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

Trip to Rotterdam, The Netherlands, to Present at the Dutch Innovation Platform

Last couple of days have been a bit more hectic than usual, probably due to the holidays coming up (Happy Thanksgiving to those folks who may be celebrating it!), as well as myself preparing and getting ready for what’s supposed to be my last business trip of the year (And what a year!!!) and which will take place next week Monday for most of the week itself. This time around, and for the second time this year, I will be heading to Rotterdam, The Netherlands, where I will be arriving on Monday afternoon and be leaving on Thursday noon as well.

The purpose of my trip to Rotterdam this time around would be to meet up with a couple of customers to talk about Social Software and what IBM is doing in that specific area, both internally and externally, with a specific focus on the social and cultural changes happening in the corporate environment versus just a social software tools focus.

Then the other reason why I will be going to The Netherlands is to eventually take part in one of those special events around the world of Innovation that you know is going to have a significant impact and will leave you behind with too much food for thought. Yes, indeed, I am talking about the event that every year the Dutch Innovation Platform puts together around the subject of higher education, research and innovation. This time around with the title: "Above the ground level" ("Boven het maaiveld") and hosted at Van Nelle Ontwerpfabriek in Rotterdam itself.

You would be able to find more information and further details about the event itself over at its main homepage or, alternatively, you can also download the full agenda from here. As you go through it you would be able to see how at 15:30 pm local time, I will be presenting on what’s been one of my favourite topics as of late (And if you have been reading this blog long enough you would know already which one it is, right? ): "A world without mail", where I will be sharing my experiences on what’s been like giving up on e-mail for the last 10 months and a half in such a big (And e-mail driven!) corporation as IBM!

Needless to say that I am incredibly excited about taking part in this particular event, as I am sure you would be able to see from the quality of the actual agenda itself; and to be able to present a glimpse of the kind of impact that social computing is having within the corporate world as part of that Social Innovation that a few of us have been advocating for a little while now is probably one of the best ways of ending an unforgettable year. One that has surely changed the way I work, interact, connect, collaborate and share my knowledge with other colleagues, but not only that, also my life! Why not.

If you are going to be around that time in Rotterdam next week, and if you would want to get together for a drink or two to catch up, feel free to give me a shout and we will make it happen. I will be there from Monday afternoon, till Thursday afternoon, like I mentioned above, and after I get back I will go ahead and share some further highlights from the event itself. I am sure it would be one of those events hard to forget for a while! As usual!

Ready to Innovate with a capital I?

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Dialogue, Connections, Relationships, e-mail, email, Productivity, Communication, Re-purposing E-mail, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Netherlands, Dutch Innovation Platform, Innovatieplatform, Conference Events, Events, Social Innovation

Oh, No!!! Have I Become a Mac Fanboy?

Well, I surely hope not! Or, at least, not yet!! The truth is though that, earlier on today, I went to the candy store, errr, I mean, to the Apple Store (One of its official providers, actually!) here in Gran Canaria and look what I got for myself while spending a few minutes in there:

Goodness! Someone has got to keep me away from visiting such places and get an exposure to such lovely sweets. It is a very dangerous thing, don’t you think? But doesn’t it look gorgeous? Now you will be able to understand why I got easily distracted over the last few hours and why I have gone relatively quiet in most of the social software spaces I usually hang out in. But fear not, regular blogging activities will resume shortly. It is just that I couldn’t help sharing the pictures of this beauty over here. Probably my next blog post will be coming through from that sexy thing… (I can see it …, what a treat, eh? )

In its due time I will also be sharing a lengthier blog post though with a review of what the experience has been moving from the old 15” MacBook Pro I have been using over the last year and a half (With an wonderful experience to say the least!) to the new and shiny MacBook Pro 15”, so that you can get an idea what it has been like and, most importantly, for me to figure out whether it is an easy move or not. We shall see.

But for now I just need to step away for a few minutes and keep drooling! Ahhh, yes, I may have become a Mac Fanboy after all, but who wouldn’t, right? hehe

Tags: Mac, Apple, MacBook, MacBook Pro, Technology, Gadgets, Apple Store, Gran Canaria, Fun Stuff, Distractions

Giving up on Work e-mail – Status Report on Week 40 (How to Get Rid of e-mail)

And, slowly, but steadily, we are back in business! Yes, indeed, folks, last week, you would remember, was a quiet week over here due to yours truly being hit by a severe cold caught while attending one of the best 2.0 events in Spain at the moment (And probably one of the best out there in Europe, too!): EventoBlog 2008. And even though I am still not 100% up and running, things have improved tremendously and I am getting back, slowly, into the swing of things once again.

