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This past weekend, I was in Chicago for a national event for my professional business fraternity.

Out of the sessions that I attended, I developed an internal question that no one answered strongly: how do you separate friendships from professional relationships?

Let me back up. I am in a professional business fraternity on campus and have had numerous leadership positions within the organization. I’ve encountered a few situations in which I had to interact as a leader/authoritative figure, essentially “laying down the law” to individuals that I know on a personal, friendly basis. For me, it was uncomfortable to not make an exception for a friend and instead act as a leader/authoritative figure for the student organization.

I would try and relate this question to a job I’ve had during the past few years, but it’s hard to connect this situation to my past experiences. For 4 years, I worked at a summer camp and, during the school year, I’ve held internship positions in Madison. For the Madison jobs, I have not encountered this friend/professional relationship blur. Working at a camp, however, was much different because my best friends with who I grew up with were my co-workers, so I never had a distinct professional or friendly relationship.

One individual at the Chicago conference answered this question by saying, “simply don’t bring your professional life home with you.” While this was a g0od answer, I want to know about the situations where professional relationships permeate beyond the walls of a office building and begin to intersect with personal life. In an age where most young professionals use an iPhone/Blackberry, I think it’s hard to create a separation between work and social life.

Through time, I’ve managed to understand the instances that two different worlds of my life collide. For example, my best friend from home became one of my best friends from camp- both knew each other through me and came from different backgrounds. However, I am not sure if this management holds true when dealing with friendships leaking into the professional workplace.

I need help to understand this question.  Would anyone like to provide assistance?

One wheel on the front, three wheels on the back- my experience riding a bike as a kindergartner.

I remember the moment I decided to ride without my training wheels. Was I afraid to ride without support and risk hurting myself with bumps and bruises- yes.However, much like Twitter, I thought about the long term. My friends rode faster than me because they didn’t use training wheels. I didn’t want to fall behind them and miss out on opportunities to venture through the woods of Mendota Heights.

Twitter, like a bike, is a vehicle of transportation and movement.

Earlier today, I walked with two of my friends (J and M) from a journalism course today and we spoke about Twitter . It was interesting to hear their views of Twitter vs. my friends in the business school, who have the mindset of “oh Twitter, it sounds so stupid.” My friends looked at the bigger picture, seeing the different ways that Twitter functions in society. Although some people  (a few on campus) update with random tidbits, my friend M mentioned that Twitter has the ability to connect individuals, regardless of social status. Twitter moves you quicker than other media, much like a bike gets you from point A to point B faster than simply walking.

I’ve been using Twitter for about a year now and looked back at my first few tweets. My messages were rocky, lacked personality and seemed to mimic a Facebook status.

Comparing my first five tweets to my most current tweets (wow, I feel like a bird right now), I see the progression I’ve made in my writing and information dissemination. Now, I connect with others instead of only saying if I am hungry or tired. I use Twitter to learn about breaking news and strong feature pieces. For God’s sake, I won a free t-shirt and $10 gift-card from the WisconsinSchool of Business by simply answering a easy trivia question, all because of one little tweet.

Tomorrow, I’m cranking up my social media another gear and will have my first online-to-offline interaction with a Twitter user connected with UW-Madison and, on Friday, will meet up in a similar fashion with a fellow journalism student (promotion: ColbyWG) at a convention for a national business fraternity. I am excited to see how online conversation will translate into offline conversation.

Do I still hit bumps and want to jump off- yes. I have some days where I simply don’t want to tweet or think that Twitter is stupid/a waste of time. However, when someone connects with me, my passion for Twitter seems to rejuvenate itself and I realize why I enjoy Tweeting.

I still have much to learn about Twitter. As the following months proceed, I foresee myself integrating the idea of Twitter into the topics I currently study in the J School and B School.

Vroom Vroom- look how far my Twitter bike has traveled in the past year!

Working on group projects for school can go two different ways. Sometimes, you are placed in a group with other students who are type-a, proactive workers who naturally get their work done without any reminder. Although this type of situation is great, it usually doesn’t occur. Instead, most students in a group project have about 12,593 things (extra curricular, homework, tests, work, etc.) to do outside of a group project and may be somewhat scatter-brained.

I usually find myself in the later of the two options. Also, I tend to have a lot on my plate and need a little help when scheduling out my activities.

Luckily, there are many tools online and tricks with software on your computer that make it easier to communicate with group members and avoid grueling hours at the library slaving away at tasks that could have been completed earlier in the week.

Google Docs If you are not using Google Docs, you’re out of the loop with an amazing resource for great group collaboration. Essentially, Google Docs is an office suite comprised of a word processor, spreadsheet app and presentation app. The real power of Google Docs comes from the ability to easily share content with other users. Last semester, I used Google Docs to coordinate over 50 article deadlines with 14 other students. Right now, I use Google Docs for many student organizations to track data through form sign-ups.

Threaded Messages Threaded messages have saved me from losing my mind over and over again. Basically, threading messages means your inbox consolidates all of the incoming, outgoing, forwarded, replied, etc. messages from a conversation into a single list. This means your (hypothetical) message about guidelines for a group paper sent last week will show up with your teammate’s reply about changes to make. In my experience, using threading keeps messages organized and makes it easy to sort through when you act as a manager for a group project. I had literally over 500 emails during one week for a comprehensive semester project and would have knocked my head against the wall if I had to manually search for those emails. Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Outlook and other email clients let you easily thread messages.

Follow Up Then I just learned about this tool from the blog Lifehacker and am obsessed with it. If you are anything like me, you need a reminder to do something. FollowUpThen sends reminders to your email and/or group members by simply entering a special email. No applications to download or add-ons to your computer. Lightweight and easy to use.

Doodle

Hands down the best application I’ve used during the past three years of college. Doodle allows you to efficiently decide on a meeting time that works for the maximum amount of members. One persona creates a Doodle survey with specified days/times and then sends the poll to the whole group. Group members simply check a box for each time frame they can attend. Doodle will automatically add up the “Yes” checked boxes and tell you what time periods will work best for your group. Best of all, this service is free. I’ve used this time after time because it’s so simple to set up yet takes stress/hassle out of scheduling neurotic, time consumed college students to meet.

In reality, these tools would be valuable in other settings, like non-profit organizations or large corporations.

Now, I have one question for you: do you know of any additional tools for group collaboration? I have three group projects this semester and any additional hints will prevent me from loosing my mind .