There is nothing like getting started with another week at work by bumping into one video clip that you wish you would have been involved with big time. There is nothing like getting started with another Monday by watching and being inspired by, yet again, one wonderful video that clearly defines where we are heading.

You would probably remember the couple of video links I shared over here not long ago around the subject of "Reflecting on the Impact of Social Computing in Education and Learning" or the ones related to the Did You Know? series. Well, the following video link I am about to share falls under the same lines.

I actually bumped it in a blog post from Eduardo Peirano, author of Onlinesapiens Blog, who I have been following for quite a while now in various different social networks. Yesterday he created a blog post with the title "How Students Learn Video" where you would be able to find another gem from Michael Wesch ("A Vision of Students Today"), where the stars of the show are actually the actual students. Yes, indeed, those students enrolled in Introduction to Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University.

This is the kind of video clip that I would certainly encourage everyone out there involved in Learning, Education and Knowledge Management to watch. And if you are into social computing, by all means, you should watch it, too! It is just mind-blowing from the perspective that you would be able to find out some more about the next generation of the workforce that will be with us very very shortly. This is perhaps a good way to find out some more where the action is, and where it will be, and how we would all need to adapt to it, if we would want to succeed in our collaboration and knowledge sharing activities with different knowledge workers, because it surely is a new playground out there than what it used to be a few years back!

Goodness, even I wish I would have had an exposure to half of the stuff that gets mentioned throughout the video. I bet things would have been so much more different now. But you know what they say, it is better late than never. And I am surely glad that Eduardo has pointed out such video, because it is going to go into my pool of essential video clips to use in presentations to demonstrate how the workforce of the last century is going through a major shift as we get immersed into the 21st century. Will we be ready for it? We shall see. Time will tell, but here is an advance of what’s about to happen very very soon in our own current working environment:

Are you ready to shift gears?

Tags: Learning, Education, Learners, Knowledge Workers, Social Computing, Social Software, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Did You Know?, Eduardo Peirano, Onlinesapiens, Michael Wesch, Anthropology, Workforce, Next Gen, Students, Technology, Emerging Technologies

The weekend is just around the corner. Finally done with a very intense day at work with plenty of different meetings and conference calls. 7 hours in total of pure delight. NOT!! Almost brain dead! Again. And then I bump into the following video clip that made me jiggle quiet a bit and is helping me big time getting into the weekend mood!

If you remember the series of video clips I shared over here not long ago under Social Software … in Plain English from Commoncraft, you surely are going to enjoy this one from Kelly Stewart:

Incredibly funny, don’t you think? Oh, and a very good reason why I have always preferred to use the term Social Computing vs. New Media heh

Have a good one, everyone!

Tags: New Media, Commoncraft, Kommon Kraft, Plain English, New Media, Media, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Collaboration, Communities, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Kelly Stewart, Video

Oh, boy, it sounds like this was one of those weeks where I should have been on holidays, because so far, over the last couple of days, I have been just as productive as I would have been if I were on vacation. Nothing. Zero. Nada. Yes, indeed, I am still suffering from the Windoze Syndrome, in such a way that today, in between meetings and conference calls, I have been spending more time fixing the computer than doing some productive work. And I am still not done!

I hardly had any time to catch up with the various social networks where I normally hang out, both inside and outside of the firewall; something that I am not very happy about either, and tomorrow it doesn’t sound like it is going to be any easier than the last two days. More than anything else, because I will be swamped in more meetings and conference calls almost during the entire day! Ouch! Yes, I know, I should have taken my vacation!

Anyway, enough of that stuff that most certainly will not interest you. Let’s just use today’s blog post to share with you one of those gems from out there on the Internet, that, no matter what kind of day you may have had, it surely is one of those items that you would  surely enjoy quite a bit and most definitely will make it up for it. And big time!

If you really enjoyed this particular video clip (that I blogged about over here some time ago), or this other follow up one on the same subject (Which I also got to talk about it over here), then you must check this other one that Michael Wesch has put together and which will make your jaw drop and go WOW! and Ahhh and WOW! again of how good it really is. As simple as that.

Both Euan Semple and WebToolsForLearners have already linked to it, so I thought I would leave you with it without saying much further, because after watching it, there isn’t much more that I can add. It is just as brilliant, smart, educational, enlightening and thought-provoking as the first one and it will surely become one of my favourite clips to use in upcoming presentations. It lasts for about 5 minutes and it is a pure delight watching it. Hope you enjoy it. I will continue with my particular fight and hope to be productive soon again!

(Just pure genius! Without a doubt! Speechless!)

