I am now back from vacation and, as you may have guessed, it was wonderful! I had a fantastic time enjoying some lovely weather, good food, good friends and plenty of good old fun. And today first day back at work. Ouch ! That hurt ! Well, not really. I am just back at work and already got tons of stuff to catch up with ! It looks like things have been busy all over the place. As you may have guessed, I am actually doing some serious catchup with everything else while I have been away, because, for the first time in a while, I have been able to stay away in disconnect mode and enjoy some more of real life. Goodness ! Totally worth it !

Life won again on that ever lasting battle between work and life balance. Alas, the catchup is taking priority at the moment. So back to getting into the swing of things: talking to colleagues, e-mails, RSS feeds, newsgroups and a long etc. etc. of other activities that just keep popping up from all over the place. Yes, the usual thing. I am sure you know all about it, too. However, this time around I got lots of exciting stuff to weblog about as well ! So you would have to bear with me for a couple of days before I am in full force once again.

And in order to get things going, and I know that this is probably going to make this weblog post a bit longer than I expected, so bear with me just some more, I wanted to share with you a recent article I got published on the IBM’s Intranet around the subject of Weblogging. Indeed, just before going on vacation a colleague of mine, Wanda Richards, asked me if I could write an article around the subject of Weblogs; what they are; why they are worth while from an enterprise adoption perspective; what some of their main capabilities are; why it would be worth while having perhaps both an internal and external weblog; in short, my very own experience as a weblogger for the last three years that I have been weblogging away.

And this is just what you are about to read further on from here onwards. I know that most of you out there do not have access to that article behind the firewall so I am going to reproduce it over here in its entirety so that you get to read some more further about what weblogging has meant to me and why I will keep going at it for as long as I am able to. So here it goes. Hope you enjoy it just as much as I did writing it:

"Some time ago Wanda Richards asked me to write up an article about something that I have been so passionate about for so long that I just couldn’t ignore the invitation: weblogs or, in short, blogs. I am sure that by now, one way or another, you have all been exposed to the world of weblogs, also known as Blogosphere, whether we talk internally or externally. So I am going to skip that.

However, what I am certainly going to do is just relate in this article:

* some of the advantages of having a blog
* why you would want to start your own.

At the same time I hope to be able to show as well some of the main reasons as to why I have decided to keep several weblogs, one internal and two external, throughout the years.

Most people think that blogs are that new Internet phenomenon where you get to find out all about some frustrated people who are lazing about the whole day long in their pyjamas doing nothing else than whining and complaining about why the world has turned upside down against them. While I am not going to deny the fact that out of over 55 million blogs there may be some of them out there which would follow those patterns very close, it is also a well known fact that blogs are a whole lot more than that.

Blogs are all about sharing your passion with others, about diving into the conversations and showing everyone what’s in your mind at any given point in time. Blogs are also all about being committed, involved, out in the open and naked, always with a growing urge to share your subject matter expertise with others.

They are incredibly powerful sources for people to share their tacit knowledge (their know how) and collaborate in a new medium where everyone is at the same level. That is, the same conversation.

Bloggers get to write about their passion for whatever the topic, whether it is work, personal or life related, and the audience gets to enjoy as well some of that same passion. Yes, over time, blogs become addictive and contagious because, amongst many other things, they allow you to be yourself.

If there is anything key to any blog, and perhaps one the biggest advantages of maintaining one, is the fact that through a blog you allow your audience to build up further on your mutual trust levels. Yes, that is right.

Blogging is a very powerful medium for boosting your trust with others and that is because in a blog you actually get to share your passion on a particular topic, or set of topics, and that way you allow people to get to know much more about you than with whatever other collaborative tool.

People will come back to your blog over and over again because you are opening yourself, and your expertise, to them.

And this is where the whole thing about the social software mentality kicks in. Blogs are all about sharing information and knowledge, socially, with others.

Finally, if there would be another characteristic quite emblematic about blogs I would say that it is probably Thought Leadership and Innovation.

* Thought leadership from the perspective where through your blog you position yourself in the field you are passionate about by sharing your thoughts and ideas about it in a space where you allow others to participate further from that knowledge sharing.

