If you take a look into the agenda from the conference itself, you will notice how packed it is for most of the days and already starting like really early in the morning, till late in the afternoon. Networking opportunities in between sessions are very minimal and this was one of the things that I missed from the event itself. In most cases there are about 15 minutes break in between sessions where folks could interact with one another and follow up conversations.

Well, 15 minutes to make a move to the next session, pack all of our "stuff", have a "nature" break, or enjoy some refreshments, talking to folks about the session we just attended or simply just catching up with them, are probably far too many activities for just 15 minutes in between speaker sessions. So in reality the networking opportunities throughout the conference were very much restricted, if you count lunch as an exception, to the end of the day and as part of the local gatherings from various other networking events.

Not ideal, if you ask me. Don’t you think? So what would I propose, you may be wondering, right? Well, to begin with, I would extend the in between sessions breaks to 30 minutes, minimum, which I do realise would mean that there would need to be a new parallel track of sessions to be added to the already existing one, but I don’t think that would be too much of an issue. If there are conflicts with multiple sessions there is always a chance that video recordings of each and everyone of them would be made available after the event. I mean, for a conference on Enterprise 2.0, I wouldn’t think this would be too difficult, right?

But look at the benefits. You would be allowing folks to engage with the speakers after their sessions to ask additional questions, have some conversations on the corridors catching up with people and discussing key learnings from the sessions attended thus far; a quick stop-over the refreshments area to grab a software drink and a quick bite and back to business; and all of that without having the stress of knowing you need to rush off, because you only have 15 minutes. Well, now with 30m. things would be much much easier for everyone. And those networking opportunities will certainly help conference attendees to build stronger connections amongst themselves by starting the dialogue throughout the day and carry it on during the evening events.

And all of that with breaks of just 30 minutes in between sessions. I would think it would be very doable for future events, and as such I submitted this very same feedback for future occasions hoping to be able to extend my networking opportunities not just to the evening events, which were all great, but throughout the whole day, which would be more engaging and bumping from one session to the other without time for a breather … What do you think?

And with that I am done with this series of blog posts on the Enterprise 2.0 conference networking activities that we all got to experience last week, where you can see that those face to face interactions are just as good as ever; and as such we should exploit them as much as we possibly can. Now, from here onwards, it will be the time for my next round of blog posts detailing the highlights of the sessions I attended and what I learned from each and everyone of them… Another interesting ride I hope you will enjoy reading about, just as much as I did attending them…

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Highlights, Social Gatherings, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Software, Connecting, Connections, Face to Face, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Logistics, Organising Conferences, Feedback, Networking Breaks

And it looks like I haven’t been the only one; while doing my usual Twitter catchup this morning (Specially under the #e2conf hash tag), I noticed how plenty of those folks who were at the same conference were having post-conference fatigue symptoms, hehe, looking for a much needed "break" to get things going as well. And while wondering why that may have happened, it hit me. Big time!

Like I was saying earlier on, this year the amount of local gatherings (Dinners, tweetups, parties, etc. etc.) has been tremendous! More than in previous years, by far! I started with Sunday evening having a lovely dinner with a bunch of my favourite people in the Enterprise 2.0 space (See this picture for more details); then Monday evening’s tweetup with Connie Bensen, Rachel Happe & Jim Storer (From The Community Roundtable) on communities (Amazing event! Although throughout the whole evening I didn’t even had a chance to meet up with Connie! Grrr, guess next time!); followed by Tuesday’s Dachis Group Boston TweeUp that David Armano has been sharing a bunch of pictures over here to then finish up with my own team dinner.

Wednesday’s highlights in the networking space were a lovely dinner invitation by the Dachis Group where I had one of the most amazing conversation on social software adoption (Beyond just the IT industry) with my good friend Susan Scrupski and two incredibly smart and talented 2.0 people:  Greg Matthews and Ben Foster (Who I got to know during those conversations which I thoroughly enjoyed!). To then finish off the evening with one of the major highlights of the entire week!:

Andy McAfee’s party!! There are a bunch of pictures from such special event all over the place, but I am going to let you go and check the Twitter stream from after the party, where the word warning keeps coming up constantly and reading through you will see why … Andy surely knows how to throw a party and it certainly was a privilege being part of it! Lots and lots of great fun, drinks and amazing conversations! I would have gone to Boston just for this one, I tell you! Many many thanks to Andy for being so gracious in offering his house for hosting one heck of a party that will be remembered for years! At least, I will! (Thanks ever so much, Andy!!)

By Thursday you can imagine what my entire body was like, right? You now know what I meant I spent a whole week sleep deprived, but privileged to be in the company of people who I have been admiring for a long while and have plenty of respect for in the area of Enterprise 2.0 and why I keep coming back to this conference. Last week was another proof! Oh, that very same Thursday evening had another night out with my team where we spent a good time having a lovely dinner, drinks and musing on what we learned from the event itself over the last few days enjoying a delightful bottle of port back at our hotel to finish off a superb week! (Thanks a lot, Josh, for that one!)

I am sure that by now you may be thinking that there have been perhaps a few too many networking events at Enterprise 2.0 in Boston, right? Well, maybe; these are the ones I went to myself, including the usual last few rounds of drinks at the local Irish pub inside the Westin hotel, but there were plenty of others, too! The clear thing about these kind of local gatherings is that no matter what, when, how, why, there is nothing that would ever possibly substitute the face to face physical interactions of bright minds talking passionately about what drives them on a daily basis. Nothing.

That’s still what drives me to keep going to these conference events over and over again and why I have always been saying that an event of this magnitude without networking is no longer the event of events! Glad Enterprise 2.0 in Boston still is …

(A big shout with a special thanks to all of those folks I have met throughout the week, from "my" usual and dear suspects, to the bunch of recently met folks, with whom I had a wonderful week of constant inspiration flowing through! I won’t name you all, since I am sure I won’t do you all justice by leaving the odd name out here and there, but you all know who you are! Thanks much for being who you are! Please don’t change …)

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Highlights, TweetUps, Twitter, Party Time, Parties, Social Gatherings, Informal Meetups, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Software, Connecting, Connections, Friendships, Relationships, Face to Face, Pictures, Photos, Flickr, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Twitter, Connie Bensen, Rachel Happe, Jim Storer, The Community Roundtable, Dachis Group, Susan Scrupski, ITSinsider, Greg Matthews, Ben Foster, Andy McAfee, Port, Josh Scribner, BlueIQ, Passion

Well, fear not! I am back! Back into my usual regular blogging and slowly, but steadily, re-surfacing again in all external social software spaces where I usually hang out. It’s just the last couple of days I have been doing a massive catchup with everything that’s been happening at work, while I was away, but also, because I wanted to take some timeout and reflect on what I learned during the course of that week in Boston for Enterprise 2.0 and start drawing a mental picture of what I wanted to share as highlights and what not.

And I think I am ready! Ready to share with you folks my main highlights from what I flagged back then as the event of events, and still is! So much so that being away now for a couple of days from everything may have been a little bit as well to recover from that physical networking fatigue of just far too many people to talk to, but too little time all over the place and, in the end, not meeting up with enough of them. But let’s bring this one up in an upcoming entry …

For now though, I thought I would get things started with this upcoming series of blog posts by combining them with other things that have been happening and which I have also found a rather fascinating read from elsewhere and not related to the conference (That’s been part of the online catchup I have been doing so far as well…). So, hopefully, a combination of both highlights posts and the usual blogging will help get folks an idea of what’s been happening lately. And still keep up with the variety of topics so you won’t get bored in the process.

Thus you may be wondering why I am starting this series of articles with this one single highlight on Networking, right? Well, I think the answer is pretty obvious, but one of the major key highlights from the overall event was to be able to eventually meet up with a bunch of the incredibly smart talent that there is out there in the Enterprise 2.0 space and that I have had the pleasure, and honour, to hang out with in various social software spaces for a while now. To name them all it would not make good justice since I am sure I would be forgetting the odd name here and there, but I can certainly tell you this year’s Enterprise 2.0 conference has been one of the most networked events I have experienced to date!

One single event where my average sleeping time went from the usual 7 hours per day down to 4 per day and I still didn’t have enough hours in the day! One single event with the highest number of parties, TweetUps, dinner invitations, local gatherings, informal meetings that I can recall. Ever! Fantastic!!

Of course, I took some pictures, just like everyone else that was there. And one thing that I learned after the event is that my Nokia N95 is getting a bit too rusty and the quality of the pictures hasn’t been as good as I thought they would be. First time that happening. So I took tons of pictures, but most of them were far too dark, or with moving "targets", or just not good enough quality worth sharing. However, some others are, so I have placed them all in my Flickr account and here you have got a couple of them, so you can get an idea of what networking was like while at Enterprise 2.0 in Boston.

Then in another blog post I will share what that networking meant for me during the entire event as well as a couple of thoughts on how to improve it for the next year … Thus let’s get the ball rolling!

Ouchie! No comments on this one, right, Maggie?

(Goodness, I wish plenty of the other photos I took from the different parties and TweetUps I attended would have come out nicely… Alas they didn’t … double sigh … Although, on the other hand, seeing these perhaps it’s much better they didn’t come out after all that well anyway )

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Highlights, TweetUps, Twitter, Party Time, Parties, Social Gatherings, Informal Meetups, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Software, Connecting, Connections, Friendships, Relationships, Face to Face, Nokia, Nokia N95, N95, Pictures, Photos, Flickr, Maggie Fox, Luis Suarez, Dan McCall, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations

Well, that’s what I have been going through myself over the years. And I think it’s time that I put a stop to it. And look for some much more revolutionary and innovative way of keeping in touch with all of those great people I get to meet every so often. So, here, here is my new business card:

What the…? That’s not a business card, Mr! I bet that’s what you are thinking about this very moment. Well, yes, folks, that’s my new business card. A poken. My poken. My new business card. When I was last time in Madrid I met up with Nacho Guijarro, who happens to be a mutual good friend from a fellow IBM colleague, César Vitero, so we got to talk for a while and he introduced me to the concept of the Poken, and I went "My goodness! I want one of those! Like right NOW!" And a few minutes afterwards I had mine. Way too cool!

Pokens are fun! And they surely fulfil a need that most of us with a heavy presence in the social software world out there were missing out big time: a way to keep in touch with our new connections online and in our mutually shared social software spaces! Traditional business cards don’t do that; they are just too much focused on the physical world alone, which is probably why I never go back to them or why I don’t plan to use them for much longer! Yet, with my Panda Bear Poken (There are several designs, by the way, to suit everyone’s needs!) things are now different. Much different; I have got my list of new contacts right there! At my fingerprints and at the same social software spaces we already share a presence at! Just wonderfully simple and effective!

Well, I do realise that not many folks may have pokens with them, but I am surely looking forward to hook up with folks who may have one while attending this week the upcoming Enterprise 2.0 event in Boston. It sounds like it’s going to be plenty of good fun and I am surely hoping to put together another blog post at a later time detailing what my experiences have been during this week.

For now, though, if you would want to find out plenty more what Pokens are good for and how they can enhance a face to face event to help continue further with your new connections into the virtual world of socials software, check out this great presentation that my good friend, and fellow IBM colleague, Thorsten Zoerner, put together just recently on how an IBM event got the most out of the Poken experience…

So … Do you have your poken(s) ready, folks? I’m surely looking forward to have them "shake hands" then! Bring it on!

