Do not cross the private/professional border - there's none anymore !

The young spending more and more time on social networks; enterprises hiring (or at least screening profiles) on Facebook and urged to implement web 2.0 tools to leverage on their employees' knowledge and clients' feedback... it looks like the border line between private and professional lives is fading.

Is it still relevant to split our personality into 2 clearly separated parts? Is there really a 'private me' and a 'professional me'? Should we be afraid of being tagged on the picture of an animated party, because a potential employer might see it and suddenly realize we can also have fun? (of course, employers never have fun themselves...) In fact there is no contradiction between working seriously & efficiently, and making crazy things from time to time. That's human. That's normal. So, why hide anyway?

Technology is rapidly changing our dual world, and soon we'll no longer hear about this artificial border between 'private' and 'professional'. There's only one 'me'. For the worst maybe, and surely for the best.

World citizen

Do borders make any sense? (I mean, those on geographical maps?) How long will it be before they disappear?

Some have forgotten those lines long ago; others will regret them long after books or the Internet have stopped indicating them. But today one thing is for sure: E.T., coming close too earth in his space shuttle, could not see them through his window. Probably, after someone has told him about borders, those artificial lines drawn on the surface of this little blue globe, E.T. would shake his head and wonder "How come they invented those lines? What's the point?"

Here's where we should explain a few concepts, like People, Nation, Sovereignty, Taste for absolut power, etc. But we should also tell him that History is hopefully heading the right way. With 2 dynamics a priori contradictory: 1/ more regional initiatives (to address local issues), and 2/ globalization of all kinds of exchanges (all due in fine to the fact that a man is a man, wherever he is on this little blue sphere).

Of course, there is no contradiction between those 2 phenomenons. Regionalization is pretty natural, considering that we are beings with 2 legs of 1m each, even though with cars running at 50 mph. Internet makes things easier, faster; still, who can surely bet that it will erease all kinds of feelings of belonging to a local culture? Concerning the broadening and opening of borders and supra-national organizations, this phenomenon is obviously at work - and its only possible limit is the whole surface of Earth, where West becomes East and North becomes South.

Conclusion: national borders are a transient invention of mankind, and are doomed to disappear sooner or later. E.T. can be reassured.