Don’t let the real water cooler dry up… 
Standing up and leaning over a cubicle wall to actually talk to co-workers can earn you a lot of social capital.
Lynne C. Lancaster and David Stillman:  The M-factor — How the Millennial Generation is Rocking the Workplace  (7 Trends You Need to Know to Survive and Thrive)

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There are big adjustments going on out there in the workplace.  Generations are clashing.  People have difficulty relating to each other when that generating gap is a true gap.

I teach at the community college level.  It is amazing what my students do not know.  Forget the history, the current events, they don’t know.  Just look at the differences in shared cultural content.  My students have never heard (never heard!) the poem Casey at the Bat.  How can an American not know Casey at the Bat?   (They also have no clue what this phrase means:  “we’ve got trouble, right here in River City.”  Which makes me think we’ve got trouble right here in River City!)

But do they know their technology.  They are experts, able to do so much so fast, it leaves me in the dust.  And I work hard at learning and using this stuff.  But it’s pretty clear, it’s all a second language to me.  To them, it’s their native tongue.

So there is much I need to learn, but there is also a warning I would like to share.  It is prompted by the quote above from the book The M-factor.  My warning:

face-to-face needs to be protected and preserved, especially in the age of Facebook.

So, whether you’re just learning how to define, and use, all of this social media on the new technology, or if you live by it naturally day-by-day, don’t forget about human contact, the real live human conversations, actual face-to-face conversations.  Face-to-face is still incredibly valuable, even essential, to business success and to life success.

This really is worth remembering.