There is nothing worse than an email exchange that should've been a meeting...

There is nothing worse than an email exchange that should've been a meeting... except maybe a meeting that could've been an email.

The question is, when to go virtual and when to go real?

Conversations, the face-to-face type, can be life-changing and engaging in a way that text messages can never hope to be.  Yet, "don't forget the milk" works so amazingly well, along with millions of other messages, in the SMS world.

Managing your virtual and real life endeavors with intention can not only make your life more efficient, but it can also save you embarrassment.

For instance, there are things that you would never say with your friends at a party--things in the "nobody-really-cares" or "nobody-really-needs-to-know" categories.  So why would you post these things to a social network?

The rule of thumb to keep in mind is that the virtual world is always and only a metaphor for real life and it should always be treated that way.

Sometimes a metaphor is powerful and other times it falls drastically short.  Understand the subtle difference and you will be way out in front of the pack.