I was driving into work this morning with the sun shining right into my view of the road. Very bright and blinding.

Sometimes the passion for a new communication model also can blind us from everything else. We forget traditional models and time-tested approaches for forming interpersonal relationships in our blind promotion of a new idea.

Yesterday I had the privilege of talking to a group of professionals who do not use Twitter or Facebook and really hadn’t taken the time to clue into social media. Yes, I know, shocking. Or was it.

For these individuals, person-to-person contact remains a high priority. They just hadn’t caught the fever for the social communication tools. A year ago roughly 600,000 people used Twitter. Today more than 6,000,000 use the service. It has grown rather quickly in just a few months. So forgive my colleagues for taking a slow approach. They still value communication and networking; they just haven’t jumped into the fray.

Peter Shankman addressed a Ragan Social Media Conference last week in Las Vegas and essentially told the group to forget the hype because there is no such thing as social media. There is just communication, period. Twitter extends interpersonal communication. It allows you to carry on a conversation and extend into new areas. Never forget that communication is the key and don’t refuse to meet someone or put them down because they don’t use Twitter, Facebook, Stumble Upon or even email. Social media communication may seem clear to you, but again, you may be blinded by the light.