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

Lost Generation

I know that plenty of people out there do not buy into the digital divide; I do realise that plenty of people out there do not think there are various generations at work trying to understand one another in getting the job done, while each of them follows their own ways of doing things; that there isn’t such thing as generation X, or generation Y, or the baby boomers themselves adding further up into that divide; that it is all part of that increasing buzzword bingo game we all get exposed to every now and then when we go to conferences, attend workshops, talk to customers, etc. etc.

But then again, the magic of serendipity kicks in, and you bump into one of those video clips that will certainly make you think about things twice; that eventually questions those disbeliefs, demonstrating that there may well be something out there that we keep missing or ignoring and that we know is going to hit us back soon enough. That we are closer than ever to witness that transition into the Social Computing realm within the corporate world and beyond; that we are already living it through; and that those younger generations surely know what lies ahead, what changes and what challenges they are facing, and how they see themselves, and those around them, in their own near future within the enterprise.

Yes, through that serendipitous knowledge discovery process, last week, over in Twitter, I kept bumping into what has been one of the most inspirational videos I have watched in a little while! It lasts for nearly two minutes and it comes under the intriguing title of "Lost Generation". The video clip itself is well worth watching it through all the way and it will surely remind you that there is something to be said about how the younger generations feel not only about their working relationships, but also about their personal lives, their hopes, their expectations, their way of life, their everything. And if not, coming pretty close. Not going to say much more about it, other than encouraging you all folks to have a look and watch it. It will be worth your time. Even better, it will make you think about all of these things with a different view / perspective.

In short, it will provide you with a smashing start of the week with a truly inspirational message indicating how we are witnessing that change in the corporate world that probably doesn’t have a way back out of it. And, eventually, we shouldn’t!

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, Digital Divide, Generations, Workplace, Generation X, Generation Y, GenX, GenY, Baby Boomers, YouTube, Videos, Twitter, Lost Generation, Life Style, Beliefs, Expectations, Challenges, Changes, Younger Generations

IBM Lotusphere 2009 Highlights – The Business Value of Collaboration Software

Continuing further with some of the highlights from IBM‘s Lotusphere 2009 event that I attended in Orlando, FL, in January 2009, I thought I would cover what, to me, was one of the most inspiring and thought-provoking moments throughout the entire event. Specially since it ties in, quite nicely, with a couple of blog posts I have shared over here recently around the topic of Social Software and figuring out its Return on Investment or ROI.

Those moments were actually a number of conversations that throughout the event I had the pleasure of having with my good friend David Tebutt, who was also at Lotusphere (And who blogged his experiences over at his own blog), where we eventually brainstormed for quite a bit on the whole thing around the subject of proving the business value of social software.

And the result of those great conversations is this wonderful piece he has shared not long ago over at CIO.com (Available as well over at CIO.co.uk) under the heading: "CIO Technology Analysis: The business value of collaboration software". In that article David gets to expand further on how key and paramount Collaboration is becoming within the corporate world, yet it is not as pervasive as you would have expected.

The entire article is filled up with plenty of precious gems that clearly state what are some of the challenges the corporate world has to face in the Knowledge Economy of the 21st century, as well as some of the advantages of embracing and fostering an effective knowledge sharing culture. I am not going to reproduce any of them over here; instead I would certainly encourage you all to go and read through it, specially if you are also interested in finding out how IBM is embracing these new knowledge sharing and collaboration tools within the social software space to help deliver plenty of value add that surely is benefiting the entire enterprise (Highly recommended if you want to catch up with some measurements on IBM’s internal use of social computing tools).

However, what’s rather interesting from the article itself, including those insightful gems, is another part of the conversations we had where over a couple of beers here and there, we came up with a good number of the most relevant value-related benefits. And here you have got them:

1. "Find: people, places, information – quickly by using profiles, and other people’s tags and bookmarks as accelerants.
2. Validate: people especially. What have they posted? What do others make of them? You could arrive at a shortlist for a project team much more quickly and at greatly reduced cost than before.
3. Direct dialogue: with customers (and suppliers), internal and external. This eliminates filtering and politics and leads to more rapid understanding. It could mean fixing things that have gone wrong or identifying new product and service opportunities.
4. Capture information: from people as they’re working or reviewing online material. This could prove especially valuable if faced with staff churn or retirements.
5. Connections: spread internal innovation widely and rapidly – bad ideas don’t get traction but good ones do.
6. Communities: increase staff morale and retention through a sense of belonging and recognition."