(Oh, and if you would prefer the traditional one, you can still get it from me if you go over here)

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Workshops, Seminars, Customer Meetings, TweetUps, Twitter, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Software, Business Cards, Biz Cards, Connecting, Connections, Friendships, Relationships, Face to Face, Virtual Handshakes, Handshakes, Meetings, Nacho Guijarro, César Vitero, IBM, Pokens, Poken, Thorsten Zoerner, IOD2009, Slideshare, IBM Information On Demand, Berlin, 2009

• Reality 2.0: Enterprise Social Networks (A Field Research Study) #e2conf24 with Mike Gotta, which I am sure will be another great speaker session from Mike, detailing some of the really good work he has been doing on the research study on Enterprise 2.0. Alas there will be a couple of other conflicts to fight with in this same time slot:

  Starting with Social Software – Creating Value Today, Establishing Opportunity Tomorrow – Sponsored by IBM #e2conf48 with Jeff Schick which I think would be a rather interesting session for folks wanting to find out plenty more what IBM is doing in the space of Enterprise Social Software with nifty and powerful offerings like IBM’s Lotus Connections. But, there will be another conflict in between with this one as well, for me. Goodness!

  The Outlook for Enterprise 2.0 Abroad #e2conf50 with Oliver Marks moderating the panel and with Richard Collin, Soren Stamer, Thomas Vander Wal and Luis Suarez as the speakers. Yes, that’s right; yours truly is going to miss both Mike’s and Jeff’s sessions, because at the last minute I have kindly been invited to participate in this particular panel with such an International panel of participants that I just couldn’t refuse. Specially, when the topic of the panel will be around how the market conditions and adoption of Enterprise 2.0 outside of North America. Stay tuned, because our panel will be rather provocative, putting on the table some of the challenges for adoption of social software that most folks don’t want to talk about … (Sorry, that’s how far I can say for now … heh)

• After trying to solve that conflict with the agenda, the next session I will be attending will be the one on Twitter-like Tools for the Enterprise #e2conf20 with Gil Yehuda as the moderator and David Schwartz, Mark Dowds, Ross Mayfield, Tim Young and Yoshi Maisami as the main speakers which I am sure would be a rather fascinating panel on the role of microsharing / microblogging tools on the Enterprise and their role in changing the way we communicate, collaborate and share knowledge. Perhaps one of my favourite topics as of late, judging by my own interactions using several of these tools on a daily basis, both internal and external…

  But, once again, there will be another conflict, because I also would want to attend this particular session from a fellow IBM colleague, and really good friend, who after all of these years I will have the chance to finally meet up face to face!, Jennifer Okimoto, with Enterprise Web 2.0 Anti-Patterns, ROI and Metrics #e2conf29. Originally this session was going to be done by another good friend, and now former IBMer: Aaron Kim, but unfortunately Aaron won’t be at the conference (Although he will be thoroughly missed! For sure!), so Jen will be chiming in instead. So I will need to see how I can resolve this second conflict of the day …

• And, finally, the last session of the day that I will be attending will be this one: Strategies for Building Sustainable Online Communities #e2conf46 with Oliver Marks, again as moderator, and with Andy Fox, David Wormald and Ted Hopton as the speakers. Again my interest in attending this session comes from a long time experience having done community building for a while and always keen on learning plenty more, realising that we may still be at the tip of the iceberg on all there is to know about managing, facilitating and participating in online communities; one of the hottest topics in the Enterprise 2.0 world at the moment, specially with that growing obsession from every business to have a communities program. Well, this panel session will surely set the stage on how you can move further with the development and sustainability of those communities themselves. Really interesting topic, I am sure, specially, if you come to consider how communities are perhaps the major drivers of social software inside the corporate world…

And that would be it, folks. The event of events will then wrap up with the usual Enterprise 2.0 Town Hall #e2conf17 session; this time around with Steve Wylie, as the moderator, and Jessica Lipnack, Oliver Marks and Susan Scrupski as speakers, detailing what the event has been like, what we learned, our biggest ah-ha! moments of the event and the usual recollecting of feedback to provide an even better Enterprise 2.0 event in 2010!

Thus this blog post puts together the last final details before the show starts tomorrow. I hope you enjoyed this series of "What to Expect" from Enterprise 2.0 event in Boston. And let the fun begin! I may be able to share a couple of quick blog posts here and there in between, but remember that I will be live tweeting most of the time over at @elsuacon, as well as my usual twitterings over at @elsua.

Then later on, and over the following couple of weeks, I will be reflecting some more with highlight blog posts from each day on what I learn and detailing some more of the details I will be originally sharing through my live tweeting… And, finally, for the real social networking activities, the socialising part of the conference event, as usual there will be only one place; the one and only: Twitter through @elsua

Are we ready? Ready to be WOWed once again? I surely am!

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Agenda, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Reality Check, Twitter, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Mike Gotta, Jeff Schick, IBM, Lotus Connections, Connections, Enteprise Social Software, Oliver Marks,  Richard Collin, Soren Stamer, Thomas Vander Wal, Luis Suarez, Europe, Asia, South America, Privacy, Security, Data Ownership, Gil Yehuda, David Schwartz, Mark Dowds, Ross Mayfield, Tim Young, Yoshi Maisami, Microsharing, MicroBlogging, Enterprise Messaging, Jen Okimoto, ROI, Return On Investment, Anti-Patterns, Aaron Kim, Online Communities, Sustaining Communities, Andy Fox, David Wormald, Ted Hopton, Social Software Adoption, Town Hall, Feedback, Ah-ha Moments, Steve Wylie, Jessica Lipnack, Susan Scrupski, Live Tweeting, @elsuacon, @elsua, F2F Social Networking, Social Networks, Socialising, TweetUps

Well, I am going to take that opportunity now, as I am on my way to Boston through Madrid and then Philadelphia and I have got a long flight ahead of me from MAD to PHI alone. Thus without much further ado, and thinking about continuing with the series of blog posts I started this agenda drop down of the event, here are the details of what I will be up to for Day 2. And, in an upcoming blog post, I will put together the much shorter one for Day 3. Here it goes:

• Applying the Social Dimension to the Lockheed Martin Mission #e2conf13 with Andy McAfee as the moderator and with Christopher Keohane and Shawn Dahlen as speakers. This is one session I’m really looking forward to, because, apart from being moderated by the one and only, the always inspiring Andy McAfee, I am keen on finding out what Lockheed Martin has been doing since last year where their presentation was one of the biggest hits of the event! So the expectations are very high on this one! We shall see…
• The Future of Social Messaging in the Enterprise #e2conf14 with Irwin Lazar as moderator and a whole bunch of speakers that I am not sure whether they would have plenty of time to share their insights. Either way, great line-up is probably the word that comes to mind with folks like Al Literati, Dan York, David Marshak, Fernando Egea, Laura Fitton, Mike Gotta and Tim Young.
  Reason why I’m interested in this particular session on Enterprise Microsharing is because I am keen on finding out plenty more what folks are doing around the subjects of security, governance and compliance with this new model of engagement that seems to escape all of that and so much more! Would be interesting to find out what vendors are doing in this space, although I think I know what one of them is doing already … hehe
• Does Social Media and Marketing Matter? #e2conf15 with Peter Kim, as moderator, and with Ben Foster, Greg Matthews and Morgan Johnston as the speakers. As you would be able to see the main reason why I’m attracted to this session, apart from listing to the always insightful Peter Kim, is to see how both worlds collide, or perhaps overlap. Who knows… I am talking about the Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 space. Are they similar? Do they step into each other’s toes? Can they co-exist? Should companies help promote both aspects? Lots of questions to be looking forward to!
• Launch Pad 2009 #e2conf16 with Stowe Boyd; This particular event on the agenda should be plenty of good fun, specially since one of my favourites is in the Final 4! Yes, indeed, over the last few weeks a good number of candidates have been competing to win the Launch Pad 2009 contest and during this time slot in the agenda we will see who is the final winner or not. For now, just one single word: watch out! for Manymoon, because it will surely make folks drool all over the place. If you are interested, find out plenty more on what each has got to say over at Enterprise 2.0 Launch Pad Web site.
• Enterprise2Open Introductions #2open - This one would be the kick-off from another one of the big hits from last year; the "unconference"of Enterprise 2.0. I’m surely going to try to make it to several of the "unsessions" that will be taking place during the day, since the whole "unevent" will be hosted by three of the folks in the area of Enterprise 2.0 that I admire and have a lot of respect for throughout the years: Brian Magierski, Ross Mayfield and Susan Scrupski.
• Networked: How the 2.0 Enterprise Makes Itself Transparent, Participatory, and
  Collaborative #e2conf40 with Jeffrey Stamps and Jessica Lipnack. I am sure you may be wondering why I would be interested in this particular session, right? Well, apart from the fact that Jessica will be one of the speakers (She is one of the folks I have been following for a while as well that has been a pioneer in the area of virtual collaboration, way before people started thinking about it!), also the fact that for someone who has been advocating more openness, transparency and more public interactions as part of his new mantra of living "A World Without Email" there is no way I can skip this one… Yes, I want to continue walking the talk! heh
• Community & Social Network Sites: Think Adoption, Not Deployment #e2conf27 with Mike Gotta as the moderator and then with Dan McCall, Erik Johnson and Kishan Mallur as the speakers. Reason why I would want to attend this one? Well, I have been doing community building program through multiple business units, since as early as 2001 and I guess I haven’t got escape on this one either. However, here is another reason why I am interested on this session; all along I have been saying that communities are the major drivers of social software adoption both inside and outside of the corporation and I am rather interested in finding out how this session continues to confirm that insight. Or perhaps not…
• Privacy, Data Ownership and Identity in an Increasingly Social World #e2conf39 with Irwin Lazar as moderator and with Kailash Ambwami, Many Gill and Sam Curry as the speakers. One of the key areas within Enterprise 2.0 that’s grabbing my attention more and more by the day at the moment is actually privacy, as well as identity, specially over here in Europe where privacy laws are a completely different beast on its own, you end up having a fascinating debate with a no easy solution to suit everyone. And if you add there, on to the mix, Data Ownership… WOW! Loaded topic! Looking forward to it!
  (Oh, by the way, If you have been involved with Social Networking sites and the various implications behind privacy and identity, I would love to know some more from you… Drop a couple of lines in this post or reach out to me to talk some more. Eager to find out plenty more! Thanks!)

Phew! That’s it! Quite an agenda for Day 2, indeed! Hope you will forgive me for explaining perhaps a bit more than what I should have on my motivation to try to make it through this agenda on Day 2 of the event, but I guess when you are stuck in a plane for over 8 hours you have a tendency to write more than what you probably needed in the first place. And I think this is what just happened with this blog post

(Later on in the evening the fun will continue, of course, having already been booked for two different meet-ups where I hope to take social networking into the extreme. Back where it should belong all along. Face to Face social networking FTW!!! … And starting to sense it’s going to be a long long week of sleepless nights! Think I’ll need to take a vacation when I come back, just to be able to digest all of the stuff I’m really looking for getting exposed to!

