Tags: IBM, Lotusphere, Lotusphere2007, Social Computing, Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Lotus Connections, Lotus Quickr, Knowledge Management, Collaboration, Communities, Knowledge Tools

They say that a picture is worth while a thousand words but what happens when you get your hands on a whole bunch of cool pictures around two of the IBM Lotus social computing tools that are creating some incredible buzz over at IBM’s Lotusphere 2007 currently taking place this week?:

IBM Lotus Quickr:

(Originally uploaded by Ed Brill in Flickr)

IBM Lotus Connections:

Thanks, Rob!, for sending those pictures along! I knew I had to be there! Time now to continue reading some more!

Oh, did you, folks, also check out Lotusphere in Second Life? Sigh. I didn’t make it in the end either as I had another conflict at 10am EST, but it seems like it was plenty of good fun! Anyone out there who attended it live who care to comment and share their thoughts?

Tags: IBM, Lotusphere, Lotusphere2007, Social Computing, Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Lotus Connections, Lotus Notes, Notes 8, Lotus Quickr, Lotus Sametime 7.5, Sametime 7.5, Technorati, Knowledge Management, Collaboration, Communities, Knowledge Tools

I am excited, folks. I am really excited ! I have been looking forward to the last couple of days big big time! Over the last few days I have been reading a whole bunch of different weblog posts, news items, reviews, etc. etc., you name it, on what is probably well known as IBM’s event of the events year after year. Yes, I am, indeed, talking about IBM’s Lotusphere. I am sure that by now you have probably heard all about it, but, just in case, IBM’s Lotusphere 2007 is way under way with some really exciting piece of news that I am hoping to be able to share with you as we move along. I am still catching up with the huge amount of information that is being put together for the event and that is starting to come out of it. Mind-blowing!

Yes, that is right, if there would be a couple of words that could describe what Lotusphere 2007 has been thus far I guess I could just sum it all up with these two: Social Computing at its best. That is right, if there is any strong message coming out from the current event taking place in Orlando till the 25th of January is that social computing is making its way into the enterprise. And big time! Yes, the so-called Enterprise 2.0 made real. Very real!

I wish I would be able to share some further insights on a number of the different discussions and conversations taking place covering some of the major announcements. Lots of really exciting news touching base on quite a lot of the topics that I have been touching base with over here in this particular weblog. So what I have decided to do, and while you would have to bear with me on this, is that first I am actually digesting dozens and dozens of different news items and weblog posts on how people feel about what they have seen already, specially with some of the major announcements regarding some social software tools that IBM will be making available this year, like Lotus Connections, Lotus Notes 8, Lotus Quickr and Lotus Sametime 7.5.1.

Then, after that, I will actually start sharing my two cents on what I feel are the most relevant resources from the event itself and which could match very well the topics I have been discussing over here all along. So that you get a bit more information than just what has been said thus far. And, most importantly, to keep the conversations going on such insightful set of topics.

I am consciously not including any links at the moment in this particular weblog entry other than the main homepage to Lotusphere 2007 and the Technorati tag Lotusphere2007 so that I can keep things organised a bit as I get to weblog on stuff that I have found really useful and interesting for the main topics discussed over here in this particular weblog. Thus from now on you would be hearing from me quite a bit on this particular event as there are tons of really inspiring stuff that would help spread social computing and social computing within the enterprise and, much more importantly, help out Knowledge Management and Collaboration come back with a big splash! Thus stay tuned for more weblog posts to come…

Tags: Metablogging, Enrique Dans, Blogger, WordPress, Libertad Digital, Plugins, LiveCommentPreview, Ease of Use, Open Source, DeLurking, Blogstudio

Continuing further with some of the recent changes that I have put together over here in elsua, here I go again with another metaweblog post to give you some details, and some further food for thought, on one particular addition that I have put together not long ago and that, till recently, I really didn’t think about it that much, until I finally saw it in one of the weblogs that I get to read on a regular basis: El Blog de Enrique Dans, one of the most influential weblogs out there, written in Spanish. No doubt.

