Today was a big day, I had the pleasure of meeting a true idol not just of the pop world but for me personally.

Kylie Minogue, pop icon, patron of the StudyVox Foundation and a constant presence in my life since my formative years awarded bursary cheques to a few lucky members of www.studyvox.co.uk, a student social networking site I have been developing with Quvex over the past few months.

I can still clearly recall watching Kylie Minogue on my favorite school boy tv show Neighbours in the 80’s and then later buying her Locomotion single on cassette tape. It was the first song I actually took the time to write down all the lyrics for, before the days of the Internet, and, although at this time I was about 11 years old, I even remember using my trusty old Fisher Price portable cassette player to play and pause the song while I jotted down the lyrics driving my parents insane!

I’m not going to go as far as admitting to purchasing the Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan love compilation album because that would just be embarrassing! Suffice to say I was a fan.

When Kylie Minogue resurfaced after reinventing herself I must say I began by being somewhat resistant to the new style purely because I still had the Locomotion ringing around in my head. Luckily my reservations were unfounded and the Kylie Minogue we have all come to love, or fall in love with all over again, was reborn.

So there I was today meeting a true idol who is patron of the charitable foundation for a website I have been developing. The same person I grew up watching on the tv every day and listening to her music. To say there was a bit of a head rush just before the first handshake would be an understatement!

Kylie was amazing at putting you instantly at ease, charming, charismatic, genuine and a real joy to be around. It was awesome to discover that Kylie also reads her tweets and recalled one I sent the night before. As a world wide superstar this was great to hear.

Kylie Minogue commented that Twitter provided her with the only real opportunity to communicate with her fans without the press twisting, changing or completely making up the story. This shows us that Twitter isn’t just for updating your friends, marketing or delivering a concise message to your fans after being vetted by your PR team, or written by them, celebs are actually utilising Twitter to communicate their real world thoughts and keep in touch with what is being said about them in the real world. Makes a lot of sense and gives me the impression of being that little bit more involved with the person behind the star.

Of course Kylie is bound to be master at controlling the perception of herself from years spent in the media but after meeting her in the flesh I choose to believe that it is all as genuine as it seems.

A fantastic time at StudyVox was had by all with the day finishing off with a performance from the winners of the best student band award. They really did rock, especially with Kylie jumping around in the audience!