You lead the way with your blog, and they would follow you. And the other way around, too! You lead the way to then find out that your audience is the one leading you! That is what blogs could do to you.
* And innovation from the perspective that having a blog gives you the opportunity to engage in new conversations that you wouldn’t have had a chance to establish ever before.

Sharing your thoughts with a worldwide audience with a single click of a button, with no other intermediaries, where you are in control of what you would want to share and engaging further with your audience, collaborating in whatever the topic, is probably innovation at its best. Yes, indeed, that is what social software tools like blogs would do to you, too.

So, coming to the end of this article, I guess you would all be anxious to give blogging a try. Let me tell you how worth it would be.

I would dare say, and this is coming along to you from my own experience in blogging, that if you allow yourself to start a blog, and maintain it on a regular basis, it would change not only your professional career for the better, but it would also impact your own personal life in a way that you would never ever have anticipated before.

And as an example, check out the following weblog post I shared where through my blog I got to have one of the most incredible experiences I have ever had in a recent trip to the US, where amongst other things, I got to meet up with one of the Knowledge Management fathers who has been a KM leader all along throughout the years and that without my blog I would have never been able to meet up.

So, what do you think? Can it get better than that? I doubt it. Start your blog today and do not leave it for tomorrow! It would be too late."

Thus, there you have it. My very own take on what weblogging is all about and why you should consider it from the perspective of adopting social software within the enterprise to help you collaborate and share your knowledge with others in perhaps much more effective and efficient ways than ever before. At least, worth a try.  And, yes, I know this is a bit of a long weblog post today, but I think it was worth while sharing it over here as well as I do get a few questions every now and then from people who read elsua.net who want to know some more about where I am coming from and why I started weblogging about three years ago. So this particular weblog post and that article should help provide a bit more background around those questions and their answers. Off now to do some more on that serious catchup with things. Back later …

Over the last couple of days I have been on holidays and still have got some more to go. All along it has been a great opportunity for me to unwind off from everything, disconnect, re-charge my batteries and get ready for when I come back. However, it has also provided me with the unique opportunity of visiting a stunning place that I can certainly recommend to everyone if they would ever get to Gran Canaria: Palmitos Park. It is supposed to be "the best zoological and botanical part in the Canary Islands" and it surely keeps its name by providing an incredible experience.

I have been living here in Gran Canaria for nearly three years and until this week I never managed to find a good opportunity to be able to make it. Till the day before yesterday. And goodness ! Did I have a great time or what ? It is certainly a fascinating place for everyone, both kids and adults and it would certainly keep you entertained for a good couple of hours. Every so often they have got different shows at display, like an exotic birds show, or the well known Parrot Show, an Encounter with reptiles, a bird of prey show and so much more. Yes, indeed, totally worth it! And money very well spent, indeed!

So, as I said, I got to go there with a couple of good friends and we surely enjoy the afternoon. We were there for nearly three hours and I am sure we could have stayed longer. We took a whole bunch of different pictures from different animals and the flora around the place and you would be able to find them over at my Flickr account. Throughout this weblog post I have already placed some of the ones I have enjoyed the most, but I can certainly suggest you go and check out all the others to see some wonderful pictures of nature at its best !

Only thing that was truly disappointing was my digital camera, which for the first time in about 18 months decided to play funny and didn’t allow me to take as many pictures as I would have wished. In fact, I took plenty of them more, but apparently my digital camera had other plans and decided to just take half of what I took. Frustrating, because some of the best snap shots I took were from the bunch of pictures that didn’t come out ! Yes, only one word I can think of: disappointing and frustrating. Whooops, yes, that is two words !

Well, I guess I have got to look at it from the positive side. I will be back again to Palmitos Park. And soon ! As soon as within this same year ! So stay tuned because I hope that second time, where I wish, too, there would be some more stunning weather coming along, I would be bringing rather a fix digital camera or a new one We shall see. For the time being, enjoying some of the pictures I could take and which came out and have just as much fun with them as I did !

Time now to enjoy my holiday weekend !

