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

Giving up on Work e-mail – Status Report on Week 27 (Easing e-mail Pain with Social Software)

Continuing further with the weekly progress reports on my giving up on e-mail new mantra, I am back at it again, and this time around with a wonderful link from one of my favourite bloggers and KM thought leaders, if I may say so, whose article I am surprised is not getting much more attention that what it truly deserves. And you will see what I mean very very soon. For now though I am going to share a couple of comments on what actually happen on week 27, where things seem to be keeping up the pace with the latest downwards trends. I still have got to blog on week 28, but I can tell you how after having gone through the seventh month of giving up on corporate e-mail, I am just as excited as I was on the first day when I got things started.

But let’s have a look into the progress report for week 27:

As you would be able to see, the number of incoming e-mails went down and quite a bit, I must admit, to the point where over the last couple of weeks that count seems to fluctuate between 22 and 30, which puts me in the right position for my next challenge, which is lower down that number under 20, i.e. between 10 to 15 e-mails a week! I know, a nice challenge to have! We shall see if we can keep up with it! One thing you may have noticed is how increasingly the number of e-mails seems to decline both at the beginning and end of the week, so if I can tame those Wednesdays & Thursdays I think I would be able to go well under that new challenge. Either way, let’s see how it goes from there…

And now, let’s just cover briefly the link I mentioned at the beginning of the blog post from one of my favourite KM thought leaders, and good friend (And amazing blogger, too!), who, not long ago, put together a blog post where he referenced a presentation he recently did at a specific event and which had very nice and thought-provoking title: "Easing e-mail Pain with Social Software".

Yes, I am talking about Matt Moore, author of Engineers without Fears, who a few days ago put together "Enterprise 2.0 Presentation". In the past, I have been blogging about some of the stunning work Matt has been doing exploring new, and innovative, ways of collaborating and sharing knowledge with other knowledge workers and this blog post is no exception! For sure.

In fact, that article references a presentation I also referenced over here not long ago and which clear puts together some compelling reasons on our need to continue re-purposing e-mail as our preferred collaborative and knowledge sharing tool. Well, that presentation got even better and, if not, judge for yourselves checking out the direct link over here, or the embedded version below:

As a teaser, and before you dive into the excellent presentation that Matt put together, I thought I would share with you a couple of the notes that Matt shared over at the original blog post and which would resonate with you, rather strongly, on several of the reasons I have discussed over here on why, seven months ago, I wanted to stop using e-mail and re-purpose it altogether:

"The five steps are:

i. ban attachments & instead link to files sitting in a more permanent location;
ii. if an email conversation involves more than 5 people then shift it elsewhere,
iii. make your tools as simple to use as possible,
iv. encourage role modeling of good behaviours by senior staff,
v. begin with a small step in the right direction rather than trying to change the world in one go." (Emphasis mine)

I told you the presentation was amazingly good, right? Well, it gets better! If not check out the five issues to consider now:

"i. security. email is insecure anyway but you need to clearly establish access guidelines for each location where documents are stored,
ii. privacy with new tools is important – e.g. staff need to understand how public their discussions will be,
iii. develop an archiving / retention policy for your documentation,
iv. do not hit staff members with too many tools, they could be overwhelmed with choice,
v. consider different IP options for ownership of content esp. if consumers are involved."

I am sure that after you watch Matt’s presentation, and if you have been following my new reality of giving up on e-mail for a little while, it will resonate quite strongly, and, much more importantly, will give you plenty of ammo you could re-use for your own re-purposing of incoming e-mails you receive! And including plenty of practical tips, too! You see? It’s not as difficult as it may well seem… So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and join us!

(Many thanks for the lovely piece of work, Matt! And, above all, special thanks for sharing the presentation and its notes through your blog! Great work! Well done!)

Tags: IBM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, e-mail, email, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Innovation, Productivity, Conversations, Progress Reports, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Collaboration 2.0, Communication, Matt Moore, Innotecture, Slideshare, Re-purposing E-mail, Attachments, Simplicity, Simple, Role Modeling, Leadership, Security, Privacy, E-mail Tips

The Sweettt ELSUA Show – Episode 2 – On Finding an Identity

If you have been following this blog in the last few days, you would remember how not long ago, both Matt Simpson, from Sweetttt.com, and myself, launched a podcasting series together called The Sweettt Show where we dived into some really good and fun discussions. After that first episode Matt went on vacation to a place I could very much call paradise and he just got back! Which means, we are both back into the game and have ventured into recording our second episode of The now Sweettt ELSUA Show: On Finding an Identity.

