Image source: flickr

I’ve been busy helping organize a workshop, which means of course less time for blogging. But I’ve noticed that in the midst of long 3 hour planning sessions, we take breaks to check email. We also got a request from one of the people we’re recruiting to help us to insure that there would be time for email breaks.

It would seem that email breaks are the new cigarette break. While the latter causes lung cancer and the former doesn’t, it is still a vice. Our need for continuous connectivity and up to the second status reports makes the act of unplugging just as unnerving for many as nicotine withdraw.

Before and after

Steve Case, post-AOL/Time Warner, just launched a new ambitous web 2.0 project, Revolution Health, which tackles health care.

I’m glad to see him turn up again, with a new business relating to wellness. Case is a bright guy, proven by buidling up AOL and selling it at the peak of its value. (Although Time Warner shareholders might not share the same feelings. He did make the correct decision for the people he was supposed to be looking after, AOL shareholders.)

In Case’s press photo, he looks older, calmer, and a little heavier. Seeing him reminds me of… Al Gore, who also underwent a similar transformation in terms of body and career.