November 24th, 2006
Off on to the Next Challenge - La Blogosfera!
Some time ago, you would remember how I mentioned that I was actually planning some more changes here in elsua.net and that over time those changes would eventually become a reality. Well, here we go with the next change I am about to implement, then, from now onwards. This time around it actually doesn’t have anything to do with the weblog template as such, but more with its content. No, not to worry, I am not going to stop weblogging about topics related to Knowledge Management, Collaboration, Communities, Social Computing, Work / Life Balance, and whatever else. On the contrary, I will be continuing to weblog on those topics but this time around elsua.net is actually going bilingual!
Yes, that is right ! As most of you already know, I am actually a native Spaniard, so my mother tongue is, of course, Spanish. And for some time now I have been thinking about trying out something over here, which was basically posting some posts not only in English, but also in Spanish, perhaps as my initial steps to enter the Spanish blogosphere (La Blogosfera!) and be able to conduct a number of different conversations related to KM but in my mother tongue.
It is actually going to be an interesting challenge because, believe it or not, most of my nearly 10 years of knowledge in the field of KM comes actually from the English speaking world, so it would be quite intriguing to find out how I am going to try to manage putting some of those thoughts in Spanish and still be able to make some sense out of it. Yes, I know, it is going to be a nice challenge though. It will help me polish those skills and expertise and adapt them to other languages other than English.
So from now on every other weblog post, still haven’t decided on the frequency just yet, I will be weblogging about KM stuff in Spanish, so if you are subscribed to my RSS feed, or if you check my weblog homepage, don’t think that someone may have taken over my weblog and made some havoc. It is probably just me making that havoc and checking out how that experience is going to work out. We shall see.
One thing though that I have noticed, while getting things ready, is that there are not many weblogs out there in the Spanish blogosphere around the subject of KM (Gestión de Conocimientos or Administración de Conocimientos). At least, I haven’t found any substantially interesting, and updated regularly, that I could add to my blogroll and share with you over here. I guess I would have to start small then. Thus if you are reading this and you know of a weblog written in Spanish dealing with topics related to KM, by all means please do let me know because there is a great chance that I would be subscribing (and linking) to it.
Right, that was it. I said it. It was about time! elsua.net is going bilingual from now onwards and I hope it proves to be an interesting and enriching experience. Oh, by the way, just in case your Spanish skills may be a bit rough or rather you may not be able to speak Spanish, not to worry, because you would be able to translate those weblog posts with one of the widgets I have been having on the weblog template for a while now. Just head down to on the right column and locate the section Translate This Page, select the corresponding language and translate away. Hopefully, the translation would be good enough to give you an idea and, if not, feel free to ask.
Finally, I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank three of my IBM fellow colleagues who have managed to continue further with that inspiration of jumping into the Spanish blogosphere: Fabián, César and Xavier. Thanks, guys !
Tags: Metablogging, elsua, Spanish blogs, Blogosphere, Blogosfera, Gestión de Conocimientos, Administración de Conocimientos, Fabián Gradolph, César Viteri, Xavier Verges
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November 24th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
You will be warmly welcome to the Spanish speaking blogosphere.
If you don’t want to mess it up with the rss feeds, I suggest you ask Xavier about his idea of providing feeds by category. That is to say, in your case it would be a feed for posts in English and another one for posts in Spanish.
Xavier has had another fascinating idea that I am considering: to move the tags up, just after the headline. His reasoning is strikinly simple: I read the headline, I read the tags and, if I am still interested, I read the post. César has adopted it. We could start an international tagging up movement!!!
November 25th, 2006 at 10:51 am
Luis, I am very glad you have decided to join us in the Blogosfera (part-time at least). People who are not fluent in English should not be spared from your wonderful insights
And I am sure also, that at least some of your English-speaking readers will appreciate the chance to hone their Spanish language skills.
By the way, Fabián is absolutely right: Xavier’s tags up idea is worth spreading. Let’s evangelize!!!
November 28th, 2006 at 12:05 am
Hello folks !
Thanks a lot for the nice welcome ! It feels good to be home! Fabián, you surely bring forward a very good point and actually this is something that I have been looking into in order to provide separate RSS feeds per category so that folks would be able to subscribe to them as they may see fit. One thing that I am contemplating at the moment is if I am going to be sharing all Spanish speaking posts under a single category or just use the usual category structure. I tend to go with the latter, but still need to look into that. As soon as I have got that sorted out I will go ahead and implement that RSS feed subscription by category. Thanks for the friendly reminder!
Regarding the moving up of the tags to the top of the weblog post, that is actually a superb idea ! And something that I have already implemented, see today’s weblog post, and which I will continue to make good use of in order to provide that quick introduction as to what the weblog post is all about and if it is interesting enough for folks they can just read through and if not they can move on to something else. Very good tip, indeed !
César, thanks a bunch for the heads up ! Appreciated the support thus far. You are right. I should have done something like this a long time ago, but then again I have just only got started with this weblog one year ago, so plenty of time to change things, adapt and move on to the next thing. I am sure that my Spanish speaking weblog posts would be of interest to a growing number of folks who would want to rather read some of my ideas on different topics or just simply practice their Spanish skills. Either way would be ok with me
Let’s go and start an international tagging up movement !
Thanks again for the feedback, folks !
November 28th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
[…] In the past, and in a couple of occasions, people have been asking me if I would be able to look into the request of placing RSS feeds per category in this particular weblog, so that folks would be able to filter even further the content they could grab themselves from elsua.net. The last one of those instances was actually coming from a fellow IBM colleague, Fabián Gradolph, in this particular weblog post, where he suggested I should look into it and see how easy it would be to implement, in order to help folks filter down those different weblog posts in Spanish. Well, while I am still thinking about that and how I am going to be sharing those Spanish speaking weblog posts over here I thought I would share with you why I really like WordPress.org. […]
January 25th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
[…] Hace un par de meses comenté aquí mismo, en este blog, otro de los cambios que iba a introducir a partir de entonces: el hecho de empezar a escribir artículos en español para poder entrar a formar parte de la blogosfera española. Y aunque parece ser que llego un poco tarde (Más vale tarde que nunca, ya lo sabéis), el hecho es que aquí me tenéis escribiendo este primer artículo del año en español y esperando que las palabras salgan con la misma facilidad. Veremos. […]