So, I am back and refreshed. Well, I was refreshed, but then I got back!
Taking time off to reflect on life and work was therapeutic. While in Ieper, Belgium, I had an opportunity to meet up with blogger and professer Serge Cornelus, who runs an interesting blog called No Copy. I set up a Flickr group so you can see some pictures of Serge and I when we met last week (and a few other of my family members) meeting in Ieper.
He kindly drove over to Ieper and we met up at the ‘t Klein Stadhuis, a great little join in Ieper (Ypres), if you ever have a chance to visit.
We talked a lot about the limitations of social media in general, and blogs and Second Life in particular. Also, how we both have struggled with fully participating in the online and offline communities that we inhabit.
We talked about the proliferation of services and communities online and wondered how it would all scale for the average person, and decided probably not very well.
I live, eat and sleep social media and public relations, most people don’t. Then again, I am crazy, and most people aren’t! 
We discussed the simple fact that the biggest obstacle to widespread adoption of social media tools is time. So, most people will probably choose only one or two and leave it there.
We also talked about the limitations of both blogs and Second Life, but I think that I will leave that for another post. We also talked American politics, with yesterday’s election coming up, but I think Serge plans a post about that talk.
I look forward to reading his impressions.
Politics aside, I wonder what you think. How many online communities are you involved with? What is your cutoff point and how do you balance your on and offline life?
