Given today’s tragic events occurred in Madrid, Spain, which I am sure most of you have heard or read about already, there will not be, over here, the corresponding daily blog post. Our prayers, deepest condolences and further comforting thoughts go to all of the victims and their families …

R.I.P.

Tags: Madrid, Spain, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Plane, Crash, Plane Crash, Tragedy, Accident, Spanair, Accidente, Avión, Siniestro, Accidente, Pasajeros, Listado, Tragedia

Ever since I got started with my new mantra of giving up on e-mail, specially work related e-mail, I have been getting a good number of different comments from various folks, both inside and outside IBM, asking me how do I do it in order to collaborate and share knowledge with the customers I have been involved with. Mind you though that, as most of you out there would know by now, I don’t have a direct and frequent customer exposure; yet, I have been participating with several customer engagements in their adoption of social software over the last few months. So I do have a need to collaborate and share information / knowledge with them and here is how I eventually get it done without using e-mail!

In most cases, most of them are hanging out with me using different Web 2.0 tools like Facebook or Twitter, amongst many others, after we have met (Physically or virtually) and exchanged experiences around our own social software adoption. We eventually found out they are not that different from one another.

However, there has been an increasing number of customer interactions that I know in most cases other folks would be pushing for them through e-mail, because that is the easy way out. But have you thought the kind of impact you would be making, if you would take the time to co-educate your customers and yourself on how you can be much more productive by sharing knowledge and collaborating faster than through traditional e-mail by making use of social software tools?

I guess I am just saying that you would only be moving away from e-mail as your collaboration tool, if you eventually make it a choice not only for you, but also for your customers and collaboratively negotiate what would be the best way to interact without resorting to the easy way out.

So how do I do it? Well, instead of me explaining it, I thought I would share with you a story of how I have done it in the recent past. And actually it is going to be a story you are going to enjoy. It has been shared already through one of my favourite collaboration and knowledge sharing tools between IBMers, customers and business partners called Lotus Greenhouse.

In it, you would be able to read the story of Giora Hadar and how he managed to put together a rather impressive slide deck on Government 2.0 for a presentation he was giving to a customer after tapping into another fellow colleague and myself. The story is available over at the Lotus Greenhouse and in case you may not have access to it, I have taken the liberty of reproducing part of the article over here, so you get a glimpse of how we eventually managed to do it:

"[...] I asked Giora about his experience with the Lotus Greenhouse and he had a great story to share with me. Giora successfully completed a significant project by using the Lotus Greenhouse to collaborate with colleagues. In fact, before the project began, Giora did not even know all of the people involved! Here’s what happened… Giora was called by a local Lotus representative to give a joint presentation for Government 2.0 - see this article - with John Kamensky , another IBMer. Each person had their own presentation and they needed to combine the two presentations into one. While doing research, Giora ran across another presentation from Luis Suarez , an IBMer in Europe.

After being introduced to Luis, the three colleagues decided to combine all of their presentations into one. Giora did not have access to any internal IBM sites so he created an Activity in the Lotus Greenhouse through which to collaborate with John and Luis. It only took 36 hours for Giora, John, and Luis to create a single presentation. What an excellent example of how you can use the Lotus Greenhouse to work with others, between companies and around the world."

Yes, that’s right! In less than 36 hours, three total strangers with a passion to bring forward some awareness on Social Computing got together through Lotus Connections Activities in the Lotus Greenhouse and produced a final deck which was very well received by the customer and all of that without a single time using e-mail to get the job done!

That is how you can move away from e-mail as your collaboration tool. Find the group of folks you would want to collaborate with, even your customers!, and then decide jointly what’s the best way to get the job done. Don’t jump immediately into e-mail, because everyone has got it, or everyone will get it, or it is the easiest way to reach out. It may well be initially, but over time, it is a burden, it is locked down, it doesn’t provide an open, collaborative nor innovative space and there is always this innate feeling of having to chase things up, over and over again, right?

So, why not invest a little time at the beginning in collaboratively working with your customers and share with them how you would want to engage with them? Don’t you think that’s something they themselves would be expecting, too? You know, I bet they are the first ones who would want to move away from e-mail. Thus why not help them? Bring out the conversation and I am sure you would find plenty of lovely surprises all around… It is up to you to get things started and slowly, but steadily, move away from e-mail. And don’t worry, the wasters are lovely!

(You may not be able to access some of the links mentioned above, specially the ones related to the story itself, which has been shared inside the Lotus Greenhouse. If that’s the case and you would want to take a look around and read some more on it, sign up for a free account over at http://greenhouse.lotus.com/join and feel free to mention my name as the reference, if you are asked about one. Have fun!)

