An analysis of learning begins best at home, and so as the first post to The Zen of Learning blog, I’ve decided to present my own experience of learning to appreciate the power of blogs. Following are the milestones in this learning experience.

1. To me Blogging was a new-fangled term that referred to a fad. I didn’t expect to see a lot of serious content being posted to the web-logs, nor did I expect a lot of serious people to read it. My attitude ensured that I “sub-consciously” stayed away from conducting research on the learning impact of blogs. According to Krathwohl’s taxonomy , I wasn’t even ready to “receive.” But then that was a long time ago.
2. I clung to my belief for a long time. For many years, in fact. Until Google helped me remove my blinkers. I would google with an objective of serious reading, and most of the “good” links that resulted from my searches, were blogs! After a while, I realized that I liked reading what the bloggers were saying. My respect for blogs as a medium of value went up many notches. (Remember, I had started at the sub-zero levels so the degree of my respect still wasn’t too high.)
3. Next, I realized that all the people who wrote content worth reading were blogging! In my mind, blogging was quickly transforming into a useful pursuit. Unfortunately, I was still not able to determine whether starting and maintaining a blog would be something that I was capable of doing, yet, I had begun to play with the idea of writing a blog.
4. I then plunged into research. I wasn’t out to find facts and figures – I wanted to discover whether a blog could be created and maintained in a win-win manner, where the author and the reader, both feel happy and satisfied. A blog that speaks only of me would be of no use to you, and one that speaks only to you, wouldn’t help me express myself – right? When I log my thoughts for my readers, they need to serve both parties. These thoughts need to have some value for my readers and also for me.
5. It took me about six years, but I finally converted. I decided to write The Zen of Learning, which I hope would be journey into the expanses of the human mind, that my readers and I would take together. We’d begin by digging into different learning experiences, formulating, assessing, discarding, and selecting pieces of knowledge – through observation, analysis, and reflection.

With this first blog post, I announce my victory over an attitude. I watched my progress through the different levels of affective learning as I prepared myself to receive the new attitude and then responded to it. This was followed by my willingness to value it and then put in efforts to reorganize and recreate my value complex!

I now believe that a blog is a fantastic medium to enhance the collective knowledge through a journey of the mind.

I grew quite a few mini gourds this past season and while most are still drying on racks, a few were finished with the drying phase and I was anxious to use them for Christmas ornaments.  In the past I created some really neat gourd flowers with my minis and some pumpkin decorations.  These I posted at Craftster and can be seen here.  For my lastest creation I first added a thread hanger so I could work on the gourds from all sides and they could dry nicer.

 Mini gourds ready to decorate

I painted 2 coats of white acrylic paint on some and 2 coats of black on others.  I let this dry then added my designs.  The 3 littliest gourds turned out super …

as did the mini snowmen ornaments.  I finished by adding a coat of Mod Podge for sealing and for the shiny affect.  At first I tried Polycrylic which I read was a good product to use to seal the gourds, but it seemed to eat at the paint.  Not sure why that happened but will do some further research.  I still have a handful of mini gourds to decorate and tons more once my harvest drys up … so Fun!  It is amazing how they can be transformed into creations of art! 

I added a post to the Business blog titled Benefits of Blogging if you are interested in reading this information.

Here are 2 larger gourds drying on the racks also.  Haven’t decided what they will turn into yet!

 Any ideas?

Are you thinking why the world is going crazy about blogging? Blogging is not just a platform for the “know-how’s” but also a platform for those who want to express their emotion, share their information, and promote their business or work. Yes! Blogging actually encompasses all – it’s the one place that you can call “yours!”

Blogging is not just another online activity or a platform for online advertising; there are several other benefits for each blogger. In fact, the four important benefits of blogging include:

Make money through blogging: You can actually earn online income through your blogs. There are direct methods and indirect methods of making money from your blogs. You can earn direct income from your blogs through contextual advertising (Adsense), CPC advertising, blog ads, Text Ads (AdBrite), RSS Ads (Pheedo), and any other advertising system. You can also directly earn money through your blogs by participating in and promoting affiliate programs. You can even sell or flip blogs like weblogs Inc, which was reportedly sold to AOL for $25 million. In-direct blogging income is related more to making money from the promotional aspect of your work or business. Some of the most popular ways of earning indirect income include consultancy, business blogging, employment blogging, online and offline writing gigs, deals, travel coupons, selling of various e-resources, and much more.