Tags: Palmitos Park, Gran Canaria, Zoo, Botanic Garden, Canary Islands, Fauna, Flora

Every now and then I always keep trying to collect a number of different online resources and helpful tips on something so important for all of us, sitting in front of our computers, as helping prevent RSI, that is, Repetitive Strain Injury. Far too many times I have been exposed to a number of different colleagues and friends who have been suffering from such disorder to different degree that over time I have grown to become more and more conscious about trying to prevent it. So that is why, whenever I bump into helpful resources on the subject, I feel like linking to them hoping that others would be able to benefit from them in order to try to avoid RSI.

And that is why I wanted to create this weblog post today and point you to a recent entry that Jeremy Wagstaff, over at The Loose Wire Blog, created under the title Director of RSI Software. In there you would be able to find a whole lot of different resources and RSI related software that would certainly help you get some more awareness of what you could do to prevent such disorder. Here is a quick rundown on how that software tries to help:

1. "Working out how long you’ve been at the keyboard and reminds you to take breaks;
2. Suggesting exercises for you to perform while you’re taking those breaks;
3. Records macros (shortcuts) to specific tasks you do a lot so you don’t have to use the keyboard as much (especially keystroke combinations);
4. Reduces mouse usage by allowing you to control the mouse from the keyboard (including dragging)
5. Reducing mouse clicks by automating the process (move the cursor over something you want to click on and hold it there, and the software figures out you want to click and does it for you)"

As I said, going through the entire article will help you check out on some of the different options available out there and how you can get the most out of each of them. Oh, and if you are wondering about what my favourite piece of RSI software is I would have to agree with Jeremy as well: Workrave. A very ease to install - use that gives you multiple options to self-regulate your own pauses according to your own needs and quite unobtrusive when it is not needed. And when it is needed with the different breaks, the best there is. It will block your keyboard and will gently advise you to go away from the computer and do something else, like stretching or whatever else.

And best part of it is that it is freeware, so you wouldn’t have to pay any money in order to keep you healthy while staying in front of your computer for all those hours. I tell you, if you haven’t tried out Workrave just yet and if you are starting to feel that little tingling then I strongly advise you download it today and get to use it right away. And in the mean time you can also go and check out the different  options suggested by Jeremy, which I am sure would be able to provide some really good tips, too 

(Kudos to Jeremy for sharing this helpful weblog post with us all and for digging out all these interesting and worth while exploring tools to help us keep sharp at what we do. Thanks, Jeremy!)

Tags: RSI, Repetitive Strain Injury, Prevention, Disorder, Loose Wire Blog, Jeremy Wagstaff, Workrave

In the past, you may recall how I have been talking a few times about one of my favourite social software tools out there for teams, communities, and whatever other groups, to get together to collaborate and share knowledge with one another in order to be able to codify some of that tacit knowledge that abounds all over the place. Yes, indeed, wikis. Well, to continue building up further on that wiki social software evangelism here is a really interesting article that I have bumped into thanks to elearningpost titled Why Wikis Are Conquering the Enterprise by Michael Hickins and  that I though you would also be interested in reading up further.

In that particular article you would be able to find some interesting and relevant facts as to how much wikis are actually impacting the way knowledge workers get to share knowledge and collaborate within the enterprise, in such a way that they have been able to provide much more value in most cases than making use of some other traditional collaborative tools. For instance, the prediction from Gartner analyst Kathy Harris indicating that "by 2009, 50 percent of U.S. companies will be using wikis". That is just huge, don’t you think ?

What I really liked about the article itself as well, when conveying how relevant wikis are becoming within the enterprise, is the fact that their adoption has been promoted following the trends from the consumer market regarding its own acceptance: from bottom to top. So there would be a good chance that plenty of different project teams and communities may already be using wikis to collaborate, even though companies may not have adopted them widely just yet. Thus those grassroots efforts seem to be having the most significant impact within corporations: that of knowledge workers trying to get their jobs done through the frequent use of wikis to reach out to others and share whatever they would need or want to.

Another important aspect from the article itself that highlights the impact from wikis within businesses is the fact that they are helping out big time boosting innovation by allowing knowledge workers to find a space where they can freely hang out, share what they know, collaborate with others, make it better, reuse it, implement it, in short, innovating at its best. Here is another interesting quote that reflects on that fostering of innovation within businesses:

"Wikis also help address another problem companies have struggled with for years, which is how to collect and retain knowledge that is in people’s heads or in unstructured documents like e-mail.