Tags: IBM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, e-mail, email, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Innovation, Productivity, Openness, Transparency, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Collaboration 2.0, Communication, E-mail Abuse, Visibility, Awareness, Think, Re-purposing E-Mail, Education, Co-Working, Lotus Connections, Connections, Activities, Facebook, Twitter, Lotus Greenhouse, Greenhouse, Government 2.0, Giora Hadar, Success Stories, Stories, John Kamensky, Choices

A couple of weeks back, I mentioned in a couple of twitterings how I was going to participate in an online video-conference interview around the topic of The Future of Work using the excellent Skype capabilities with a couple of IBM interns from Corporate Communications (Yes, indeed, no e-mail required to set it all up! Loved it!). I mentioned back then how I would be able to share with folks in this blog the actual video, the final version, so that you would be able to see / hear what my thoughts are around the subject of the next waves of interactions at the workplace.

And that time has just arrived. The video interview is up and running and available for everyone to download! But before I comment further on it, let me share with you how I found out about it. Not through e-mail, of course. Indeed!

Some time ago, Todd Watson, fellow IBMer and very good friend, mentioned a few weeks back what it’d be like coming back to work with no e-mail to process, based on the NYTimes article I got published not long ago, and just a couple of days ago, he picked up the subject, once again, in a subsequent blog post where he talked about that same subject as well as the landing page of where the video interview on The Future of Work was being hosted. I obviously picked that up from my feeds and here I am today, sharing your thoughts about it.

I don’t think that Todd will be reading this blog entry, since he is probably enjoying some very well deserved break away from everything, but the link he initially shared was the Facebook landing page from Start@IBM, a re-vamp of IBM’s new global careers Web site where you would be able to find plenty of really helpful info on how to land yourself in such a large company as IBM

On the Facebook page though you will find plenty of funny videos and interesting tidbits that will keep you busy for a while, but since you are probably much more interested in that video-conference interview, here are the details on how you can access it, since I can’t seem to be able to embed it over here.

Go ahead and check out Goodbye Cubicle, Hello Couch, which is the title of the video and which already hints some of the stuff I mentioned on the interview on what the future of work will be like soon enough. You will notice as well how in the video William Pulleyblank, Vice President, Center for Business Optimization in Global Business Services, also shares his views on what the future of work would be like, specially with the incorporation of the younger generations into the workplace. Quite enlightening to say the least!

The video lasts for about 2:25 minutes and it may sound like way too short, but not to worry, there is much more coming up shortly! I am working already with the same interns who put together the final touches of the interview into a much longer video which will contain the entire interview we did through Skype and I will then share the link to it. The video will be hosted out there on the Web, so everyone would be able to have a look into it as well. Oh, and I have just been told that the video contained in Facebook will also be shared in YouTube, so whenever that happens I will share a link to it over here as well, just in case you may want to reference it for those folks who cannot access Facebook.

Thus head over to take a look into Goodbye Cubicle, Hello Couch and get ready for the longer version of the video interview where, if you are into Social Computing and Enterprise 2.0, there will be plenty of different items discussed there to which you could relate to yourself. Stay tuned! …

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, Facebook, YouTube, Todd Watson, New York Times, Start@IBM, Start at IBM, Employment, New Hires, William Pulleyblank, IBM Global Services, Center of Business Optimization, CBO, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Personal Knowledge Management, Personal Knowledge Sharing, Conversations

A few days back, Chris Brogan did it again and put together a very insightful and helpful blog post, specially for those folks who are not so sure about how to sell Social Computing to their managers and whoever else up in the management chain. And to that effect he put together "Twelve Ways to Sell Social Media to Your Boss", which, in case you may not have seen it, is a very good read, indeed, to get plenty of good ideas on how you can bring up the conversation with your manager.

After having gone through the list a few times, there are, of course, a couple of them which would be part of my favourites, more than anything else because I have been experiencing them myself all along in my role as a social computing evangelist at IBM. To name:

"7. Internally, social media tools can be used to help with status information, training, project collaboration. Most tools like blogs, twitter-clones like identi.ca, etc can be set up internally instead of used on the public web, for more privacy. [...]

9. Blogging helps a business differentiate and establish a thought leadership position"

In the case of #7, I am sure that it would come up to you rather quickly why it is one of my favourites, right? Yes, indeed, social computing tools can be used to help channel through plenty of those types of interactions and slowly, but steadily, move away from e-mail as your collaboration tool and open yourself to multiple various other options, which matches rather nicely what I have been doing over the last few months: giving up e-mail and use social software instead.

Social networking tools can help you bring out those interactions into much more open and collaborative spaces where you can excel with your thought leadership, and that of others, on what really drives your interests, while getting the job done.

And talking about thought leadership, item #9 is also one of my favourites, because over the course of the last few months I have realised that if it weren’t for my blogs and all of the social computing interactions on this very same topic that I have been having out there in the open, I wouldn’t have probably been that successful in moving away from e-mail. I think that most folks would have had plenty of skepticism about the whole thing, but the fact that I have been using, mostly, all of my blogs has allowed me to engage in the conversations with everyone interested in the topic and learn from what their experiences have been like so far in their attempts to give it a try for themselves.