Search engine optimization: The second most important benefit of blogging is enabling search engine optimization. Blogging is a great option for link building. After every blog post, you can mention the link to your website so that readers can easy link back to your website or the parent website. Secondly, you can increase the viewership of your blog by using keyword driven content. The higher the viewership of your blog, the higher the chances or probability of sending targeted traffic to your website. Some of the top websites online have received a major chunk of their customers from their blogs. So if you have a business, company, or e-store and you are looking for high growth and more customers then blogs can actually help in driving high volumes of targeted traffic to your website.

Social Networking: Blogging can help in social networking as well. If your blog posts have a high degree of relevancy then it will help in increasing your blog following. If your blog has a high number of followers then this will help you to form a small social network of bloggers.

Free iPhone: Yes! This is a benefit that bloggers from across the world can derive. If your blog has a high number of followers then you can get free gift vouchers worth the same amount as an iPhone. You can check for detailed information at www.iphonefree.com related to the free give away of iPhones. The draw for a free iPhone is based on your ability to win referrals. The higher the number of link referrals you collect for iphonefree.com, the higher your chances of getting the iPhone. It’s as easy as just writing your regular blog post!

I do thoroughly enjoy blogging. It’s the diary I never had. I can say almost anything I want to on here and though I may find some people who may disagree with my thoughts; there is a much larger group who agree on here than offline. The internet really is a beautiful thing, bringing people from across oceans or just across town together. I however, do not want anyone in my town to read any of my posts. That’s the last thing I need, having my personal thoughts brought to my school, or worse, my home. I don’t want anyone I know personally to read my thoughts online. Or at all really. There’s something about a complete stranger giving me insight into my life that is better than giving my friends something to hold over my head. So yay for blogging, which provides an escape for the everyday troubles that haunt the world of everyone.

100 REASONS WHY I STARTED A BLOG

1. He actually pushed me to do it!

2. I love my children.

3. To catch up with technology.

4. She told me to write but she did not say how.

5. I knew I had to follow her command.

6. To communicate with my children.  

7. I read something on a Facebook post (not intended for my eyes) that pushed me to act.   

8. A heavy force came upon me.

9. My back was killing me.

10. I had to do it.

11. Positive Energy.

12. I could not sleep at night until I wrote down my thoughts.

13. Then I had to put those thoughts on paper and share them with the world.  

14. My Hair, My Poems.

15. Unresolved issues.  

16. Family (including the extended one).

17. My Pulse

18. Voices compelled me to act (and I know I was not hallucinating).

19. To create my virtual space in time.

20. I had all the time in the world (being unemployed for 6 months).

21. I could not afford to do doctoral studies at the time.

22. Not sure a doctoral degree was even worth the effort. 

23. Someone told me about two years ago that, “There are many PhDs right here.”

24. Jaevion Nelson

25. I wanted more clarity in my life. 

26. I was ready to take a risk.

27. I had more to gain than I had to lose.

28. I needed some silence. 

29. Discovery.

30. I needed to share my thoughts.

31. Unlimited potential in me.

32. To unleash the potential in others (including my children). 

33. I wanted to maximize the potential of the internet.

34. To share my professional experiences.

35. To learn more about other people’s experiences.

36. People need tools (especially for parenting).

37. Networking.

38. Strenghten relationships.

39. CNN

40. Re: CNN. If they can do it, I can do it too.

41. C-SPAN

42. Re: C-SPAN. If their children can do it, ALL my children can do it too.  

43. “Dreams of My Father” and “Audacity of Hope.”

44. Fascination with Google.

45. Fascination with the new media.

46. “Finding Forrester.”

