As a Baby Boomer, I’ve always been suspicious of new media. To me it always seemed like a vast intrusion on my privacy and just something else I had to do that was probably just a “gimmick” and certainly was a “time waster.”

I’m not the only one who ever felt this way. My brother said to me the other day, “It seems like everyone I know is trying to connect when all I’m trying to do is disconnect.” And I’ve seen countless executives my age and older who seem to tune out, eyes growing dim and distant, when conversations come up about streaming media, Facebook, and Web 2.0.

As President of Mind and Media and partner to a major New Media Believer, I decided that I had to change in order to effectively represent what Mind and Media stands for. So during the last three months, I joined LinkedIn, joined Facebook, created my own blog, began commenting on other blogs, started sharing pictures on line, and self-published using sophisticated online services and tools readily available and easy to learn. And I must say, that while I complained heavily about it at the outset, I have discovered the great benefits involved in this new media, even for someone like me — a forty something who values her privacy, time, and solitude.

Far from being a time waster, this new media has reached a point in its transparency and ease of use that it enables my creativity, allows me to elevate my level of output, and ensures that I stay connected with various networks in ways that are meaningful.

To transform our agencies, communities, and companies, key leaders, many whom are Baby Boomers and Luddites like me, need to embrace the new collaborative tools now so readily available, and in the months ahead I’ll be sharing my insights and discoveries as a way to hopefully inspire others to explore the new media as I have done.