Blog post drafted on Saturday 20th, which was then posted on Sunday 21st after a 12 non stop sleep…)

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Agenda, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Reality Check, Twitter, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Stowe Boyd, Ross Mayfield, Peter Kim,  Jessica Lipnack, Lockheed Martin, Andy McAfee, Christopher Keohane, Shawn Dahlen, Unified Communications and Collaboration, Enterprise Messaging, Al Literati, David Marshak, Fernando Egea, Laura Fitton, Mike Gott, Tim Young, Irwin Lazar, Enterprise Microsharing, Launch Pad 2009, Manymoon, Enterprise2Open, Unconferences, Unsessions, Brian Magierski, Susan Scrupski. Mike Gotta, Dan McCall, Erik Johnson, Kishan Mallur, Social Software Adoption, Adoption, Privacy, Security, Data Ownership, Identity, Kailash Ambwami, Many Gill, Sam Curry, TweetUps

This is going to be a day with a fully packed agenda, and since I will be expecting to do plenty of live tweeting from most of the sessions I think I’m just going to keep things rather short and add a line or two next to the sessions I am planning to attend. That way you folks get an idea of what I will be up to, and, much more interestingly, you can already have a good sneak preview of the kind of topics Day 1 will have for us all. Thus without much further ado, here are the list of session(s) I’m planning to attend so far:

• Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom: How Online Social Networking Will Transform Your Life, Work and World #e2conf9 with Matthew Fraser – Where I’d expect a good reality check on how social networking has got more to do with a lifestyle fully embracing the Social Web than just about a bunch of social software tools. No, I haven’t read the book just yet (On my To-Read list…)
• Open Enterprise 2009 #e2conf11 with Stowe Boyd & Oliver Marks – Where they will both be presenting to us their key findings on the Open Enterprise 2.0 initiative they have been working on and which I have blogged about already a couple of times… I am sure this session is going to be one of the key highlights from the entire event! No doubt!
• Winning Open Enterprise 2009 Case Study #e2conf12 with Stowe and Oliver, once again, where they will announce one company that "will emerge from this process as a business that truly exemplifies these goals and will present their case study at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference." Intrigued … (Is all I can say so far!)
• Enterprise 2.0 Reality Check – What’s Working, What’s Not, What’s Next #e2conf10 with Matthew Fraser, Christian Finn, Nate Nash, Neil Callahan and Ross Mayfield – The first panel session of the day and, I am certain, the first reality check on where Enterprise 2.0 is, and where it is heading… I expect this one to be an eye opener for most of us…
• Lessons Learned From Internal Communities #e2conf30 with Peter Kim, Jamie Pappas, Joan DiMicco and Patricia Romeo – My interest on this one? Well, I have been doing online facilitation, online virtual communities / community building since 2001 and I still feel I’m at the beginning of the learning curve. So I want to learn more! And I know I will with this session…
• Transition Strategies for E2.0 Adoption #e2conf26 with Lee Bryant AND / OR Help! Marcom Doesn’t Get Social Media! #e2conf19 with Maggie Fox, Chris Almond, Gil Yehuda, Marius Ciortea and Robin Bordoli – Yes, I know! First double conflict of the conference that I will be facing, since both sessions look really good! There is very little that I’d probably have to say about Lee that I haven’t said it already; always insightful; always knowledgeable; in short, a must watch! But then what can I say about folks like Maggie, Chris and Gil, who I know and have followed for a long while now, and always learn something new from them? A perfect chance to get to know both Marius and Robin, don’t you think? Well, let’s see how I resolve this conflict …
• How Twitter Changes Everything #e2conf21 with Jessica Lipnack, Bill Ives, Clara Shih, Isaac Garcia and Patti Anklam AND / OR Open Enterprise 2009 In Depth #e2conf37 with with Stowe Boyd & Oliver Marks – Arrrggghh! 2nd conflicting items in the agenda for the conference! My decision as to which one to make would pretty much depend on the morning sessions with Stowe and Oliver; right now I am feeling pretty inclined towards listening to folks I have followed and admired for a while in the Knowledge Management and Virtual Collaboration space, like Jessica, Bill and Patti, and excited to get to find out plenty more about Clara and Isaac! Plus most folks know already my everlasting love / hate relationship with Twitter, so wondering whether this session will finally make me go either way! We shall see…

And that’s it, folks, for Day 1! Pretty intense and exciting, don’t you think? Like I said, these are the sessions that I plan to attend and, as such, I will be looking forward to sharing further insights live, while we are there, through my tweets over at @elsuacon. Then later in the evening there are a couple of various different networking events, but, like I said, I will be putting together a short blog post detailing plenty more details about my favourite activity while at conferences… Stay tuned!

And get ready! In the next few hours I will be sharing the sessions I plan to attend for Day 2! And watch it, because there will be conflicts again! I told ya, *so* much to experience this year! Where will you be next week? I hope to see you there!

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Agenda, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Reality Check, Twitter, Live Tweeting, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, ROI, Metrics, Return On Investment, Cultural Barriers, Barriers of Adoption, Open Enterprise 2009, oe09, Oliver Marks, Stowe Boyd, Matthew Fraser, Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom, Christian Finn, Nate Nash, Neil Callahan, Ross Mayfield, Peter Kim, Jamie Pappas, Joan DiMicco, Patricia Romeo, Lee Bryant, Maggie Fox, Chris Almond, Gil Yehuda, Marius Ciortea, Robin Bordoli,  Jessica Lipnack, Bill Ives, Clara Shih, Isaac Garcia, Patti Anklam

So, instead of putting together a massively long post, I’m just about to start a bunch of shorter ones, detailing what my current planning for the event would be like starting with next week Monday, the pre-event day itself, if you allow me to call it like that, and that way you can see what is driving my interests at the moment (Specially in the areas of Social Computing, Knowledge Sharing, Learning, Collaboration, Communities and, of course, Enterprise 2.0), as well as providing some insights on what you may expect, just like me, from the event of events! Thus let’s get the ball rolling!

Implementing Enterprise 2.0: Exploring the Tools and Techniques of Emergent Change #e2conf1 (With Dion Hinchcliffe)

The pre-event day is always the one about workshops; perhaps one of the most interactive days and, as such, I am sure this year is not going to be any different. And this specific one is the one I plan to attend during the course of the morning. As usual, it will be hosted by my good friend, the always insightful and resourceful, Dion Hinchcliffe, who will be sharing with us "an in-depth overview of the state of Enterprise 2.0 from grassroots, emergent collaboration to large-scale social media strategy".

He usually does this session every year before the event really gets started and, to be honest, for those folks who may not have been exposed to Enterprise 2.0 just yet, or for those folks who would want to know what else is happening out there, it’s one of those workshops not to be missed! If not, check out the section on "You Will Learn" listed at the main agenda. Always plenty of new stuff to learn about, whether you are a primer into, or well versed in, social computing, you know it’ll be worth the time!

Reality 2.0: Getting Started With Enterprise Social Networking #e2conf4 (With Mike Gotta)

And this will be the second workshop of the day that I plan to attend, the one in the afternoon, and one that I have been looking forward to diving in plenty more, and for a while now, since Mike has already blogged about what he will be touching base on under "Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Social Networking Workshop" and it surely sounds like one workshop not to miss out on either!

I know, and have followed, Mike for several years now and I consider him to be part of the pool of some of most eloquent and amazingly talented industry analysts in the Enterprise 2.0 scene. And surely finding out plenty more about the recent study the Burton Group conducted around Social Networking will be the key highlight from the workshop itself. I am sure. Specially, if you read further on the section on "You Will Learn" that I am reproducing below:

• "What are the critical issues confronting social networking project teams, and how organizations are responding to those challenges and opportunities
• How project teams are dealing with the business case for enterprise social networking, including concerns over ROI and metrics
• What cultural issues do social networking projects tend to surface, and how did organizations in the study address legal, HR, compliance and security considerations
• What difficulties project teams will likely encounter as they try to convince employees to adopt social networking platforms (e.g., profiles), and what adoption tactics were used to jumpstart participation (e.g., expertise location, communities).
• How interviewees felt their IT organizations were handling with the topic of social networking, along with high-level impressions from participants regarding their experiences with different tools (e.g., IBM Lotus Connections, Jive Software, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server)"

Doesn’t it want to make you be there like today? It certainly does it for me! And that’s the reason why I am really looking forward to his workshop, as well as that one from Dion. I bet it’s going to be quite an amazing couple of workshops! And to top things further, at the end of the day, I will be participating in the first, of several, TweetUps! Yay! But that will be the topic for another blog post on the various networking activities I will be participating in and hanging out at… Like I said … There is just *so* much going on this year!

For now, though this is what I plan to do during Monday 22nd 2009, at the Enterprise 2.0 pre-event in Boston. But how about you? What will you be up to?

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Agenda, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Reality Check, Workshops, Dion Hinchcliffe, Mike Gotta, Burton Group, Emergence, Change, Change Management, Study, Surveys, Twitter, TweetUp, TweetUp Events, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, ROI, Metrics, Return On Investment, Cultural Barriers, Barriers of Adoption, IBM Lotus Connections, Jive Software, SharePoint, Vendors

There is just so much happening before, during and after the event itself that I doubt I would be able to fit it all in a single blog post. So this year I have decided to take a different approach and perhaps put together a bunch of blog posts over the next few days that will detail a little bit what it is that you would be able to find over there, if you get a chance to attend the event live or remotely, if you can’t make it this time around. But let me tell you that it will surely be plenty of good fun! All over the place!

You will be able to get a glimpse of the quality of the keynote and breakout sessions if you peek quickly through the agenda itself. Later on this week I will be sharing with you folks my already selected agenda of the stuff I will be looking forward to. It hasn’t been an easy choice, I tell you, but I am sure it will be worth it. And very much so!

At the Enterprise 2.0 Blog you will already be able to get a taster of some of the amazing stuff that will be happening there, during the event, like witnessing the Launch Pad Final Four main stage presenters that will be there (Watch out for Manymoon as one of the most impressive new ideas coming out there in the Enterprise 2.0 space!) or checking out for yourself some of the key findings that both Oliver Marks and Stowe Boyd has been going through with their Open Enterprise 2.0 initiative, launched earlier on this year, and whose results they will presented during the event.

And the list of happenings goes on and on and on! Non stop! Like I said, I will be blogging over the next couple of days on some of the really good stuff you should go, check out and follow up further with, because there is just so much to share across and talk about that one or two entries are not going to do justice to the kind of stuff we will be exposed to as we are getting closer to the kickoff of the event!

As usual, and, like I have been doing at most face to face conference events that I have attended so far, there is a great chance that I will be live tweeting at @elsuacon, more thank live con-blogging (I will be putting together blog posts with highlights on a per day basis digesting through my notes captured through the live tweeting itself). This time around there is going to be a fundamental change on how the conference has been running all along. The focus, this time around, will be around making use of Twitter to help folks enhance the face to face experience(s). And to such extent, if you check out the agenda itself, you will notice how each keynote and breakout session has got its own hash tag! Thus following up with each and everyone of the sessions will be much faster and easier for everyone, whether you are attending live or virtually.

But there are some other really cool things happening. All of the sessions will be recorded through video and made available at some point. So there is a great chance that we would be able to catch up through various different highlights on what the sessions were like, if we can’t be there in the same room. W00t! At the same time all of the keynote speaker sessions will be live streamed, too!, so you will have a chance to get a taster on what to expect from the rest of the event itself. Double w00t!

This year, at Enterprise 2.0 in Boston, there will be more case studies than ever before, giving a chance to those attending face to face to find out plenty more how pioneering companies from all over the world have been able to deploy successfully Enterprise 2.0 techniques getting all the benefits from this new model of engagement, both inside and outside of the firewall.

I have been assured that the wi-fi during the event will have some really high expectations that it will be working just right this time around, as opposed to some of the irks we experienced last year, which, to me, is music to my ears, because there will be plenty of really good stuff we would want to capture live, while in there, and spread it around as much as we possibly can! And that’s something I’m more than happy to experience beginning of next week, when the event kicks off… Fingers crossed that everything will work out just fine!

