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

The Business Value of Social Software by Luis Suarez

We all know that plenty of people nowadays are trying to figure out what is the main business value and various benefits of using social computing within the enterprise. Yes, the good old Return On Investment (a.k.a. ROI) conversations for Social Software that I like to talk about so much lately. Well, here is another blog post to share some further insights on the topic. This time around sharing a personal story on how I am benefiting from social computing myself and how, as a result of that, IBM itself benefits from it as well (I would hope).

January 2004, I experienced what some folks would know as a serious wake up call in my life. One of those times we all get to go through, once in a lifetime, where we need to pull back, think about things that *really* matter to us, make the right decisions, re-engage back and move forwards. Yes, I know, one of those wake up calls…

Back then I was heavily involved for a while already with social software, although mostly behind the firewall. Yet, I knew that it may have well been *my* moment to prove the business value of social networking within the corporate world. I decided to approach both my local resource management team, as well as my, at the time, project manager and ask them whether they would allow me to work remotely from another country, in this case, Spain, my home country.

And while I do realise that perhaps not many companies out there are ready for such somewhat difficult decision to make, specially from a business perspective, the answer I got back was a loud and clear "Yes, Luis, as long as your perform the way you have all along". To which I said, "Of course, no problem! I can do that!"

From there onwards, a couple of weeks later, I moved back to Spain, to Gran Canaria, to be more precise, where I have been living, and working remotely, ever since. And this is where social computing kicks in, because right then I realised that if I wanted to make it work in my new situation I needed to be out there: visible; easy to reach and connect with; always willing to help and share my knowledge with those who needed it (And with those who may need it at a later time, too!) in an open and public way; willing to share my expertise, experience and know-how across the board with those who I know, and those who I may not know yet; willing to feed those resources with knowledge and expertise that otherwise would have remained in my own head, or my computer, for that matter, and therefore with very little access for others to enjoy.

Thus, as you can imagine, I increased even more my already heavy presence in the social software spaces, both inside AND outside the firewall, and that only meant that more information and knowledge from myself became available to others and, hopefully, some of that knowledge was helpful to them as well. That good old "Knowledge is power" suddenly transformed itself into "Knowledge shared *is* power" and lo and behold five years later, still going strong.

Yes, that’s right, today, March 17th, 2009, San Patrick’s Day, marks the 5th year I have been relying on social software to keep me employed with what I consider still my dream job at such large corporate environment as IBM’s, where both of my managers are thousands of kilometers away from me, yet, through the daily usage of social networking tools I know they are just an interaction or two away from me (In most cases even just a single tweet!)

I can imagine plenty of folks out there would be questioning whether I would have been able to make the same move without social software and work in such extreme virtual environment without it and relying on more traditional collaboration and knowledge sharing tools. To which I could probably confirm that I wouldn’t have been able to. Five years afterwards, I am 100% sure of it!

So what is the ROI of this, my personal, story?, you may be wondering, right? Well, perhaps that engaging with social software, embracing a new model of collaborating and sharing my knowledge (Much more open, transparent and public than ever before, ever since I decided to live "A World Without Email") with other fellow knowledge workers has allowed me to prove the point that you can work wherever you want, whenever you need, and with whoever you would want to reach across, depending always on the context, by making extensive use of social software and forgetting about measuring people just by their sheer presence versus their overall performance and results obtained. That is what social software has done not only for me, but also for the company I work for…

5 years on and still going strong! That is, to me, the real ROI for Social Software, both inside and outside of the enterprise world. But how about you? What’s your personal ROI story?

I would love to hear your thoughts plenty more over here or elsewhere. But, for now, time to go and celebrate San Patrick’s Day at my favourite Lebanese restaurant downtown (Beirut), and then, of course, off to the pub!

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, Return On Investment, ROI, Gran Canaria, Spain, Virtual Collaboration, Virtual Teams, Responsibility, Ownership, Involvement, Commitment, San Patrick’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Beirut, Lebanese Food, Work Life Balance, WLB, Balance, Priorities, Life, Work

A World Without Email – Year 2, Weeks 2 to 5 (Social Networking More Popular than Email)

I guess it’s about time that I get back on track with things and share with everyone out there the weekly progress reports I have been collecting since last time I blogged about this subject, where I presented, amongst several other things, what my new challenge would be like for 2009 and an initial report status on how things were going on my progress living A World Without Email. So I guess this is the catchup since that last blog post!

