Chefs are an ornery bunch. Back when I worked in kitchens, it was far too close to normal for a pot to fly across the room. Thankfully, this is now generally accepted as d-bag behavior.

The thing is, while they've learned that decent human behavior is de rigueur, chefs now have more on their plates than ever before, thanks to technology.

So instead of ducking pots a-flying, I now tend to get a lot of chefs who vent about all the FBing, Tweeting, blogging and emailing they have to do. Some, I think, are actually looking to me for an out — for permission to ignore what amounts to their responsibilities.

Well, sorry.

Our world has changed and you, dear chef, need to change with it if you are gonna stay on top of the heap (or crawl yourself there, if the case may be).

• We now all communicate by email. Phone calls are interruptive and inefficient, and the “stopping by to chat” thing is ridiculously expensive in people terms.
• We communicate daily with influencers and connectors via Facebook and Twitter, Flickr and YouTube —  and if you are not in the conversation, guess what? You'll be overlooked again and again.
• We promote ourselves ourselves, via blogs, so that we can actually get our thoughts, ideas and unique value out in the world, and not just wait for journalists to discover us. (The discovery is a 15-minute-fame thing anyway.)

What I will do, though, is spend a week or so helping dig you out of the morass. So stay tuned — if you have time!