47. 2008 U.S. General Election

48. To reach and engage teens and youth.

49. To reach and engage parents.

50. To influence policy makers.

51. To document my advice to JYAN.

52. To provide motivation to JYAN.

53. To maintain contact with JYAN.        

54. Release.

55. Free Therapy (relieving my emotional pains).

56. Blogging is free (except for your internet and electricity bills).

57. To start a global conversation.

58. To learn more about IT.

59. Contribute to nation building.

60. To address the tough issues.

61. To relieve some of the numbness that exist in the country.  

62. To encourage advocacy.

63. To hone my writing skills. 

64. Professional development.

65. To consolidate my professional experiences. 

66. To teach.

67. To serve as a catalyst.

68. To protect the most vulnerable.

69. I was very frustrated with a lot of what was happening around me.

70.  I needed a space where I could express myself freely. 

71. Too much muzzling a gwan.

72. For those who must be silent.  

73. I really became “sick and tired.”

74. Menopause.

75. For change in Jamaica.

76. Faith.

77. I believe that newspapers will soon be a thing of the past.

78. Newspaper editors are selective.

79. Newspaper editors are “filters.” 

80. I wanted to share my story.

81. I believe in the “law of attraction.”

82. So that others can understand what type of work I do.  

83. To continue the work that was started at ——.

84. To do what we were afraid to do on the —— project.    

85. To transform my dreams into reality.

86.  To “fly.”

87. The Summer (2009) was extremely hot, even up here in the hills.

88. I trusted the technology.

89. I had a new computer that I was not using to produce. 

90. Life is short…why waste it?

91. An excuse for not doing housework.

92. My 44th birthday was fast approaching.

93. I live in Jamaica where there is always something to write about.

94. People still do not understand what HIV/AIDS can do to a nation.

95. Universal access is not understood by many.

96. So many people believed in me.

97. To build on the good that exists in the world. 

98. We no longer need traditional classrooms…I wanted to test that.  

99. To save even one “soul.”

100. To test the speed of the internet. Yes, as soon as you hit the “PUBLISH” button it is gone out to the entire world…the equivalent of a blink!    

UNEXPECTED BENEFITS OF BLOGGING.

1. Excellent IT support from WordPress.

2. Enhanced qualitative research skills.

3. Free service.

4. Featured blogs (which is an incentive to write).

5. Online IT sessions to enhance critical thinking and increase knowledge.

6. I now feel a part of the global community of bloggers.

7. Intellectual stimulation (you would have to feel it to believe it).

8. Two books in draft.

9. Conference

10. An audience of at least 50 persons and a potential global audience of millions.  

11. Edits can be made after publication.

12. Anticipation

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Bear with me. There is a reason why I am doing all this.

As usual I welcome your comments.

This post is concerned with the use of blogs for business purposes (Enterprise 2.0 – blogging). It is important to note that there are two different kinds of blogging for an enterprise: the internal blogging and the external blogging. In this post I’m going to address both of these types of blogging and give some examples of companies who do it well and why the do it well.

Internal blogging

Firstly, let’s discuss internal blogging. This kind of blogging is used by a business to help their internal workings and knowledge management. The blog is used by employees usually on an intranet the business has set up. Each employee can have a blog or specific people such as managers could use a blog to broadcast announcements to their workers. Either way the primary use of a blog is to communicate with co-workers about anything and everything. Business plans, news, pictures from work functions, project updates, ideas, thank yous, meeting notes, the list goes on. A good summary of uses for an internal blog can be found here – GoBigAlways.com – How we use blogs internally. Blogs also provide the ability for other co-workers to provide feedback via commenting system built-in to most blogging platforms.

More benefits for blogging can be found here: Seven Reasons for your Company to Start an Internal Blog,

So now that we know what they are used for, lets have a quick look at some good examples of businesses using internal blogging with great success. Check out these videos on the internal blogging communications for Chicago Federal Reserve Bank and Dell (One Dell Way).

What are your thoughts about internal blogging via anonymous user accounts and anonymous commenting? Good or a bad thing? It certainly provides employees with the ability to make their opinions heard without backlash.

Does anyone have any more information on Dell’s internal blogs? One Way Drive sounds interesting. Let me know by adding a comment.

External blogging

The second, and perhaps more well-known use for Enterprise 2.0 blogs is communicating with the outside world. Companies use corporate blogs to communicate with their customers and the general public about product updates, news, release dates, their day to day doings,  funny events, successes, failures, reviews, asking for feedback, commenting and communicating with customers.

Blogging also provides companies with the ability to frequently update and renew their website/brand whereas with the old form of a company website, the content was rather static and never new. Perhaps the best link I’ve ever found with regards to case studies on Enterprise 2.0 is here. This site gives tonnes of great case study examples on external blogging successes. It also provides tips from those who have “been there and done that”.