Ok, instead of sharing with you every single snapshot of each of the previous different weeks, since you can find them all at my Flickr account, I thought I would go ahead and just share the last one from last week, where you can see that incoming count of emails from all previous weeks. Much easier to keep track of, I am sure. Thus here it is latest report available so far:

I am going to keep this blog post rather on the short side, but you from the statistics shared above you can see that I’m substantially on target for my new challenge, which was, if you would remember, decrease my incoming email count to 20 or less emails a week! And in this case in 3 out of 5 weeks I have been able to manage it! Yes, you can tell how excited I am about this. But it gets better…

If you check the weekly progress report from last year you will be able to see why I am thrilled about the whole thing on giving up email at work. In the first five weeks since I started this new reality of mine, I received 198 emails, which I guess is not too bad. However, in those very same weeks on this second year that total amount is 106 emails! That’s 92 less emails over the same period, which I am not sure what you would think, but I think that’s some terrific news! Say take 2 minutes per email for handling further and that’s the amount of time I have saved not processing that specific difference of emails from one year to the other! Do the math and you will see! Fantastic stuff! And really enjoying the various benefits from week one! Yes! Just the beginning!

Nonetheless, there is also something that I am very excited about and which has been all over the place lately. One of the many things I enjoy of living "A World Without Email" is that plenty of my various social networks keep sharing some very interesting links related to what I’m trying to do that help me add some further context and insights for you folks to enjoy. And the one I am about to share is probably one of those that has kept me smiling for a little while now.

Yes, indeed, a whole bunch of different online resources, Web sites, blog posts, articles have been talking about it extensively and I am sure that, by now, you may have bumped into the main theme of those links: the Nielsen report "Global Faces and Networked Places" which claims how social networking has become much more popular than email nowadays. Go and have a read at Social Networking’s New Global Footprint. It’s a good read, I can tell you.

As you may have seen already, there are plenty of things I could comment on with regards to the report itself, but since I am already going on the long side of this blog post, I guess I will just comment on something that I have found rather amusing to say the least. Most folks I have been discussing this topic with over the last few days have been saying that the report itself may not be very specific since most of the data just captures activity from the consumer social software space, what we already know as Web 2.0. So from a business perspective it may not be *that* relevant.

Well, quite the opposite, in my opinion, as I have been sharing all along. It all starts with the consumer market (i.e. Web 2.0) before we get to dive into the enterprise! For instance, who would have thought, back in 2004 or thereabouts, that a couple of years later we would be seeing plenty of Enterprise Social Software offerings from most major vendors as well as some other niche Enterprise 2.0 specific ones? Who would have thought in 2004 how most of the corporate world is seriously being impacted by the knowledge workers’ adoption of social software, not just outside, but also inside of the firewall, in 2009? Probably not many people. Yet, the reality is that’s happening right as we speak and there is no indication that it will be stopping any time soon!

Thus, I realise I may well have been a bit ahead of the times in relying, almost completely, on my social networks, versus other communication tools like email, in order to get the day to day job done, but judging from Nielsen’s report, I suspect it won’t be too long before social networking tools will be much more popular than email within the enterprise, too! I mean, if it all happened within the consumer market itself, what’s out there stopping such massive adoption in a business context. I tell you what. Nothing!

It will eventually be happening and I am surely glad, as well as excited, that whenever that occurs, I will be more than ready for it, as these weekly progress reports seem to indicate. But how about you? Do you see yourself using social software tools more often than email for your daily workload in the short term? Will you be ready to make that shift? Will you be ready to shift gears and adopt new models of connecting, reaching out, collaborating and sharing your knowledge? …

Welcome to Enterprise 2.0!

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, Flickr, A World Without Email, Nielsen, Studies, Web 2.0, Adoption, Consumer Market

Why I’m an IBMer

Every now and then I keep getting asked by different folks why I have stuck around inside IBM, my current employer, for so long (Coming closer to my 13th year in the company so far!); specially after I graduated from university as an English teacher in Salamanca, Spain, in 1995 (Who would have thought about that, right?).

Well, I suppose I could give you plenty of different reasons, some of which most of the folks out there reading this who I may know in real life would know already, but I guess, since it is Friday late noon, that I would try to keep it short this time around. Here is a one minute video clip that describes perfectly all right Why I’m an IBMer:

Yes, indeed, it is not because of the super cool technologies (Specially in the Social Software space) I am exposed to on a daily basis; nor the various different business processes (hehe), but, like usual, because of the incredibly talented people I am surrounded by. Yes, that’s right. Those folks that help me keep sharp, real and on my toes, during the course of the day; who help me learn constantly while on the job (There’s never a dull / boring moment, I can tell you that!); who manage to help me be more productive by relying and trusting them more and more by the day with our mutual use of social networking tools, both inside and outside of the firewall; in short, I am an IBMer, because of the people who help make me work smarter, not necessarily harder.

There! I said it! Happy now? Ok, I think I have drunk enough Kool-Aid for now, don’t you think? heh

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Tags: 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, Trust, Salamanca, Spain, English Graduate, Smarter Planet, SmarterPlanet, Kool-Aid