Tags: IBM, Academy of Technology, AoT, Collaboration, Collaboration 2.0, Web 2.0, Learning, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, New York, Somers, Madrid, Las Palmas, Flights, Travelling, Metablogging, Blogs, Diary, Life, Hope

I meant to write this particular weblog post last Monday as part of some of the different highlights from having attended IBM’s Academy of Technology Collaboration 2.0 conference event in Somers, NY, the week before. But given the recent problems I have been having with my Internet connection I haven’t been able to do so till now. Thank goodness it is still very much fresh in my memories, because it certainly was an incredible experience. And the funny part is that it doesn’t have anything to do with the event itself, but with the experience of getting to Somers itself. The conference itself was just awesome, but what I am about to share with you folks is even better than that.

It is a little bit of a story. Actually two of them, thus I am going to split up this weblog entry in two parts. You may want to go and grab a cup of coffee (Or tea) and make yourself comfortable, because I am sure you are going to like both of them just as much as I enjoyed it while going through them. It all starts with the two flights I had to take to get to New York. The first one from Las Palmas airport to Madrid was just … charming. The second flight story I will leave it for a follow up weblog entry for later on …

There I was, sitting on the chair waiting for the flight to take off when a lovely and cute girl of, say, 10 to 12 years old, perhaps with some hearing problems, I noticed, sits on the same row as myself, by the window. I am on the aisle. We are both travelling alone. We chatted for a little bit, while the plane was ready to take off, and we both got down to our little things. I kept reading a book (More on that one later), and she just took out her small pink diary and started writing stuff on it.

I am thinking, hey, she is writing in her diary about … stuff. Cool! I do that myself, too, but online, in my Internet blog(s) heh. I tell you, that scene was just adorable. There I was, sitting next to a young girl who was very concentrated on putting together her thoughts in her diary about her experiences, whatever those may have been at the time. She looked very keen on the whole effort, and I just thought it would have been incredibly delightful to have taken a picture of her in such stage of concentration to remind me / us al of how it all started, blogging, that is, when we may lose our inspiration to keep writing about the stuff we are passionate about.

The whole experience was just fantastic! We kept talking every now and then till the plane got to Madrid. And every so often she would go ahead, open up her diary and write a few notes. I tell you, if I would have had my digital camera I would have asked her if I could take a picture of her while she was writing. Alas, it was packed away in the suitcase, so I couldn’t. Pity. But one thing for sure is that, as I get to write these different weblog entries, I keep getting back to those precious moments and how a young girl of 10 - 12 years kept her diary alive when she could have been doing something less profound, while the flight was on its way to Madrid. You know what I mean. Still, there she was. Concentrated, writing away her own thoughts on her own experiences and looking forward to meet her parents once again.

Just awesome! That is just one of the main reasons why I still enjoy travelling quite a bit. Don’t you think? What a brilliant way to get things going with a trip to one of those conference events that I was looking forward to all along for the last couple of years. It all felt incredibly re-energising and I do hope that at some point in time she would have not only her own private (offline) diary, but a lovely open weblog that she keeps updating every now and then. Next time I bump into her, I will ask her…

Tags: Telefonica, Internet, ADSL, Wireless Router, Router, Broadband, Customer Service, Bad Customer Service, Tech Support, Think Globally, Act Locally, Globalisation

You may have noticed how over the last few days I haven’t been able to post anything into this particular weblog. Yes, it has not been very pretty, on the contrary. I have been suffering from what some would call customer service, or rather, the lack of customer service, specially from my Internet provider. Last Sunday afternoon my Internet connection went down and ever since I have been knocked out from the network. Four days and counting (Till earlier on this afternoon, that is)!

No, it hasn’t been a fun experience, I tell you. I am sure there would be plenty of folks out there who may have suffered from similar experiences, specially with this particular provider, and if there is something that I have learned throughout all of this time that I have been down is, like usual, things shouldn’t be that difficult. I mean, how long does it take to get you a new wireless router delivered to your front door (Mine apparently fried after three years of good service!)?

