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

The Future of Conference Events – Looking after the Health of Attendees

I am sure that by now most of you folks out there would be up to date with a good number of the discussions that have been going on around the subject of how to improve the overall experience of attendees to various different conference events. Specially in the area of Technology / Web / Internet related ones, where there seems to be a growing tendency to be even more connected during the event than everywhere else.

Well, today it is my turn, although I am not going to focus on the content nor the form improvements of the events themselves (I will be doing that at a later time after I have reflected plenty more on what some of the folks I have been following for a while now have been saying so far), but on something else I also feel it is equally important and that has been in my mind for a long while now: the logistics!

Not to worry, this is not going to be a post where I will keep objecting about the poor quality of wireless connectivity throughout the duration of the event itself, but something more fundamental, which is eventually going to change the way I will engage in upcoming events, from now onwards, since no-one seems to be caring about such important issues as my own health!

Yes, indeed, one of the things I have noticed in most of the events I have attended both this year and last year was the lack of commitment and involvement from the conference organisers to look after the health of the attendees of the event, specially that one from those folks heavily involved with both live con-blogging, or live tweeting, amongst various other online activities, where the conditions are far from being optimal.

I am not sure about you, but I am starting to get tired of having to spend a good amount of hours sitting on uncomfortable chairs, with both my Mac and my Nokia N95 on my lap, rather live con-blogging, live-tweeting or taking pictures, in very awkward positions that by the end of the day my wrists only feel just that: pain, pain, pain! I am having enough of that, if you ask me.

I have been working with computers for over 12 years so far and all along I have been watching out for my wrists, elbows and shoulders as to help me prevent from suffering repetitive strain injury (a.k.a. RSI). I try to exercise as much as I possibly can, move around, sit in a comfortable, ergonomic position, ensuring my Mac is just on the right place for me to inflict the less pain I can to my body. And that seems to be working all right (Knock on wood!). Except when I go and attend conference events. The whole concept of ergonomic postures disappears entirely and my wrists get to suffer not only during the event itself, but also for a few more days afterwards, while I try to recover from it all.

So I am having enough of it. Really. And I feel sorry, because after attending a couple of events already this year and still going through the same thing, I have decided that my participation in sharing further thoughts, clippings, knowledge snippets, etc. live is going to be reduced dramatically, specially if conference organisers don’t look up to improve such overall experiences. "Why?", you may be wondering, right? Well, because if I don’t do it, NO-ONE will! And we are talking here about people’s health conditions, in this case, my own health; the one I need to treasure and nurture if I want to keep feeding myself and paying my bills.

I know that this may sound a little bit like a shocker and perhaps a trivial thing for most folks, but, like I said, I am starting to get tired of how inconsiderate conference events can be in this case, when it could all be fixed with putting together a number of good seats and tables, specially for those folks wanting to share with the rest of the world what’s happening at that event live.

Yet, it is not happening. Of the last 30 or so events I have attended in the last 18 months, only one of them got it right, EventoBlog in Seville, Spain, in November last year, which is the one of the various reasons why it still remains one of my favourite events to attend! They had a large room, with an overall amazing free wi-fi experience, but what I enjoyed the most from a logistics perspective was the fact they had plenty of tables at the front of the room where folks could sit comfortably, stay connected at all times with whatever the device and type away, respecting our health! Just brilliant! The way it should always be. For sure!

I just wish other events would learn from them about how increasingly important these health issues will become, specially as more and more people start engaging and participating from social software tools to share their experiences live while attending these conferences. So if next time around, whenever I get a chance to attend another one of them, you don’t see much live activity coming from me, you may already know the answer as to why that’s happening … I am just watching after my own health!

Tags: Conference Events, Events, Technology, Web, Live Con-blogging, Live Tweeting, Pictures, Logistics, Improvements, Repetitive Strain Injury, RSI, Health, Fitness, Fit, Ergonomic, Wireless, Wi-Fi, User Experience, EventoBlog, Seville, Good Practice, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Productivity, Health Improvements

A World Without Email – Year 2, Week 6 (EventoBlog – Servicios y Tecnologia 2.0 en la Empresa by Luis Suarez)

After an incredibly hectic (And frenetic!) week at work where I had to do a quick trip to Madrid to present at a Proof of Technology (a.k.a. PoT) on Social Software and Lotus Connections with a bunch of business partners (I am thinking about putting together a follow up blog post on this experience, since I found it rather interesting and exciting, specially since the focus of the majority of the discussion was on everything else, but the tools. Plenty of conversations around change management, cultural issues, adoption, etc. Yes, I know, post will be coming up shortly!), I thought I would put together another blog post catching up with the weekly progress report on my new challenge of "A World Without Email". This time around for week 6, 2nd year, which, as you would be able to see below, has produced an interesting set of results. Thus without much further ado here you have got the weekly snapshot:

Ouchie! As you may have noticed, for the first time in 6 weeks, I have gone over 25 emails on the weekly incoming count and maxed at 31, which I know for most folks that would be nothing, but since I put myself a follow up challenge for this second year to stay on 20 or below, I guess it’s something to watch out for.

