THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA

http://www.communitygrouptherapy.com/

There's a new link in the blog roll down there ... it's the "Chief Cat Herder" also known as the Director of MVPdom.  This time of year is typically "politically incorrect" for me to leave the office should the network blow up ... not to mention someone has to deal with the DST time issues in the newsgroup so I'll be not attending the MVP summit this time, but indeed for those newbies that haven't gone, DO go.  I still remember my first summit experience of meeting folks that I'd only emailed online, never met and felt an immediate 'click' of communication.  I remember thinking "gee I'll bet researchers would love to be a fly on the wall and research us".

Well summit number 2 for me (which was another fly up and back March summit ...which I believe was SeanO's first) there was a product faire and a gentleman was talking about Community behavior and how MVPs had a certain behavior (they don't start threads, they answer them) and he was showing the Netscan tool and I thought ... I know him.. I read about his work on research of usenet on the web.. and sure enough..Marc Smith is the only socialogist hired by a technology company.

All the little blips on that map represent connections of people, of communication, of a flattening of the world, of making it a smidge smaller.  I still remember when I got back from my first summit... I no longer "read" emails.. I "heard" them... I "heard" the voices, the accents.  I still remember laughing about the pronounciation of Al-loo-men-i-um and Roo-ter .. and while I'll be sad not to be in attendance, I know that connections and communication will occur.  More folks will "hear" the emails the next time they get one back in the mail.

So if you are one of those folks heading or planning to go to the summit... I'll be thinking about you guys and keeping the online communities chugging along...have fun and make those online connections into real ones.

(yeah the last summit I went to ...I picked up a hubby in San Francisco...looonnnnggg story on that one.. and no silly it's not Wayne... .)