Well, apparently with these folks up to seven days! Yes, you are reading it right, seven days!!! And I am already on Day 4 and waiting, although I have been told I will get it today. We shall see how that goes. Fingers crossed. (Update: I, indeed, got it earlier on this afternoon, after all that wait! Read on…)

After a number of different phone calls, day in day out, getting a completely different answer every time, I thought about perhaps going my own way and purchasing a wireless router right here, in one of the computer shops in the place where I live, but once again, I was advised by those same folks that I could certainly go ahead and do that, but then they would no longer be supporting me if I encounter any problems with it.

Hummm, really? Do I want to have support from a group of folks who keep telling me different stories every time I call and who are telling me that my new wireless router might take up to 7 days to get over here? Do I want to be supported by a group of folks who have knocked me down for 4 days and a half, and counting, (That is right, haven’t been doing lots of online work this week since I started having the problems with my previous router since Sunday late afternoon), just because they haven’t put their act together into providing some good quality service? Again, how long does it take to get a new wireless router? 7 days? 4 days? I don’t think so. Not in today’s world.

Yes, that is right. I am not sure I would want to have such kind of tech support any longer. At least, not unless I would want to be unproductive for days! In a world where things happen more and more in a distributed fashion and rather fast (That is where the "Think globally" kicks in), examples like this one always make you think whether it is better to actually "act locally". Do I want to have such global tech support or would I rather go down the street, to the local computer shop, purchase one of those wireless routers, set it up and off I go?

I know, I will no longer be supported by them whenever I would have new problems, but then again, if every time I would want to have their support I would need to be knocked down 4 days and still going, I am not so sure I would want that kind of customer service any longer. I guess I will take the risk and go solo. Get myself sorted out locally, make that purchase and then get their local support if something goes wrong. Oh, yes, that is right, the folks where I have purchased this wireless router from do also offer support if in trouble, so why didn’t I think about it last Monday morning when my ordeal got started?

I guess I have been working on too many global projects lately and kept thinking globally, when all that was needed was down the street, purchase the router, set it up and up and running again. On the same day. Last Monday morning. That will teach me for the next time. Like I said, it is always good to keep on thinking globally, but some other times it is way way better, and certainly much more productive, to act locally. And act now!

(Now I am finding out that I have got two different wireless routers, both of them fully supported. One of them globally and the other one locally. Thus either way I am fully covered and hope to get along several years with both of them! YAY!)

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(Regular weblogging will resume shortly as I get everything set up and running and do the catch up of the last four days I have been knocked down thus far. If you have tried to contact me offline through e-mail or whatever else I will get back to you as soon as I can. Just bear with me for a bit, as things will start to settle in once again very shortly)

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, e2.0, Collaboration Technologies, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Web 2.0, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Social Networks, Communities, Learning, Tom Davenport, Andrew McAfee, Innovation, Org. Change, Business Transformation

First day back at work after attending this week’s IBM’s Academy of Technology Collaboration 2.0 conference in Somers, NY. And it is already Friday! heh How cool is that? Anyway, I had a fantastic time throughout the conference and I am surely glad that I was able to make it in the end. Perhaps one of the major highlights from the entire event was actually the networking part, as usual, but this time around with a special flavour. Most of the folks who attended the conference were actually people I have known for many years (Many of them as far back as 2001!), so it was quite an experience being able to put a face behind all of the different online interactions we have been having all along. It makes such a difference!

Incredibly energising to say the least, don’t you think? Anyway, I am not sure how much I would be able to share with you folks from the entire event, we shall see. Next weblog post though is going to be about one of the major highlights from the trip itself. Thus stay tuned.

However, the purpose of this particular weblog post is to actually be a summary or wrap up of the recent series of weblog articles that I have been creating over the course of the week around the subject of the recent debate on Enterprise 2.0 with Tom Davenport and Andrew McAfee that took place not long ago.

