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My friend Alex Kjerulf is a wonderful guy.

I say my friend, like I know him really well, but the truth is that I met him online in the summer, linked to his blog, Positive Sharing and then carried on a bit of an exchange with him. Turns out that he and I have a lot of similar interests, including Open Space Technology, a simultaneous reading of Crptonomicon and a love of fun. In fact, he does a lot of work with laughter and is currently writing a book about happiness at work. It’s in Danish, so I have no idea how good it is. But I consider him a friend, and I enjoy my communication nwith him, whether passively reading his blog, over email, or face to face. He has a sneaky sense of humour.

Last year, at the Practice of Peace conference, I met Alex face-to-face. He helped me to hang some prayer flags at the Whidbey Institute that were sent by Michael Herman when he was in Nepal. I liked Alex immediately, and although I didn’t get much time with him, I watched him at work admiringly as he led a group of about 30 people in a whole series of amazing laughter exercises. He documented them too.

Last month, Alex proposed something really interesting. He suggested that we switch blogs for a week. I agreed although I have no idea why. I don’t know what I’m about to learn by doing this (he wondered if it would be like sleeping with each other’s partners…metaphorically of course!) but I wonder if it has to do with online identity.

I’ve been online since 1992, starting with BBSs and freenets and the graduating to the web in 1996. I’ve participated in a number of online forums, including chat rooms, email lists and group blogs. I leave comments at other people’s websites and weblogs, and so I’m used to seeing my words published under a different template. In fact, recently I have been thinking that I should consolidate this thinking a little more, and as I publish some comments in people’s weblogs that represent a leap in original thinking for me, I have been re-posting them here. The recent thread on improvisation is an example. Nineteen comments as of today, while the topic has dropped out of site at gassho where it was originally posted. I don’t think I’m really tied to my online identity, but this experiment may prove otherwise. At any rate, I have a nagging feeling about having my stuff appear at Alex’s place, like somehow cyberspace is full of discrete territories rather than connections and ends. This is already challenging my emotional connection to webspace.

I wonder too if it will seem like our blogs are opening up a bit more by having another brain adding to them. In this respect I’m excited because I like Alex’s work and having some of it published here will be cool. In the meantime, I’ll take some of my stuff over to Positive Sharing and see what effect it has there.

Rather than sleeping with each other’s partners it actually feel more like we’re working on each other’s cars, with our own tools, diagnostics systems and ways of doing things. Hopefully I don’t completely dismantle his engine. I fully expect him to put a little of his high octane gas in mine.

Anyway, join me this week at Positive Sharing and keep your eyes on this spot for Alex’s contributions. At the end of the week we’ll talk about what we learned.