I know this, I really do.

This fact looms in my mind every time I think about something I’d like to share with the world.

And then I look around and see how much STUFF is out there. Online spaces are full of people writing their personal diatribes, reviews, opinions, Top 5 lists, stories, random posts, videos, and advice. Good stuff, but it’s noisy out there.

Almost invariably, this stops me in my tracks. I stop writing and feel an overwhelming sense to listen more, learn more, and know more. The next hour or two is then spent reading others’ stuff, clarifying my own thoughts, and figuring out how what I’ve learned applies in my life.

It’s at this point that I’m happy to know I’m not adding to all the stuff in the world. Like the abundance we have in physical stuff, we are bombarded by digital stuff. Perhaps A&E should develop a new series about digital hoarders – those of us with more RSS feeds and Facebook friend updates than we can ever hope to read.

(For those who ask me  – quite regularly in fact – why I don’t follow more people on Twitter, this is the reason: I actually want to read all of their updates. To know these people. To spend time listening to what they have to say.)

This probably limits my “personal brand.” I certainly can’t be called an active blogger and I don’t have thousands of loyal fans commenting on my every post.

At the same time, I’m not alone. Plenty of us share ourselves in online spaces. We learn more every day. We are inspired by others’ incredible insights. And we use those insights to form our perspectives, get work done, and manage our lives. We can participate in different ways, which is good.

Still, I have this nagging feeling that I should blog more. Perhaps at some point I will.

In the meantime, know that I’m listening. Building. Acting. Doing.

And, when I feel inclined, I’ll add more stuff in the world – when I have something to share that adds value. Not more noise.

In between booths of artists selling their wares were a few non-art vendors, including the New York Times. While my mom and I passed by, the man working this booth suggested that we sign up for a NYT subscription. I thanked him, let him know that I receive all my news digitally, and complimented his employer on their mobile subscription and iPhone app.

The gentleman informed me that these digital subscription offerings do not include the full content from the New York TImes. To this, I replied that they should; it would be great to have access to all the great Times content digitally!

Then came the line that floored me:

“You should support print media.”

Really?

That’s it? I just “should”?

In that moment, I started to understand a major factor in the crisis that the newspaper industry is facing: they just think paper is better. Why? Because it is.

The argument for print media seems to say, “hey everybody, just start buying printed newspapers again, and then we can all go back to normal.”

I do understand that the newspaper business model has been turned upside down. That newspapers are going bankrupt. That advertising revenues fell nearly 30% in the first quarter of 2009.

This is an extraordinary time, and the whole newspaper industry is changing. To say the least, it’s not easy.

But the situation garners less pity from me when I hear people defend and encourage the industry’s current state. This position implies that there is an inherent value in the print distribution of the content. Which is odd, because the paper itself is simply a distribution channel. And channels come and go with time.

Prior to newspapers, town criers just yelled out the news. Later, papers were hawked by newsies on street corners. More recently, newspaper carriers delivered papers to customers’ homes. Today, news is available in a myriad of formats, both written and broadcast. Now, distribution models for news are changing again. More fundamentally this time.

The New York Times – like every paper – needs to understand that its value is in its content. Not its medium. People like me still want news. We want in-depth reporting. We want insightful journalism. The market is there.

For my part, I will register. I’ll provide my demographic profile. I’ll read ads. I’ll subscribe.

And so, I’m confident that a new business model will emerge – whether it is fee-based, ad-supported, social or non-profit – that makes this service viable. Along the way, some news services will fail. Others will succeed.

The newspapers that focus on their content, and experiment with different business models, will survive. And thrive. Albeit, reinvented. The ones who ask digital subscribers to switch back to paper will fail.

When our lives are mobile, paperless, streaming, we need to have our journalism provided in a medium that fits our lifestyle.

In a word: digital.

On Thursday, I visited Becky* and her family, who live a couple hours’ drive outside of Minneapolis, on a communal farm. Hers and four other families live in a “fellowship,” where they live simply, share what they have, homeschool their kids, and spend a lot of time in worship.

