E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez

Heartbeats

Tags: Hearbeats, YouTube, Jose Gonzalez, Unplugged, Live, Chill out Tunes

It has been a hard week, I know. Too long, perhaps. For me, too. I just cannot wait for the weekend to get started, I tell you. Specially, on a week like this one where things haven’t stopped for just a few minutes to chill out a bit, relax and get back on top of it. Phew! Yes, one of those weeks… Sigh.

Well, what a better way then to start celebrating the weekend than keeping this weblog entry short, enjoying some fine tunes with some incredible lyrics and get slowly in the right mood. It has been a little while since I have last shared a video clip in here so without much further ado, here is one of those songs that helps stop everything, relax, chill out and … move on!

(You would probably remember the song as it was used for a very popular commercial, but this version is just … priceless!)

Ziki – Your Own Personal e-Card on the Web

Tags: Facebook, Twitter, Ziki, Flickr, Blogs, BlinkList, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Web 2.0, Tagging, Tags, Tagclouds, Syndication, Groups, Communities, OPML, LinkedIn, XING, MyBlogLog, Frappr, Ex.plode.us, Knowledge Management, Knowledge Sharing, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, e-Card

While most of the folks I get to read in my feeds on a daily basis have been trying out Facebook for the last few weeks, where it has exploded incredibly, I have actually been kind of busy with something else. Also while some of those folks have been pushing me to give up and join them, I have been busy watching how one of my favourite social computing tools from all time has been getting a facelift, and a lovely one, I must admit. Yes, that is right, I am still resisting entering the Facebook world. Most of my Twitter friends know why, mainly privacy issues of getting asked some nasty questions that I am not sure a social network tool should be asking, after all. But anyway, I am still resisting.

So while all of that has been going on, I have been quietly watching how one of the social networking tools I have been using for a good number of months has gone through a superb upgrade and now, more than ever, I have been enjoying most of the original features, plus a whole bunch more of the different additions put together. Yes, indeed, I am talking about Ziki, to me, one of the most interesting and powerful people portals out there!

In the past, I have been talking about Ziki a few times already, and during all this time, one of the things that I have realised about is that, as time goes by, I keep using it more and more, to the point where it is part of my daily online interactions along with some other social software tools. I heart Ziki, indeed, and from the very first moment that I got exposed to it. To me, it is one of the most elegant, simple, effective and straight to the point social networking tools that helps you aggregate all of your online content with a single point of contact and at the same time connect with other folks who may share similar interests, knowledge and experiences.

You may be wondering what is so special about Ziki at this point in time, right? Well, check out my Ziki profile to find out why. And if that is not enough, here you have got five quick reasons why you should look into Ziki yourself, if you are looking for a tool to syndicate all of your online content and build up your own unified online persona, like I have been able to do myself. So here you have got those different reasons:

1. Aggregation all of your online content in a single space: Yes, that is right. If you check out my own Ziki, as an example, you would be able to see online content from my Flickr account, my twitterings, all of my Internet blogs, my BlinkList bookmarks, my Feedburner and Technorati profiles, and the list goes on and on and on. If anyone would want to know the different places I have been sharing stuff people would just need to check my Ziki and off you go.

2. Addition of different basic social networking features: Apart from what I have just mentioned above, you would also be able tag your profile, your own content, other people, connect with them, join different interest groups, syndicate your content with the different feeds, group your list of friends and fans, watch out over different types of tagclouds of key terms, etc. etc. Yes, I know, all the bells and whistles we have all learned to love from various other social software tools. Pretty nifty.

3. Ability to create groups with common interests: This is one of the features that I like the most, although we may not have seen its full potential just yet. It may not have reached the critical mass you would expect of having multiple groups, i.e. multiple communities coming around to meet the needs of most users, but having the ability of setting up your own groups and stay in touch with them directly inside of the tool itself is quite handy, as you would be able to combine both the individual aspects of Ziki next to the group ones. I just wish more folks would be on it to provide many more relevant groups to connect with.

4. Ability to share your reading interests by importing your own OPML: This is perhaps one of my favourite reasons / features why I heart Ziki so much. And that is the fact that I can share my OPML file with everyone that may be interested in my feeds and when displaying the different categories you can down a customised OPML file and just add that one. Beautiful! That way people can subscribe to my KM or Social Computing or Learning feeds without even having to ask me for the OPML file. Incredibly helpful, to be honest.

5. A single URL address as your own e-Card: And, finally, on other of my favourite reasons. The fact that my Ziki profile, for the last few months, has become my online e-Card that I keep sharing all over the place. Examples, like my e-mail closing information (I no longer have lengthy details all over the place, just a single URL and that would be it!), or my LinkedIn or XING profiles, then MyBlogLog, Twitter Id, Frappr, Ex.plode.us, and my basic contact details like e-mail address, IM and VoIP clients, location, etc. etc. are now part of a single, very easy to remember, URL address that I can place anywhere else I would want to. Just brilliant!

