Your point about mixing the personal and professional parts of ourselves is a good one. I didn’t directly say it, but the definition – by the pure nature of it – is a mixture of the personal and professional parts of a person. And you’re right. It’s very difficult for some people to go there.

I retweeted Jay Baer’s most recent post on that topic earlier today. It’s a good one: How to Balance Your Personal and Professional Lives in Social Media. (an inconvenient truth) http://ow.ly/wOzt.

Thanks again for your insight.

I think knowing ourselves and defining ourselves – whether as an individual or as an organization – is one of the things people struggle with the most when jumping in. If you know yourself, it is much easier. You know whether you are OK mixing personal and professional or whether you like to have clear lines between them. You know instinctively what tone to use. It’s really the first step in participating. You can’t even listen well if you don’t know yourself and what you want to listen for – at least in one area.