A very good example of a company who uses a blog effectively is Google. Their blog, although a little shakey at the start (see their first post and second post “Is this thing on?“), is great at getting information out about new products/services while keeping it real and story-based. Reading it isn’t just reading a marketing campaign, it’s about reading a story. For instance:

“My cousin is in first grade and sometimes she writes short stories for class. I try to share the stories with her grandparents, but because Japanese is their first language and they don’t speak English very well, it’s been tough. Today we’re releasing a feature for Google Docs to make this kind of multi-lingual sharing easier — you can now automatically translate documents into 42 different languages,” (Google Blog: Translate Documents – Sharing across languages and generations).

Blogging tips (internal and external blogging)

There are a few things I’ve realised from reading vastly about E2.0 blogging. One is thefear employees have of writing something wrong, or incorrect, or damaging on their blog, Facebook page or so on. There is an interesting article here offering tips on what to keep in mind when using social media.

When communicating to customers and clients via an external blog don’t market your product. Don’t use blogging as a way to spam your followers with advertising. Instead, build a relationship with them, offer support and information that is valuable to them. As a side-effectthis will help your business grow and expand. Your company website is for selling your product, the blog is to compliment the product and help customers. It can be used to disclose information about new products as such but should never be trying to sell the new product. Blogging is a way of communicating on a more personal level with internet users and a good blog will help the word of your product spread through the blogosphere and around the Internet.

Post with a point or for a purpose. Don’t post for no reason. And have a sense of humour. A lot of the attraction of reading a blog is in the style and writing ability of the blogger. Keep things interesting, funny, controversial and leading edge.

The day has finally come to wave goodbye to NaBloPoMo July ‘09 and I’m glad to announce that I’ll be taking a short break from daily blogging. I’ve learnt a lot of in the past few months from thinking of topics to write almost everyday but best of all, the blogging routine has trained my mind to structure my thoughts and writing in a way that is beyond what I’ve ever experienced before.

I’m also delighted to find out that there has been a jump in terms of the visitorship. I created this blog in March ‘09 and I had almost 0 visitors as I wrangled with posting meaningful articles and thoughts. This was also the period where I didn’t do any personal marketing at all.

Traffic starts to pick up in April with about 50 views which is a measly figure by any standard and the trend continued through May and June where I went back to my hometown, Medan, for a one-month trip. When I came back to Singapore in late June, I started to dedicate more time to the blog as I churned out multiple posts within a span of two weeks and again, with almost no marketing at all. Blog view was hovering about 138 views for the month.

In early July, I took notice at NaBloPoMo ‘09 which stands for National Blog Posting Month and I decided to bite the bullet and challenge myself to post daily. Initially, it was really fun and motivating as I tried to be more aware of my surroundings. I thought to myself that some friends could had been taken aback by my enthusiasm in digging out content from our daily conversations. But I have to credit some of these posts back to them because they have been the source of ideas and inspiration, which will not be possible at all if I were to rely on my brain alone.

There are, however, times when I felt I was squeezed dry. Not because I ran out of ideas, but to create meaningful articles on those days when I didn’t have the mood to write or when my health took a step back from being healthy, was totally painful. But perseverance paid off. Since the past 3 weeks that I took part in the NaBloPoMo July ‘09 and my unashamed attitude to self-promote this blog to a couple of close friends, I reached 690 views in July alone – an almost 600% jump in terms of viewerships.

And I’m happy to give myself a pat on the back and rest just for the next few days.

As I put a closure to this phase of my blog, I would like to share a few benefits of blogging (that’s applicable to me right now):

1. Sentence formation and thought structure - I would say that maintaining this blog alone would have increased my language competence to a new level. I am able to form thoughts quicker and that applies not only to my writing but also to my speech as well.
2. Ideas generation – This one truly stands out. It is amazing just to think about how much information our brain is capable of sharing with the world. Keeping a blog also trains my creativity as I have to constantly view issues and facts from multiple angles which often time has the effect of widening my views on certain issues.
3. Topics generation – Have you ever faced with the problem of not knowing what to talk to people about in gatherings but you just didn’t want to pop out questions like – how’s the weather or how’s work today? I HAVE! But keeping a blog does give me access to some sort of ‘weapons’ ready to be used just in case I run out of topics to talk about? I’m sure that this will help a lot during job interviews as well.

There are lots and lots of other benefits which just slipped out of my mind. Pardon me. But if you were to ask me the motivation behind keeping a blog, it is not only to enrich my life but others as well. I realized that the blogging routine has transformed me as a person – to be someone who is more genuine overall, especially when it comes to interacting with people. I no longer want to keep to just hi-bye but I want to find out what makes people tick… what drives them… what are some views that they have on certain things… and most importantly, how I can capture those thoughts and make it into something worthwhile.

