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The title of this blog, "The Strength of Weak Ties," is taken from Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point, which was a national best seller several years ago. Gladwell talks about the power of acquaintances, or weak links, to connect people into different worlds. Your close friends operate in a very similar world with ideas very similar to yours-that's why you are close friends. But what if we could connect with people who share similar interests but were not necessarily close friends but casual acquaintances-where could this take us? It is my belief that being able to link to individuals who are interested in educational applications of technology but operate in slightly different areas of instructional technology than I do, could be extraordinarily powerful. What happens to the types of ideas that I am exposed to? What happens to the types of resources I am exposed to? How does this redirect my thinking? How does this change my level of creativity? How do these linkages help create new innovations in what I can do with technology. Well, the answer is that since I have discovered Blogs, RSS, Furl and del.icio.us, I have seen things I would have never seen, and been exposed to resources that I might not have seen. These things have altered the way I view the Web, and altered how I think the Web will work, and should work. These weak connections, all connected through digital networks, have driven me in a different direction. After about 5 weeks of working with these tools, I believe that a new Web reality is emerging, with new tools, with new ways to deliver information, and as a result, a whole new way to work within the collective intelligence of the Web.