Which brings me to the final point I would want to make from Chris’ blog post, and that, to me, is the main and fundamental way to sell social media to your boss. I am surprised that I didn’t see it getting mentioned, but I am sure that for most folks it is not going to be rocket science: yourself!

Yes, indeed, I am missing the now well famous me, me, me that Stowe Boyd has been talking about for a while now. That Social Media is all about me, that it all starts with you and your usage of those social software tools and then move forward on to figuring out how you engage with the rest of your social networks. The point where I think that, if I would be able to add a 12+1 to Chris’ post, it would be something along the lines of the following:

- In order to sell social media to your boss you first need to sell it to yourself!!

That’s right! Before we all get busy thinking about how we can sell social networking to our management line, we probably need to ensure we, ourselves, are sold on it!; that we, ourselves, see the many benefits injected into our daily workflow; that as a result of our adoption of those social software tools we are much more productive, much more responsive, much more knowledgeable, collaborative and prone towards pushing innovation further into new heights.

In short, in order to sell Social Media to our boss, we need to ensure we are passionate enough to demonstrate actively, and time and time again, the kind of impact that social software is having not only within our daily job(s), but also within our own personal lives. Because there is a great chance that passion you are willing to share with your boss is what will make it all contagious and get your management line sold out as soon as they see that excitement, that commitment, that involvement, that willingness to make a difference within your company and show everyone else it is possible. And you know why?

Well, more than anything else because you are the first one who is clearly benefiting from it all. You are the one, who, as a result, are much more productive, much more knowledgeable about your daily job, have an extensive social network of various dozens, perhaps, of subject matter experts as part of your social networks and, above all, are willing to spend some time showing everyone else why they would need to start paying attention to it, if they haven’t done so already, and engage actively from there onwards. *That*, to me, is how I would sell Social Computing to my boss!

But then again I may be privileged, because all the way to the top of my management line are already sold out on social computing. Perhaps now the next challenge for us all would then be convince your boss. Ready?

Let’s do it!

Tags: Chris Brogan, Social Media, Social Computing, Social Software, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Online Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Innovation, Management Adoption, Enterprise Social Software Adoption, Management Buy-in, Thought Leadership, No Email, Me Me Me, Stowe Boyd, Social Networks, Passion, Commitment, Involvement, Engagement, Excitement, Willingness, Managers, Management, Management 2.0, Social Software Adoption, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Personal Knowledge Management, Personal KM, Personal Knowledge Sharing

Continuing further with the weekly progress reports on my new mantra of giving up e-mail, as in corporate e-mail, here I am again with another progress report, this time for week 26, where, it looks like, things have gone back to normal a bit. Or so it seems. You would remember how, for week 25 I reached a new low with regards to the incoming count of e-mails received, as I have blogged about it a couple of days back. Well last week things settled back into what I have been getting used to for the last few weeks already. Here is the screen shot of the report:

Yes, indeed, back again into the 30 e-mails coming through during the course of week. Somehow, I am starting to get used to such number, more than anything else because it makes a round number of 6 e-mails a day approx. although I am still keen on lowering it down more and more perhaps to 10 to 15 a week! Thus the fight is still on. Let’s see how it goes further…

For today though, I would like to share with you folks a couple of links that I have bumped into or that some other folks have passed on and which I am sure you are going to enjoy quite a bit. The first link comes from Alan Lepofsky, former IBMer and very good friend, and who recently moved into SocialText, for those folks who may not be familiar with the huge piece of news that hit a couple of weeks back! Alan pointed me to this particular wild idea, which I think is very much spot on with regards to the kind of e-mail overload that plenty of folks can identify with: "Broken business processes contribute to our email overload".

In it you would be able to find some really really good gems like this particular paragraph for which I just couldn’t stop smiling while reading through it:

"Worse than the volume of email is the amount of mental energy required by each email recipient, ergo worker, to parse each exception and determine what to do with it. E-mail was once intended to increase productivity and has now become so voluminous it is counter productive. Basex determined that business loose $650 billion in productivity due to the unnecessary email interruptions. And, the average number of corporate emails sent and received per person per day expected to reach over 228 by 2010."

Indeed! Maybe that’s the problem we have been having all along. Maybe that’s where it all got started. Maybe it was down to use to complicate our own corporate existence by putting together whatever the various different business processes and then create exception after exception after exception to ensure we could all possible scenarios. And as a result of that we all went mad using e-mail all over the place to process those exceptions.

