Haven’t heard of Meetup? Neither had I until near the end of 2008 when I started catching up with my fellow Tuskegee alums thru a digital community created by one of our Golden Tiger grads Larry Johnson.

One of my old buddies on that group, Patrick Harris, created a branch off group on Meetup, an online system that allows you to create offline meetup communities. It’s a great way to carry over your typical online facebook and LinkedIn groups to plan meetups with groups of people that you actually want to follow up with in person.

Go to Meetup and create a group for your social, civic, professional and scholarly groups and see if you can’t turn some of your virtual verve into something practical. If nothing else, wouldn’t it be fun to meet some of the cool people you read about on their blogs and whose profiles and posts you read in those other social communities?

Just another tool in your digital tool belt, people. So pull out your keyboards and leverage online networks to the fullest.