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

Trip to Madrid and Barcelona to Present at Lotusphere Comes to You on Enterprise 2.0

The last couple of days have been rather hectic at work, more than anything else as I was going through the final details for my next business trip that will start tomorrow. Well, not exactly tomorrow. But yes, tomorrow I am on the road again! Yay!

Yes, that’s right! Tomorrow I will start with a half and half vacation / business trip into mainland Spain. More specific going to Madrid and then Barcelona. I will be spending a couple of days off in both cities and in between I will be taking part of what promises to be quite an interesting couple of events taking place during next week: Lotusphere Comes to You 2009 (Lotusphere llega a su ciudad 2009).

As you will be able to see from the agenda, both events are going to be rather intense and on a fast pace, since there would be plenty of stuff to cover for just one morning each. Still it promises to be rather exciting to be able to get together in a single place IBM‘s customers, various business partners as well as a bunch of IBMers, talking about some of the really nice stuff that was shown during Lotusphere 2009.

In this particular edition there are plenty of news to be shared as well and as such there are plenty of new sources of information. There is a blog with a tremendous amount of detail on what the event will be like and other pieces of relevant details that may be of interest; there is also a Facebook event for folks to hang out before, during and after the event, as well as a Twitter ID, where people can reach out to digest some more info details.

But, let’s go back into the agenda for a minute:

As you would be able to see, pretty intense, like I mentioned earlier on! Take a look though at the time slot 11:15 to 11:45am where yours truly, along with another fellow colleague, will be talking on the topic of Web 2.0 and how it has moved into the corporate world under Enterprise 2.0. We will be talking about collaboration, productivity and adoption within the enterprise, but at the same time we will be spending some time in discussing the huge opportunity for social software in the current business environment as well as cover the latest news related to perhaps a couple of the most powerful Enterprise 2.0 products IBM is offering at the moment: Lotus Quickr & Lotus Connections.

We will be mentioning some of the really cool features coming up with both Quickr and Connections, specially with v2.5 of Connections, where there are some pretty fundamental changes worth while exploring further.

Like I said, one event to keep an eye on. For sure! If you would want to register for the event head over here and sign up! If you also fancy getting together before, during or after both Lotusphere Comes to You events (Madrid & Barcelona), for a drink and / or a chat, you know where to find me already, right?

See you there!

(Oh, and not to worry, I won’t be talking about "A World Without Email", unless you ask me to )

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, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Re-purposing Email, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload, Lotusphere, Lotusphere 2009, Lotusphere Comes To You, LS09, LCTY09, Lotusphere Llega A Su Ciudad 2009, Madrid, Barcelona, Spain, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Lotus Quickr, Lotus Connections, Quick, Connections, Business Value, Adoption, Social Software Adoption

The Business Value of Social Networking by David Tebbutt

Over the last couple of weeks I have been blogging a couple of times around the topic of figuring out the Return of Investment (a.k.a. ROI) of Social Software, with the latest instance over at "IBM Lotusphere 2009 Highlights – The Business Value of Collaboration Software". To continue further with some more thoughts on this subject, here I am again, putting together a short blog post sharing with you a follow up of that last blog entry with a lovely presentation that David Tebbutt recently held at CMA’s 50th conference in London and which continues our previous conversation on the topic.

You will be able to access the presentation from this direct link, or you can watch the embedded version below:

In it David is off to a solid start putting together some caveats that clearly outline what social software is doing at the moment within the corporate world: "Hierarchies get flattened; Silos get breached; Intermediaries get sidelined; Openness increases; Transparency increases; Trust is vital". Yes, I know what you are thinking! Some of those caveats are very tied in with what traditional Knowledge Management attempted to do from the very beginning but failed to deliver over the course of the years. Well, it gets better…

From there onwards David puts together a number of different key elements that help emphasize the impact of social software within the enterprise. To name: "Discover; Validate through; Dialogue; Reputation; Morale; Innovation; Harness; ". You would have to agree with me that all of these are very valuable intangibles, with a very clear business value, yet almost impossible to pull their ROI, don’t you think? Yet we all know we probably couldn’t survive without each and everyone of them. And probably we shouldn’t!

Which is just the perfect end of the slide deck itself with "So, what is the value of social networking?"… Well, how about these?:

Not bad, eh?

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, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Lotusphere, Lotusphere 2009, LS09, Lotusphere2009, Highlights, David Tebutt, Tebbo, Culture, Trust, ROI, Return on Investment, Business Value, Value Add, Openness, Transparency, CMA, Silos, Flattened Hierarchies, Intermediaries, Openness, Reputation, Harness, Discovery, Validation, Morale

Using Twitter in the Enterprise by Ed Yourdon

At this point in time I am sure that, if you have been paying attention to the growing number of articles, blog posts, tutorials, education materials, helpful tips, useful resources, wonderful insights, etc. etc., you are probably starting to get some sort of what I have been starting to call Twitter fatigue. Yes, that’s right! Everyone seems to be talking about Twitter nowadays, don’t you think? Specially the mainstream media, as it is starting to grab more and more the attention of the general public, and probably it is starting to get much more publicity than several other social software tools available out there. At least, based on its exponential growth, if you come to think about Twitter celebrities, as an example. The few links included in this entry are just a few of the ones that have ended up in my feed reader(s) over the last couple of weeks. And still plenty more left behind!

However, some times you get to bump into some pretty interesting, enlightening and rather inspiring articles that would be worth while commenting on and reference, and I thought I would share with you all three of them that I have found rather helpful not only to get an idea of what Twitter really is (If there are folks out there who still haven’t been exposed to it), but also, much more importantly, how you can benefit from it as one of your corporate social software tools to engage with right away, in case you haven’t done it just yet. Thus here you have three worth while reading items to give you an idea of the kind of potential Twitter has and that’s starting to build up in the area of social software tools, both inside and outside of the corporate firewall:

• Twitter goes mainstream – Fast Forward Blog you the Ist Twitter Guide to the Social Revolution: Excellent guide put together by my good friend Rob Paterson over at The FASTForward Blog that explains the kind of impact Twitter is having in both our virtual and in real life interactions, specially when facing critical situations.
• How to Present While People are Twittering: Superb piece of work put together by Olivia Mitchell, over at Pistachio Consulting (Over there Laura Fitton has been doing some wonderful work as well on evaluating the true potential of microsharing for business), and where she shares plenty of great tips for speakers that will change your views on how audiences engage and interact during your talk(s) using live tweeting (Like I do over at @elsuacon, for instance).
• And, finally, one of my favourites. A brilliant presentation by Ed Yourdon under the title "Using Twitter in the Enterprise", which he has also kindly shared over at Slideshare, and which provides plenty of further insights on how Twitter, and microsharing social software tools, in general, can be used within the corporate world to help drive innovation further into the next level for such relevant areas as software development, project management and process improvement!

Here is the embedded version just in case you would want to go through it right away:

You see? At the end of the day, it’s all about ambient intimacy at work, like Leisa would say. Or is it really? … Seems like Twitter is no longer that intimate

(Yes, I know, I still have to put together my own blog post on how I am using Twitter myself, like everyone else has been doing already… Coming up!)

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, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Productivity, Twitter, Micro-blogging, Metablogging, Microsharing, FASTForward Blog, Rob Paterson, Talks, Olivia Mitchell, Pistachio Consulting, Pistachio, Laura Fitton, Live Tweeting, Ed Yourdon, Enterprise Microsharing, Ambient Intimacy, Leisa Reichelt, Tutorials, Guides, Resources, Insights, Mainstream Media, Media Darlings