How quickly the old learning curve puts on the afterburners and heads straight up into the stratosphere. . . I mean blogosphere.

In my relatively short time in the neighborhood, I’ve found the edu-blogging world both dizzying in its interlinked complexity and already strangely full of familiar voices. My paradigm, as they say, has already shifted. I started out with my Web 2.0 primer and PEW studies in hand, and some vague ideas about creating a presence, taking a writerly stab at developing a voice, sharing ideas, and generally getting into the conversation. Any trenchant, witty observations would be a nice bonus. Got my crisp new box of Dixon Ticonderoga No. 2 pencils with perfect pink erasers, and off I go.

Meanwhile, I was been reading and absorbing and getting swept up in the idea of blogging as this transformational, connective experience. Getting swept up in it, but not really getting it. I’ve always thought of writing as a synthesizing activity, and by extension, that blogging is a way of filtering, processing, interpreting and synthesizing what’s going on in our worlds—in many cases, with a selected focus. All fine and dandy, especially if an audience of sorts stumbles upon it and finds it useful.

What was missing from the picture so far is the connection. Sure, I push out a couple of posts, duly linked and Technorati-tagged. Just warming up, getting the lay of the land. And all the 2.0 self-talk about content-creation and authentic conversation aside, it really feels like I’m writing into a vacuum. Just practicing. Right?

Wrong. Christian Long from ThinkLab, checking up on the happy Yuvi-furor inspired by his original post, follows the Yuvi-trail of Technorati tags back here to leave a nice comment.

And in the process, not unlike what goes down in a certain fiddly Charlie Daniels tune, he shows me how it’s done. Boom! Connected to the conversation, just like that. Immediately, and with immediacy. Web 2.0 rhetoric instantly transformed into reality. Thanks, Christian. 

Savor for a moment the sweet irony that my-post-about-his-post-about-a-15-year-old-tech-geek-wannabe-named-Yuvi was all about the transformative power of getting into the thick of it.

Time to sharpen up those Ticonderogas and leave some comments on all the blogs I’ve been reading.