Phew! Already going on the long side for this blog post. I told you, there are just so many more cool things to share about Enterprise 2.0 in Boston next week! I will wrap up, for now, mentioning that I will be arriving into Boston on late Saturday evening and will be there till Friday afternoon, before flying back home. So if you would want to get together for a drink or two, or hanging out for a while, you know how you can contact me

Finally, last, but not least, in case you may be a bit undecided just yet about making it to the Enterprise 2.0 event of events, go ahead and use this code (CNAPEB27) for 30% off a conference or workshop package, or a free Pavilion Pass, which sounds enticing enough to perhaps give it a try, if you happen to be around the area during the course of next week.

Either way, not to worry, in upcoming blog posts I will be trying to share with you folks some further insights on what to expect from the Enterprise 2.0 event in Boston, and how I plan to spend it while I am there! So far the overall agenda is piling up quite quickly, so hoping to be able to share the final details in the next few hours…

Are you going to miss out on Enterprise 2.0? I hope not. I just can’t wait for it to get started and begin to absorb plenty of key learnings on where Enterprise 2.0 is heading and where we all are at the moment. Ready for an Enterprise 2.0 reality check? I surely am, baby!

I will see you there!

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Dopplr, Boston, MA, Agenda, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Reality Check, Enterprise 2.0 Blog, Launch Pad Final Four, Final Four, Manymoon, Oliver Marks, Stowe Boyd, Open Enterprise 2009, Twitter, Live Tweeting, Live Con-blogging, @elsuacon, Case Studies, Keynotes, Breakout Sessions, Wi-Fi, Wireless, Connectivity, Code, Discount Code, Attendance, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity

And so I was intrigued… Knowing Jon, I was very intrigued. So I kept going along with my day and all of a sudden he goes and tweets back again the following tweet: "New blog post – Business 2.0 looking at business driving enterprise social software tools, rather than the other way round http://is.gd/YTjJ". And the suspense was over!

I right away head over to that blog post that he put under the heading "Business 2.0" and my head was completely blown away! What an outstanding reading! One of the best I have read through in a long while! Going through it felt good. Perhaps too good! But if you have been a knowledge worker for a while now getting exposed to social software in general and making heavy use of it you will know exactly what I mean and also you would come to the conclusion that exciting times are ahead of us! And I just can’t wait!

Here is one of the several precious gems that Jon shared in that article:

"Organisations need to trust these professionals, they will not be in the office from 9-5 every day. These are exactly the sorts of people who thrive on their personal networks, they are the people who you go to when you need to know what’s going on. Social software brings the same level of productivity increases for these people as type-writers and then word processors did for a previous generation of workers. It takes their natural propensity to connect, to share, to add value and extends it in the same way the internet extends our access to information."

To then finish off with this other one:

"It won’t be enough to hire knowledge workers to survive and thrive in this recession. Organisations will have to change their business practices to take advantage of their abilities, and provide them with the tools to be effective. Word, Outlook and even Sharepoint won’t cut it. They will need custom built social platforms, or products such as Confluence, Jive, Socialtext and Lotus Connections."

Those two quotes probably describe some of the stuff I have been doing for a long while now so well that it’s even scary! I probably wouldn’t have been able to describe it much better myself! And I bet that folks who see themselves as Knowledge Workers 2.0 in the current business world they would feel the exact same way. I am sure! And they probably wouldn’t be wrong…

So what does that blog post from Jon Mell have got to do with the first part of the title from this blog entry, i.e. with Clay Shirky? And that ambiguous title of "Institutions vs. Collaboration"? Well, believe it or not, quite a lot. Allow me to explain …

You will need to go into the TED – Ideas Worth Spreading Web site and check out a presentation Clay did back in 2005! around this very same subject, but perhaps with a bit more powerful message on how the process of knowledge sharing and collaborating was starting to shift from old models into new ones and all of that provoked by the emergence of social computing. And that dating back to 2005! The title of that presentation is Clay Shirky on institutions vs. collaboration and you will be able to find it over here (Embedded version below…) and, like I said if earlier on today, if reading Jon’s blog post was quite an inspiration and a burst of fresh air, Clay’s 20 minute presentation will be like being hit by Inspiration in its purest form! Yes, that good!

Needless to say that is one of those TED videos everyone who considers themselves as knowledge workers should watch; whether you watch it before or after reading Jon’s article it won’t matter; you will be ending up on the same sweet spot, only four years apart in time from one to the other! And you will be left with a single thought in your mind for a long while: exciting times are ahead of us and I am surely excited to be part of it all! And you?

Tags: Business 2.0, Institutions, Jon Mell, Headshift, Knowledge Workers, Knowledge Workers 2.0, Confluence, Jive, Socialtext, Lotus Connections, Connections, Clay Shirky, TED, Ideas Worth Spreading, Inspirational, Inspiring, Inspiration, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Twitter

And so we did take part on these two different fun podcasting episodes, where we talked about a whole bunch of different topics, but always with some of the best highlights, in our opinion, of Lotusphere 2009 running in the background. Now those episodes are readily available for replay and I am sure you may be wondering what we did talk about actually with both Neil and Stu, right? Well, here is a quick synopsis of what you will find in both episodes, to give you a taster of what to expect:

Collaboration Matters 8 – Los Dos Luis (36MB download and running for 26 minutes in Spanish with Neil)

• Lotusphere – the excitement and the challenges
• Successes and challenges for Social Software
• Is Social Software "Mainstream"?
• A Year without email – working in different ways?

Collaboration Matters 9 – LS09 Connectr BoF Review (41MB download and running for 30 minutes in English with both Neil & Stu)

• What is a Connectr?
• Who was there and what did we discuss?
• Tools versus Enablement & adoption
• What Social tools are people using – injecting Social Software capabilities into the existing application landscape
• Actually using Social tools – asking questions and opening up the Silos
• Do Social Software Best Practices really exist?
• Who is driving social software adoption within organisations?

As you will be able to see plenty of really good and interesting topics where both Luis Benitez and myself shared our two cents on what we have been seeing in this social software space for a little while now and where we may be heading next. On episode #8 I even got a chance to talk about living "A World Without Email" and this particular episode may be more interesting to those folks who speak Spanish, since we had the entire conversation in Spanish! Funny enough, it’s probably one of the very few podcasting episodes I have done in my native language. Yeah, too funny!

On episode #9 you will be able to get a grasp of our first public reactions to the BOFs session both Luis Benitez and myself did along with Stu on the topic of Connectr. Perhaps one of the most engaging and interactive sessions I have been talking around the subject of Enterprise Social Software, adoption, social tools, the so-called "best practices" of social software (Priceless that one, I can tell you know, and something I will be coming back to shortly as well with a couple of follow up blog posts) that I can remember in a fully packed room.

So, I am going to leave it there for now, and would encourage you have a listen to episode #8 where you can find out plenty more about social software at the same time that you can practice your Spanish skills , or have that rare chance where you can hear me talk in Spanish about some of the 2.0 subjects I have been really passionate about all along. On episode #9 you will be able to find out, first hand, what we learned from the BOFs session (Connectr) we did at Lotusphere.

From here I just want to take this opportunity to share a special thanks! to both Stu and Neil for their time and for their kind invite to the Collaboration Matters podcasting show and to my tocayo for sharing along all of the good stuff he has been doing all this time in the field of social computing and, more specifically, around IBM’s Lotus Connections. Thanks, guys!

Tags: Collaboration Matters, Stu McIntyre, Neil Burston, Connectr, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, email, Productivity, Re-purposing Email, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, A World Without Email, IBM Lotusphere, Lotusphere 2009, Lotusphere2009, LS09, BOFs, Lotus Connections, Connections, Enterprise Social Software, Social Software Adoption, Best Practices

I am talking, of course, about Matt Hodgson, author of the highly recommended Matt’s Musings blog, in case you may not have subscribed to it just yet, and where, earlier on today, he shared a blog post under the title "Toward Government 2.0". In that article you will be able to read through about a presentation he will be doing to "a number of executives and committees this week on Web 2.0 and its use in government — ie: Government 2.0".

It’s a 76 slide deck that you will be able to breeze through rather quickly, but you will be exposed to such a level of incredibly inspiring gems in it that you will be digesting it little by little and for a long while. So many slides with incredibly powerful messages on how governments, in general, can tune in into making use of social software to engage with 21st century’s (Net) citizens 2.0 that this blog post would not do it justice to just name a few. Yes, indeed, it is that good!

You can check out the slide deck directly over at Slideshare, or you could also flip over through the pages in the embedded version shared below:

But before you eventually do all of that, I would strongly encourage you, as a taster, and a little bit of a teaser, too, to check out this YouTube video he also shared earlier on and which will help set the stage of what you will be able to find in the overall deck. It lasts for a little bit over 90 seconds, but, believe me, it will be worth it. It’s incredibly well done and it touches base on most of the items that the presentation deals with in much more detail. The title of the YouTube video is "How can government leverage Web 2.0?" and here you have got the embedded version as well:

I know that some folks out there might be questioning Matt’s reasoning behind both the video and the presentation, more than anything because of the extra focus on the current Web 2.0 and local government landscapes in Australia, but if you take that into the context of a specific country, your own country, you will see that the various challenges and, most importantly, the huge potential and ideas that Web 2.0 brings into the table, and which Matt nicely details further along, are eventually not all of that different from our very own. Wherever we may well be… Quite the opposite! So …

Welcome to 21st century Citizenship 2.0! Our (Your) Voice!

Tags: Matt Hodgson, Matt’s Musings, Engagement, Empowerment, Government Next, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Government, Society, Humanity, Inspiration, Insights, Online Collaboration, Twitter, Social Workplace, Government, Government 2.0, Culture, Technology, Social Web, Transparency, Trust, Opportunity, Citizens 2.0, Citizen, Slideshare, Citizens 2.0, Citizenship 2.0, Choice

The interview itself was hosted over at Forbes’ CIO Network, where I hoped the embedded options would be a rather pleasant user experience to go through overall, but I guess I was asking for a bit too much. Yuk! So I am afraid you will have to head over there and watch Big Blue’s Collaboration Challenges.

