Just as I was about to write this blog, I remembered that I needed to check my Facebook news feed for new posts from friends and family. I also needed to send a text message to one of my colleagues about an upcoming project and get his feedback. I absolutely had to check my Outlook calendar for any appointments I might have scheduled for today. Oh, and I was going to finish reading that book about Mark Zuckerberg and Social Networking on my iPad. My life has been taken over by technology it seems.

It doesn't seem that long ago when I was bored to death and I would have to find things to do to fill my time. Back in those days, I had 3 network television channels on my TV and the only way I could keep up with my friends and family was by calling them or visiting them. If there was a project, personal or business related, I was able to devote my full attention to it until it was completed. Distractions were few and far between. Today it seems we are all overburdened with technology and communications devices that seem like technology leashes. They pull on us this way or that way constantly.  

Will we ever be able to take control of our lives again, or is it futile to even try? Younger generations seem perfectly happy to stay connected to that leash 24/7. Am I just too old to smell the cappuccino? Am I looking backward and thinking that it would be better to return to the past? Maybe, I should just fully embrace these technologies and take advantage of what they have to offer. After all, I have never had this kind of instant access to my family, my business associates or my world. It's a good thing, right? I think it is a good thing as long as you don't let it completely dominate your life.

If we let technology rule our daily lives, then we aren't really taking enough time out of each day for ourselves or for the ones we really care about. I guess I just need to find the right balance. That is easy to say, but hard to do, right? It is a lifestyle decision. Instead of letting technology run our lives, we need to step back and set some priorities. If you are trying to build the next Fortune 500 company, your time is not your own. You business life and personal life are the same. For you, there is no choice. But, for the rest of us...

Recently I wrote a blog about Mark Zuckerberg's view of social media and why he thought everyone on Facebook should be willing to share the most intimate details of their personal and business lives daily on his social network. One commenter to my blog responded that since Mark could really distinguish between his personal and professional lives, that was easy for him to say and to do. For the rest of us, we probably want to maintain some separation between those two areas of our lives.

So how can we find that balance? When and how can we free ourselves of our technology leashes? First step is to set priorities. Some people would feel completely lost if they had to put away their iPhones, Blackberries or notebook computers. I am sure age impacts those decisions. If you are old enough to have lived without all these gadgets and appliances, it is probably easier to find the proper settings and times to put them away.   

One suggestion for simplifying one's life is to start by stopping. Each day you set your agenda and try to optimize every minute of the day. What if you chose not to set any agenda? What if you just let go and didn't try to be totally productive every minute of the day. You could do whatever you felt like that morning or escape for the entire day. You could go for a walk or take a hike. You could pull out that novel that you have been meaning to read, but just couldn't find the time for.

You could take your kids or your significant other on a bike ride. You could go to the beach or the lake and just take in the natural beauty of the area. If your time is really limited, you could just go outside and watch the clouds roll by. Just remember to unplug. Leave your iPhone or Blackberry in the house or the glove box. If you have to take it with you, at least turn it off.

If you are a list person, then put aside an hour or more each day to do nothing. Write it down on your list. Stephen Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, suggests taking time for yourself on a regular basis to sharpen the saw. Translation: do something to improve your mind or your spiritual being. The metaphor is all about being able to perform at your best. Take time to sharpen the saw because with a dull saw you won't cut much wood or be very productive.

If every day of your life is so busy that you can't get everything done on your list, then re-examine your list. Typically, there are a number of things on your to-do list that might seem urgent, but aren't really that important to your job or personal life. Re-evaluate your activities in order to optimize the ones that really are important to your mission. Remove the ones that aren't really fundamentally necessary in achieving your daily goals and objectives. Your list just might become manageable.  

When it comes to your cell and your computer, you can simplify and declutter those devices. I used to receive 50-100 emails per day. A lot of them I thought I needed for work. You know the ones...Briefings on technology, leadership, management, etc. I have unsubscribed to most of them. If I need to learn the latest on any topic, I just Google it and generally learn more than I ever wanted to know in a short time.

If you have joined too many groups on linkedin and receive daily or weekly email updates, then unjoin them. Getting rid of email clutter will make your life easier to manage. Do you have too many friends on Facebook? You can hide them from view and then the only news feeds you see will be about those people that you actually care about. Don't get me started on Twitter. Unless you have a business connection that requires you posting tweets or reading other's tweets...just say no. How important can information that consists of 170 characters or less really be? Check your news feeds no more than twice a day.

