If you make “web 2.0″, I’m starting to hate that term, a core part of your community, it will become a ubiquitous part of your daily routine.

Ideally, it would not become an “extra” think to do. Rather, you and your community would use those “web 2.0″ tools to communicate internally and externally.

By doing this not only do you find time for web 2.0 but you also make it a core part of your institution.

While this may take time and planning to make web 2.0 a core component of an organization, it will not only provide you time for web 2.0 but it will help consolidate your internal communication streams and provide assistance to your external message.

Lorrie, I agree with your last statement, in fact, that is very true of my recent “relationship” with Twitter. It is just not possible to consume all the great “stuff” that everyone I follow is putting out there, so I need to be willing to accept that I won’t catch everything that comes through the wire.

It’s as if we now need to retool faster on communicating in short bursts across many media instead of focusing in depth on a few media. I once knew a quote on how many books were available in Jefferson’s time. Easier to be a Renaissance man when there are only a few thousand books to read!

We now have to learn to be comfortable with letting go, on Twitter especially. Ever try to catch up after being offline for a few hours or overnight. Hard, huh? It’s a river passing right by us every minute. So, part of that simplification process may be learning to be content with what we can, and cannot, actually have time to consume and discuss.

The time ratios mentioned in your post and attributed to Museum 2.0 seem reasonable to me – so what will allow for that kind of time commitment in our work lives. The answer, as I see it, is an acceptance of the fact that the time allotted to participating in social media tools will have to be derived from rethinking the way we work and communicate. If the hoped-for result is better and more meaningful communication, we will have to do away with the less efficient modes of communication that many of us have become accustomed to. In other words, these tools should not become “add-ons” that we consider a new part of doing business but rather ways of changing and streamlining the work that we currently do. With each new tool (blogs, podcasts, twitter, etc..) we should be thinking about what they can replace as a way of communicating with those who depend on us for information.

All too often I find that we are willing to experiment with new ways of communicating but reluctant to get rid of whatever system we currently use to do the same thing. Each and every time we adopt some new system for communicating, we should be asking ourselves, “what is this replacing?” And the answer should be met with a steadfast willingness to abandon that which is being replaced.

With this mindset, I think that we will find that these tools can indeed help us to simplify rather than complicate our lives. The key is to constantly ask ourselves when contemplating the implementation of some new tool, “will this help to simplify?” If the answer is yes – than we owe to ourselves (and our students) to adopt the new system. But in so doing, we must be willing to abandon entirely whatever old one it is replacing.