The interviewee is one of the folks I have been admiring and respecting for a long while now, ever since he came into his current job, and not because of the job title he has (IBM’s vice president and Chief Information Officer), but eventually because he is one of those executives who walks the talk; blogs (Internally) on a very regular basis and everyone is more than welcome to reach out to him with any question / comment / concern / query they may have and that would need his help. In fact, just recently he did an internal podcast of about 13 minutes with another of my favourite high level executives, Bob Moffat Jr. where they both talked about social software and the business value they are both getting from making use of these social tools. Won’t say much more on that topic, since I’m working on whether I can share that podcasting episode outside of the firewall some time soon! Thus stay tuned for a potential new update coming up soon…

So, of course, I am talking about Mark Hennessy, IBM’s vice president and CIO, who spends a little bit over five minutes sharing several stories on how IBM is making use of social networking tools to reach new levels of productivity. The link to the interview can be found over here, like I mentioned above already, but here are also some other tidbits you may be interested in as well that he talks about for a few minutes:

• IBM Lotus Sametime: with over 10 million instant messages shared across every day (Yes, 10 million!!); and highlighting the fact it’s the biggest productivity boost for real-time collaboration and interactions available out there to us, IBMers, and certainly my number #1 tool to keep living "A World Without Email"
• WikiCentral: our internal wiki platform from which Mark shares plenty of business & uses cases on how wikis can be used inside the corporate firewall to help improve collaboration and knowledge sharing across teams and communities to take innovation into new levels. Quite a story on this one! I tell you.
• Business Value of social software: Mark shares how IBM’s focus on measuring the business value of social software is based on measuring the output, not the social tools themselves; i.e. how many folks are using them; how many new ideas are being created; and so forth. And for that a key role has been played all along by the Technology Adoption Program (a.k.a. TAP), where early adopters and innovators / developers work together on pushing the limits on innovation by co-creating the next wave of social tools and interactions.
• And, finally, Cloud Computing: in this fragment he gets to talk about a couple of mature cloud environments, one of them being TAP itself, with over 120.000 IBMers participating on a regular basis following a self-service provisioning model; you will also find out plenty more about his thoughts on what cloud computing is, where it is heading and how IBM is benefiting from it, both internally and externally. Very enlightening, for sure, specially for those folks who may want to know more about what IBM is doing in that space…

And, that’s it. Those are some of the major areas that Mark Hennessy gets to cover in this five minute interview at Forbes’ CIO Network ("Big Blue’s Collaboration Challenges") and which I hope it would have last for a lot longer as he always has got plenty of really good insights and stories on how he engages himself with the rest of the IBM population to help shape up the next generation of the collaboration, knowledge sharing and social computing tools we will use tomorrow.

Yes, I know you would agree with me on this one. It was just far too short and would have wanted to watch plenty more! Don’t you think? … Wonderful stuff though!

Tags: John Rooney, Rooney, Forbes, Forbes CIO Network, CIO Network, CIO, Chief Information Officer, Vice Presidents, Executives, Challenges, Opportunities, Walking the Talk, Drinking Our Own Champagne, Bob Moffat Jr, Mark Hennessy, Lotus Sametime, IBM Lotus Sametime, Sametime, Real Time, Real Time Collaboration, IM, Instant Messaging, Productivity Boosts, WikiCentral, Wikis, Business Value, Use Cases, Business Cases, Technology Adoption Program, TAP, Early Adopters, Innovators, Developers, Cloud Computing, Cloud, Computing, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, A World Without Email

So, to such extent, I thought I would go to for a lighter blog post today, one that will inject a smile or two, a giggle or two, perhaps, or, just simply, a good laugh to help you get going with what’s left of this working week… And, of course, it is going to make you think a little bit as well on a problem that plenty of folks seem to have been advocating for since forever, although I have got other opinions on this very same topic…

Not going to say much more and spoil the theme of the YouTube video, so, without much further ado, here is the direct link and the embedded version of it:

Hilariously funny, don’t you think? With a rather thought-provoking question underlying throughout the entire video clip: but can you relate to it? Can you identify yourself in the video? … Hold it, don’t try to answer that one just yet… Enjoy the rest of the weekend and then come back next week and share a comment or two on whether you need some help … Or not

And, in the mean time, if you would want to watch another very short video clip that has got a good number of knowledge nuggets to ponder and think about for a while, as well as learn plenty from each and everyone of them, may I suggest you check out  as well this YouTube vido interview with one of my favourite, and good friend, Enterprise 2.0, KM, Social Computing people: Euan Semple (Yes, in case you may not have noticed just recently, his blog has changed address! So go and update your essential bookmarks, too!):

Have a good one everyone!

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Information Overload, Xerox, YouTube, Bad Filtering, Euan Semple, Words of Wisdom, Communications

What a pleasure it was, to say the least! A true honour and a privilege, indeed, since the interview was made for the super fine KMOL online resource on Knowledge Management and Organisational Learning. We covered a good number of different questions and all of them pretty relevant to some of the work I have been doing myself for a while in the area of KM, Collaboration, Communities and Social Computing. Yes, certainly, I know, my sweet spots. We even talked a little bit about what it is like living a "A World Without Email". So, as you can see, I just couldn’t resist the offer to share my two cents on a good number of the topics I am passionate about.

Now, I am not going to reproduce the entire interview over here, but would certainly love to point you to it. There is an English and a Portuguese version of it and, instead, what I will do, as a teaser, of course, is share the questions we tried to address during the interview. That way it will give you an idea of what to expect. So here you have them:

• "There is a lot of theory around Organisational Knowledge Management and not much is shared about how it gets done. How is the Knowledge Management theory being translated inside organisations?
• In your view, what are the main challenges organisations face when investing on Knowledge Management?
• Are organisations currently more or less committed to KM?
• What are the KM “elements” that can help organisations the most during the current economic scenario?
• Some practitioners feel that organisations need the right culture in place before they can start a KM programme. Others defend that a KM programme can help create that “right” culture. Where do you stand?
• How is it to live and work in a world without email?
• Can organisations realistically aspire to release their staff from their inboxes?"

You may be wondering what I enjoyed the most out of the interview, right? Well, amongst several other things, the fact that Ana disagreed with some of my views, specially around the culture of sharing and whether it is a requirement or not for a successful deployment of a Knowledge Management programme. Fascinating, and very enjoyable, discussion that she has brought forward in a follow blog post under the title: "The Right Organisational Culture: A Requirement?"

And thus the debate is ON! Over the next couple of days I will be sharing my counter arguments hoping to keep adding further on into the discussion, but that would be the topic for another blog post. For now I leave you with Ana’s thought-provoking statement: "The Right Organisational Culture: A Requirement?"

What do you think? Is it a requirement? Is it not? Stay tuned for my follow up blog post on this very same topic …

(From here I just want to give a special thanks to Ana for her patience and support in hosting the email interview and for giving me the opportunity to share some further insights on a topic that I hope folks out there doing KM and Social Computing would be interested in reading & engaging with further … Thanks ever so much, Ana!)

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, email, Productivity, Re-purposing Email, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload, KMOL, Email Interviews, Interviews, A World Without Email, Organisational Learning, Ana Neves, Twitter, Culture of Sharing, Organisational Culture, Requirements

And, of course, I already have got a few favourite sessions that I thought I would drop a quick blog post about and share with you folks some of them, so you could have a look and enjoy them just as much as I did already. I am not planning on detailing the contents of each of them, but I can certainly guarantee you that if you have been reading this blog for a while now you will enjoy each and everyone of them!

Thus, instead, what I will be doing is just sharing a quick introductory one liner of what you can expect from each session and then I will share the embedded version of it, so you can start playing whichever one accordingly. I tell you, there are lots and lots of great content, ideas, experiences and thought leadership to share across! So let’s get started!

Marilyn Pratt – "Leading Stakeholder Communities": if you have been doing community building for a while, or if you are interested in running successful communities, her presentation would be one you should really take a look at! Her innovative approach on how to manage, errr, I mean facilitate communities is incredibly refreshing in showing the path to follow for those of us community builders:

Link:

Stowe Boyd – "Unmarketing and the Webful Brand": very little I can say  on this one about Stowe that may not be known already by folks out there. He actually put together a very good, and worth while reading (Including the commentary!), summary with some extended notes from his session, where I will leave you with this gem: "Web culture is not a place where identity based on the brands of goods. Identity in this culture is about relationships, activities, and aspirations"

Link:

Lee Bryant – "Designing twenty-first century organisations with social tools": what I like the most from Lee’s thought-provoking session was how we are at a point in time where we need to start moving away from the industrial / labour era and culture into that one of the knowledge economy of the 21st century: that one of embracing social software to collaborate and share your knowledge across much more efficiently and effectively. So much to learn!

Link:

Eugene Lee – "Internal communications: Improving relations and efficiency": and if you think that so far you have been watching some rather provocative sessions, Eugene’s is just as much. Why? Because more than anything else he sets the stage of how social software should transcend the marketing & IT departments (Like it’s happening today!) to try to reach every single part of the business. And beyond! Regardless! (Yes, I know, his session is impregnated throughout with all of the good things that Knowledge Sharing (KM) was first envisioned as a few years back! Love it!!)

Link:

Andy Piper – "Knowledge Management: Security, Intellectual Property and Privacy": and, finally, last, but not least, for today is the presentation from my fellow colleague, and good friend, Andy, who talked about IBM’s approach towards social computing & social software adoption, and which I have already blogged about a couple of weeks back…

Link:

Thus, like I have mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, time for me to keep quiet for a little while longer and leave you with these video replays from each and everyone of these very interesting, enlightening and eye-opening presentations that surely will keep you thinking for a while. They certainly have taught me a thing or two that will keep my head spinning around the tremendous possibilities and potential of the social networking world we are living in at the moment… Did you spot the common trend transpiring from each and everyone of them?

Hope you enjoy them! (Just as much as I did!)

Tags: SOMESSO, London, SOMESSO London 2009, SOMESS09, smo09, Highlights, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Marilyn Pratt, Stowe Boyd, Lee Bryant, Eugene Lee, Andy Piper, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Trust, Unmarketing, Community Building, Communities, Social Software Adoption, BlueIQ, Social Web, Cluetrain Manifesto, Conversations, SAP, Local Communities, Brands, Branding, Customers, Web Culture, Labour, Knowledge Economy, Efficiency, Security, Intellectual Property, Privacy, Fear, Risks, Risk Management, Command and Control

This time around with something really exciting and truly innovative that has been going on in my mind the entire day, ever since I watched a specific YouTube video that I bumped into from an earlier tweet from the always insightful Mike Wesch referencing an experiment done by Dr. Monica Rankin, Professor of History (The University of Texas at Dallas School of Arts and Humanities), which she then describes more thoroughly at this specific Web site.

I must say that while I was watching through the video I just couldn’t help remembering a blog post I put together a few days back referencing a similar revolutionary change that was starting to take shape in the Learning and Education field. Remember Learning to Change – Changing to Learn? Then you must watch The Twitter Experiment by Dr. Monica Rankin.

In that video clip of a little bit over five minutes she gets to describe how she has been running, very successfully, too!, an experiment by which she uses Twitter with her students to help improve the overall flow of not only the classroom itself, but the interactions, and conversations, of the various students, amongst themselves and also with her. Some pretty fascinating stuff, for sure! Gems like this one are just too precious not to spread them around elsewhere: "Yes, it’s going to be messy. But messy doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be bad".

Then I would suggest you go and read "Some general comments on the "Twitter Experiment"" to find out some more around her conclusions on how effective microsharing in the classroom, i.e. making use of Twitter, has been for her and for her students. Plenty of amazing stuff in there as well, to say the least!

As a teaser, in that specific document Monica gets to detail how the experiment went by providing a short introduction; then talking about the class itself; followed by the plan and set-up; right after that sharing some more insights on the "discussions", their "best practices" to then wrap up with the limitations and strengths of the overall experiment. Very enlightening!

