Eight Things You Didn’t Know About Me

While still trying to digest some of the fantastic, overwhelming and exciting reactions to the initial blog post on Next Generation Knowledge Sharing & Learning Online Conference Event – In Spring 2008? and while I am still trying to figure out a couple of things before I comment further back into that particular blog entry on further steps, I thought I would go ahead and do some light blogging on a topic that I seem to have been tagged from a couple of folks already, who I read on a regular basis and who have been participating in a couple of different memes on a very similar topic: Seven things you didn’t know about me by Martin Koser and Gullible about Work / Blog Balance by Reasonable Robinson.

Yes, that is right. It is another meme where the rules seem to be pretty straight forward:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.

2. List EIGHT random facts about yourself.

3. Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names.

4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.

And although Martin’s meme post seems to be slightly different I thought about combining both of them since the overall outcome seems to be pretty similar. So here we go with the meme post and here you have eight random facts about myself that you may not have heard / read elsewhere:

1. I was born and raised in a very small village in León, which is where I have spent a good chunk of my life. Another good chunk is spread around The Netherlands (Where I lived 7 years) and, finally, Gran Canaria, where I have been living for nearly four years now.

2. I first got exposed to the world of computers in high school (Yes, I was one of the folks who owned an Amstrad CPC 464!) and back then my marks on computer lessons were really bad, which gave me the impression I would never, ever, work with computers. Fast forward to today … Already 10 years in the IT world and still going strong! 🙂

3. After I graduated from University, I spent one year working in Thale, Germany, where I got to experience one of the most severe winters in my life thus far with up to -30C. for several days!! But I must say I loved the overall experience quite a bit!!

4. First time I came to Gran Canaria was in 1996 (For a very short period of time) and back then I knew I would be coming back at some point. It took me only 8 years to make that happen 🙂

5. I actually got my job at IBM while I was spending a two week holiday in The Netherlands in 1997. Probably the longest two weeks I’ve ever known!! (Already heading for my 11th year in the company!)

6. While working for IBM, I spent another year of my life in Dublin, Ireland, where there is very little I would need to explain, if you ever have been there. Yes, I know, I need to get back there for a short visit and catch up some time soon!

7. I was first exposed to Knowledge Management by the end of 1999 and during that time I already sensed it was going to be the field / discipline I would be developing my skills & expertise over the course of the years. Two years later I was working, full time, in a Knowledge Management team. Till today. (And, yes, still going strong, in case you are wondering…)

8. And, finally, I initially got started with my blogging experience back in 2003, as a way to prove to myself how I could work smarter, not necessarily harder, relying on the community and my social networks to get the job done versus having to do the job myself re-inventing the wheel over and over again. Four years later, and just a couple of days after the 10th year anniversary of the word "Weblog", I still feel the same way. Blogs, and plenty of the various different social networks where I hang out, still make me work smarter. Much smarter! Not harder.

And that would be it. Next on this blog post is to actually tag another 8 people who would be willing, hopefully, to take the challenge and share with us 8 factoids about themselves that we may not have heard elsewhere. So here is my list of folks I would love to hear some more from on this particular topic. In random order: Jasmin Tragas (a.k.a. Jazzydee), Thomas van der Wal (a.k.a. wanderwal), David Stephenson (a.k.a. DavidStephenson), Susan Scrupski (a.k.a. ITSinsider), Dennis McDonald (a.k.a. ddmcd), Stuart Henshall (a.k.a. stuarthenshall), Andy Piper (a.k.a. andypiper) and Jon Husband (a.k.a. jonhusband).

I am sure that I could have included a whole bunch of the folks I get to interact with on a daily basis, so feel tagged as well if you would want to chime in a well. Why not, right?

Either way, I am sure that with this particular blog post you actually got to find out about stuff on me that you probably haven’t seen / read elsewhere. Hope you have found it just as entertaining as it was for me to put it up going through that trip down the memory lane.

Now time to go ahead and digest some of the wonderful discussions going on Next Generation Knowledge Sharing & Learning Online Conference Event – In Spring 2008? and see where it would take us all… Fancy joining us on that wild ride, too?

Tags: Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Blogging, Metablogging, Blogs, Meme, Things, Martin Koser, Reasonable Robinson, Tagging, Leon, Spain, Gran Canaria, Amstrad CPC 464, Thale, Germany, IBM, The Netherlands, Dublin, Ireland, Blogiversary, Weblog Anniversary, Work Smarter, Jasmin Tragas, Wonderwebby, Thomas van der Wal, David Stephenson, Susan Scrupski, ITSinsider, Dennis McDonald, Stuart Henshall, Andy Piper, Jon Husband, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Web 2.0