My friend Amber Naslund went on vacation last week (the first in more than a year and very well deserved) and, as she left, she wrote a blog post about how vacation can be digital, too. Read the post here.
As most of you know, I hiked Pike’s Peak on Saturday. It’s the second time I’ve hiked it, and before Saturday I remembered it as being the hardest thing I’d ever done (granted, the first hike was before I’d run three marathons, cycled numerous centuries, and been active enough to ride 250-300 miles every week). Regardless, it was important to me to chronicle the climb for my friends and family and I did that by taking pictures with my BlackBerry and updating Facebook. Can you imagine if I’d had to take a camera bigger than my phone, downloaded the photos, then updated Facebook or Flickr? Talk about a time suck while on vacation!
Then, as Erin and I were driving back to Denver from Colorado Springs, I got the Steve McNair news via Twitter. Because I don’t watch a lot of television as it is (let alone on vacation), I probably wouldn’t have heard about that until today had I cut myself off from my BlackBerry.
My point is, like Amber’s, going without my BlackBerry (even on vacation) means I’m truly cut off from the world. I’m writing a book and all of my notes are on my laptop. I’m providing case studies and content for a couple of other books and all of my pages are on my laptop. I’m reading a few books to provide quotes for the back covers. Those are all on my laptop. I use social networks for both business and pleasure, and have access to Twitter and Facebook on my BlackBerry.
I’ve learned that if I create an out of office reply that sets expectations on the business stuff, itallows me to still use technology on the personal side. I agree, Amber, vacation can be digital too.