Becky – who now goes by her given name, Rebekah – has two children. Malachi, nicknamed Chi, is twelve and little Calla is six. (Becky’s husband Greg wasn’t home so I didn’t get a chance to meet him.) The kids are beautiful, polite, sweet. They told me about their lives, and their love of the fellowship’s animals: horses, chickens, and sheep, among others.

Soon after arriving at Becky’s house, we meandered to the kitchen to prepare lunch. Becky makes many meals from scratch, both giving to and taking from the fellowship’s communal cupboard. For lunch, she used ingredients from bulk containers – a gallon of honey, a quart of mustard – to make dressing for our chicken salad. (The chickens had been raised by the fellowship last year.) Our dessert, fruit with yogurt sauce, included homemade yogurt from another fellowship member.

After lunch, we moved to the living room and continued our conversation. Becky showed off her family’s new television, a 19″ tube television connected to a VCR. Videotapes sat in a cupboard – Daniel Boone, Old Yeller, My Friend Flicka, and other staples of a bygone era. I learned that twelve-year-old Chi has already become enamored with the TV, wanting to watch it more often than his parents find appropriate.

I didn’t see much of Chi – he was outside in the barn for most of the afternoon. Beautiful Calla stayed in the house with us, often carrying one of the family’s two-week-old kittens. She talked of her favorite TV show, Daniel Boone, and showed off her homemade rifle, made from a long tree branch, with a bit of hardware fashioned into a trigger and scope.

Throughout the day, Becky talked of her lifestyle. She loves that her kids have “a wholesome life.” She learned to cook (”something I’m not very good at,” she said) from other ladies in the fellowship. She teaches her children, occasionally expressing doubt about her own abilities as a teacher. And she apologetically talked of her longtime friends’ assessment of her lifestyle as being like Little House on the Prairie.

Of course, the elements of this life are so different than my family’s. My kids are techies; each has an ipod (including the four-year-old) and they all love video games. On busy nights, they heat up Easy Mac for dinner — in a microwave that I’m sure would seem quite foreign to Calla. They participate in school activities and sports. They ride city buses.

What may seem odd is that, to me at least, Becky’s life and mine didn’t feel all that different. We agree on the virtues of a simple life. For her, this is an everyday experience; for me, this is cabin life. Our families are both strong in our faith. The expressions of our faith are very different, but our desire to serve God is the same.

Still, there is a part of me that worries about Becky. She has grown quieter, more subdued than she was years ago — probably more notable to me, as I’ve grown louder and bolder with time. Her laugh is a mere chuckle. Her smile is shy. And her voice is soft.

I pray that she has not given up a part of herself as she strives to be a good wife and mother. I pray that her passing comment about her less-than-perfect marriage is a reflection of the idiosyncrasies in every marriage and not a mournful regret. I pray that her children will grow up to be strong and ready to experience the larger world, full of bureaucracies, health insurance, taxes and YouTube.

And most of all, I pray that the last 20 years of life have given her fulfillment and joy. Because while I understand the appeal of living in a bygone era, I hope that she has received as much as she has given.

* Not their real names. I didn’t ask permission to write about them.

For many people, I’m guessing this wouldn’t be a very big deal. For me, on the other hand, it was a pretty significant lifestyle change. A good experiment for me.

Now I’m back, so can share what I did and why.

Recently I left Best Buy after spending 18 years there. It’s been quite a ride this past year, as I struggled to figure out whether my personal career goals would align with the company’s direction. Now I know, for certain, that I will follow my dreams elsewhere.

Before I knew for sure whether I’d return to Best Buy, I wanted to take some time “off.” That is, without the regular Best Buy updates that I receive, and treasure, from my online community of friends. And without the self-imposed pressure to provide everyone with the latest updates from me.

You see, up until this month, my personal identity has been intermingled with the identity of the company. My work at Best Buy said a lot about me – that I am dedicated to my career. That I’m extroverted. Into technology. Kinda geeky. Energetic.

