks he just turned 50 (he never would forgive me if I left that point out). But the point is we are going to see technology transform the way everyone relates to the world. Marc and I started our business careers before the PC, cell phones and even fax machines. But we are embracing technology.

That is the real story here…. More on Marc later…. But in the meantime…. GO EAGLES!

Thank you for reading!

Doug Marshall