This morning's frenzy is about getting ready to record a podcast on Paying Bloggers to Blog for Feedfest 2005. Tara and I have made sure Stephen is ready with FlashMeeting loaded on his laptop, ready to participate with talking points, when I get an urgent message from Alex at Corante – the meeting host.

Marc's mail box is full. Can you make sure he gets the reminder for the meeting today? Alex.

I have an alternate e-mail for Marc, which also bounces back as full. So I call him, and get him right away.

“Tell me about it,� he said, when I told him both of his e-mail boxes are full.

After trying unsuccessfully four or five times to read the lengthy, cryptic URL to Marc, we determine someone's going to have to send him an Instant Message (IM) with the URL in order for him to get on. My IM is down (that's another story) so I sent Alex an urgent note to send Marc an IM.

Imagine.

Knowing that you have two e-mail boxes full of stuff – I can only imagine how much spam Marc gets – and still managing to do business in his virtual world. I think I've just witnessed a whole new shift in communicating.

There's a world in which a few people live by ignoring e-mail in favor of IM, using skype to call people free all over the world, holding and listening to meetings on their iPods and generally living without traditional communication tethers.

Except for their laptops. Oh, the trouble they're in if they go down!