Good question. One I’d like to comment on so you know whether this space has value for you or not.

WHY DID I STOP?

Time. While I’ve published my own and contributed to numerous blogs over the years, there are only so many hours in the day and so it came down to priorities for me.  With  the  explosion of interest in social media and how it could apply in business situations, and the relentless pursuit of organizations wanting ROI strategy plans, I found  myself over extended with consulting, a couple of startups, and traveling a lot to keep up with a hectic training, and speaking schedule. The crazy hours were taking it’s toll, I was burning out.  I needed to catch my breath and redraw my lines. So I stepped back.

WHAT HELPED ME?

Userville. While I’ve remained engaged online through great tools like Posterous, 12seconds.tv, I’ve been meeting fantastic new people and organizations via my radio show, Facebook and other virtual stops all over the web. I’ve also done a lot I needed to recharge my battery.of very fulfilling reading.  I found refreshing honesty in Trust Agents by Chris Brogan which helped me be ok with, well, being myself.   Brian Solis’ Engage encouraged me and reinvigorated me that all the noise online shouldn’t frustrate me, but inspire me that I do add value in sharing my take. Seth Godin’s practical, bite size, no-fluff wisdom is always applicable and strikes a chord with me.  Along with Google Play, and all the other great bloggers I subscribe to and read daily, I got my groove back.  Cutting out the noise did it.

WHAT I LEARNED?

Focus. Opening up and looking at my schedule was a valuable learning point. I had allowed so many business demands to impact my personal life – like totally and ruthlessly sideline it.  After a frank assessment, and some pruning, I’m renewed and determined to not allow it to happen again. I have simplified my focus down to a few key elements, here they are:

            1. Spending my time caring for my loved ones, clients and colleagues.  I love people and love what I do. So reallocating my time to care for these and let the rest go was liberating. Now as incredible opportunities come along, I have the bandwidth to participate.
            2. Becoming an interdependent professional, not independent. I’ll be extending my relationships to include collaborating with other high-trust thought leaders.  Regaining my balance also has refreshed me to share my creativity and passions and work together through future challenges – challenges unlike anything most of us have ever seen in our life time!
            3. Be ok with missing out on the immediacy of brilliance. So many in userville are masterful and brilliant.  I’m going to find joy in sharing their expertise and in celebrating and advocating their success. Being first isn’t that important to me anymore, quality and value is.

I’m in a good, healthy place and it feel’s great.

SO WHAT?

Another good question.  The reason for this explanation is that I really believe in adding value to anything I do, especially when publishing or mashing content. I also believe, when we are so immersed in this field, one can be so absorbed in whatever it is, that we lose sight of reality a little bit and start taking shortcuts to keep ahead of the competition.  Some end up focused on tools rather than people, and impressive technical buzzwords instead of practical solutions for userville. We may even wake up one day and find that we’ve gotten dumber as a consequence.  hands_together

I promise future posts won’t be this long, all the content will be about putting the “we” back in the social web, share practical tips, tools and strategies that we can all use and collaborate on as one collective. Enough about me, so, here we go.

Giddy up!

Does this make sense to you?  Was this helpful to you in any way?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.