This provided a great introduction as I met new people — by saying I worked at Best Buy, I had an immediate conversation starter. The conversation itself varied. Sometimes, it was a discussion about our latest stock performance or company announcement. Other times, it was a story about a recent experience at a store, whether positive or negative. And – in Minnesota at least – it sometimes prompted a discussion about development along I-494, where Best Buy’s huge corporate campus looms large.

Even with old friends, these same conversations are common. Hugs are often followed by discussions about the latest buzz at Best Buy. Or maybe the latest gadget. Or my latest job responsibilities.

So now, I spent a bit of time figuring out what exactly I will say going forward. I’m still passionate about my career, love people, into tech, and have a ton of energy. But now I can’t encapsulate that into two words.My instant conversation starter won’t be there.

During my time “off,” I spent time with family and friends. I met new people and caught up with old friends. I read books. I cleaned the basement (or started to, anyway). I returned to some of my great loves: workouts, baking, and even a bit of oil painting.

And I missed all of you.

I haven’t really figured out my new conversation starters yet. I don’t yet have my business plan figured out for the next phase of my career. And my basement still needs work.

But, I’m inviting you back into sharing my journey. I took the time I needed to look inside. So now I’m back. Ready for new beginnings.

This is my story of how the internet has changed me.

Back in 1989,as the internet was being invented, I was starting college. And doing lots of research. Partly because it was expected of me, and partly because I just love to learn. Yes, I was one of those crazy kids who, when given the option, chose to write the paper.

For the next four years, I spent lots of time in libraries. I hung out there because it was quiet, I could read, and it was much more convenient than trekking off-campus to my apartment. And, it afforded me an excuse to browse the stacks for an interesting read here and there.

I was well versed in where to find stuff in the library, which campus libraries offered the best resources, and where I could find a microfiche machine that actually worked well.

Throughout my senior year, I worked on my thesis, exploring the ethical, legal and practical implications of alcohol and cigarette advertising in urban markets. During this process, I discovered the university’s online system to access reference materials from universities across the world.

In that moment, my concepts about access to information changed. I could read articles from around the country. Books from the last 50 years. Research studies from around the world. All of a sudden, I had to think about validity of these sources. Cultural differences. Changes over time. Languages.

All this led me to think very differently, converse differently. write differently. By the end of the year, my thesis was better for it. I was better for it. What a great way to finish college and go out into the world.

For about a year after college, I went through what I can only describe as information withdrawal. My university library access was no more. Media was not very satisfying for my curious nature. Computers and online services were not very enticing nor affordable to me. I felt disconnected, and considered going back to school for awhile.

Then, in 1994, when Apple announced their online service eWorld, I was enthralled. I bought a PowerPC and signed up. Not a great experience, but I felt like my access to the world was back. I learned, engaged, connected. Each day I spent hours online, reading, exploring, discussing (I loved the bulletin boards!).

In the past 15 years, I’ve never been without online access. I’ve bought newer PCs, signed up for better and more open services, paid for faster access, learned about web infrastructure, and participated in social media. One-way media channels have become less and less relevant to me, while my internet usage has grown. The technologies have changed, the communities, the services, the activities.

But my feelings haven’t. I still feel connected to my world. That I can learn, explore, converse. That new possibilities to grow and connect are coming to life. And I’ll be there.

The past 20 years have been an amazing journey for me. And I simply would not be who I am without the 20-year-old internet.

This past weekend I participated in a team at Sierra Bravo’s Overnight Website Challenge, where 12 teams of nerds worked 24 hours straight to create 12 new websites for local non-profits. Not only did our teams provide great benefit to our community, but we have some tales to tell about the experience itself. Turns out that being in close quarters with 100+ web nerds creates some interesting dynamics.

My team was called the Groovy Goolies, named after the Groovy programming language. Our team included six developers, two designers, and two business advocates (that’s me).  My job was to work with our client, Battered Women’s Legal Advocacy Project, to gather business requirements and translate those requirements into actionable work for our development staff. And, is natural for the project manager in me, I generally just tried to keep our project on track.

