See more of the story

This morning we Minnesotans were met with the most bone chilling weather so far this winter. I needed to go into deep storage to find outer clothing which would brace against the wind and cold for the required driveway shovel. Clearly, today was a brutal reminder of the "natural" world we live in. And sometimes nature is harsh. (The picture above was taken last weekend at the family cabins on Lake Superior.)
Back indoors with a hot cup of coffee, the morning paper (yes, I still read one), and my Blackberry nearby, I began to Twitter my morning experience to the roughly 350 people who follow me. I made some snarky comment about how New Yorkers know nothing about work ethic had they been in MN today, simply needling some friends of mine who had either relocated to NYC or were there on business for the day. At the same time I was getting some incoming Facebook comments on the picture I had uploaded the day before of my son and daughter in the Christmas pageant.
Here I illustrate the intersection between two realities -- the physical world of weather, cooking, holiday parties, traffic jams, and family with the digital world of Twitter, Facebook, email, and text messaging. A debate over which is "real" continues to baffle me, yet I too struggle with maintaining a balance. To me, both are real. We're integrating technology and communications into everyday life in order to enhance -- I believe -- that natural reality in which we all live. Technology augments the physical world by allowing a mutual sharing of real world experiences.
This is not to say, by any means, that life doesn't at times get way out of balance. Recently, I personally have been struggling with over-integration of both Twitter and Facebook into my home life. Left unchecked, these wonders of social media provide a constant stream of info-crack. On any given evening I will be cooking a nice meal for my family (using Epicurious on my laptop as my go-to online recipe book), only to see that pesky blinking red light on the Blackberry enticing me to click away. And I usually do.
That's until last week. I made a personal moratorium on Twittering, Facebooking or even general internet surfing while my duties are to be full-time father and husband. My children are of the age where they can benefit from as much quality time as possible from their parents. We set an example for them. It's very difficult and obviously inconsistent to tell the kids the "limited their screen time" when Mom and Dad are juggling laptops, Blackberry's, and iPhones all at the same time. It's like telling your kids not to eat too many sweets as you're jamming a pint of Ben and Jerry's down your pie-hole.
In this blog, I plan to continue this line of thinking and conversation as well as comment on when all of this technology also intersects with business and organizations in general.
But I promise not to post them between the hours of 5-9PM. Hold me to that!
Andrew