First of all, I'm glad you're considering taking one of our workshops. Here are a few details about me, Mike Ellsworth, who will be your trainer.

I have been using social networks, believe it or not, since Prodigy and Compuserve in the '80s, and USENET and The Well in the '90s. That means I'm old enough to have made just about every mistake in social networking. I've survived flame wars (Google it), actually know what MUDS and MOOS were (!), and released my first Web application in 1995, before the Internet was open for commercial use.

But I'm not some old crusty nerd!

I know how to help non-technical people understand complicated technology concepts. It's been my specialty all my working life as an entrepreneur, trainer, and speaker with 15 years experience on the Web. For my day job, I run a huge, national career information Web site, CareerOneStop.

So, yes, I've got lots of experience with the newfangled social networking, Web 2.0, email-is-so-last-century thing. I've been a LinkedIn user since 2003, a Facebook user since before old folks could join, and an active Twitter user for the last year. BTW, Twitter users are known as Tweeps, not Twits, although Tweeps is hardly better.

I've been in IT for 24 years, doing pretty much every kind of thing. I spent 5 years as a trainer and curriculum developer for the Nielsen Company where I trained hundreds of people before I went over to the dark side - software development. After 15 years at Nielsen, and a quick 11 months at a startup that didn't make it, I spent 6 years as an IT strategy consultant, and 3 years running CareerOneStop.