You may be wondering what may have caused such sudden increase and I must confess that, once again, most of the email traffic I had from last week was due to the lovely (NOT!!!) Reply to All button. Yes, that button that presumes you would need to know about stuff, when in reality you don’t, nor you wouldn’t. But still it keeps reminding you that you need to know about something. Well, I don’t. And if I would, not to worry, I shall certainly be letting you know about it. Give me an opportunity to decide whether I want to be involved in subsequent replies or not, please, but spear me from a bunch of emails I wouldn’t need on the first place. Oh well…

Moving on forward, I thought as well I would share with you folks, what I think, would be an interesting link, specially for those folks who understand Spanish, and may want to learn further on why I started this my new reality on "A World Without Email".

Late last year, November, to be more precise, you would remember how I presented at what, to date, remains one of my favourite conference events I have attended so far: EventoBlog, in Seville, Spain. Yes, I did the well known "Thinking Outside the Inbox" and just a few days ago I found out that the session was recorded with both video and audio and is now ready for replay at Vimeo.

The fine folks over at EventoBlog blog have also put together an entry referencing the video, including as well, what I think was one of the best blog post coverage links I have seen in what I was trying to convey throughout the roughly over one hour show: "El hombre que mató al correo electrónico" ("The man who killed email") by Gonzalo Martín.

I guess I could say plenty of things about EventoBlog and everything (Just wish Twitter wouldn’t have such a bad memory, since most, if not all!, of the live tweeting from that session is gone now!), but I think I am just going to leave it for a follow up blog post, since I want to share further details on what other conference events can learn from such an amazing experience we had in Seville.

For now I will leave you with the embedded video of EventoBlog‘s Servicios y Technología 2.0 en la empresa (a.k.a. Enterprise 2.0) by yours truly (Which lasts for a little bit over 55 minutes), where you can watch the recorded session. In Spanish; which I would think is perfect timing for those folks who have been asking me where I could blog about the topic of giving up email at work in Spanish. Well, this video would be as good as it gets. Nearly one hour talking about the subject! Hope you enjoy it, just as much as I did not only during the session, but also during the entire event!

EBE 08 – Conferencia de Luis Suárez from Evento Blog España on Vimeo.

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, email, Productivity, Re-purposing Email, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload, EventoBlog, EBE08, A World Without Email, Gonzalo Martin, Conference Events, Empresa 2.0, Colaboración 2.0, Collaboración, Gestión de Conocimientos, Comunidades, Lotus Connections, Connections, Madrid, Seville, Spain, Twitter, Vimeo, Evento Blog España

Leading by Example: Ada Lovelace Day

I am sure that by now most folks out there would be familiar with what’s about to start happening in a few hours from now in the social software space, specially out there in the blogosphere. Yes, in a few hours we will all be celebrating Ada Lovelace Day! An event I have been waiting for a while now in anticipation, since I signed the pledge a few weeks back! The occasion is very much worth it. However, since tomorrow, March 24th 2009, promises to be a rather hectic day at work, I have decided to share my post today instead, since I may not even have the time at all either!

Thus, "what’s exactly Ada Lovelace Day?", you may be wondering, right? Well, it is "an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology" and since I have got plenty of examples to share I just couldn’t say no to such a lovely initiative. However, not to worry, I am not going to put together a rather lengthy post detailing a few examples of women who have been more than an inspiration for yours truly for a big part of his work life. Instead, I am just going to stick with one I have been admiring all along since I first met her, nearly two years ago!

Yes, go and meet Gina Poole! She used to be my boss, now she is my boss’ boss. Yet, nothing has changed! If there is a single word I can use to describe her, VP, Social Software at IBM as well as VP, Social Software & Web Marketing, it would be approachable! Indeed! When she got started with leading one of the most impressive social software adoption programs inside IBM, (The one I am working for at the moment heh ) her presence in the social software space was rather scarce. But that changed soon afterwards.

The fact she is one of IBM’s executives didn’t stop her from leading the way, and leading the way by what really matters in this social computing space: leading by example! Soon afterwards she started an internal blog, continued to use social bookmarking sites like Dogear, share important files through file sharing applications like Cattail (Bless her for avoiding to blow away my Inbox!), make extensive use of Enterprise 2.0 tools suites like Lotus Connections, behind the firewall, as well as social networking sites available outside like Slideshare or Twitter.

She gets it! She always has! But that’s not all of it that I admire in her, and this is really what makes her part of Ada Lovelace Day. It may not well be that she is too technical, probably she never meant to be, but, as far as I can tell, she makes an amazing executive / manager treating her people like what they are: people, which I know for sure it is getting very rare nowadays to see and experience such thing …

Yes, I know. I am lucky! Very lucky, if I may add. But even then what I admire the most in her is not only how approachable, flexible, committed, involved, engaging, resourceful she is for her daily job and that of her entire team(s), but more how she perseveres till the end in achieving a goal! Even if that goal means leading the social software revolution at IBM or such other mundane tasks such as helping me land in my dream job! Most of you folks out there know about how long it took me to get there, but I eventually made it, indeed! And all of that thanks to her perseverance and that of a couple of other folks!

That’s why to me, my Ada Lovelace Day is going to go to who I consider the new "Manager" of the 21st century. Yes, that Manager 2.0 that another female role model shared not long ago: Kathy Sierra. Talking about true inspiration, right?

Tags: AdaLovelaceDay09, Women, Women in Technology, Inspiration, IBM, Executives, Management, Management 2.0, Manager 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Ada Lovelace Day, Ada Lovelace, Gina Poole, Leader, Leader 2.0, Leadership, Dogear, Connections, Lotus Connections, Cattail, Slideshare, Twitter, Committed, Flexibility, Involvement, Engagement, Resourceful, Approachable, People Manager