Previous so-called knowledge-management solutions have foundered because people are loathe to spend time thanklessly regurgitating their experiences into some knowledge repository for the good of the company.

Wikis, on the other hand, are a more natural way for people to explain their thought processes and get kudos along the way."

That is just so spot on ! And totally in agreement with the initial paragraph I wrote above from this particular weblog post. More and more knowledge workers are finding their way through to wikis in order to share more of that tacit knowledge, that know how, that is actually helping enterprises codify most of the knowledge that was not possible in the recent past using whatever other traditional Intellectual Capital repositories. For many years, plenty of people have been having issues with sharing that Intellectual Capital in different places with which they couldn’t find a single connection. So their knowledge was stored consistently rather in their heads, or their own personal computers, or some obscured databases with access to only a few, which would make it really hard to find and reuse that IC.

However, wikis are becoming ever more popular than ever before because they have got that inherent flavour of social sharing. Sharing within a group, i.e. a team or a community, with some very high visibility on everything that is happening and with some instant gratification of having knowledge workers working through different wiki pages adding content on top of each other’s content. Yes, that gratifying feeling that they are owning part of the knowledge shared along with some others and that they are helping by contributing into something bigger. I know that some folks out there would probably say that most people do not feel comfortable with that. And that is perhaps too true, and an issue to do with the fact that people may not have been able to make the switch just yet and start to trust  each other some more in order to do the right thing.

After all, they are all on the same boat building up a better knowledge repository that could be reused all over the place at a later time. So that wide adoption of wikis within the enterprise may not be just yet at the level you would expect. And that is fine. There is no rush. The grassroots efforts I mentioned above are there already. And they are quite strong, so I am sure that it would just be a matter of time before wikis become second nature and part of the business as usual processes. And you know what? I can’t wait for it to happen, because the very moment that takes place social software will certainly transform enterprises into Enterprise 2.0. And that is not a fad. It is here to stay.

Tags: Wikis, Social Software, Web 2.0, Social Networking, Enterprise Wikis, Enterprise 2.0, Knowledge Management, KM, KM 2.0, Innovation, Tacit Knowledge, Knowledge Sharing, Collaboration, Communities, Teamwork, Intellectual Capital, Explicit Knowledge

As you may have noticed, yesterday I didn’t get a chance to post anything here, in elsua, as things were a bit hectic everywhere and some of that stuff needed my immediate attention. But now that is over here I am, once again, sharing with you that weekly weblog post where I try to put together some of the most popular discussions that have been taking place over at my other Internet weblog: elsua - The Knowledge Management Blog. It looks like last week’s discussions were more popular and significant around the subject of social software and how it is actually impacting the enterprise in its adoption. So you would be able to find out some interesting new facts about how Web 2.0 is entering the corporate world along with some other productivity tools that I have become very fond of and which I am hoping you would be able to check out for yourself further a bit, if you are also looking for some advice in that area.

So with all that said, here you have got the Top 5 most popular weblog post from elsua - The Knowledge Management Blog over the course of last week. Hope you enjoy them just as much as I did putting them together:

1. Importance of Empowering Your People through Trust and Social Software: While I was browsing through my daily ITtoolbox RSS feeds I have actually bumped into a fantastic weblog post put together by Larry Cone that touches base on how you, as a manager, can get the most out of your knowledge workers by simply empowering them to do what they need to do with just some little help: your trust. Check out Importance of Empowering Your People where you would be able to read some interesting insights as to what top management should be and how it should distance itself more and more from that traditional mentality of command-and-control that was not going anywhere. At least, not where the business and the knowledge workers would be getting the most benefits from.

2. Newzie - Finding Your Near-Perfect RSS Feed Client In the following weblog post I have tried to detail what are two of the most powerful RSS feed reader clients I have been exposed in the last few months as a way to actually introduce the latest release made a few days ago about one of them, which has now become one of my two favourites and for a number of reasons. That RSS feed client is Newzie and here is a small review of why you may want to look into it yourself. Yes, not to worry, it is also freeware.

3. How Is Your Email Etiquette?: It looks like this particular weblog post seems to have been rather popular as well last week, just as much as the previous week. Somehow it looks like e-mail still pulls its act together as the most preferred collaboration tool (If you can say that) and knowledge workers definitely want to know how to get the most out of it !