Thus in order to make things a lot easier and be able to help out folks locate those different weblog entries, here you have them all with their corresponding links so that you can access them directly from here. And refer back to this particular entry in case you may want to pass it around:

– [e2.0] Enterprise Live Debate: Andrew McAfee and Tom Davenport at Enterprise 2.0 - Debate? What Debate? - A Brief Introduction (Part I)

– [e2.0] Enterprise Live Debate: Andrew McAfee and Tom Davenport at Enterprise 2.0 - It’s All about the People! (Part II)

– [e2.0] Enterprise Live Debate: Andrew McAfee and Tom Davenport at Enterprise 2.0 - Surviving the Knowledge Economy - Part III

– [e2.0] Enterprise Live Debate: Andrew McAfee and Tom Davenport at Enterprise 2.0 - Finding the Talent within Your Organisation - Part IV

– [e2.0] Enterprise Live Debate: Andrew McAfee and Tom Davenport at Enterprise 2.0 - Fixing the Generation Gap - Part V

– [e2.0] Enterprise Live Debate: Andrew McAfee and Tom Davenport at Enterprise 2.0 - And the Value of Weblogging - Part VI

– [e2.0] Enterprise Live Debate: Andrew McAfee and Tom Davenport at Enterprise 2.0 - And the Value of Weblogging - Part VII

Time now to get going with the weekend, after a whole day of everlasting catchup. Have a good one, everyone!

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, e2.0, Collaboration Technologies, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Web 2.0, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Social Networks, Communities, Learning, Tom Davenport, Andrew McAfee, Innovation, Org. Change, Business Transformation, Blogs, Blogging, Metablogging, Business Value, Blogging ROI, Corporate Culture, Conversations, Prosumers, User-Generated Content, Search Engines, Search 2.0, Dave Snowden, Participation

The conversation went on and at some point Tom mentioned the topic of finding the right content while making extensive use of social software and he actually proposed what would happen if a large company would have 20,000 employees, or even a larger number, weblogging away. Would that make things easier for the transfer of knowledge? He doubted it would.

My answer? You bet! Let me ask you folks something along those lines. Would you prefer 20,000 employees weblogging away about what they are passionate about from your business, sharing their expertise and knowledge and connecting with others, or would you rather have them continue to be a silo with their own computers not sharing even one half of what they know or have in their heads? Ever heard of that famous ratio where about roughly 20% of the Intellectual Capital generated is actually stored in knowledge repositories? Where is all the rest? Yes, indeed, in people’s heads and personal computers. Is that situation much better? I don’t think so…

There is no doubt that as more and more people get to produce more and more content one key single factor for the success in the adoption of these social software tools is to have very competent search engines that would allow you to search easily for that content, find it, re-use and share it with others, even if that would mean you would need to make use of metadata to process the search results. But for search engines to improve their search results we first need content and without knowledge workers producing content we haven’t got anything, do we? This is the main problem that social computing addresses and helps fix, but only as long as people would be willing to share what they know. Something that plenty of people seem to keep ignoring over and over again. Here is a quick reminder for us all:

"1. Knowledge will only ever be volunteered it can not be conscripted.
2. We only know what we know when we need to know it.
3. We always know more than we can tell and we will always tell more than we can write down." (Does it ring a bell? cf. Dave Snowden)

From there onwards there were a few more minutes of discussion, but I am going to leave it up to you to follow it up as you may see fit. What I found particular interesting is a quote from Andrew that I couldn’t have agreed more with it. Here it is:

"[With Web2.0] The Web has become spectacularly more useful and more interesting to me as more and more voices add to it"

I couldn’t have agreed more with that statement as perhaps one of the most representative ones that describes not only Enterprise 2.0, but the entire movement behind Web 2.0 as well. With it, things have gotten a whole lot more exciting and interesting, because, for the first time in many years, knowledge workers have got the opportunity to have a voice, an opinion, and share it with everyone else collaborating with others, exchanging knowledge, improve their social capital skills and their subject matter expertise and, as a result of that process, innovate at a higher rather than in the recent past. And all of that dealing with their own passion for whatever the topic!

That is why, to me, Enterprise 2.0 is not only revolutionalising the Enterprise, but also our own ways of life, because, after all, social computing is a philosophy, a way of life you breathe and learn to nurture, that inspires constant change that you rather embrace … or not. And at the end of the day, whether we like it or not, it would be a matter of choice to adopt it or not. And that choice is yours. And yours alone. So it would be up to you (And not higher up in the management chain), whether you would want to change your organisation or not, whether you would want to change your life or not. And if I were you, I would not wait for others to tell you about it… Make it happen!

