I live in the somewhat small town of Thomasville, North Carolina (population ~20,000). Most of the people here are friendly and it’s not uncommon to strike up a conversation with someone you’re standing in line with at a store, or at the table next to you at a restaurant. The town is too big for everyone to know everyone, but it’s small enough that most people are comfortable opening up a little bit to those around them.

We have a Super Wal-Mart about two-and-a-half miles from my house and I’ll avoid it if I’m not really in the mood to talk. In a town this size, Wal-Mart isn’t somewhere you GO, Wal-Mart is something you DO–and many people seem to go there to hang out and hopefully run in to old friends, and perhaps make a few new ones.

Several years ago, when I started working in downtown Winston-Salem (population ~200,000), it was a total culture shock to me. In Thomasville, if you pass someone walking on the sidewalk, it’s customary to say, “Hello,” or at least nod your head to acknowledge their presence. In the “big city” of Winston-Salem, it seemed that people generally didn’t speak to those that they didn’t already know. It wasn’t uncommon to ride up several floors in an elevator with a dozen people and none of them speaking to, or acknowledging the others in any way.

When we were children, our parents taught us, “Don’t talk to strangers.” They told us that to protect us when we were small and unable to protect ourselves, nor to rightly judge when someone might be trying to manipulate us. It was good software to be installed in our brains at that time, however as we grew older, I think that most of us forgot to uninstall this program that we no longer needed. And because we’re still running that software, we’re missing out on a lot of really great opportunities.

Now, I am far from the most outgoing person in the world–my wife holds that title–and it’s a challenge sometimes for me to open up to people I don’t know, but when I do, I’m usually glad I did.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the Nashville airport when I overheard a guy sitting a couple seats next to me say that he worked for a company that sold fasteners. I told him about my wife’s business and the number of fasteners that they use and I’ll be getting a quote from him soon. It sounds like he can beat the prices of our current supplier and provide some extra services as well. He overheard me talking on my phone about my upcoming trip to Zimbabwe and he shared some stories of his own about time on the mission field, so I had a much more enjoyable wait for my flight. I’ve also met several other IT people, including CIOs and other decision makers, in airports–I’ve been able to give them business cards and explain how SharePoint might be able to help them in their business.

So, how do I strike up a conversation with someone? Because my “Don’t talk to strangers” software still isn’t totally uninstalled, unlike my wife’s, I’ll start really simply. I’ve learned that people love to talk about themselves and they also love compliments–either of these will likely get a conversation going quickly. With a few minutes of observation, I can usually come up with something in one of these two areas: “So, how do you like your _____?”, “That’s a really nice ______.”, “Do you live in (the city we’re in, or the city we’re headed to)?”

Once I have my question, I try to make eye contact. No, I don’t stare at them, but I will monitor them out of the corner of my eye, and if they seem to be about to look in my direction, I’ll try to look up to meet them. That usually follows with a smile and nod of the head (see paragraph two). If they smile, or nod back, then I feel like I have the go-ahead to ask my conversation starting question. Sometimes I’ll just be really bold and say, “Excuse me, but…” and then ask my question, without waiting for eye contact.

If you’re wondering what inspired this post, it was a post by Kelly Forrister, one of the GTD coaches for DavidCo. In the last paragraph, she tells about a person that sat beside her on a plane. He had a copy of Getting Things Done, but just put the book in the seat pocket and slept the entire flight. Kelly wanted to talk to him, but he was wrapped up in his own little world and didn’t realize that he probably could have gotten a couple hours of free consulting from a master, if he would have only been willing to talk to a stranger.

So, what opportunities have you been missing out on by trying to stay in your own little world and not talk to strangers? Come on, grow up!