And consider turning off your television set occasionally. I realize that is a lot to ask. A great many people turn on their TVs when they get up in the morning and turn them off when they go to bed. Even if they aren't actually watching, it is like an extra voice in the house to keep them company. Bottom line: Living your life vicariously through your favorite television actors or personalities is okay as long as you don't spend the bulk of your free time doing it. I realize that some of you schedule your lives around our favorite TV shows. If you are that addicted, get a DVR and do something meaningful with at least a portion of your spare time.

One final note. Recent studies have indicated that technology appliances are having an adverse effects on the attention spans of humans across the world. Our attention spans are getting shorter and we are having a more difficult time focusing on anything for extended periods of time. It is no wonder that this is happening given the amount of information we are exposed to each day and the methods we are using to communicate with each other over cell phones, instant messaging platforms, email and Twitter.

The only way to extend your ability to focus and extend your attention span is by practicing. Stop scanning the news or trade sites and start reading full articles. Read entire books. Find projects that require your full attention for extended periods of time and engage. If you want your mind back, you will have to exercise it the same as you would exercise your body to gain muscle tone.

If you want to take your life back, you can do this. It isn't really that tough. I encourage you to tell us about your ideas on unleashing yourself from technology. Inquiring minds want to know.

My web community, www.boomeropinion.com  is all about capturing and broadcasting opinions and viewpoints. We provide daily polls, discussion forums, and news about critical issues facing America and Baby Boomers. If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined us, please consider it. It is free and only takes a minute to join. Coming soon you will be able to create your own polls, initiate discussions on topics you choose and ask questions of the membership. We also have a Twitter page, http://twitter.com@boomeropinion.

Yes, for most people the logical answer would be to hire the person with the most experience. After all, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. If a person has been successful in his or her field for the last 10-20 years, why wouldn't they make the best hire and be a very productive member of your company? In the past, I would have voted for the experienced candidate without question.

That was then. Today, I am not so sure. To paraphrase Bob Dylan, "The times they are a changing...particularly in today's workplace". Given the fact that the world of business and technology has been evolving at warp speed since the introduction of personal computing, high speed communications and the world wide web, how valuable will all those past experiences be to your organization? Can a person's experience translate directly into great job performance in today's wired world and fast paced business climate? Will that experience add significant value to the organization they are trying join?

Having worked in high tech since the early days of personal computers, I have seen technologies and companies come and go faster than anyone could have or would have predicted back in the early days of the technology revolution. In the early 1980's, the dominant software companies were VisiCorp, Ashton Tate, and Micropro. I doubt many of you have ever heard of these companies. These companies went from zero to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and just as quickly disappeared a few years later. Why, they weren't able to adapt to changing face of technology quickly enough. By the same token, the skills required to work in most white collar jobs are changing just as rapidly..

I remember selling the first PC hard drive in Austin. I sold it to the governor's office. After setting it up, I told the IT administrator that there was no way he would ever be able to generate enough data to fill up that 5 megabyte external hard drive. Yes, that was 27 years ago. Should I put that on my resume? My current notebook PC has a 150 gigabyte internal drive and it only has 37 gigabytes free. I also have a 500 gigabyte external drive I use for backup.

A long resume might look quite impressive to some bosses. Unless of course, you typed it up on your Olivetti Typewriter. How will all that experience provide a candidate with the tools and skill sets they will need to help lead businesses in the 21^st Century? The tools and skill sets have both changed. World wide communications are now driven by the internet and cellular technologies. Meetings can be conducted from anywhere at any time and can accommodate attendees anywhere on the planet. Distribution systems, marketing, customer relationships, supply chains and brand awareness are all driven by the web.

The successful companies of the future will be built on ideas and new strategies to deal with rapidly evolving technologies. Can past experience demonstrate one's ability to create new programs and leverage new technologies? In some cases, a connection to such abilities can be articulated on your resume. In most cases, it isn't easy to illustrate those abilities. Resumes don't reflect how well a person can think on their feet when a disruptive paradigm comes into play. It also won't show how quickly they can generate new ideas or how well they can react under pressure.

Some companies are referring to their employees as human capital. After all, in some companies the most valuable assets in the company are their employees. If your employees are your most important assets, you should be wise in how you judge their potential performance and who you hire.

Other factors include how well the potential hire can adapt to the existing corporate culture and whether or not he or she is a good team player. Consequently, the interview process will always be the most critical component in sorting out the best employees. Some companies are much better at this than others. Far too often, the bureaucratic nature of the larger corporations, places much more emphasis on the resume and background check, than the management and peer interview process. That's unfortunate for all concerned.