I am not going to spoil the video clip and the rest of the contents from Monica’s detailed document sharing her experiences, but I can certainly tell you that I wish I would have had such an opportunity when I was studying at the University of Salamanca a few years ago, because I’m sure it would have changed my, back then, perspective on the impact of technology in my day to day learning activities. Yes, such is the breath-taking impact of "The Twitter Experiment" by Dr. Monica Rankin that you are about to watch next …

I am sure that, after watching the video and reading through the document, there will be one single thought going through your head: if Dr. Monica Rankin has proved that making use of Twitter can be very helpful to improve the overall outcome of a classroom, why do some businesses out there still object towards fully embracing the concept of microsharing. Isn’t this enough proof, once again, that it works? You tell me …

(Although I think you already know my answer …)

Tags: Microsharing, Microblogging, Mike Wesch, Monica Rankin, University of Texas, School of Arts, Humanities, History, Learning to Change, Changing to Learn, Twitter Experiment, Messy, Orderly Chaos, University of Salamanca, Teaching, Learning 2.0, Education, Learning Activities, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, YouTube, Twitter

It is coming from my good friend from down under Stephen Collins (a.k.a. @trib) who, a few hours back, pointed me through Twitter (You may have noticed how as of late it’s become my dynamic RSS feed reader… And loving it!) to the recent presentation he did at the GOVIS 2009 User Centred Government conference under the title Public Engagement – Public Empowerment. You can check out the slides over at Slideshare, as usual. But what’s also really interesting, and a must read, is the extensive and rather engaging blog post that he put together to explain not only the contents of the deck, but also his overall impressions of the event itself. Highly recommended reading with plenty of excellent stuff all over the place!

So, you may be wondering what you are going to find in Stephen’s presentation, right? Well, just like Stephen himself mentions as part of the headline from the deck plenty of "Thoughts on possibility for Government 2.0". And a new set of rules which I thought I would share over here as a teaser to get you folks going:

• "Everything and anything is possible – Ask why and why not and expect a real answer
• There are no bad ideas – Just different ones
• Passive consumption is pointless – Do tweet, blog, comment, challenge and ask as you get out of this what you put in"

Perfect way to set the stage, don’t you think? At least, that’s what I thought myself as I went through the first few slides before diving in. He then continues by referencing some of the fine work that Tara Hunt (a.k.a. @missrogue) did under Government Next and which I also blogged about it a little while ago, to then move forward explaining what it would be like a Government listening to its citizens and actively participating and engaging with them through social software to share ideas, exchange experiences, knowledge, collaborate amongst peers, innovate. In short, define the next generation of Government… Powerful.

Now, Stephen always does very very visual presentations and this one is no exception, but what’s really a true delight is how he uses that imagery to convey really powerful messages, which he then tops up by sharing plenty of use cases, scenarios, down to earth examples of how folks are already making use of this new wave of collaboration and knowledge sharing tools within the social software realm. And that’s what makes going through this deck such a treat!

My favourite slides are slide #44, but I am not going to spoil it for you. I will leave it down to you to go through it, and slide #73 where he has put together a very very powerful word-cloud using Wordle  that I am sure is going to keep you thinking for a little while trying to digest it all.

Yes, like I said, one of those presentations with really worth while, and equally strong, messages to think and ponder some more on the whole topic of what the next generation of government, our government should be like, and a lovely complement to the ones I have been sharing over here before from Deb Lavoy and the Us now film. Hope you enjoy them just as much as I did. And to get you going here is the embedded Slideshare from Stephen’s so you can start, right now, flipping the charts!

Tags: Stephen Collins, Acidlabs, Trib, GOVIS 2009, GOVIS, User Centred, Public Engagement, Public Empowerment, Engagement, Empowerment, User Generated, Tara Hunt, Missrogue, Government Next, Us Now, Films, Movies, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Government, Society, Humanity, Inspiration, Insights, Online Collaboration, Twitter, Social Workplace, Government, Government 2.0, Deb Lavoy, Culture, Technology, Social Web, Transparency, Trust, Opportunity, Citizens 2.0, Citizen, Slideshare, Wordle

What a fantastic film, folks! If you can spare a bit over one hour of your time, this is one of those films that I am sure you would enjoy tremendously. I certainly did! There are plenty of things I learned about social software and Web 2.0 in general, and I know you would as well, but if there was anything that I absorbed almost quite immediately was something that I have been mentioning it for a while already: the fact that Web 2.0 transcends the world of the Internet big time and it touches us, as a society, in multiple levels that not only don’t we start to comprehend just yet, but we don’t have much of a choice to avoid it either altogether. And probably we shouldn’t!

Yes, I am talking about the unavoidable change we are all going through. The point of no return. A new wave of social interactions, way beyond the Social Web, that help us not only continue to share more and more knowledge by the day and collaborate with others, but also help us nurture and nourish our trust levels with everyone else, which is where I felt that’s the kind of change we most probably need at this very moment in time, given the current econolypse we are all going through.

Throughout the film you would be able to see plenty of use cases and scenarios of how folks like you and me are taking advantage of social software, but moving beyond the level of virtual, distributed interactions into more physical ones that have already been enhanced by those online conversations that have been taking place already! Thus virtual and physical come together as one. Finally! Us. A change we can no longer ignore, nor neglect or fail to embrace. We are just way beyond that level of reluctance and skepticism. We have already started embracing what’s inevitable: our own change to become something better as a result of those "improved" social interactions. Basically, what I have been saying all along on "work smarter, not necessarily harder", but which would also apply to every single aspect of our daily lives, not just work!

Fantastic video, I can assure you! With plenty more striking conclusions that I would not want to spoil for you, but I can certainly encourage you to watch through it till the end. It’s very very worth it. And funny enough earlier on today a tweet by my good friend, and very prolific KM blogger, John Tropea, just caught my attention on a Slideshare presentation that’s been around for a couple of months already, but which touches base, incredibly accurate, too!, with some of the main topics mentioned throughout the film itself! Talking about serendipity doing its magic …

After you have watched the movie check out the presentation titled "Social Workplace for Government 2.0" by Deb Lavoy. You will love it from the very first slide till the very end! What a wonderful deck on assessing and evaluating the benefits, barriers and overview of technologies within the social software space around the whole industry of Government. Her entire presentation covers three key main points that everyone should be not just aware of, but fully embrace them altogether. And if you don’t believe me, here you have got them:

• "Social media tools make connections that drive collaboration and Knowledge Management
• Culture is more important than technology
• New Technologies are pleasant to use, so people use them"

Brilliant, don’t you think? Well, it gets better! Way better! Deb covers very well, and rather extensively, topics so important as collaboration (Slide #10 on this subject is priceless!), transparency (Slide #15 is just such a gem!), compounding value, trust, respect, barriers to adoption (Fear & management by fear – Slide #31 is just so spot on!), etc. etc.

Like I said, one of those slide decks you bump into every now and then which would make you think for a while and which will continue to inspire you, in my case, with my efforts of driving, into new levels, the adoption of social software all over the place. It’s a change I cannot longer deny, or neglect, nor will I try to understand. There is no need to. It’s ok. The waters are lovely! We just have to dive in, deeper than ever, get soaked and continue to enjoy the various different benefits on driving the next wave of collaboration and knowledge sharing conversations by experiencing how Web 2.0 transcends the Social Web as we know it! Just brilliant!

Oh, and don’t forget to watch the Us now movie! It will help you much bring the dialogue on to the next level! Yes, as good as that! If not more …

Tags: Us Now, Films, Movies, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Government, Society, Humanity, Inspiration, Insights, Econolypse, Physical Social Networks, Virtual Social Networks, Virtual Teams, Online Collaboration, Twitter, John Tropea, Social Workplace, Government, Government 2.0, Deb Lavoy, Culture, Technology, Social Web, Transparency, Trust, Compounding Value, Barriers to Adoption, Management by Fear, Fear, Slideshare

"In a world in which information is like air, what happens to power? Us Now is a documentary film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the Internet.

Us Now tells the stories of online networks that are challenging the existing notion of hierarchy. For the first time, it brings together the fore-most thinkers in the field of participative governance to describe the future of government."

My first reactions to the film, you may be wondering, right? Well, none at this point in time. I haven’t watched it just yet. Weekend is just around the corner and my brain & body decided to make other plans for what’s left of this Friday afternoon. So I guess I will be watching it over the weekend or early next week, and at that point I may be taking a few minutes to share with you folks what I thought about it, but seeing some of the already existing videos interviews I sense I am going to like it. And quite a lot!

So, here it is. Hope you enjoy it (I know I will! ). Have a good one everyone!

Us Now from Banyak Films on Vimeo.

Tags: Us Now, Films, Movies, Steve Dale, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Government, Society, Humanity, Vimeo, Inspiration, Insights, Video Interviews

Check out the YouTube video "Alan Cohen, Cisco VP Enterprise Solutions, on Enterprise Strategy" where you will see an interview with Alan Cohen himself, Vice President, Enterprise Marketing, that lasts for a bit over four minutes and which touches base on a number of different topics related to the future of Enterprise Computing and Collaboration, as he has written over at the blog Collaboration – The Workplace: A New World of Communications and Collaboration. Plenty of very interesting and juicy insights on where we are heading with all of this social networking in the business world.

My favourite parts of the video? A few of them eventually, but here are a couple of them worth while mentioning over here as well:

• The changing nature of our workplace, moving away from the traditional concept of the physical office, where we are now more mobile than ever (With a great set of choices in mobile devices to chose from!); where our work spaces are defined by who we are and how we get connected regardless of the place and the time; where we, knowledge workers, get to define and establish our own "offices" no matter our location or environment to carry out our own tasks. Remember that great quote from Thomas A. Stewart? Yes, that one of "A knowledge worker is someone who gets to decide what he does each morning". Well, it would fit in here rather nicely, don’t you think? 

  And talking about reminders, this trend of thought reminded me of a recent great blog post put together by Corbett Barr on that very same topic: 10 Digital Nomads to Learn From (Check out, by the way, the interesting survey Corbett is about to embark on and which I do hope to be able to contribute as well very soon… But that would be the subject for an upcoming blog post).

• Knowledge Management and / or / vs. Social Computing: very thought-provoking remarks as well trying to associate each of these movements with the generations being exposed to them; resulting in baby boomers driving Knowledge Management and Gen Yers driving Social Computing themselves. And right in between is us, Gen Xers, acting as bridges between both groups and becoming the glue that will help connect both strategists and doers within the corporate environment trying to drive innovation, knowledge sharing and collaboration into a new wave of open, public and more transparent interactions!

  I guess that when the always creative James Governor called my good friend Andy Piper a social bridger he was probably thinking about something like this in similar terms and I suppose we are just starting to witness how that role of the social bridger, the Gen Xers, is perhaps going to be a bit more important than what most folks thought about so far.

Like I said, a short, but rather interesting video interview with Alan Cohen sharing some very innovative thoughts of what’s expecting us in the short term in the current knowledge economy we live in.

Exciting times, if you ask me…

Tags: Cisco Systems, Cisco, John Chambers, CEOs, Alan Cohen, VP Enterprise Marketing, Marketing, Enterprise Computing, Computing, Collaboration, Workplace, Virtual Workplace, Mobile, Mobility, Gadgets, Broadband Penetration, Corbet Barr, Digital Nomads, Generations, Baby Boomers, Gen Yers, Gen Xers, Strategists, Doers, James Governor, Monkchips, Andy Piper, Social Bridger, Knowledge Economy, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity

To do that I would want to point out to you Us Now, "a film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the Internet", where you will be able to find plenty of video interviews with some of today’s thought leaders in the space of Social Computing, Knowledge Management, Collaboration and Communities. Most of them incredibly insightful and engaging throughout.

I first bumped into these video clips after reading a tweet from the always inspiring Paula Thornton, who referenced this short video interview with JP Rangaswami where he gets to talk about scarcity (And its impact in our world), information sharing, syndicating content, knowledge workers, visualising data and social software, of course.

Then while exploring the Web site further I bumped into another wonderful video interview that I would surely encourage everyone involved with Knowledge Management to listen to as well. It hosts the always knowledgeable and insightful Lee Bryant talking not only about what KM is good at, but also what’s missing and how it gets complemented by other, more informal, elements. Like I said, worth while watching, specially for its wider implications in our own society.