Yes, that is right, but before I go into it, let me just give you a little background of where I am coming from. I have been reading Enrique’s weblog for quite some time now, even from way before, when he was still using Blogger as his main weblogging engine. Time and time again I was having a number of different issues with it, specially while reading it through my RSS feeds by creating double entries, read marks turning unread again for no apparent reason, etc. etc. So when he decided he was ready to make the move away from Blogger and into WordPress, I thought it would be a really interesting experience to see how things would improve from there onwards. On both sides, for himself as the weblog writer and for me as one of his many readers.

Oh, yes!!!, and how that experience has changed the way I enjoy his weblog articles nowadays! From what I can tell, things have changed as well for him, from the perspective where it looks like he has just  opened himself to a whole brave new world with WordPress. At least, that is what you would be able to read from his recent contribution to Libertad Digital (Article written in Spanish, by the way) and which he mentioned as well over at his own weblog. It looks like he has enjoyed quite a bit the particular move to this weblogging engine that most of us have learned to appreciate and praise.

Yes, his experience, detailing how he has managed with the move from one weblogging platform to another, has been quite revealing, to say the least. Check out the much more detailed account provided by the folks who helped him with the transition. The guys over at Blogestudio. So much so that while reading through it all I just couldn’t agree more with how lucky I was at the very beginning of my weblogging attempts for being exposed to WordPress and decided to stick around with it. I don’t think I would have been weblogging till now if it weren’t for such a platform. As simple as that. The level of detail, the ease of use, the huge amount of incredible developers putting together some of the most impressive plugins under an Open Source license, the level of support, the amazing response time to security issues with the platform and so forth (Did I mentioned that it is free as well? ) are just perks that we always seem to take for granted but perhaps we shouldn’t.

Take, for example, the latest plugin addition to this particular weblog of mine: LiveCommentPreview. How something so simple, and relatively easy to install, as providing a user interface towards typing your own comments in real time to a particular weblog post can be yet so powerful. Yes, indeed, LiveCommentPreview may be a really simplistic plugin, but it is actually that particular capability what perhaps attracted Enrique to put it up together in his weblog in the first place. And like him, myself, too!

For a number of weeks, I have actually been thinking about how unfriendly it is actually to leave comments over here, in this particular weblog. I know that quite a few folks out there do have a preview option, and some others really handy WYSIWYG text editors, but I was actually looking for something a whole lot easier to install and use. And with LiveCommentPreview I found it. So I installed it and you would be able to see it now up and running for every single weblog post. That way you get a chance to check what you type before you submit it in real time. Quite handy, if you ask me! I wish many other weblogs out there would have the same capability.

Either way, what it started as watching how an influential weblogger detailed his experiences moving from one weblogging platform to another, which happens to be the same one I am using, has given me the chance to put together some further improvements for the user experience of this particular weblog. So next time you share a comment over here, yes, I realise that National Delurking Week is now over, I hope that user experience is a whole lot easier. If not, give me a shout. If yes, all I can say is …

WordPress rocks!

Tags: Snap, Snap Preview Anywhere, Metablogging, Widgets, WordPress, WordPress.com, Thumbnails

Yesterday I mentioned how over the course of the next few days I am actually going to introduce a number of different changes here in elsua in order to try to help improve the user experience not only for myself but also for yourselves, the readers of this weblog. So for the last few weeks I have been following up on a number of different offerings, services and widgets that I feel would be worth while exploring further and I have already decided on implementing a couple of them and see how things would go further from there.

One of the offerings that I have found quite interesting and worth while deploying over here as well is one that has created quite a bit of controversy out there in the blogosphere. To me though is perhaps one very interesting option, specially for those particular weblogs that have got a tendency to link multiple times to other various resources in a single weblog entry. Yes, indeed, I am talking about Snap Preview Anywhere.