Tags: Social Media, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration 2.0, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Learning and Knowledge, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, KM, KM 1.0, KM 2.0, Remote Collaboration, Virtual Collaboration, Michael Wesch, Information Revolution, Information, Information Management, Digital Information, Personal Information Management, PIM, Evolution, YouTube, Wikipedia, Wisdom of Crowds, Co-Creation, Everything Is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger, The Power of Us, Experts

I am sure that if you have been reading through my blogs for a little while now you would know how, more and more, I am relying on my MacBook Pro to carry out my daily job rather than whatever else I have been using in the past. I know that for plenty of folks out there this wouldn’t be really any piece of news, but, believe me, to me it surely is. And very good ones!

I could talk about the many, many things I am thoroughly enjoying over the last few weeks. I could talk about the excellence on the multimedia components. I could talk about the really good quality of different Mac apps. I could talk about the incredible community of folks who share their passion about the Mac day in day out. And the list goes on and on and on. Yes, I know, I guess I could talk about that, yet, I am not going to. Instead, I am just going to share with you all why today is going to be a light blogging day and why every day I am becoming more and more a Mac fanboy:

4 Windows crashes, 4 Windows reboots, three of my most frequently used Windows applications out of order and still not knowing what is going on with them. Complete waste of productivity for the day… Enough said!

Yes, folks, I never thought I would be saying this, but I am becoming a Mac fanboy. Just wished that would have happened quite some time ago. So many frustrations would have been just a thing of the past. Sigh

(Stay tuned, because, as a follow up, I am writing up a blog post where I am sharing how this MacBook Pro is helping me improve my own overall social software experience, both inside and outside of the corporate firewall. Who would have thought about that, right?, just a few months back, eh? )

Tags: Mac, Apple, MacBook Pro, MBP, Windows, Notebook, Lenovo 3000 N100, Fanboy, Productivity, Tools, Productivity Tools, Reboot, Crash

I am sure that over the course of the last few days most of you folks out there may have bumped into one article or another around the subject of the usefulness, or not, from Facebook. So far, it looks like knowledge workers may not be completely sold out on it just yet and keep commenting on what works really well and what needs some further improvement. One of those really good articles that I have enjoyed thoroughly is the one from Thomas van der Wal titled "Facebook for Business or LinkedIn Gets More Valuable", that he shared a couple of days back, where he concludes:

"Facebook really needs to open up and to get a clue about people and information and the needs people have for information, such as holding on to that information and using it outside the system. Facebook is just fodder for the next social software service that does this right, on top of the 45% of things that Facebook got right and be the next media darling worth billions that never amounted to much"

I strongly suggest you take a look and read through the entire article that Thomas put together, because it surely has got some really good points on what really works from other social networking tools like LinkedIn and Facebook, but it also indicates where the latter is failing to deliver with really insightful gems as this one:

"Facebook developers have a huge amount of learning about information, information flow, and information use in people’s lives. Information is part of social interaction and what makes literate beings stand out is doing something, often using and reusing information."

I must say that I have been using LinkedIn for quite some time now and still use it quite heavily to connect with other business contacts. But all along I have felt that there was something missing in it that I just couldn’t figure out (And it wasn’t the capability of adding your picture that was added recently). And that was till I decided to jump into Facebook.

Yes, I am sure that most of you would remember my initial reservations about making the move to it, but after those initial reservations have been fixed, I must say day in day out I am enjoying quite a bit the Facebook experience. More than anything else because it has allowed me to stay connected with my various social networks and further contacts at the same time that it is helping me fill the void that LinkedIn was leaving all along. And that was the fact that through Facebook I am able to build further up on my social capital skills in such a way that not only do I feel connected with my business contacts, but at the same time I am able to find lots of different social capital details that I wouldn’t be able to in other tools, i.e. LinkedIn. In short, I am able to build up better images of the people I connect with on a regular basis.

I am not really going to deny that Facebook really needs to improve on a wide range of the different capabilities that it has got, like managing the re-use of information, that Thomas mentioned above, or the groupings, for instance, but if you are looking for an application that would allow you to keep in touch with your social networks, not only from a business perspective, but also from a personal perspective, Facebook is probably as good as it gets. At least, for now.

I am not sure what you would think, but, to me, one of the best ways to connect with people is by being able to find common ground, interests, ice-breakers, something in common to both that we can share going further than just the pure business contact, so that we can start slowly building up our trust levels and collaborative working. To me that is the whole key behind social networks, that kind of connection. And Facebook seems to be exceedingly good at it, although I can agree there is still room for improvement, but I am sure that over time it will eventually get there.

That’s why, as you may have noticed from my one of my Internet blogs, I have now removed a good number of the different widgets I had on each side of the blog template and moved most of them to Facebook (Still waiting for MyBlogLog to jump on board), where I have finally decided to invest in building my social capital. At the same time, I am also adding a number of different FB apps. that would allow me to keep building further up on my trust levels with my contacts.

Dennis McDonald asked me some time ago what kind of approach I would be taking with regards to FB apps., whether I would be going minimalist and just add the odd one, or whether I would go full board, meaning adding plenty of them. I must say that at the beginning I thought about going minimalist on the overall approach, but very soon I realised it was not going to work. Main reason being that I am actually making use of a good number of applications that help me get a much better picture from each and everyone of my social networks contacts.

