So you get wind of the fact that there is someone in the world who knows all the answers to the problems that you are wrestling with.  As will all great networks a good mate of mine and I were out walking one weekend, months ago and she was asking how its going and then she casually mentions that Euan Semple, the man credited with bring social computing to the BBC, is a mate of hers too and would I like to meet. 

Well last week after a couple of false starts we got there and do you know what happened....WE WORKED OUT WE WERE NOT MAD!!  Euan's been there, done it, war stories, warts and all, t-shirt - yup I bought it, in fact I designed it experience, is an incredible story for us to listen to, relative to where we are.  And our language is the same...Don't get wrong Euan if you are reading this, I think my foot in mouth comments liberally dispersed around our meeting meant that I comfortably kept the gap between our knowledge sets as wide as possible.  But we used the same words, with the same tone, in the same context to carry the same meaning - and for us, that is good.

We are learning as we go, and for us to build relationships with people like Euan, is like having PhD Physicist teaching the year one combined sciences course.  Still we are keen , just don't use too many big words right now and we are not quite ready for the "web 2.0" equivalent of quantum mechanics.

Caspar is off for a well earned break in France with the family, so I reckon that gives me license to give an airing to something that I noticed the other day.  There is a general reaction from people who "really" know against the phrase "web 2.0".  Euan reacted quite strongly about it and I get the impression he is not alone.  For me Mandy Shaw notably summed it up with he "social networking and collaboration - what a laugh, I've been doing it for 30 years, only I guess we did not have a fancy term for it."

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