Yes, that’s right! In this, our second episode, we actually discuss, pretty much like in every beginning, plenty of stuff with regards to the identity of the podcast, its own branding and where we would both want to take things with it. Rather some interesting discussion that folks new to podcasting may find rather revealing on the trials and tribulations from getting things going at the initial stages.

This time around the episode is a lot shorter than the introductory one, lasting for a little bit over 20 minutes and I can guarantee you that if after listening to that episode you haven’t laughed your b**t off, you won’t ever! We had a very unexpected guest who decided to become the star of the show. Towards the end of it, actually.

Just like in the first episode, I thought I would go ahead as well and share with you over here the different annotations that both Matt and myself put together while listening to the episode and describe the train of thoughts that went through our minds all along:

"00:30 Welcome & Introduction – “The Age of Conversation”

01:50 Silly Baboons – Matt sends Luis a photo of the two of them with a caption “Silly Baboons” Who said that podcasting is not fun?

02:30 We’ve not far from the apes

03:10 Great Photos – Chris Brogan getting a mention for his incredibly good photography skills, amongst many other things! heh

04:00 Our Name & Brand – What should be our name? Should we include Elsua in the brand? Finding an identity for The Sweettt ELSUA podcast? Excuse me? (hey! “Sweettt Elsua” hmmmm) Branding? Podcasting? Is there such a thing? Excuse me?

Surprise, surprise!?! We can’t comment on that one yet! (But stay tuned!)

04:45 A future Elsua Podcast, in the making… ELSUA going solo podcasting! YAY!!! About time, too!

05:00 Interviews & Conversations in the Enterprise 2.0 podcast space – On the importance of Enterprise 2.0 interviews… We can’t get enough of them? Fancy being one of our guests?!? Let us know!

Sebastian Thomschke getting a mention, too!

06:50 Getting ready to bring more discussants on board

07:00 Mark Masterson – is interested in joining the discussion (actually, Matt broached this with Mark back in Boston)

07:00 Jon Mell – is interested in joining the discusion

08:00 Mention of Dogear Nation and their dynamic fast-paced style of conversations. Wooohooo! Dogear-Nation getting another mention! (We highly recommend subscribing to that podcasting series, if you haven’’ done so already!)

10:00 In depth discussion is the goal, just like a decent long chat over coffee. Entering the Age of Conversation and on the power of coffee! What’s the right length of time in a podcast? The one who figures it out gets the big prize!

12:13 Tertulia – Luis teaches Matt a new word. And then “Tertulia 2.0″ was born!

12:50 A loud SLAP is heard

13:15 An intellectual gathering… Babbelfish translates “tertulia” into ‘Social Gathering’… It’s like a Salon. Now really getting into the “Social Gathering” thing. Boy, did we have some good fun or what?

14:11 What is a Salon?

14:30 Tertulia definitely has a strong intellectual component, highly social, intense discussion, very intellectually stimulating

15:30 A cocktail party among the cogniscenti. This is a Salon. Tom Short, former IBMer and good friend of ours, gets a mention when talking about the concept of “Salons”. Yes, we are still in search of that identity for the podcast!

16:50 The kind of discussion that Mark Twain would be found within. Oh, oh, we are now about to get in trouble. Mark Twain coming up on the show, too!

17:40 Agreement, disagreement… Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Maybe we just nailed the identity of The Sweettt ELSUA Show: Tertulia 2.0!

18:20 Luis attacks a poor defenseless creature.

18:40 And THAT’s how you share knowledge!! BAP!!!

19:15 Finish"

Oh, and if that is not enough, we have put together as well something that we know is getting more and more popular by the day and which we both love dearly: a Wordle (Thanks much, Jonathan! Remind us to invite you for drinks whenever we would meet up face to face, please!). Yes, that is right, if you are more into the visual side of things, that same set of annotations will transform into this:

Thus, without much further ado, here is the link where you can play the file directly, or, alternatively, you can download the .mp3 audio file from here: The Sweettt ELSUA Show – Episode 2 – On Finding an Identity.