I’m not sure where I’m going to bring this blog to. But let’s hope that I’ll manage to find the answer when I post again in a few days time.

Busy-busy this month, but not too busy to read the odd blog.

I came across this one (thanks to a Twitter friend), and thought I’d share. The author, John Dupuis, is the head of the Steacie Science & Engineering Library at York University in Toronto; he has lots to say about the benefits of blogging–and his links to other blog posts that fueled his thoughts are fantastic. Follow some of them.

Cheers,
Ev

Why did you start a blog? Why should I start a blog?

I have been getting these two questions a lot lately as my blog continues to develop.  There are a lot of valid reasons why you should start a blog, but just remember a blog should be something that you WANT to do.  It may take a little convincing from some friends or co-workers to finally quit talking about it and actually do it.  A blog is not for everyone and it should not be something that is FORCED or something that you are not ready to make a commitment to.  Having said that, If you do decide to start a blog I believe you will find it to be a very rewarding experience.

Watch the video above to see why I started a blog and read more on some of the reasons on why you may want to think about creating your own blog.  There are many more than I could list…trust me.

Through blogging you learn about new things
Learning can be a great experience and a blog enables you to learn a lot about not only the online community, but other topics you might be blogging about.  It is natural to want to make your blog the best it can be which forces you to learn about things you do not know and more about things you may already know.  It is also very fun learning.  Why?  Because you get to share something you learned with the rest of your online community.  And then the best part- you begin getting feedback.  Mostly positive, though you will have a few negative posts as well.  You will also have posts of other people talking about similar topics that interest you.  Time to go check out those posts and learn even more.  All at once you have this cycle developing and you are learning new things every day while having fun doing it.

Blogging is low cost and helps create YOUR brand
What better way to get your name and expertise out to a large amount of people than blogging?  Blogging is a great way to help you not only strengthen your company’s brand- but YOUR brand.  It enables you to establish yourself in the online community as someone who is knowledgeable about a particular topic or topics.  Suddenly you become an expert in your own niche.  Then people began to trust you and the next thing you know you have developed followers or a Tribe or even Sneezers (as Seth Godin would say).  This allows you to spread your name while developing contacts and quality relationships with those followers.  Just like the traditional definition of networking, this can lead to great business opportunities as well as person opportunities.
All of this great exposure and endless potential opportunities and how much money does it cost you – not much at all. In fact, you can create a WordPress blog for free right now.  It will take you about 5 minutes to get started.

Blogging enables you to quickly produce content resulting in SEO and ROI
Content is king on the web.  Search engines are all about fresh, changing relevant content.  A blog delivers that content that search engines are after.  It makes Google happy.  This means your site gets more traffic.  Not just traffic, but qualified traffic.  With qualified traffic leads are generated.  With leads come sales.  Sales=money.  Money = good = you stay in business.  You don’t have to take my word for it.  Check out some of the benefits of blogging according to Compendium Blogware.

Blogging helps people
This is by far the most surprising and rewarding aspect of my blogging experience so far.  I can tell through comments and other interaction that I have been able to help people.  Even if it is something as small as telling them why they should or should not buy a particular cell phone, go see a certain movie; or even if it is something as trivial as helping them customize their Facebook or Twitter experience.  In some way, I know that I have helped them.  I don’t care who you are- helping people (even if it is someone you barely know) is one of the most rewarding experiences in life.

Final Reason: Blogging is fun.  Try it.  I think you will agree.

Freedom of the press is available only to those that own one.

Fascinating neurobiology article in Scientific American this month (June) called “The Healthy Type” by Jessica Wapner. (pg.32)

Little did I know that scientific studies have been done on hypergraphia, the uncontrollable urge to write, establishing the fact that there are many therapeutic benefits to writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. Perhaps it’s a good thing that I’ve been writing about my recent bad accident. It appears that complaining can act as a “placebo for getting satisfied.”

I have to admit, I have been surprised and pleased with the fringe benefits of blogging. First of all, the pure freedom of it has been breathtaking at times! After a couple of years of literally begging editors to publish my research results, thoughts and writing, I now hold all the publishing power!

I also have felt the therapeutic benefits. I often think about how much easier my own midlife crisis could have been with the support of a virtual community of fellow sojourners. Sure I was quite alone in my own crisis, but connecting with you would have made a gigantic difference to me.