Some of these various benefits, we both fully realised, may not be easy to quantify, nor qualify, like David mentioned, but then again we may not need to altogether, as long as organisations have "an open, collaborative and trusting culture. Without that, it can never work. But with it, social software can transform the way we collaborate and share information."

Yes, Sir! I couldn’t have agreed more with that final statement from David! Now, the remaining challenge is … is your business culturally ready? If you are not sure just yet how or what to answer, allow me to share with you another superb article, this time around published by Matthew Hodgson (At the AppGap), under the title "The ROI of being social at work" and which, I am sure, would prove to be rather helpful in laying out the answer(s) for us all.

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, CIO, BlueIQ Ambassadors, Evangelists, Ambassadors, Culture, Trust, Matthew Hodgson, AppGap, ROI, Return on Investment, Business Value, Value Add, Openness, Transparency

Mac Tip #2: Picasa – The Easy Way to Find, Edit and Share Your Fotos

It is that time again where I get to blog about that series of Mac Tips I started a little while ago,  talking about some of the most helpful and resourceful productivity tools that surely are helping me get the most of out of my MacBook Pro experience as my primary work machine and at the same time help me stay on top of things while giving up on email at work altogether.

Well, today’s Mac Tip  doesn’t have much to do with email per se, but I am sure you would find it equally helpful. Specially, if you have to handle large amounts of pictures in a very short period of time… If you have been following this blog for a while you would know by now how when I made the switch from a Windows notebook into this MacBook Pro there were two different applications I knew I was going to miss big time.

One of them hasn’t made it just yet into the Mac world (So I will not mention it this time around, waiting for that time when it is finally there!), but the other one has and this is what this blog post will be about; my favourite program to handle pictures on the Mac: Google’s Picasa!

There are plenty of different reasons why, if you haven’t given a try to Picasa on the Mac yet, you actually should. However, I thought that for today’s Mac Tip I would share with you five reasons why it would be worth to give it a try and, I am sure, keep it! So let’s go!:

1. Handling large amounts of photos: Must confess, up until now, I have been using both iPhoto 08 and Aperture and just simply loading both libraries of my pictures archives (Over 15GB) would take a good amount of time that with Picasa just doesn’t happen. Open up the application and voilá, ready to go! And the same thing happens with navigating the different galleries. Just too slow compared to the snappy Picasa. Thus if you have got large amounts of pictures, Picasa will do the job beautifully faster!
2. Exporting and uploading with Flickr Uploadr (into Flickr): One of my favourite features from Picasa. That is, the capability of working with your photos, adjust whatever settings, export the new picture and ready to be uploaded into my Flickr account with the lovely Flickr Uploadr. Just perfect! Allows me to have control over the quality of the pictures I would want to share and that’s why you may have noticed how I have started to share many more pictures in there than in previous months. Main reason: Picasa itself.
3. Creating collages on the fly: One of my other favourite features. Putting together some of my favourite photos and then on the fly create some amazing collages that surely have the effect I would want to provide. Check, for instance, the collage I put together for my Twitter homepage background. It was done with Picasa’s collage capabilities. Very nice!
4. I’m Feeling Lucky: To me, the one single feature that makes Picasa on its own worth it! That super nifty and incredibly powerful button that when displaying a photo you click on it and it does a wonderful job for you improving the overall quality of the picture. Just amazing! I used to do this with both iPhoto and Aperture (And, except for more complex tweaking of images where I still use the latter), and very soon it became a bit painful for simple image processing. With this particular option in Picasa it gets the job done in a blink! Like I said, this feature alone is worth while downing and installing Picasa itself.
5. Free: Yes, of course, I have to give this one as well as one of the top 5 reasons. Very few of the image processing and handling tools out there for the Mac are freeware. Both iPhoto and Aperture cost money (And quite a bit in the case of Aperture!), thus knowing there is a very qualified tool for this kind of job that you can get for free in a Mac is just a no-brainer. Don’t you think? Yes, I know it is beta as well, but we do love betas, don’t we?

And that would be it. Top 5 reasons for me as to why Google’s Picasa has now become my default Mac application to handle, process and share pictures (In combination with Flickr Uploadr). I know there are plenty more, but I think those five would be good enough. And if not, check out the end result of what this superb tool can do for you and for your pictures:

Not bad, eh? Not bad at all!

Tags: Mac, Apple, MacBook Pro, MBP, Tips, Hints, Productivity, Productivity-Tips, Tools, Images, Photos, Photo Gallery, Flickr, Google, Picasa, Free, Freeware, Beta, iPhoto 08, iPhoto08, Aperture, Flickr Uploadr, Twitter, Collages, I’m Feeling Lucky, Pictures, Productivity Tools