All summer, the dark clouds of cancer have been hanging over the family and friends of Tim Bennett. This week, we had a bit of a break in those clouds – and thanks to the enormous and often surprising power of connectivity, we were able to celebrate with Tim.

Tim, who has been fighting tumors for a couple of months now, is a connector of sorts himself. He’s one of those rare folks who brings together people of all ages and backgrounds and turns them into instant friends. Tim’s year has long revolved around the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas, like thousands of others who love bluegrass and other handmade roots music. They come from across the country and around the world to camp elbow-to-fiddle bow for a week just for the privilege of playing and hearing acoustic music.

Pickin’ and Campin’

The festival is loosely organized around self-aggregating camps with colorful names such as the Neon Guitar (my camp) and Carp Camp. For years Bennett Camp has been one of the best-known for consistently high-quality jams. All the best pickers at Winfield make it to Bennett Camp at some point during the week.

Folks were heartbroken that Tim wouldn’t be there to participate in and lead those jams this year. So there were a lot of guit-pickin’ grins when Tim’s niece brought out a laptop with Tim connected via Skype. They quickly circled ’round the computer and belted out a couple of Tim’s favorites.

By the way, Tim and his family got some great news this week – he’s responding extremely well to treatment. We know he’s not out of the woods yet, but we hope the power of positive thinking and our little show of support helped speed his recovery. We know it made all of us feel pretty darn good.

It looks that way with Twitter’s plan to rollout an enhanced user interface over the next few weeks. Personally, I don’t understand why anybody would be excited about features that have been integral to Facebook for years.

Here’s the Deal

In the past, twitterers had to link to a third-party site to share videos, photos and other rich media. Twitter now embeds media directly into a slide-out panel that emerges from the right sidebar. This is a definite improvement, but it’s a far cry from innovation.

What Businesses Need To Know

The most immediate impact to Twitter traffic will be better user retention, making it possible for Twitter to serve more ad impressions. Also, the slide-out panel will give users a quick snapshot at the tweeter’s profile, including the people they follow, increasing the volume of connections.

But, when it comes to marketing with the platform, it’s business as usual. It’s still necessary to use third-party sites to upload media and cross fingers when casting your tweets into the noisy Twitter stream. Not to mention, for a service that had serious uptime issues when serving basic text, I’m curious to see how Twitter will perform pulling rich web content into the mix.

If I had to find something useful to the marketer in this update, it might be that instead of your media links sending your followers all over kingdom come, now they just might stay put on your Twitter stream for an extra tweet or two.

Social Media Are Really All About Age-Old Motives

To me, social media is much more about making and maintaining connections than it is about telling the world what I’m up to this second. And that’s why it’s here to stay – we all want and need to keep a link to the relationships we’ve built. Here’s a small example, one that wouldn’t have happened just a couple of years ago.

Long-Distance Organizing

Tonight (Sept. 9), a group of folks will gather in a comfy living room in Portland, Oregon, for a house concert by an extraordinary Oklahoma singer-songwriter, Monica Taylor. This gathering is happening thanks to the connections of an exceptionally friendly fellow in Wichita, Kansas.

OK, the friendly fellow is me. Last year, I received a Facebook note asking what I was up to these days. I must confess, it seemed at first like a random mistake until a couple of rusty synapses fired and I realized the note came from an old college friend. I hadn’t seen or heard from Marlene since college, which was – well, never mind how long ago.

Friends of Friends

She found me because she’d heard Taylor perform in Portland and, checking out her website, saw my name on a few of the photos. We corresponded a bit, caught up with each others’ lives, and have stayed in infrequent touch. This summer, Taylor headed back to the Pacific Northwest and, at my urging, Marlene went up to chat between sets. One thing led to another. Marlene offered to host the house concert.

Another old friend of mine lives in Portland, too. I forwarded the notice to him and now he and his wife plan to attend the concert. I wish I could go – if only to prevent all of these friends from comparing too many notes about yours truly.