Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

Nicholas Carr in a recent post: “Is Google Making us Stupid?” discussed his basic feeling of how our minds deal with the information overload in the digital age. Or more precisely, how our minds are altered by the new half real, half virtual world we find ourselves in. So much of it rang true that I am tempted to go beyond just quoting his piece, but to actually dissect llines of it piece by piece. I’m not capable of reading a long blog post, I can barely read a blog post period. I skim. I look over the key words, trying to grasp the main concept. Even when researching a development issue or trying to define a new strategy I look for the “do this, now do this” part to get my desired result as quickly as possible, and then am disappointed when the solution isn’t miraculously achieved when I performed actions I didn’t even vaguely  understand. I am a  child. I am clueless.. I am lost in the Internet age…

That’s only half the truth however. While most people involved in Social Media would agree that at times, they also perceive that they are losing the ability to digest a long piece of sustained one sided flow of information from one source, they also believe that this “power browsing”, as Nicholas described it is, what gives them their super human powers. What is special about reading something for a sustained amount of time, such as a book, is the ability to set the book down, contemplate, understand, then go back to reading. What power browsing does is allow for people to connect the dots on a higher level. Let’s not forget that inside of each of our brains is still a powerful processing unit capable of quickly reading through garbage, processing, and taking away what is important. While you may now be skimming my post, you still might catch an enlightening sentence here and there and discard the rest of my over indulgent crap.

My question remains, however, do we actually allow ourselves enough time to contemplate? Are we really connecting the dots to deeper understanding or just flailing through an ADD fantasy? What do you think?

BTW, I kept this short because I feel, just like me, most of you would have quit reading by now if it was longer. (is this even bad?)

Somewhere in the midst of pushing for change in DC, I started throwing out the concept that I should be president, I started talking about it in chat rooms, blogs and to anyone that would listen. I never thought it would go far, but it is starting to catch on. I need your support, however, to keep this going! Email me to see how you can help! We’ve been getting quite a bit of press lately, below is a clip from Channel 3 News here in DC.

 I want to thank everyone I had a chance to speak with at Blog Potomac. As always these type events humble and remind me that there are so many smarter people than I in the DC tech community. I had to leave after lunch for a development meeting, but overall the event was very helpful for us as we setup our first corporate blog, which was this weekend’s battle. Although it was cast as an “un-conference”, I would have liked a little time in between to talk with people other than in passing, but I’m sure people had time later int he day to have more in-depth conversations. The speakers were on point and helped to remind me why we were setting up this blog in the first place!

It was good to talk with Luke Richmond about his current stealth project underway. Lionel Menchaca of DELL had some great points about integrating a blog into DELL’s corporate strategy. Their blog at www.direct2dell.com shows how companies large and small can benefit from the social media communication medium.  Jared Goralnick, a great blogger, and President of SET Consulting as always had some great comments and questions. Although I didn’t really get a chance to talk with him it was good to see Shashi Bellamkonda, the Swami of Social Media from Network Solutions for a brief time.

 Ok, so we have ourselves a blog now for evDeliv. Now what do we do with it? With the energy we are putting into blogging instead of the myriad of other issues facing us we’ve been forced to take a hard look at what we are doing here. The truth is, I feel like I am trying to pretend that we are doing this for all the right reasons (engage customers, allow a discussion about our brand, company strategy and direction, and because we truly feel we have something deep and meaningful to say. the truth is however, while these are great reasons, I fear the real reason is somewhat distracting and takes away form the benefits we could see. Blogging is also clearly a marketing tool, allowing us to create a larger brand, and personal brand for myself and the rest of our small team. To reach our fingers out across the net and start to have some clout. The problem with this, is that it doesn’t inspire us to write anything new or useful, and it makes the whole act of doing this feel empty and hollow. If it is only to let people know we are launching evDeliv. It will feel empty barren, black & white, and boring.

So what are the uses for this blog that can be both rewarding for us and the people that read it?

Clarify our own thoughts

Only through conversations with others, and ourselves can we develop a mature understanding of the concepts we grasp. Moments of elucidation may occur fleetingly, late at night, or in a rush of insight, but only by digesting that information through communication and thought can something real be garnered from it.

Provide a mechanism for criticism

What is great about ideas, is that they are highly moldable objects. Without the right tools a piece of wood, is just a piece of wood, but given a saw, tape measure, router, sander, screws, putty, stain, and veneer it can become almost anything the creator can imagine. The same is true of ideas. Given two-way communication, and insight an idea can be molded, bent, prodded, and shaped into being something real, tangible and useful.

Discuss Topics important to us

In any two-way communication you are actively involved will, the topic will invariably be 50% what you want and 50% what the other participants want. (We will ignore the fact that the sum is greater int he pieces in this case) By blogging and discussing the concepts we have we allow the conversation in our life to naturally