And that would be it, folks, five reasons, five different key features, why, after the latest upgrade, you may want to check out Ziki as one of the best options out there to help create and maintain, rather easily, your own online persona, your own people portal! I know there are plenty more features you would be able to take advantage of, but those would be the ones that still keep me busy with it and away from entering other social networking tools like Facebook. Now we just need to have Ziki providing us with the opportunity to build up a business card with some of that data that we can print out and we are ready to do some business! Ziki rules!

Lotus Quickr and Lotus Connections Now Available for Download!

Tags: IBM, Lotus Connections, Connections, Lotus Quickr, Quickr, Social Computing, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Communities, Innovation, iPhone, Gizmodo, Nokia, N95, Ed Brill, Stuart McIntyre, WJS, William Bulkeley, Blog Central, Dogear, Profiles

Oh my … what a day! Again, one of those where you wake up in the morning, freshen up a bit, make a nice cup of coffee, get down to work and your agenda is completely packed with text from various different meetings and conference calls that you cannot see anything else at all! Goodness! How did that happen? I am glad that tomorrow I have got an easier day than today, to be honest, because otherwise it would be a killer. Anyway, here I am again, writing this weblog post, where I want to share with you some incredibly good news on a couple of announcements from several various offerings that I have been following up for a while and which I would want to share with you.

In the past you have seen how I have been covering both IBM‘s Lotus Connections and Lotus Quickr several times, right? How all along I have been talking about them sharing some further thoughts on what they are, how they work and what they are trying to achieve within the social computing space for the enterprise; and how IBM has been making use of some of its components for several years. You would remember as well how I have been commenting that both products would be seeing the light of a gold release very shortly out there in the market as fully available offerings for customers to check out further, right?

Well, wait no more! The time has arrived! Today! Two days earlier than expected, and way before the entire blogosphere is taken down by storm with one of the major announcements ever! – which, after watching the last 30 seconds of this review and also the extensive, and very educational, review from Gizmodo on what it doesn’t have and known problems, is something that I will be seeing passing along not worrying too much about not having it. After all, I am still pretty ecstatic about the N95 which keeps exceeding my expectations amazingly day in day out!

Anyway, let’s not get distracted and move on. Right, like I was saying, the waiting time is now over! Both Ed Brill and Stuart McIntyre have mentioned earlier on their weblogs how both Lotus Connections and Lotus Quickr are now gold! Fantastic! The time has come where these particular social computing offerings would have to prove their own value in the real business world, like a whole bunch of other social software tools available out there are already doing at the moment. What a bunch of interesting times ahead of us, indeed! I am surely looking forward to them, for certain!

Why am I so excited about the availability of such tools in the social computing realm? Well, amongst many other things, because I will be looking forward to checking out how they would start to finally pave out their own bumpy roads and find their own space within the social software for the enterprise space. See if they would be up to for the competition or not. See if they would meet the requirements and needs from the resourceful and insightful knowledge worker 2.0 in the current workplace and how they may be able to shake the collaboration space both for large and small businesses. Or not. Yes, indeed, interesting times!

I have been looking forward to this for a while now, since I would be able to share with you all some further insights on how IBM has been using some of the different components from each of these offerings behind the firewall to help shake the ground of how other fellow colleagues share their knowledge and collaborate with others. As I have mentioned in the past, some of the different components from applications like Connections have been available inside IBM for years, so it would be intriguing to see how other folks get to make use of such components and perhaps check if there would be substantial differences in the way they would be adopted outside the firewall. I bet there would be plenty of things we could all be able to learn.

Take, for instance, the recent article from the WSJ titled Playing Well With Others – How IBM’s employees have taken social networking to an unusual level by William Bulkeley where you would be able to read and get a glimpse of how IBM has been making use of these social software tools for a while and how they have been impacting the workplace of such a large corporation. Lots of different details in there that would help you figure out how some of us have been able to make use of some of those Lotus Connections components, like Blog Central (To maintain our blogs), Dogear (To store our social bookmarks behind the firewall), Profiles (As a powerful expertise locator), etc. etc. Perhaps one of the most representative articles available out there, in my opinion. No doubt.

Finally, you may be wondering if I am going to continue sharing some further insights about Lotus Connections and Lotus Quickr, and perhaps some other social software tools that IBM is putting together, right? Well, the quick and short answer is that Yes! I surely will. But with a twist. In a week where a whole bunch of announcements have been made on various different subjects, I have got one of my own that I am very very excited about, although I cannot comment much on it at the moment. In its due time, I will be sharing a weblog post on it over here and I am sure that a few of you would be finding it as exciting as I am at the moment. But more on that at a later time…

It is now time to go and do some extensive reading on what is happening around all of these announcements and as time goes by I will surely be sharing some more insights on those articles that I may bump into and which I feel would be worth while sharing with you. So … let’s get the fun going!