4. KMWorld and Intranets 2006: October 31st - November 2nd - California: Got anything to do from October 31st to November the 2nd? Are you going to miss out on the Knowledge Management event of events? Want to have a sneak preview of what such an incredible event is going to be like? Then look no further. This weblog post will provide you with some details around the "KMWorld and Intranets 2006" event, taking place this year in San Jose, California. The KM event of events! Find out why…

5. Web 2.0 for the Rest of Us - Another Directory of Wonderful Things: Here is another weblog post where I get to comment on another Web 2.0 directory of useful social software applications that folks can go and check out. In the past I have talked several times about different options available out there and this one, GO2WEB20, is just another one worth while having a look and investigating further. Why not? After all don’t we all making lists of everything ?

Well, that was it again, folks. As you may have noticed once of the things that I have been doing with this type of weblog posts is to basically grab the syndicated summary of the weblog posts and added them as a short description of what the weblog entries are all about and those where the article may be about a subject we may have seen in previous weeks I would just a short commentary about it indicating my thoughts on the actual post a week later. Hopefully, you would be able to find those entries just as interesting as I have. And if you would want to dive into the conversations feel free to do so over here or rather over at elsua - The Knowledge Management Blog. Both ways would work for me. Till next week! And time now for the next weblog post…

Tags: elsua, Knowledge Management, KM, Collaboration, Trust, Social Software, Web 2.0, Social Networking, Newzie, E-mail, Etiquette, KMWorld, KM2006, GO2WEB20

Fancy doing some really interesting and thought provoking reading on the always fascinating subject of technology’s impact in everyone’s day to day life? Yes, I know, I bet you would. Check out then Thomas Friedman’s So close, yet so far, over at International Herald Tribune, where he actually gets to share a great story on the impact of technology on him and those around him, specially in a recent trip to Paris where he actually got to interact, if you could say that, with a local taxi driver. I can certainly recommend highly for you to go and read the article because in it you would be able to find little gems like this one:

"[...] The driver and I had been together for an hour, and between the two of us we had been doing six different things. He was driving, talking on his phone and watching a video. I was riding, working on my laptop and listening to my iPod

There was only one thing we never did: talk to each other."

Or this other one:

"I relate all this because it illustrates something I’ve been feeling more and more lately - that technology is dividing us as much as uniting us. Yes, technology can make the far feel near. But it can also make the near feel very far [...]"

And there are plenty more! I am sure that by the time you finish off its reading you would agree to some extent with what Thomas mentions and perhaps you could even relate to it, too. I know I have. Not here where I live, though. It is a rather small place still to be noticed by technology with such impact, but certainly in most of my travelling done over the last few years more and more I am noticing that, too.

However, the key message I got from Thomas’ article is that, contrary to what he seems to state, I do not necessarily feel that is a bad thing, actually. Yes, I can imagine when situations like that could be rather annoying as they facilitate providing a strong sense of ignoring those around you, but at the same time there are times when you are actually much better on your own and technology may be providing you with the perfect excuse for it. The key message to me though is to find a balance, because like I have quoted a few months back: "We create our own distractions and just need to learn to manage them".

So that is the whole point to me about Thomas’ article, that sometimes it is good to be left alone thinking about your own thoughts and some other times it is good to talk (with others). The key thing is to be able to distinguish when to do what and for what purpose and whom is it going to have an impact on. Because whether we like it or not, Thomas’s article is not bringing forward anything new in this scenario. For quite some time now, there have always been plenty of distractions around us and it has been up to us to decide when we would need to focus and when not. And if it has happened in the past for a number of years I just cannot see how technology is going to have such an impact. If it is used properly, that is.

As a wrap up to this weblog post let me now point you to a letter to the editor where a couple of folks have been commenting as well on this particular article. Check out Letters: Being good, Technology and Society. And specially read the commentary from Rhonda Kelner, whose last paragraph reads as follows:

"IPods, cellphones and laptops should certainly be shut-off at times, and used with great caution, or not at all in some situations, but these gadgets don’t necessarily stymie human interaction and attention. Indeed they often stimulate conversations about technology."

Just brilliant!

Tags: Technology, Thomas Friedman, Interruptions, Distractions, IHT, Technology Impact