I got a phone call from an old colleague yesterday. Well, he's not old, but our relationship is. So maybe that makes us both old, but that's beside the point. The point is, he sounded just like me a year ago: a little lost on why social networking sites and services like Facebook and Twitter matter.

Since I'm a recent Twitter convert (read: addict) and Facebook has long been part of my daily routine, I went through the laundry list of the benefits of these tools:

• Discovery - you find things you would never find otherwise
• Personal Connections - you meet people you would never meet otherwise
• Marketing - great platforms for getting the word out
• Relationship building - you actually get to see a more human side of folks, and that's nice.

He remained unconvinced. I spent the rest of my night presumably meeting up with old friends, but really just stewing about why I couldn't convince him. What is the killer argument in favor of these tools?

How about this:

Whether you like it or not, these tools are CHANGING THE WAY PEOPLE BEHAVE. And really, as nonprofits, isn't that what we're all about: breaking people out of their inertia -- to volunteer, write a letter, buy a different light bulb, write a check. I know that when I have a question, the first thing I do is send a Tweet out on Twitter now. And every morning, I log into Facebook to see what my network is up to. I didn't do those things before.

Isn't something that can fundamentally shift the way people go about getting and managing their information worth checking out?