We hope you enjoy listening to it, just as much as we did recording it, and, I tell you, like I said above, if this episode does not make you laugh, nothing will! … (Wait till the end!)

Have a good one everyone!

Tags: The Sweettt Show, Sweettt, Matthew Simpson, Matt Simpson, The Sweettt ELSUA Show, Podcasting, Podcasts, Episodes, Series, New Media, IBM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, e-mail, email, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Conversations, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Collaboration 2.0, Communication, E-mail Abuse, Visibility, Awareness, Think, Re-purposing E-Mail, Dogear-Nation, Communities, Learning, Innovation, Enterprise2conf, E2.0, Mark Masterson, Personal Knowledge Sharing, PKM, Paradise, Identity, Conversations, Sebastian Thomschke, Jon Mell, Tertulia, Tertulia 2.0, Salon, Mark Twain, Wordle, Jonathan Feinberg

The Future of Work by Luis Suarez (Full Version)

A couple of days back, you would remember how I created a blog post where I was mentioning a short video-conference interview I participated in where I briefly talked, along with William Pulleyblank, on the topic of The Future of Work and the implications for the corporate world and the workplace, specially from the perspective of the impact of Enterprise 2.0 within the business environment and how it is changing the way knowledge workers interact with one another to collaborate and share knowledge together.

Well, I am back at it again! First, to let those folks who may not have been able to see the video just yet that they can now watch it through YouTube (See embedded video below as well):

And, secondly, that, as I have mentioned on the original blog post, there is a second video conference clip, much longer than the one mentioned above, and where I have touched on various different topics very much related to that topic of "The Future of Work". The direct link to the video can be found over here and I have also taken the liberty of embedding it below, so that you can start playing it back if you would want to right from this blog post:

The Future of Work by Luis Suarez from Luis Suarez on Vimeo.

It lasts for about 30 minutes and, like I was saying above once more, I talked about several different topics all of them related to the impact of Enterprise 2.0 and Social Computing within the corporate workplace and how it is changing the way we all work inside and outside the firewall.

But instead of me just letting you know some more of the specifics behind the actual topics I covered, I am actually going to do something new I haven’t done before in this blog, which is basically use the über cool application that one of my fellow IBM colleagues, and good friend, Jonathan Feinberg (Father of other IBM fantastic social software applications like Dogear and Cattail), put together out there available to everyone. Yes, indeed, I am talking about Wordle, the wonderfully crafted & amazing tool that generates very suggestive "word clouds" which can keep you busy looking at them for hours and hours to no end!

Thus without much further ado, here is the Wordle from The Future of Work by Luis Suarez:

(From here a BIG and special THANKS MUCH! to all of the folks who made the whole video-conferencing interview possible; from the logistics, to the recording, to the final post-production and availability of the video interview itself, I want to take this opportunity to thank Avi Drucker, Courtney Shelton, George Faulkner, Jeremy Hodge and Mareike Politycki.

Yes, folks, *that* is the younger generation that’s about to enter the workplace, if they haven’t done so already! (Ok, ok, George is a little bit older to be entering the workplace now! heh))

Tags: IBM, Future of Work, Office2.0, Workplace, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration, Online Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Social Networks, Networks, Communities, Learning, Innovation, Generation Y, Gen Y, Twitter, YouTube, New Hires, William Pulleyblank, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Personal Knowledge Management, Personal Knowledge Sharing, Conversations, Vimeo, Jonathan Feinberg, Dogear, Cattail, Wordle, Word Clouds, Avi Drucker, Courtney Shelton, George Faulkner, Jeremy Hodge, Mareike Politycki, Life@Home, Work Life Balance, Balance, Hierarchies, Organisations, Baby Boomers, Boomers, Risk, Risk Management, Control, Training, Expertise, Skills, Trust, Flexibility, Ownership, Responsibility, Openness, Virtual Teams, Transparency, Dialogue, Talent Management, Careers, Smarter, Relationships, Friendships