Regardless of which side of the desk you are positioned, hiring manager or potential hire, talk about creativity and idea production. If possible develop possible scenarios and have the candidates work up strategies and ideas for dealing with these potential calamities. Fresh viewpoints will be the key to successful business strategies in the fast changing world of today. A lot of those past experiences won't translate into useful skills when navigating the today's dynamic business climate, let alone in the future. Take the time to find out how well the potential hire can function in uncertain situations with imminent deadlines. Key hires are the key to business success. 

 What's your take on this issue? I am sure you have experienced this conundrum in your work life. Comment on Linkedin and/or on my web site, www.BoomerOpinion.com. We are always looking for Baby Boomers with an opinion who don't mind speaking out.

Mark Zuckerberg and his colleagues at Facebook believe that by openly acknowledging who we are and behaving consistently among all our friends and business associates we will help create a healthier society. Of course, his business depends on this philosophy. In his book, The Facebook Effect, David Kirkpatrick says that Zuckerberg believes, "that if we live in an ‘open and transparent' world, people will be held to the consequences of their actions and be more likely to behave more responsibly".

In a recently released Pew Internet and American Life Project survey of 895 "tech experts" and "highly engaged internet" users, two thirds responded that today's millennials will continue, as they grow older, to "disclose a great deal of personal information" in order to stay connected, and to "take advantage of social, economic and political opportunities." Bottom line is that the younger generation who has grown up with Myspace and Facebook have no qualms about continuing to post personal information on social media about themselves and their activities throughout their lives.

These are the same people who have posted embarrassing photos and text about their exploits and bad behavior. Some of these people have lost out on good jobs and/or acceptance into graduate programs because of these disclosures on their favorite social media platforms. Have they learned their lessons, or do they just dismiss these missteps as part of becoming an adult?

Is this transparency a good thing? Will it help you expand your professional network? Will it help you land that promotion or get that next dream job by virtue of the fact that your personal postings impress your current or future bosses as much as your resume and job experiences? Mark Zuckerberg hopes so. Or will these postings stifle your career advancement and ruin your chances at moving up the ladder?

According to Zuckerberg, "Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity". His thoughts on this topic basically point out that "the level of transparency the world has now won't support having two identities for a person". Because of the proliferation of information about individuals on the internet, the possibility of maintaining separate identities on the web are all but impossible. Eventually one's professional image will be overwritten by their personal image regardless of how hard they try to separate one from the other. Zuckerberg believes you only have one identity. Maybe he has a point, but a lot of older users seem apprehensive about combining their professional and personal identities.

One of Zuckerberg's early investors and mentors, Reid Hoffman, the founder of the professional online network Linkedin, has done his best to discourage users from posting personal information on Linkedin. Reid said, "Mark doesn't believe that social and professional lives are distinct". He went on to say, "That's a classic college student view. One of the things you learn as you get older is that you have these different contexts." Of course, Mark developed the original version of Facebook while he was in college at Harvard. And even today, he is barely older than most college students.

A former Facebook programmer Charlie Cheever thinks that Zuckerberg doesn't believe in privacy. Privacy has been, and remains to be a big issue with Facebook and its users. There have been numerous user revolts on this issue. To Facebook's credit, the company has responded to its users and provided better privacy controls on numerous occasions since its inception. Of course, the question still remains, "Should one company, Facebook, have sole control over the personal information of nearly 500 million users?"

What are the pros of combining your professional and personal personas? Exposure, networking, common interests with those you might want to do business with. The cons are exposure, documented misbehavior, negative networking through guilt by association and political stances that might be unattractive to prospective business partners.

Bottom line: if you don't want your personal information to be mixed in with your professional online presence, you should not go on any form of social media or join any online clubs, political groups, or other associations. Google will make your personal info available to anyone who searches on your name. Yes, you can limit what is seen on Facebook, but sooner or later you will be outed by association or your friends. Whenever you post something online, just remember the whole world is watching and reading.

What's your opinion on this topic? Has social media hurt your career or the career of someone you know? Have you missed out on a job because of your Myspace or Facebook postings? Are you active on social media? Do your friends on Facebook tag your wall with photos of your misbehavior or document your outrageous activities?

My web community, www.boomeropinion.com  is all about capturing and broadcasting opinions and viewpoints. We provide daily polls, discussion forums, and news about critical issues facing America and Baby Boomers. If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined us, please consider it. It is free and only takes a minute to join. Coming soon you will be able to create your own polls, initiate discussions on topics you choose and ask questions of the membership. We also have a Twitter page, http://twitter.com@boomeropinion.