I am not sure whether I have settled in already with the number of FB apps. I will be using, perhaps I will create a blog post at some point putting together my Top 10 favourite ones, but, for the time being, I am still experimenting at the same time that I am watching quite closely how Facebook may be pulling its act together so that in the end it would help me manage and re-use better the information from those connections. Oh, and if in the mean time it doesn’t provide me with a complete picture of it all, what would be the problem? It will not be the first, nor the last social software tool where conversations come and go by and where / when needed they would eventually get back to me. In whatever the shape, in whatever the form. It’s all part of the flow…

Tags: Facebook, LinkedIn, Social Software, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Networks, Social Media, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Learning, Social Capital, Conversations, Connections, Thomas van der Wal, Vanderwal, MyBlogLog, Dennis McDonald, Trust

Today is Blog Action Day! and I was actually pondering earlier on whether I would be one of the folks who would be creating a blog post related to the subject of the environment (or not), which is what Blog Action Day! tries to promote; every blogger creating a blog post for the day in their respective blogs and help spread of the message: “Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future“. James Governor, a.k.a. monkchips, mentioned that I should go ahead and share some further insights and here I am.

You may probably think, after reading that paragraph, that I may not be really concerned about the environment, right? Well, that is not the case by all means, specially living in such fragile place as I have been living for the last three and a half years. It has always been in my mind. I have always been watching different T.V. programmes on the subject to help educate myself on how I could help, or take different tests like the Ecological Footprint Quiz (Where I scored 4.3 where the average for Spain 4.7, mainly because of the different flights I have taken this year, which makes me wonder quite a bit, too! Perhaps I should stop travelling as much as I have been doing this year altogether) that would show how much on track I am. Not good enough, I know, but still trying really hard to improve my footprint by the day, it is a continuous learning process, because after all it’s the least we could all do, don’t you think?

So, while I have been thinking what I could blog about on the subject for Blog Action Day!, I mean, trying to establish the relationship between the environment and Knowledge Management along with Social Computing, it just hit me big time! And here I am. Putting together a few thoughts on how I think both KM and Social Computing could help out bring forward the conversation on how to preserve what’s been given to us so that we can pass it on to later generations in best of conditions.

They say that both KM and Social Computing are all about having an impact. An impact in the way you share knowledge, you collaborate, you connect and innovate with others. An impact that, if anything, has always been notorious for taking action, your *own* action, into wanting to change things and make things happen the right way.

Thus, in a day like Blog Action Day! I have finally decided to take action myself and comment on something that I have always found hard to believe and that has bugged me for quite some time now, but yet it’s happening day in day out. I am not sure what is going to happen next, but, at least, that is my way to show I care and how this article will be the kickoff of something that I hope will be happening soon.

We all know that one way to improve your footprint on the environment is to apply and live by the word recycle. Yes, recycle as much as you can! But what happens when you live in a small town of say 10,000 people, or less, like I do, and you find out there isn’t a single container you could make use of to recycle paper, plastic or metal? Yes, that is right. I live in a place that seems to be not very environmentally friendly since, except for glass, everything goes into the same bucket. That doesn’t seem to be right, does it?

That is why, thanks to Blog Action Day! and to prove the power of Social Computing and KM, I am going to start taking action myself and spread the message around. Recycling is essential for us all, not just for big cities. It’s our responsibility to recycle all we can, so that we can continue to educate ourselves in how to preserve what has been given to us. It is our responsibility to act now! (Regardless of where you are).

They say that the biggest impact of KM and Social Computing is when applied locally and I truly believe that (And for a number of years now). Thus with the excuse of today’s blog post I am actually going to take some action of my own, and continue to blog every now and then on how the little town I live in makes some more substantial progress into encouraging us all recycle more properly by providing us the means of doing so. Because, otherwise what is the point of everyone else recycling except us? What is the point of spreading the word around on things that are just not right, if we don’t react and fix them right away?!?! How difficult could it be to provide us with the right means to do some serious recycling of everything we make use of? Is it really that complicated? I doubt it.

Stay tuned for some progress as we move along. Feel free to link to this blog post to enhance that impact we can all have in our daily lives. Does your small town recycle enough? Does your local town hall worry too much about the waste we are all generating? If not, what are you willing to do to make it happen? I am not sure about you, but today I just got a new mission started. Want to join me? Start local and have that impact you always wanted to have: respect the environment!

Tags: Blog Action Day!, James Governor, Monkchips, T.V., Cuatro, Ecological Footprint Quizz, Ecological Footprint, Travelling, Recycle, Recycling, El Tablero de Maspalomas, Gran Canaria, Spain, Social Computing, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Collaboration, Innovation, Technology, Impact, Environment, Local, Earth Day