In a world where sharing and even oversharing has become the norm, are we really sure that what we’re sharing is the real deal?

I sat in a workshop where the ideal scenario for our new corporate Intranet was being painted. Employees would collaborate with one another. They’d log in to various platforms and ask complex questions. Their colleagues from across the continent would reach out and solve these problems in unison. We’d become this super-savvy, agile organization and the answers would be available at our fingertips as long as we’d remember to tag and label stuff.

Although it sounds easy, it isn’t. It’s actually damn hard. And with the increase in the most amazing technology available to us, and the speed at which development and upgrades take place, you’d wonder why people in the workplace are still stuck on using email, still including a fax number on their business cards and still talking about disruption technologies which are now old news, to be honest. Stop showing us that Uber slide!

The suggested theory is that the more you share and engage online, the more intelligent these social platforms become in knowing who you are and are therefore able to offer up better and more relevant content to you. I find this quite funny that Facebook “knows” me.

Yeah, I follow all the running groups, a couple of dog shelters here and there. But if Facebook thinks it truly knows me, it would have realized that writing has been on my mind for ages now. Writing a book, writing blogs, writing anything! And the fact that my organization is paying for me to do a business writing course next week is the best thing to happen to me in a long time! That the fire inside me has been lit and the thought of where this could take me is all consuming.

Did I share this feeling at work? Did I jump out of my seat with joy when my boss approved the course. Meh. I carried on reading emails. Because as much as we think we share our lives with people… we really don’t. We share even less of ourselves at work. We put on that mask and smile and get on with what needs to be done. Like I said, sharing and collaboration is hard. Even for an oversharing blogger like me.