Make it happen now!

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, e2.0, Collaboration Technologies, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Web 2.0, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Social Networks, Communities, Learning, Tom Davenport, Andrew McAfee, Innovation, Org. Change, Business Transformation, Blogs, Blogging, Metablogging, Business Value, Blogging ROI, Corporate Culture

One other thing that I have found really interesting is the fact that most of the examples in the debate provided against the case for Enterprise 2.0 were coming from the Government and Banking industries, which, we all know, are two of the most rigid industries in trying to change processes and tools and methods of working. In most cases both industries would be the last ones in adopting such tools while all of the other ones would be making use of them for quite some time already. I was hoping that they would be including examples within the education, transport or telecommunications industries, amongst others, where the social computing adoption and its impact has been rampant for a while now.

Later on in the debate Tom mentioned his opinion about blogs in general and apart from mentioning that they are "well suited for expressing opinions" he questioned that if they are just so good why businesses were not  "mandating blogs for everybody". Oh my, who would have thought about that, right? How can you mandate something that is supposed to be adopted and embraced freely. Remember how you have been told time and time again how weblogging is all about sharing your passion, your commitment and involvement? How are you going to do just that when you have been mandated to create a weblog?

It just doesn’t work like that. Weblogging is not meant for everyone. There are people who are quite natural at it and those who aren’t. They try it, don’t feel it is their medium and they move on. Mandating the usage of social computing tools is the worst thing that you would want to do within an organisation. It is like embracing social computing under a command-and-control attitude. What an oxymoron! It just doesn’t make sense, does it?

I was also surprised at the commentary that both Tom and Andrew do not have time to read blogs, they may follow a couple of searches and feeds from syndicated resources, but not from different weblogs which talk about different subjects of their interest, i.e. Enterprise 2.0. Well, what can I say in this respect? To me, it is not a matter of not having time to read weblogs, it is more a matter of making time to read blogs and create your own weblog posts on whatever the subjects you are passionate about.

If you really want to, there are always those idle moments, or interstitial times, that you can harness, to allow you to read other people’s weblogs and / or write on your own. It is a situation where you learn to filter stuff, find what is good and relevant to you and subscribe to it. It takes time and a bit of effort, that is true, I am not going to deny it, but it will be worth it, I am sure. So instead of saying that you do not have time, start thinking how you can make time for it, if you are serious about weblogging, that is.

(To be continued …)

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, e2.0, Collaboration Technologies, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Web 2.0, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Social Networks, Communities, Learning, Tom Davenport, Andrew McAfee, Innovation, Org. Change, Business Transformation, Generations, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, Mentoring

At this point Andrew mentioned how most of the social software tools currently available within the enterprise are just in their infancy and it may well be far too early to judge how useful they would be. Well, this may well be the case, but there is no denying that some of these technologies have been there for over a decade and therefore have got more consistency than initially thought. I think the main issue is not so much the tools themselves, but how people make use of them. Again, the focus on the people is key. They are going to define how mature a technology is or not and adopt it accordingly or not depending on how receptive they may well be towards that particular tool.

I also found interesting how Andrew mentioned that things may well change drastically when the younger generations enter the workforce and I must say that although it would be nice to see how it plays out, there is nothing out there that would indicate that social networking, for instance, is just meant for the younger generations. As an example, most of my social networks have got folks that would probably not consider themselves younger any longer (Yes, you know who you are!), and they still keep using them every day.

I doubt it would be much an issue about age making use of them, but more a culture thing. Would a mature workforce want to change the way they have been working for years, even if that would make them more effective, as opposed to how comfortable they are at the moment in their own settled working environment? I doubt it. There would be folks who would, but there would be a majority of them that would reject changing their habits. So I am not sure it is an age issue in here any longer. Plus there are plenty of solutions available out there to tackle this problem, like mutual mentoring between the younger and baby boomers generations (Something that I may weblog about it some more in the near future).

(To be continued …)