I can surely agree with the idea that business processes are the main culprit, perhaps, as to a large chunk of the e-mails we get on a daily basis and kind of wondering whether we may need to STOP, re-think things again and go back to K.I.S.S. Yes, keeping things simple, straightforward, brief, with not so many exceptions would probably help us improve the way we interact through e-mail. However, why not take things further into the next level? Why not re-think the model of engagement and move straight outside the Inbox and start re-building processes with a 2.0 flavour where perhaps openness and transparency would be part of the criteria behind them? What is it out there that may be stopping us from doing that?

I mean, we all know that most of the processes we work with throughout the course of the day are somehow broken, so why not fix them? Why not re-evaluate their validity, update them accordingly and start making use of social software tools within the enterprise. Wouldn’t it be quite something to, at least, give it a try? I am sure right from the beginning we would be able to see the benefits, like that former link / idea puts it nicely within the following quote:

"Socialtext has been building out business practice support using their customizable Enterprise 2.0 platform to return email back to its rightful place in the communication stratigraphy, which is not as the catch-all for exception handling. Their business social software makes the process more productive, reducing email by 30%."

If it sounds *so* easy, what’s stopping / preventing us from diving in and address those broken processes? Exactly! Nothing!

So what are we waiting for then? Are we just too lazy, or gotten to much used to dealing with the exceptions that we just don’t care in improving the way we work? I am not sure about you, but I refuse to think that is the case. So what is stopping us?!?

The second link is eventually a whole lot more fun, as well as educational and enlightening on what the possibilities are on moving away from the good old e-mail system(s) into a much more open and collaborative environment: in this case a wiki (This particular example coming from Socialtext as well).

The link is actually a screencast that Alan himself put together over here. It lasts a little bit over three minutes and it demonstrates how certain collaborative tasks, like gathering input, or brainstorming, can be better achieved through a wiki, which, in this particular case, taps into your regular e-mail. So those folks very keen on making use of e-mail, they still can. The rest can also then go into the specific wiki and see how they can each contribute into the overall effort.

Alan’s screencast is a very good example of how a wiki, Socialtext, in this case, can help you reduce, tremendously, the amount of e-mails you get on a daily basis as well as reducing your outbound e-mails to others. And if not, check out how easy it is:

After watching the screencast you would have to agree with me that most of the times it is not that difficult, right? It is probably just a matter of thinking outside the inbox and Alan just demonstrated it how easy it is …

Tags: IBM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, e-mail, email, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Innovation, Productivity, Openness, Transparency, Progress Reports, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Collaboration 2.0, Communication, E-mail Abuse, Visibility, Awareness, Think, Re-purposing E-Mail, Delegated Tasks, Education, Co-Working, Learning 2.0, Peer to Peer Learning, Screencasts, Wikis, Socialtext, Alan Leposky, Business Processes, Processes, E-mail Overload, Basex, Tutorials

Big, big news today! Specially for those folks out there interested in wikis and adopting wikis within the enterprise. I am sure that by now you may have read about them, since a couple of folks have already blogged about the massive announcement, but, nevertheless, just in case you may have missed it, I will share a couple of lines on it over here. Stewart Mader, author of the superb Grow Your Wiki, is going solo & starting his own consultancy business around organizational wiki adoption. Wooo-hooo!

Congratulations, Stewart!!! Way to go!!

In case you don’t know much about Stewart, which I doubt, since he is a very prolific blogger, incredibly engaging speaker, writer of one of the most essential books on wikis and corporate wiki adoption: Wikipatterns, active twitterer, too (On top of various other social networking sites!), I can honestly say that you are missing out on one of the smartest talents within the Enterprise 2.0 space we have nowadays.

I had the great opportunity of finally meeting him up in person in Varese, while presenting at the Enterprise 2.0 Forum in Italy, after a couple of years of interacting all over the place in various Social Computing spaces. And it surely was one of my highlights from the event! He is even much smarter in person & we enjoyed quite a few conversations for a couple of days, specially a very very interesting and enlightening one over a beer at the airport waiting for our flights back after two and a half days of being disconnected from the world. Yes, we survived the temptation, till the last minute, at least, of getting connected and kept talking!

Either way, if you haven’t subscribed to his blog, I can certainly recommend you do so, more than anything else because otherwise you are missing plenty of good quality materials like 21 Days of Wiki Adoption that I have blogged about over here a little while ago.

I am sure that Stewart will be doing just fine going solo with his wiki consultancy and I am very excited for him and for all of us, because we would be getting even much more exposure into some of the really good stuff that he would be doing much more often from now onwards, like the ESSENTIAL presentation itself that he did over at the Enterprise 2.0 Forum in Italy and which is just one of many where you can see what Stewart is up to: Grow Your Wiki. I tell you, if there would be a single presentation that you would want to watch around the topics and the kind of impact they are having within the corporate world, this would be it:

CONGRATULATIONS, once again, Stewart! Well done!