I'm Going to Miss Y'All, Trey

Trey Pennington

I won't forget Sunday 4th September, EVER. 
6:15pm UK time. I lost a friend and mentor - Trey Pennington.

We are all new to social media but social media isn't new. As Nick Tadd put it at What's Next - Cardiff in May - social media has been around since the cavemen days. We've always used different media to be social. But today's tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Google + etc have changed social media into an instant, on-demand, always on world.

I like the Social Media Train journey analogy which I first heard at Like Minds in October 2009. I wrote a couple of blog posts about it back in Dec 2009 and Jan 2010.
Social Media - Why You Need to be On Board

The Social Media Train Journey - What to do Once You're On Board

My "birth date" on Twitter is 23rd Jan 2009 so I'm fairly new, like most of us. And thanks to Like Minds I met Trey in October 2009, quite early on. Only 2 years ago, but such is the power of Twitter and Facebook and the telephone and email - during those 2 years Trey and I became good friends. He was my mentor in many ways on social media. I always had huge respect for him. He was just the nicest guy you could ever wish to meet. He was someone who made you feel special, he gave first without ever questioning what he would or could get in return.

Thanks to Trey's busy UK speaking schedule we were able to meet up and hang out quite a few times. One of my fondest memories of Trey was he always had his video camera with mini-boom mike at the ready!

Spot his video camera on the shelf behind him in this photo of us in Bristol, UK in June 2010.

And I loved the fact he was so keen to interview as many people as possible. He was great at that; at giving exposure to others first.

At that first Like Minds conference in Exeter I remember meeting Trey and Olivier and we hit it off right away.

Dickie, Trey and Vanessa - Like Minds 2010

Please do read Olivier's amazing blog "Heartbroken" to give you an idea of how close they both were. One of the founders of Like Minds, Scott Gould aslo wrote a lovely blog - Trey Pennington - Like Minds Loses a Piece of it's Heart. Two very moving blog posts!

I remember Trey came out with a phrase "Dollars and cents - pounds and pence" and liked it so much he asked someone to tweet it. My tweet appeared on the TwitterFall behind Trey; he turned round to look and laughed.

I also played a very small role in chauffeuring Trey to a couple of events. The first was to a social media monitoring conference in London.

Trey's comment in reply to me.

The other was in May this year when I picked him up from London Gatwick and drove him to Cardiff for the What's Next event. Unbeknown to me, Trey was filming in the airport as he came through Passport Control and wrote a blog post featuring it. What’s the ROI of social media? How about exploring the VALUE of social media?
In just a short time we met up face to face on 9 seperate occasions and with all the tweets and Facebook posts and blog comments we had between us, were able to build a strong bond. I looked up to Trey and used him as a mentor. He set some brilliant examples of how to use social media. He always talked about the three fold need of humans:

• Everyone wants to be heard
• Everyone wants to be understood
• Everyone wants to know his or her life matters

Trey was the perfect example of making sure he helped as many people achieve this and I can't thank him enough for everything he did for me.
I was so devasated to have been out on Sauturday night when Trey posted a couple of posts on my Facebook wall. I didn't know it then, but less than 24 hours later Trey would be gone and I missed my final chance to speak to him and I am gutted. :-(

Trey was a real modern day "George Bailey" who's life affected so many others in such an amazing way and positive way. If Trey had never been born, the world would have been a very different place. The Social Media landscape would have been completely different. Trey contributed so much to so many and sadly, because of that, perhaps never took enough time to spend on himself. To make sure he was heard, understood and recognised.

And I so, so wish Trey's "Clarence" had come down to save him in time. To have been able to show him that his life, really was a wonderful life.