For some time I have been interested in how my reach on social networks and other forms of social media have influenced people in a “virtual” world. However, this is not so as I consider the fact that there is really no virtual world.

Why? Well at the end of what we call “virtual” is a “real” person. I think that we often live in a virtual fantasy unaware of real participants and real consumers of the information which they share.

While being at Lotusphere I’ve been able to meet with a number of people whom I have only ever known through blogs, Facebook and twitter. A number of these people have commented on blog articles which I published several years ago. Obviously, some of these posts must have had significant impact on real people in a real world.