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

SOMESSO London 2009 – My Favourite Highlights

Like I have mentioned in the recent past, I didn’t get a chance to make it to SOMESSO London 2009 this time around, due to a couple of conflicts I had with my work agenda; however, that didn’t mean that I didn’t have a chance to catch up, virtually, with all of the really interesting presentations and conversations that went throughout the event and shortly afterwards as well. And now the excitement is coming back again as in the last few days the SOMESSO London 2009 videos from each of those speaker sessions are becoming available for everyone to enjoy! Just wonderful!

And, of course, I already have got a few favourite sessions that I thought I would drop a quick blog post about and share with you folks some of them, so you could have a look and enjoy them just as much as I did already. I am not planning on detailing the contents of each of them, but I can certainly guarantee you that if you have been reading this blog for a while now you will enjoy each and everyone of them!

Thus, instead, what I will be doing is just sharing a quick introductory one liner of what you can expect from each session and then I will share the embedded version of it, so you can start playing whichever one accordingly. I tell you, there are lots and lots of great content, ideas, experiences and thought leadership to share across! So let’s get started!

Marilyn Pratt – "Leading Stakeholder Communities": if you have been doing community building for a while, or if you are interested in running successful communities, her presentation would be one you should really take a look at! Her innovative approach on how to manage, errr, I mean facilitate communities is incredibly refreshing in showing the path to follow for those of us community builders:

Link:

Stowe Boyd – "Unmarketing and the Webful Brand": very little I can say  on this one about Stowe that may not be known already by folks out there. He actually put together a very good, and worth while reading (Including the commentary!), summary with some extended notes from his session, where I will leave you with this gem: "Web culture is not a place where identity based on the brands of goods. Identity in this culture is about relationships, activities, and aspirations"

Link:

Lee Bryant – "Designing twenty-first century organisations with social tools": what I like the most from Lee’s thought-provoking session was how we are at a point in time where we need to start moving away from the industrial / labour era and culture into that one of the knowledge economy of the 21st century: that one of embracing social software to collaborate and share your knowledge across much more efficiently and effectively. So much to learn!

Link:

Eugene Lee – "Internal communications: Improving relations and efficiency": and if you think that so far you have been watching some rather provocative sessions, Eugene’s is just as much. Why? Because more than anything else he sets the stage of how social software should transcend the marketing & IT departments (Like it’s happening today!) to try to reach every single part of the business. And beyond! Regardless! (Yes, I know, his session is impregnated throughout with all of the good things that Knowledge Sharing (KM) was first envisioned as a few years back! Love it!!)

Link:

Andy Piper – "Knowledge Management: Security, Intellectual Property and Privacy": and, finally, last, but not least, for today is the presentation from my fellow colleague, and good friend, Andy, who talked about IBM‘s approach towards social computing & social software adoption, and which I have already blogged about a couple of weeks back…

Link:

Thus, like I have mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, time for me to keep quiet for a little while longer and leave you with these video replays from each and everyone of these very interesting, enlightening and eye-opening presentations that surely will keep you thinking for a while. They certainly have taught me a thing or two that will keep my head spinning around the tremendous possibilities and potential of the social networking world we are living in at the moment… Did you spot the common trend transpiring from each and everyone of them?

Hope you enjoy them! (Just as much as I did!)

Tags: SOMESSO, London, SOMESSO London 2009, SOMESS09, smo09, Highlights, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Marilyn Pratt, Stowe Boyd, Lee Bryant, Eugene Lee, Andy Piper, 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, Trust, Unmarketing, Community Building, Communities, Social Software Adoption, BlueIQ, Social Web, Cluetrain Manifesto, Conversations, SAP, Local Communities, Brands, Branding, Customers, Web Culture, Labour, Knowledge Economy, Efficiency, Security, Intellectual Property, Privacy, Fear, Risks, Risk Management, Command and Control

The Twitter Experiment – By Dr. Monica Rankin

After a couple of days off from my regular blogging activities, as I went on a business trip to Madrid for a couple of days end of last week to share some more thoughts and insights on social software adoption at an internal event, I am now back once more. Yes, I am back home and it is time for me to resume blogging again.

This time around with something really exciting and truly innovative that has been going on in my mind the entire day, ever since I watched a specific YouTube video that I bumped into from an earlier tweet from the always insightful Mike Wesch referencing an experiment done by Dr. Monica Rankin, Professor of History (The University of Texas at Dallas School of Arts and Humanities), which she then describes more thoroughly at this specific Web site.

I must say that while I was watching through the video I just couldn’t help remembering a blog post I put together a few days back referencing a similar revolutionary change that was starting to take shape in the Learning and Education field. Remember Learning to Change – Changing to Learn? Then you must watch The Twitter Experiment by Dr. Monica Rankin.

In that video clip of a little bit over five minutes she gets to describe how she has been running, very successfully, too!, an experiment by which she uses Twitter with her students to help improve the overall flow of not only the classroom itself, but the interactions, and conversations, of the various students, amongst themselves and also with her. Some pretty fascinating stuff, for sure! Gems like this one are just too precious not to spread them around elsewhere: "Yes, it’s going to be messy. But messy doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be bad".

Then I would suggest you go and read "Some general comments on the "Twitter Experiment"" to find out some more around her conclusions on how effective microsharing in the classroom, i.e. making use of Twitter, has been for her and for her students. Plenty of amazing stuff in there as well, to say the least!

As a teaser, in that specific document Monica gets to detail how the experiment went by providing a short introduction; then talking about the class itself; followed by the plan and set-up; right after that sharing some more insights on the "discussions", their "best practices" to then wrap up with the limitations and strengths of the overall experiment. Very enlightening!

I am not going to spoil the video clip and the rest of the contents from Monica’s detailed document sharing her experiences, but I can certainly tell you that I wish I would have had such an opportunity when I was studying at the University of Salamanca a few years ago, because I’m sure it would have changed my, back then, perspective on the impact of technology in my day to day learning activities. Yes, such is the breath-taking impact of "The Twitter Experiment" by Dr. Monica Rankin that you are about to watch next …

I am sure that, after watching the video and reading through the document, there will be one single thought going through your head: if Dr. Monica Rankin has proved that making use of Twitter can be very helpful to improve the overall outcome of a classroom, why do some businesses out there still object towards fully embracing the concept of microsharing. Isn’t this enough proof, once again, that it works? You tell me …

(Although I think you already know my answer …)

Tags: Microsharing, Microblogging, Mike Wesch, Monica Rankin, University of Texas, School of Arts, Humanities, History, Learning to Change, Changing to Learn, Twitter Experiment, Messy, Orderly Chaos, University of Salamanca, Teaching, Learning 2.0, Education, Learning Activities, 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, YouTube, Twitter