Most of my ideas for my blogs come from what I dreamed about the night before. I wake up thinking about some subject and then I ask myself if anyone in the universe might be interested in my thoughts on that subject?

My answer is usually yes…I figure I must be the ultimate average midlife crisis queen after all I’ve been through in the past few years: divorce, job loss, menopause, re-marriage, career change.

Sometimes I just look around the house to see if there’s something else I should think about changing!!!

I really enjoy Rhea’s blog the Boomer Chronicles.

She’s often has a quote on her blog that I love:

I’m a baby boomer, I have a blog, and I know how to use it!

You might remember my “Why Students Should Blog” post in response to HackCollege’s contest. I finally caught up with episode 26 of the Hack College Podcast today by Chris and Kelly, and was thrilled to find that I made the final four to win a Hack College t-shirt!

The segment starts at about 18 minutes and I think the collection of answers are really good. I appear in the episode as a tweet. I know people go on about how social media and blogging and whatnot in North America doesn’t always apply here, but this one does.

In any case, I didn’t win that t-shirt, but dammit I’ll keep trying. Failing which I’ll just buy one for myself when I head up there later in the year. (But that’s not an excuse to not let me win, HackCollege!)

If you want to discover more, check out “The Case For Student Blogging” by HackCollege, I think it’s pretty good stuff. If you’ve been agonising over the perfect phrasing of your resume since forever, why not take a look at this and find a better way to supplement your case for future employment.

By the way, need more case studies on Blogging Yielding Fruit? Look no further than my Social Media Breakfast co-hoster Derrick Kwa who scored one with the one and only Seth Godin, as well as Corvida aka Shegeeks who scored one at ReadWriteWeb.

It’s happening people. Stop ignoring it.

Remember why students should blog? Well I’m happy to announce that the third internship worked out and I start on Wednesday. Exact details won’t be posted because of confidentiality issues, but suffice to say it’s social media related.

To me the biggest value is to be thrown into the “real world” and see if the stuff I’ve been blogging about makes sense, or am I living in this dream from the outside looking in. Could be a harsh slap of reality, but better now than later.

The downside is that it’s only six weeks (because I’ve committed the whole of July and half of August to my previous employer, MTV to work on the MTV Asia Awards held in Malaysia. That is going to be a blast!

However, rest assured the blogging here will not be changed in anyway. I definitely won’t be blogging about work unless given express permission, and if I do, it will be fully disclosed. I might end up blogging less than normal because of work hours, but that’s what RSS is for! (Don’t know how to subscribe, here’s my handy guide).

Finally, I want to thank everyone who’s been reading, commenting or interacting with this blog in any way. This could be the best blog in the world (it’s not), but if no one was reading it, it would be useful. So thanks for supporting me by reading, talking to someone else about me, attending Social Media Breakfast: Singapore. It’s because of you that I landed this internship. So let me end this post with: thank you for reading

I started this blog a couple of months ago, and already it has given my mood a boost.  It’s been great to get feedback from old friends who then forward my blog on to other old friends, all of them leaving wonderful comments.  Because I’ve been engaged in my lifestyle change for so long, it’s easy to forget where I’ve come from.  Getting comments from old friends who knew me as Fat Girl brings me perspective.  Plus, I get comments from people I don’t know that are affirming and enlightening. 

Not to mention that blogging every day encourages me to learn more about diet and exercise and to experiment with things like new recipes or workout routines, knowing I can share the details with all of you.

I’m not alone in the fact that blogging has helped me feel more connected.  Researchers have studied a small group of social media users and discovered that “Bloggers reported a greater sense of belonging to a group of like-minded people and feeling more confident they could rely on others for help.”

Our society has changed so much.  Very few of us live in the same place for more than a couple of years, so we don’t develop lasting relationships with neighbors, shop owners, and the people sitting next to us at the hair salon. Job-hopping has overtaken lifetime employment, so we don’t know our co-workers for 20 years anymore.  In the end, we remain social creatures, so we cannot go for long without community.  The way we achieve it may change, but we will create it where we can.  And, online is apparently our chosen venue nowadays.  We’re forging our bonds and support networks in cyberspace through social networking sites and blogs.

I, for one, am glad about it.  It’s nice to know that I can reach out to people going through – and interested in – the same sorts of things that I am.  We can all learn from and help each other no matter what time zone we’re in.