I need information. We all need it, use it and depend on the ever expanding plethora of experts willing to give it to us. Sometimes for free, sometimes for a $9.95 per month subscription to a site.

For me, my experts are living in a corner of my office disguised as a stack of trade magazines. Quite a few others are lining the shelves of a couple of bookcases. And of course, thousands of them are out there living as data on a server just waiting for me to pick them as my latest bookmarked webpage.

Blogs, webinars, podcasts, community forums, books, magazines, downloads. What was the world like before Google became a verb? I love information. It makes me happy to know that with very little effort I can reach out and get all I want of it instantly.

{sidebar id=1} Recently I had been looking for a bit of info that I needed about a codec. A client handed me a project that had some video that I just couldn't get to. No problem, just Google it. Onto the screen comes a nice long list of results with varying degrees of relevancy. After looking at what appeared at first to be the most promising I found myself going from place to place. I learned about many things and after an hour (or was it more?) I still was missing the one little piece of the puzzle that I needed. Maybe it was there but I just couldn't see it.

A quick glance at the little clock in the lower right of the monitor and damn, it had been 3 hours! I think I'm supposed to be somewhere. Check the calendar. This is Wednesday (already) and there's an MCA-I meeting. The topic of the meeting looks promising but I need this info by tomorrow. Ok, fine, I'll go. I need to get out anyway.

As I arrived at the meeting location I see that the room is filling up with people. They are eating, talking, laughing. At the rate the platter of sandwiches is disappearing it seems like a good turnout. After a few "Hi, who are you and what do you do's" it's time for the main event.

The presenter is talking about a subject that is interesting but not totally relevant to my current workflow. However, any info is good info, right? It'll get tucked away in some corner of my grey matter for future use someday.

The audience is interested and learning. He's a good speaker. Keeps on point and really knows his stuff. At one point the topic seems to be moving into an area that seems familiar. He's taking codec's! Next thing I know, the lights go down, the room sound diminishes as a bed of dramatic music plays and a small spot of light hits his face. He looks directly at me and in one short sentence tells me exactly what I needed to know. I was stunned. Did anyone else see and hear this? After a moment the lights were back up, the room sound was normal and it was as if nothing unusual had happened. Had it? Maybe I was operating on too little sleep or maybe I shouldn't have eaten that last cookie, I don't know. But I do know that, in that moment, I acquired knowledge. I understood. After hours and hours online trying to find the missing pieces of my little puzzle, all things were now before me and the world was good. After the meeting, I approached him and thanked him. We talked for a few minutes and that was that.

In today's virtual info-centric world it's easy to cloister ourselves in our little corner. We can easily, slowly, cut ourselves off from outside experience. This is especially true for those of us that tend to work alone in our "boutique" style edit bays. It took some effort for me to get up off my butt and venture out from the cave to go to this meeting. But what did I gain? Much more than I could have anticipated. Not only did I glean knowledge about the codec I was interested in, but in meeting and talking with another person there, I found out about some interesting trends in the business of corporate video. All in all, it was a very good night and I am much better off for having gone out into the real world and meeting real people.

Mark your calendars for the next chapter MCA-I meeting. When the time comes, go, learn, share. You never know what mystery may be solved.