I hate that I am jealous of the tech bloggers...

It probably not why you think it is, actually. All of us bloggers are spending time building community outside Microsoft and they, the tech bloggers, already have a community inside Microsoft. Couple examples:

-Our internal blog discussion alias is full of technical jargon. Every once in a while I see someone trying to make technical humor, I think (because it involves little smiley faces in the text) and I just don't get it. But I suspect that the other tech bloggers on the alias do (or at least the 10 or so people that seem to respond to every post). I end up deleting 95% of the posts because I don't know what they are talking about. And I end up wishing there was a separate alias for non-tech discussions about blogs.

-They have “Geek dinners” and other social gatherings that they have devised names for. Now don't get me wrong...I don't want to actually go to these. If you are going to talk technical in front of me, the thoughtful look on my face is about how I can get out of this conversation, what I am going to have for dinner or what the heck you are wearing (sorry...often true). And I realize that asking technical folks to get together in a room and resist speaking about technology is like asking them to hold their collective breath (don't try it tech bloggers, we need you). Gretchen and Zoe married into it so I think they can deal with it better. I'm easily bored when I can't be involved in the conversation.

I don't begrudge the technical bloggers here their community. I actually think it is really cool. I stopped by one of the parties at the MVP summit and it was really amazing to see how excited people were about getting together. It's just that I never felt like these were “my people”.

I realize that blogging took off in the tech space quickly. I just feel a little bit like the bumble-bee girl in the video trying to find my bumble-bee peeps. I'm very happy with the people I get to communicate with outside of Microsoft. Just wish there were some more of us on the business side in the company that could get together and share. The first round of drinks would be on me!

PS (first of all, I just love saying “PS”): I'm really thinking about how to identify and create a real community in the external business space. Expect to see me linking to more people outside MS soon.