I have felt so behind lately. I’ve been doing my best to keep up with the newest tools and social networks out there, to see what I can use professionally. I’ve been on LinkedIn, MyRagan, just joined Facebook, have arguably the coolest Twitter concept to date – yet I have done virtually nothing with MySpace or Pownce or Bougie. However, something happened the other day that snapped me to attention. It wasn’t me falling behind social media – I was leaving it behind.

It came in the form of a comment to my blog. Not, not this one. Accentuate the Positive. And not even the fancy-schmancy “2.0″ version that I self-hosted. This one went to my old Blogger account:

I feel for Scrushy. I know what he has been through and I know what its like to walk into Federal prison. Although in Scrushy’s case he was immediately taken into custody – something rarely done in a white-collar crime case. Scrushy has exchanged a life of prestige and power to living in a place void of most worldly distractions. But, prisons are places where real personal changes can occur. Certainly, over then next five years or so, Mr. Scrushy will have time for meaningful self-evaluation.

On a crisp October day in 1995, I took 23 physical steps… opened a door… and began a new experience that was life-changing. Thinking back 12 years ago, I would never have considered that I, a competent, well educated man, would be sitting in prison. That was a life educational experience where I learned, really for the first time, that there are consequences to every unethical choice we make. Though one might think that we can avoid the consequences, the reality is that they are unavoidable and certain. We just don’t know how or when we will face the inevitable.

I’m not sure Mr. Gallagher even bothered to see when I wrote the original Open Letter to Richard Scrushy – more than two full years had passed by. (For what it is worth, Scrushy did follow most of my advice.)

The crux of the matter is a realization that I’ve been littering the internets. I’ve got remnants of a blog that are still eliciting comments, as they are still ‘new’ for billions of people. I’ve got aborted blogs on Blogger, New Blogger, MSN Spaces, a LiveJournal page that I don’t update anymore, and any number of services and e-mail accounts that I signed up for just to keep someone else from impersonating me online. (Did you hear that, Steve Jobs?)

I’ve got friends in the communications biz who are sharing my same frustration about the future – poor Heidi had to go cold turkey because there isn’t a 12-step program yet. Others are wondering why social networks are exploding all of a sudden.  Joseph Thornley has advice on how to cope.  Heck – most of the people within my “virtual communications huddle” are spending half their time inviting each other to join something or other, and the other half kibitzing about the features and possibilities because they don’t have time to test-drive every one of them anymore. Yet I have yet to hear anyone talking about all the ‘net debris we’re leaving behind.

Even our junk has a Long Tail.

[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, social media, social networking, blogging, myspace, facebook, myragan, linkedin, pownce, atp2, Richard Scrushy, Steve Jobs, Heidi Miller, BL Ochman, Chris Anderson, Long Tail[/tags]