And that’s it! Keeping things short for today; hoping you enjoy the videos and the various many inspirational thoughts just as much as I did while discovering the Web site. It’s just little precious gems like these that you get to bump into through serendipitous knowledge discoveries that makes it all worth while, don’t you think?

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Government, Society, Humanity, Us Now, Movies, Films, YouTube, Paula Thornton, JP Rangaswami, Lee Bryant, Headshift, Inspiration, Insights, Video Interviews

I cannot believe that it’s been four weeks already since I last blogged on the topic, but I guess that’s what happens when you keep having fun, eh? However, I am starting to think that it may not be such a bad idea to eventually share the progress reports over at my Flickr account on a weekly basis and then perhaps recap every month on a single blog post detailing what’s been going on throughout those weeks. That way I will avoid boring you to death with countless progress reports entries on this blog on detailing what it is like not using email at work. I know I may not be able to share some further insights on interesting links I may bump into, but I think I am willing to give it a try.

If you would want to still see those weekly progress reports here in this blog, leave a quick comment sharing thoughts and I will try to accommodate accordingly. For now though I am just going to point you to each of the different weekly reports from the last four weeks and just share with you a screen shot from the last one of those, so that you can see what’s been happening. Thus here it goes:

As you would be able to see, things have been going exceedingly well over the last few weeks, except perhaps for last week, week 14, where both Wednesday and Thursday were just far too email centric and I think I may know what the reason was. People couldn’t find me online readily to engage through my usual various social software tools, more than anything else because of how incredibly busy those couple of days were with what I call meetings galore, which means people decided to send me an email instead. That would teach me again next time to take care of my agenda and schedule much better than what I did last week!

Either way, the rest of the other weeks things have settled down on that limit of roughly 20 to 30 emails a week, which I think is rather nice if I compare the results during those very same weeks last year. I was just getting started with the experiment and was averaging 42 emails a week. This time around, in year 2, that average is down to 27 emails a week, which means that, if things continue to go like they did last year, by the end of this year I may have well exceeded my follow up challenge of receiving 20 or less emails a week on a really consistent basis. Exciting stuff! I can’t wait to see what would happen then, but I guess we will have to wait and go step by step …

Ok, now on to the interesting couple of links I would want to share with you folks to give you an idea of how I think email is going to have a tough time surviving in its current (mis)use. Let’s get things rolling!

Five people collaborating on a tender via mail…

Brilliant blog post put together by Oscar Berg, over at Content Management Connection, where he gets to describe the typical scenario we have all gotten exposed to over the course of the years on what it is like trying to collaborate through email with, say, five people to share and exchange feedback on a specific file. Pretty revealing discourse of interactions, I can tell you. You should read the blog post, because as you get to finish it you will be nodding rather heavily, strongly agreeing with a situation you have seen and experienced far too often! Perhaps too much…

To me, that blog post is a clear reminder of something I said a while ago and which I would not get tired of mentioning again: email is a pretty good communication tool, but it does a very very poor job as a collaborative one, and therefore we should distinguish communicating and collaborating are two completely different things! Oscar’s blog post is just another indication of that thought!

Oh, and while you are reading it through Oscar concludes his article with this quote:

"How would this process have looked if they had used a wiki instead?"

Well, let me help you answer that one by referencing what, to date, is perhaps one of my favourite blog posts of all times over at the super fine Wikinomics blog: Wiki collaboration leads to happiness. In it you will find a graphic put together originally by Chris Rasmussen that explains what collaboration would be like through a wiki in that very same scenario vs. email. Wonderful and a must see!

A world without Word

In a very interesting, and rather shocking blog post (Read through it and you will know what I mean with shocking), Bill Roberts of Swirrl shares some further insights over at Stewart Mader’s wonderful Grow a Wiki blog on an initiative he has been doing for a while, which is basically separate himself from the print world and gradually moving away from Word (And Office, I would think) into other online spaces where content gets shared without placing too much focus, or as much as we all used to with Word, and other productivity suite tools, into the format itself.

That basically means he is relying more and more on wikis, blogs, etc. etc. to help spread knowledge across, instead of "closed" attachments like Word documents that usually have gotten around through email. I bet by doing this he is consistently reducing the amount of email traffic he gets, not only from not sending those files anymore, but also from getting emails back at him asking him where such and such Word document is stored, who has got the latest most up to date document or, just simply, where did we leave things again after our last everlasting threaded email conversation that no-one can make any sense out of it anymore?

In a way, I am pretty much doing the same. It’s very very rare for me nowadays to eventually write an office document from scratch and then share it across; I rather prefer to use a wiki or a blog for that (Or some other social software tools that would fit in within a specific context much better). Main advantages I see of doing that? Well, mainly openness and transparency where others and myself get to collaborate on public spaces, internal or external, exchanging ideas, sharing knowledge, brainstorming, innovating and whatever else.

Bill’s initiative may not be as radical and controversial as the one I am doing, but he surely proves it can be as equally effective and worth while a try. Thus next time you are thinking about putting together an Office document, re-think, and see if you could avoid all of the hassle and share the content right across in a blog, or a wiki. Or whatever social software tool of your choice. I bet it wasn’t even difficult to make that transition … And yet the advantages are so many it’d be difficult to count them all!

From Email Culture To Stream Culture: Out Of The Inbox

Another superb blog post from my good friend Stowe Boyd, who, once again, nails it. In that enlightening article he gets to detail how we are moving away, gradually, but steadily, from an email driven corporate environment to one where (live) stream rules, and with chat sitting in between; or, at least, it is starting to change the conversations into the right path towards open (Again!) and trustworthy knowledge / information sharing, as well as open collaboration.

His quote from Gabriel García Márquez on "Everyone has three lives: a public life, a private life and a secret life" is just a brilliant segway to introduce how email, chat and microblogging come to represent each and everyone of those "lives" for each and everyone of us. Here is one of the three graphics he shared on this very same topic:

Like I said, this is one of those blog posts that I will be remembering and quoting all over the place, because it describes pretty much how we are continuing to transition from that closed-ness that email currently offers towards much more open models of engagement, like microblogging / microsharing, amongst several other 2.0 components. A must read, for sure!

And, finally, after such a rather long blog post I thought I would finish up with some fun stuff. Actually with something I have found hilariously amusing all along since I first bumped into it a few days back! I found it through the always insightful Carl Tyler’s Blog and it is another funny video from Current where you get to experience over the course of a bit over three minutes, some of what we saw in the above mentioned blog post from Oscar. But better!

I bet that plenty of us have been exposed to similar situations where we all knew from the very beginning how to tackle them much more effectively in the first place, like what happens in the last few seconds of the video itself … Brillaint!

And what a great way to finish off another round of weekly progress reports on living "A World Without Email". Till next time …

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, email, Productivity, Re-purposing Email, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload, A World Without EMail, Flickr, Meetings Galore, Impact of Meetings, Oscar Berg, Content Management Connection, Wikinomics, Chris Rasmussen, Wikis, Word, Office Suite, Word, Productivity Suite, Blogs, Blogging, Metablogging, Bill Roberts, Swirrl, Stewart Mader, Grow a Wiki, Stowe Boyd, Public Life, Private Life, Secret Life, Quotes, Gabriel García Márquez, Twitter, Microblogging, Microsharing, Chat, IM, Instant Messaging, Current, Fun, Fun Stuff, Humour, Carl Tyler

However, today, and while we are all waiting for the various video clips from the conference keynote and breakout sessions to become available online for us all to enjoy further, I thought I would point you to one that I am sure you will enjoy quite a bit, specially if you are interested in how a large corporation like IBM is making use of social software to help drive openness and innovation into new levels.

Check out Openness and Innovation in a Web 2.0 World by my good friend, and fellow colleague, Andy Piper, which he presented to a nice crowd on Friday morning. Then, as a follow up, I would recommend you have a look into a couple of blog posts he shared late last week to help provide plenty more context and background on the purpose of the slide deck he used.

In that presentation you will be to see how a large business like IBM decided to support and fully embrace social software a few years back, by continuing to trust its employees to extend further on the already strong corporate brand, bringing out thousands and thousands of strong, passionate and committed voices who all along have been understanding what it is like this new wave of social interactions in a corporate environment in order to help boost knowledge sharing and collaboration across the board. And doing all of that in a trustworthy, prepared and enabled culture environment where a key strong message resonates out loud: do not fear!

I can’t wait to watch the video recording of Andy’s pitch, as I am sure it was as thought-provoking and revealing as his slide deck is, but for now, and, while we wait for that clip to become available online, we will have to enjoy his deck over at Slideshare and the blog posts I referenced above. And that’s just the beginning, folks. Wait till some of the other outstanding sessions become available as well…

Like I said, one event on social computing within the enterprise to remember! And for a while!!

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, SOMESSO, SOMESSO 2009, smo09, Conference Events, Events, London, UK, Openness, Trust, Enablement, Cultural Change, Culture of Sharing, Andy Piper, Slideshare, Videos, Presentations

The video is titled "Learning to Change – Changing to Learn"; it lasts for a bit over five minutes and it is one of those little precious gems that describes the kinds of challenges we are facing currently within the Learning field and, most importantly, it helps set the stage on the next generation of what Learning should be like. In it, you will find some amazing reflections on the new paradigm general education needs to start not only facing, but fully embracing if we would want to prepare properly the next generation of smart-kids that will rule our world in the not so distant future.

I tell you, watching through the video till the end has been a tremendous experience; one I can certainly recommend everyone to spend those five minutes. It will not only make you think, but take action as well. I am sure. It’s one of those videos that clearly sets the stage on the kind of impact that social software is having within our society and how instead of blocking these new emerging tools, we should instead be fully supporting their wider adoption, not just within our work environment, but also in our lives. Main reason being? Our kids are already doing it! And doing a great job at it for that matter!

If you ever thought that Learning needed to go through a radical facelift, and make-over, and join the 21st century, once and for all, this is the kind of video you will need to watch to help set the pace on what lies ahead. As most of you folks know by now, my background comes from the education field, and I know at some point I will be back to it. Well, this is going to be one of those videos I will proudly show not only to my students, but also to teachers and those who can make a difference, because, after all, (Nimmy puts it much much nicer than what I could possibly do, to be honest, in another wonderful blog post just shared earlier on today)

"Education should be about learning to think for ourselves, discovering our own minds and what is ‘good’ for us"

(Oh, before I let you go, if you change the word Learning for Business, the contents and the message from this video are just as valid, if not even more, on what lies ahead for us all embracing social software within the corporate world: to help change not only how business gets done through our personal business relationships, but also ourselves as part of the process!

Quite an inspiration to kick off another week at work, don’t you think?)

Tags: Learning, Education, Society, Schools, Education System, Students, Learners, Smart Kids, Education 2.0, Learning 2.0, Web 2.0, Knowledge Economy, Change, Challenges, Change Management, YouTube, John Hovell, Informal Learning, Informl, Nimmy, Life, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, Personal Knowledge Sharing, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity

Why, you may be wondering, right? Well, mainly because it looks like the presentations from such great event are starting to become available (As Sandy Carter herself mentioned earlier on a couple of days back on Twitter). And as the materials start been shared across I thought I would point you to one of my favourites that I am sure folks who have been reading this blog for a while already would enjoy quite a bit.