As you may have imagined, regular blogging activities will resume this week again, and while I am preparing the three blog posts with some of the highlights from such a wonderful event in Seville (i.e. EBE08), I thought I would pick things up with, yet again, another weekly progress report from my giving up on e-mail at work, which is going to become very handy as that was also the subject of the presentation I did on Sunday the week before and it surely provoked the kind of reactions I was hoping for. But let’s start one step at a time…

You would remember how over the last few weeks I have been blogging about an increasingly larger number of e-mails received, because of a numerous variety of reasons having to deal with my own clumsiness, the infamous "Reply to All" button and whatever else. Over time I was starting to get worried that I would end up on a dangerous frenzy of e-mail exchanges from which I would not be able to escape. Well, here you have got the progress report from the incoming e-mail count I got while I was on holidays, and then attending EventoBlog in Seville:

Excellent stuff, don’t you think? Back again, and after a couple of weeks of seeing such an increase, we are back in business and already on target for my follow up challenge, which is getting 20 e-mails, or less, a week! And a couple of weeks back, when I made the 10th month in a row without using e-mail at work (Yes, 10 months without using corporate e-mail!!), I eventually got 20 e-mails during that entire week! Not bad. Not bad at all, indeed!

And all of that while I have been away for the entire week, as well as attending and presenting at that particular event over the weekend, which is probably a much more compelling case! Wooohooo! I wonder what last week would be like … (More on that one coming up soon!)

For now, though, and after going through such a great week with some really interesting figures, I would want to share with you one interesting link, which I think would be quite relevant for this post, as well as making a short annotation on upcoming changes with regards to this particular blog. A whole bunch of folks have asked me offline whether it would be possible for me to eventually create a series of blog posts, in Spanish, describing what I am doing, what the experience is like, challenges, lessons learned, good tips / advice, things I have learned, how to get started themselves, etc. etc.

And time and time again I have been wanting to, but never found the chance, nor the opportunity, to make it happen. Well, that may well end up soon! And all of that thanks to EventoBlog! Why? More than anything else, because of the huge amount of reactions, skepticism and constructive feedback I have been receiving on what I have been doing all of these months! And I think it is time I engage as well with the Spanish blogosphere, more than anything else to help bring in further some more awareness on what it is like working, and living!, without e-mail at work.

So starting up very soon I will be putting together a number of blog posts that will try to link to some of those conversations and I will pick things up from there and try to get some dialogue going right here, BAU. But in Spanish! Thus we shall see how that goes.

For now though I would want to wrap up this particular blog post with an interesting link, which I think would be worth while reading for you folks, interested in the subject. It’s eventually a press interview I did with Delia Rodriguez (From Soytu.es), while at EBE08, where we had a good and lengthy conversation on what I have been doing, i.e. not using e-mail at work, and, as a result of it, she put together a really good read over at Cómo librarse del correo electrónico. Yes, it is an interview / article in Spanish and that’s why I think it would fit in quite nicely for those folks who were asking for additional content in Spanish as well.

Well, there it is. A rather lengthy interview with Delia where I have shared my experiences on what it is like not living with e-mail at work on a daily basis and have to struggle with it, but, instead, use it as one of the various other options, or choices, available out there, along with a whole bunch of social software tools. Then towards the end of the article she describes a number of different tips I have put together on how other folks can get started with it and gradually move away from e-mail. Yes, also in Spanish, but I think most of you folks would understand some of the concepts behind, as you would be able to relate to it quite a bit. Here you have got those tips:

"1. Identificar los correos sin valor. Suelen ser los informativos, los de resultados, los FYI (‘For Your Information’). Se pueden sustituir por un blog, que además tiene comentarios.
2. Acabar con las newsletters. También pueden ser sustituídas por Wikis, que pueden ser creados entre todos y no por unos editores. Cada grupo debe crear sus contenidos.
3. Comenzar un proyecto piloto con un grupo que utilice el software social. Que sea pequeño, así si falla no ocurre nada, pero si triunfa el ejemplo se extenderá.
4. Inculcar desde arriba que no mirar el correo electrónico es bueno. Si los grandes ejecutivos no lo manejan y tienen secretarias que se lo filtran ¿por qué no hacer lo mismo?"

Thus there you have it, another week gone by, another week right on target and from here onwards, and as a way to help provide some additional answers to people’s queries mentioned during EventoBlog, very shortly I will start publishing some content in Spanish about what I am doing in this area, but also about the usual topics I have been blogging about as well all along. So, ¡¡prepárate porque va a ser divertido!!

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Dialogue, Connections, Relationships, e-mail, email, Productivity, Communication, Re-purposing E-mail, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload, EventoBlog, EBE, EBE08, Events, Blogging, Metablogging, Seville, Spain, Flu, Cold, Delia Rodriguez, Soytu.es, Soytu, Blogosfera, Spanish Blogosphere