They are really going to take my kumbaya card away, but I have to start having people answer the email. How the combination of so many people I *like* can aggregate to be so scary and misery-making is indeed mysterious.

Maybe I’ll do the Liz Strauss thing and just do an open mike night sometimes. I actually am social when I’m not this overwhelmed.

That said, I would like to suggest a partial solution. Comments in blogs. Instead of trying to interact one-on-one provide personal answers but publicly so that everyone else interested in that topic can benefit too.

Instead of answering in Haiku, answer with links to the content you have already written that thoroughly answers the questions asked.

Encourage people to use the comments in your blog instead of emailing and Tweeting and interacting on all those other Social Media sites. That way those who want to know what YOU think about what YOU write will know where to find it.

Yes, it still takes a lot of time. No, you can’t do it instantly when you’re already famous (or even if you’re not). But this IS a partial and highly useful solution.

This is only a partial solution because sometimes answers need to be private. And if there are many you are mentoring then you will also need a private community (which I would make a private blog because I believe discussions in comments are much more time-effective than forums or Social communities like Ning).

Even in the your private group, answers can be provided by linking to the information and then answering what questions are raised. Then improve that information to cover those questions too.

The better the content you already have, the less time it takes to answer and that frees up more time for personal answers.

Thank you for saying this. It has needed saying in most desperate way for a long time.