It’s a lovely presentation that my team colleague, Jeanne Murrary, did during the event under the title: Business Value from SOA and Web 2.0 – Innovation, Relationships and Results and which touches base on some of the key success factors for the adoption of social software within the enterprise, after providing some really good background on the emergence of social computing in general, as well as sharing some further insights on how social software tools will change the way we work.

If you are interested in seeing the penetration of social software within IBM as far as usage is concerned, you should check out slide #13 for some quite revealing statistics. Also check out from slides #17 to #23 where you will see some key points behind proving the business value of social networking (Yes, I know, one of my favourite topics! heh).

Finally, from slides #24 to #27 you will be able to get some further details on what it exactly is that I get to work on with Jeanne, and a few other of my colleagues (Including a community with over 630 social software ambassadors / evangelists), on a daily basis in helping accelerate the adoption of social software within IBM by fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Either way, I thought folks over here would want to check out that really nice deck Jeanne put together for IMPACT 2009, which describes a little bit the kind of disruption social software is having within IBM, its potential business value as well as detail some more what I have been up to for nearly two years now. And still going strong …

Not bad for a challenge to have, eh?

(Thanks a bunch, Jeanne, for sharing the slide deck with us! Really nice work!)

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, IMPACT, IMPACT2009, IBMIMPACT, Sandy Carter, Smarter Planet, A Smarter Planet, Work Smart, Jeanne Murrary, BlueIQ, BlueIQ Ambassadors, SOA, Business Value, ROI, Return On Investment, Adoption, Emerging Social Tools

"Like it or not, the use of social media platforms like twitter will define our online legacy. The words we say over time will shape and frame the person we are from a digital perspective. Now imagine if some of the people who are reading your tweets will not read them for 5 or 10 years or longer.

How many of us have kids who are growing up at the moment who we would like to be able to talk to about things going on in our own lives but just can’t because they are not old enough to understand and appreciate what it is we would like to share with them? And when our kids come of age, how will they react to the things we said about them on platforms like twitter, in podcasts or in our blogs?

Or what about yourself? How would you like to wake up in 4 years and read something you tweeted about years before and be inspired?"

If you read through the entire article you would be able to see some very interesting points on the kind of impact that our online interactions NOW will have, or may have, in the near future, not just for ourselves, but for those who care about us as well (Friends, family, relatives, co-workers, etc. etc.). Like I said, quite an interesting read and something that I thought it would fit in quite nicely with the couple of video links I bumped into in the last few hours and which, in a way, reflect very much my own digital footprint on how I feel about certain things…

Let’s get started. Remember that blog post I put together under "Twouble with Twitters [...]"? Well, it looks like the folks behind Current have put together another hilariously funny, yet somewhat accurate, I guess (Although I don’t think I could relate too much to it, to be honest), video clip on the status of the Twittersphere: Celebrity Twitter Overkill

I told you, incredibly funny and scarily accurate to some extent, but to a certain degree not my kind of online digital legacy, don’t you think? At least, not the one I am trying to pursue and I am sure that most of the readers from this blog wouldn’t either. However, with this other second video link things may be a little bit different:

I AM A GEEK! by The Society for Geek Advancement

Going through it has made me realised as well that I am not a geek (either), nor do I identify myself as one, nor would want I to be one. And although I realise that some of you folks may well identify yourselves as die-hard geeks, which I think is pretty cool, I guess I will just continue chasing further up my online digital legacy, because so far I don’t think I have found it. In fact, I doubt I would at all. Why? Because, to me, it has never been about the final destination, but more the journey along the way, and much more importantly, what I get to learn on a daily basis. That is my online digital legacy: my day to day key learning activities on the stuff I am passionate about.

That’s what I am. That’s my legacy…

Tags: Jeff Pulver, Digital Legacy, Digital, Legacy, Online Digital Legacy, Online Legacy, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Social Networks, Conversations, Digital Footprint, Current, Twouble, Celebrities, Twitter Celebrities, Twitter Celebs, Geeks, Twittersphere, Journey, Learnings, Life

Main reason being? Well, mainly because of the inspiring and insightful community of folks I hang out with and also because of those wonderful serendipitous knowledge discoveries you get exposed to on a rather regular basis. Take the example of this blog post I am putting together right now, inspired by an earlier tweet from Ana Neves, who retweeted a link to one of those TED Talks that will surely change the way we view things not only at work, but also in our own personal lives… Yes, *that* kind of impact!

This is that kind of talk that everyone, whether you have got the time or not, that’s no longer an excuse, should watch! A must watch! A bit over 17 minutes of pure gold from the one and only: Seth Godin, who clearly ventures into sharing with us how we are not only witnessing but also living through some really important and crucial changes that will affect us all as much as our own society, regardless wherever you may come from, in whichever part of the world. And dealing with something that we already knew about around 50.000 years ago!

Yes, indeed, in "Seth Godin: Why tribes, not money or factories, will change the world" you will be able to watch Seth talking about the changes we are all experiencing not only within the corporate world, but also within ourselves as human beings explaining the concept of tribes and why they are going to rule the world as we know it from here onwards. He explains beautifully how we are experiencing a time of changes, changes where we challenge the status quo of things to turn them inside out for our benefit, i.e. the benefit of the tribe itself, resulting in helping us become better at what we do, whatever that may well be.

This is one of those incredible TED Talks you just can’t miss out. Not sure how you will do it, or what excuse you will need to come up with, but if you sense we are going through some changing times, for the better, this is one of those talks you will need to watch. I can tell you, it would inspire you tremendously; to the point where, if it doesn’t, I can assure you right here, right now, nothing else will. That’s how sure I am of the impact of Seth’s words in such session. Get ready, because here it comes:

There isn’t probably a much better way of getting started with your week at work than being inspired, don’t you think? So, are you ready to challenge the status quo? Are you ready to provoke a movement?

Let’s do it!

Tags: TED, TED Talks, Inspiration, Changes, Challenges, Status Quo, Seth Godin, Tribes, Twitter, Microsharing, Ana Neves, Industrial Revolution, Mass Consumption, Online Communities, Society, Movement, Provoke, Human Beings, Mission, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, email, Productivity, Re-purposing Email, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload

However, the problem comes when you decide to take things into the next level and see if the iPhone would be able to make within the enterprise environment. Well, that’s a completely different story. In my case, and sorry to sound so blunt about it, and perhaps a bit harsh, too, I don’t think so. In fact, I know so! It is *not* ready for the enterprise! At least, in my own case.

There have been a number of various different blog posts and articles sharing further details on how popular the iPhone has become within the business world and how more and more companies are starting to pay attention to such mobile experience. Including IBM. And while I do enjoy the numerous positive prospects of using such device at work, I can come up with two main reasons as to why I think such device still has got a long long way to go, before it grabs the attention from the mobile knowledge worker. Specially power users. Why? Here is why …

Like I said, I have been using my iPhone from a consumer perspective for a few months now and I am quite happy with it. A really enjoyable experience. For sure. However, a couple of weeks back I was able to go through the final test for me which was when I managed to connect to the IBM network, through a secure VPN connection, and spend some time navigating through the corporate Intranet.

Ok, you folks know that for over a year ago I have stopped using corporate email (Yes, that well known “A World With Email” mantra), which means I rely plenty more on being constantly connected to the network, whether internal or external. Whether from my home office or while on the road. Offline work for me has been very minimal as of late. Thus, what happened that morning when I took the iPhone for a spin, you may be wondering, right?

Well, it took me a bit over one hour to completely drain the battery of the device to the point where I needed to re-charge it again. Yes, you are reading it right… A bit more than an hour and I had to charge it again! *Unbelievable*, if you ask me, to put it mildly! You know, I wish I would have to work every day just that one hour that the iPhone would allow me to before I would need to find a place to plug it back in again!

The reality is though that when I am away from the office, travelling, talking to customers, on the road, at workshops, or even at conference events, the last thing I would want to do is look for a plug to charge my iPhone. It’s just not going to happen! In most cases, because I may not be even have the opportunity to find one! So you are stuck! Trouble! Big trouble! No, thank you!

The iPhone needs to understand and come to terms with the fact that mobile knowledge workers do even spend more hours working while on the road than at the typical office location and as such relying on a device that will have its battery drained in a single hour of heavy browsing is just a no go. At least, for me!

So, that’s one of the main reasons why the iPhone will never become my mobile computer, as plenty of people have been claiming lately all over the place. Quite the contrary. It’ll just become my casual consumer mobile device for all other trivial stuff where I don’t need to depend much on battery life. So if it goes, it goes. That’s fine.

But you may be wondering what’s the second reason as to why I feel that this device is not ready for the enterprise just yet, right? Well, here is the scenario. I work full time remotely; I have got a Nokia N95 that I use for work (Battery lasts much much longer, by the way, in case you are wondering!); I have got the iPhone. Both with the same phone company.

Yet, while the N95 provides me an incredibly good coverage throughout, both at home and while I am travelling, the iPhone barely makes it. In fact, most of the times the coverage for this device is incredibly poor, which means when people call me they can’t reach me. So they have to leave a voicemail. Which I can only get to when I myself have got that coverage back. If at all! Frustrating… And that behaviour seems to be happening constantly throughout the day and very consistently, too! So can you imagine depending on that critical phone call, for whatever the reason, and you find out that the iPhone has let you down, once again, because of the poor coverage? No, thank you!

Like I said, I am starting to have very high expectations for the upcoming 3.0 release of the iPhone in the next couple of months; see if it would address these two main issues I have at the moment with it. And convince me that once again I can enjoy that working mobile computing experience without taking with me my MacBook Pro. Because otherwise, this device will just be that. A fancy (And expensive!) gadget that I can’t use longer than 1 hour a day, before it dies off again … That may be the time, perhaps, for a change … a change to other smarter mobile devices that understand what a mobile knowledge worker faces every day while getting to work. Because right now the iPhone just doesn’t cut it. And by far!

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Productivity, Apple, iPhone, MacBook Pro, MBP, Nokia, N95, Mobile Workforce, Mobile Worker, Mobile Knowledge Worker, Knowledge Worker, Power User, Intranet, VPN Access, Battery Life, Batter, Network Coverage, Coverage, Movistar, Travelling, On The Road, Accessibility, Reliability, Poor Performance, Gadgets, Mobile Devices

Yes, it is another interesting and enlightening video clip, in this case, spread around by my good friend, and fellow IBM colleague, Andy Piper’s “Smart Work for a Smarter Planet. I’m an IBMer“, and which comes to reflect on the power of social networking and how it will shape our business relationships in the corporate world in the near future or right as we speak already for that matter!

The YouTube video lasts for nearly two minutes and it surely is a treat to go through. There are lots of very relevant tidbits on the topic of A Smarter Planet and how we, knowledge workers of the current knowledge economy we are engaging with, need to smarten up in order to get done more with less effort, i.e. keep improving our own productivity. In sort, work smarter, not necessarily harder… Does it ring a bell? (heh)

So I thought I would spend a few minutes today sharing that video clip with you folks over here. That way you can have a look on why I decided to chose the title of this blog post as what it is showing right now and why I’m still sold on the idea that social computing is going to change the business world as we know it by making it smaller, more human, more participative, less hierarchical, more authentic, more transparent and trustworthy. In short, the Enterprise of the Future!

Yes, indeed, I’m an IBMer, too!

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Trust, Smarter Planet, SmarterPlanet, Kool-Aid, IMPACT, IMPACT 2009, IBMIMPACT, Andy Piper, Work Smarter, Enterprise of the Future