While I have long tried to place a tangible business value to social networking, my personal use was limited to connecting with those closest to me in my everyday life, my family and friends for whom this was an alternative way to share pictures and occasions overcoming our geographic separation. In the past six months, I have heard from people that I have not laid eyes on in 20 years or more and still haven't 'laid eyes' on them for that matter. Unlike chance encounters of the past, I did not read about them in my hometown newspaper or get a call from them on the telephone - I got a connection request on LinkedIn, or a Friend Request on FaceBook, or they began to 'follow' me on Twitter. In a very personal way I now began to feel the impact of social networking.
This contracting of the universe and the reconnection with our true 'natural network' may be the greatest benefit of social networking - not in it's ability to help us evolve into the future - but it's ability to allow us to reconnect with or recreate the community of our past.
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