Are you up for a challenge? Earlier today I would have said “no”—like everyone else I have a long to-do list: writing blog entries, hunting down tax-related paperwork, and keeping sane while entertaining my kids who’ve been trapped inside for days by winter weather. Then I ran across “Are you a content consumer or creator?” by Brian Solis, social media thought leader and Engage! author. In a thought-provoking entry, he challenges those of us in the social media space to create at least as much as we consume.

Why? It wasn’t that long ago, Brian writes, that we consumed the information that was presented to us, whether it was the nightly news or a glossy magazine. Enter the age of information democratization, a time when we acquired the ability to share info in real-time. The problem is that so much content creation has also generated a lot of noise—noise that lacks resonance.

He believes in order for a social economy to thrive we need to balance creation and consumption by taking what we learn and sharing those insights with others in our digital communities. The result will be what Brian coins an “invaluable ecology of learning and teaching.”

Take a few minutes to read his full post. I know I’ve been challenged to think more deeply about how I’m consuming and creating—and how I can further refine that into learning and teaching. But for me there’s a bigger challenge on the horizon (other than refereeing between my cabin-fever afflicted kids): doing more than just thinking about the learning/teaching cycle—becoming an active participant in it.