I first saw it implemented in a number of the different weblogs that I follow and in most of them the reactions from the audience were rather positive and since I quite enjoyed myself I thought about giving it a try and so far I am loving the experience quite a bit. What a fantastic tool, folks!

The way it works is pretty easy. You just basically enter the URL of your weblog, or Web site, then enter a security token and your e-mail address, accept the terms and conditions and off you go. You get a javascript which you can include in your weblog template and ready to go. Well, it gets better, because there is also a WordPress plugin available for it (Notice as well that Wordpress.com is already trying this very same tool in some weblogs) with which you would just need to have a key and activate it like you normally do with other different plugins and ready! You got to love WordPress. Nifty!

Thus from here onwards you would notice how I have added Snap Preview Anywhere over here in elsua and every time that you hover over a link or you head over to one you would see a small pop-up window coming up that would give you a snapshot or thumbnail of the link where you would be heading, so you can just have a quick look and decide if you would want to go there or not.

As I said, quite a nice addition to any particular weblog or Web site and worth while installing for those folks who tend to link quite often to other weblogs. Highly recommended!

Tags: Life, Work, Work Life Balance, WLB, Vacation, Holidays, Work, Reborn, Gran Canaria, Photos, Flickr, Metablogging

Yes, indeed, where did it go? Yesterday was my first day at work after a whole sabbatical month being disconnected from most things, trying to unwind from everything, that is, and, by the looks of it, I must say that I may have succeeded on that. More than anything else because this first work day of the year has been rather busier than whatever I would have anticipated. I am still catching up with both my personal and business e-mail, and although I am done with the RSS feeds catchup (Don’t ask me how many, but I think I have gone through several thousand articles and news items!), I still need to catch up with everything else. I am sure you can all relate to that drill.

Either way, I had a great time ! At the very beginning of my holidays, way back in December last year, I actually had plenty of different plans, including some more weblogging on both of my Internet weblogs, even though I was away on vacation, but it looks like this time around life won the ever lasting work / life battle and I am glad it did. It felt really nice!

Yes, I have now got a lot to catch up with, but I had some incredible time during the course of that month with a whole bunch of highlights and one thing that I know for sure is that it was good that I took that sabbatical month, including weblogging as well. I doubt there would be anything else better than disconnecting, every now and then, from everything, re-charge yourself and get back in full force.

That is right, lots of time to think about different things. New challenges and several other changes that would be taking place and that I would be letting you know about as we go along, as some of them would be affecting all of my weblogs and my activity out there in the blogosphere. But one step at a time.

For the time being, I am going to finish off this first weblog post from 2007 by talking about some of the highlights from this sabbatical month that I have just been enjoying quite a bit:

1. First (Still thinking of it…), I was re-born on the 30th of December 2006. Yes, I know, it took me several decades for my wake up moment, and I, finally, got it on that day. I am sure plenty of you folks out there could relate to that to some extent as well.

2. Secondly, for the first time in a long long while, it was the first vacation period where I was disconnected from everything with hardly any access to the Internet. Yes, I know, at the beginning it hurts. It almost feels like you are naked or something, but after the first week it grows on you and till today ! Highly recommended!

3. And, finally, one of the other highlights is that I got to visit a number of different stunning places here in Gran Canaria, where I live. And, of course, I took a whole bunch of different pictures, some of which I have already shared in my Flickr account. So over the next few days I will actually be sharing some more of those and provide some further insights from each of them, but, as a teaser, here you have got some I took from those places I visited:

Wonderful! Oh, by the way, I did see just before posting this weblog entry that a few folks have been commenting on different weblog entries, so I would ask you to bear with me for a day or so and I will get to reply to those thoughts as well. Some really good input shared all over the place ! Thus thanks a bunch for that and keep the conversation(s) flowing! Regular weblogging activities, with a whole bunch of surprises coming up very soon!, is just about to get going !

It is good to be back!