I also worked hands-on in an agile development environment for the first time. Yes, I talk about agile, I advocate for it, and I recommend it as a great method of development for today’s technologies, but I hadn’t ever actually gotten my hands dirty in it, personally, before now. (No I am not talking about midnight pizza, which also made my hands dirty, greasy and garlicky).

Of course, the agile process gets more complex at 3am, when writing and interpreting stories and tasks seem like insurmountable work.

And, the fact that I hadn’t written HTML code in years, causing me to use deprecated tags, also added hilarity and humility to my experience.

But, at the end of the weekend, I learned a lot. I made friends. And I experienced the entire web development process, from ideation to approvals, in what I think we’d all agree is a laughably abbreviated timeframe.

There are precious few experiences in life like this one, where learning is condensed into such a short timeframe that the mind can’t even process all that it is absorbing. I’m grateful to my team members, to BWLAP, and to Sierra Bravo for providing me this incredible adventure. My mind is still processing all that I learned.

Now, it’s up to me to figure out how to use these lessons in the rest of my life.

Our pre-8am workday started slowly, as we completed small odd jobs at the school and administrative offices. New carpets were installed last week, so our job was to move furniture back into the rooms and set up a few PCs. (Yeah, I can TOTALLY do that!). 

Then we organized some supplies and did some minor repairs here and there. We learned quickly that our hosts are busy people, too busy to babysit us! So if we want to really make a difference, we needed to identify a job to do, and after a quick consult with our Mendenhall friends, jump in and get it done. 

For lunch we ate red beans and rice with the kids at the school. It was satisfying but clearly meant for sustenance, not fine dining.  A good thing, as our meal was cut short when we were asked for more PC help at the pastor’s house. Word had spread that we knew about computers. 

So we tried to help email photos – 130MB worth – to the pastor’s daughter, who is serving in Iraq. We certainly didn’t have a magic solution for transferring such a huge file set using only webmail. (They resisted our recommendation for online sharing). So, multiple emails were our only option. It took quite awhile, but we kept entertained with a two year old hugging and climbing on us. 

In the afternoon, it was back to the school for more supply room organization projects. No one here really has time to figure out a good system for managing everything – pre-K through 12th grade – so we saw first hand how temporary solutions really lack long-term usefulness.

The conditions here are almost unbelieveable. Three years after Katrina, there are still abandoned homes overgrown with weeds. Buildings without roofs. Buildings with temporary plastic roof coverings, which people nonetheless call their homes. 

One of the Mendenhall buildings damaged by the 2005 hurricane has finally been repaired. But years of no water hookup, coupled with a sealed up building (lest it become a drug haven), have cause sewer odor to permeate. Without fresh air, this beautiful large daycare facility goes unused.

Looking back on today, I can’t help but notice how technology plays a role even in this poorest of towns. We saw four PCs, and fewer than four people who knew how to use them. These PCs were performing vital tasks and clearly were heralded for the value they brought, yet each one held much more power than their human counterparts knew.

A large sign outside the youth center said ABSOLUTELY NO CELL PHONES. I was surprised, but maybe shouldn’t have been. Prepaid phones are available to all. Mobile phones are ubiquitous. Even these families, with so little, make the investment.

We also saw the ever-present issue of electronic waste. There were old pcs and tvs that can’t be thrown out (’least that’s what we been told’) but have outlived their usefulness. With no good options for disposal. So they sit, taking up room in the cafeteria, principal’s office, supply closet – in any corner where they can be shoehorned.

And throughout the day, I used my online network (thanks Tweeple!) to find answers and get advice, nearly instantaneously. 

Technology truly is a facet of all our lives. So today – more than ever – I believe that what I do makes a difference. Not just right now, as I help debug a PC in a rundown office building, but every day that I help bring people closer to the technology that can improve their lives.