I am sitting in the “bloggers bullpen” — no caps or punctuation, of course — at the AlwaysOn Summit @ Stanford 2008. But Tony Perkins is also streaming this event on the Web to all members (free or paid) of his AlwaysOn business networking site. Which leads to the inevitable question of virtual connectivity versus personal contact.
My own view is that business always requires some interpersonal chemistry between partners, suppliers and advisors. In my own legal practice, there is no substitute for periodic face-to-face discussions with a client, even though the vast majority of my clients for 20+ years have been far-removed geographically from my Washington, DC base.
There’s an even larger question, though. With the explosion of bloggers and RSS feeds, is there any reason today actually to READ breaking news, whether on the Internet or otherwise? We live in an era of buzzwords and elevator pitches. In that context, 30 seconds is just right. Sad but true. We are becoming a nation of skimmers, exacerbated by live blogging. So I guess it’s perfectly apropos for me to be in the bloggers bullpen right now.