Shel Israel recently posted about the first anniversary of the publication of Naked Conversations. (Is it only a year? So much has happened in social media that it seems a lot longer than that).

I still recommend to people that they read the book. Some of the examples are getting a little long in the tooth. But the underlying truths and lessons for business people trying to understand the potential importance for blogging and social media is still as apt as it was at the time of publication. And yes, I encounter many (maybe the majority) of business people who are still social media sceptics.

Naked Conversations lives on in another real world way. And I saw another example of this Wednesday night in Montreal.

Since the book was published, both of its co-authors, Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, have travelled extensively. And wherever they have gone, they have provided the social media community with an opportunity and a reason to come together. I saw this when Shel Israel came to Canada in September 2006 and let Terry Fallis and me schlep him through six events in three days in both Ottawa and Toronto. The legacy was the successful launch of Third Monday and Third Tuesday – events which continue to grow and serve the social media community in Canada. I saw it again when I travelled to Chicago for the Ragan Conference. Kevin Dugan and Chris Thilk posted that they’d like to hold a bloggers dinner on the opening evening of the conference. I showed up. And so did Robert Scoble, knapsack on his back. And when Robert said he was going, the community came in droves.

I saw this phenomenon of giving generously to the community again on Wednesday evening, when Shel Israel decided that rather than go back to his hotel and put up his feet after an all day conference (and a cross-continent flight the night before), he would instead offer himself up as the rallying point for a bloggers dinner that drew together the Montreal social media community. At the end of the evening, one of the participants told me that Shel’s presence had attracted people from at least three separate social media communities. Bob Goyetche says something similar in his post about the dinner.

Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. Two classy guys who just keep giving back to the community. And that’s a standard we should all aspire to.