Two experiences this past weekend emphasized for me - again - both the incredible advantages, and disadvantages, of today's technologies that enable us to be connected to one another 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. First, the experience that reminded me of the disadvantages. It's a fairly mundane story, actually. I took Friday off. That's it - I took the day off from work. Except that, even though I took the day off and was driving with my husband through to my high school reunion, I still "attended" a team meeting via cell phone. The reason I attended this meeting on my day off? I am pretty sure I attended it simply because I could, because I had the technology that enabled me to do so. So, why not? (Thank heavens I have wonderful colleagues who promptly reminded me of the need for work-life balance, and that when I say I am taking the day off, I really need to take the day OFF.) The lesson: just because technology allows us to do something, we don't have to do it.

Now, for the amazing experience that reminded me of the advantages. Saturday night was the big class dinner at the reunion, and during the meal I sat next to a terrific classmate sharing our current professional endeavors. This friend shared his newly acquired knowledge of my employment with Knowledge Infusion with another classmate and his spouse a little later. Turned out that this other classmate and spouse know several KI folks through professional affiliations. Further, the spouse already knew who I was, simply because we have so many connections in common on Facebook, and she had seen my name a lot, as I had seen hers. The funniest thing about this? As she and I were talking, I was getting emails from my KI colleagues asking if I knew or had met her, as they had seen on her Facebook status that she was headed to the same reunion I was heading to. So, here we all were: talking real time with each other, communicating virtually with various KI colleagues through email and mobile Facebook on our Blackberries. Technology enabled all of us to recognize and connect with each other, realizing the many different ways our paths cross in life. The lesson: sometimes, when technology enables these amazing opportunities to connect with terrific people, we should take advantage of them, and follow up with a face-to-face interaction when possible.

At Knowledge Infusion, we work with organizations to implement technologies that enable human interaction and collaboration. We also remind our clients that technology is nothing more than an enabler, that as humans, we still need to use our judgment about when using technology is wise (e.g., to facilitate making new friends), and perhaps not so wise (tipping work-life balance too far to the work side). It's helpful to remind ourselves of this every once in a while.