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

A World Without Email – Year 2, Week 22 (How to Stop E-Mail From Ruining Your Summer Vacation)

In the recent past I mentioned how I was going to space out the various different blog posts related to this new reality of mine of living "A World Without Email", where over 17 months ago I decided to stop making use of corporate email at work, and, instead, use more heavily social software tools, both internal and external.

Well, today I am going to make an exception and I am going to go ahead and share some further thoughts on the weekly progress report from last week, week 22, more than anything else, because it will also allow me to share with you folks something I thought was worth while mentioning from this week, as opposed to have to wait for a couple of weeks from now.

But to get things going here is the weekly progress report snapshot from last week, so you have a chance to see what happened:

As you would be able to see, for a good number of weeks now it looks like my weekly incoming count of emails has reached that plateau of between 20 to 25 emails a week, averaging around 5 a day and therefore still consistently less than this time of the year last year, where the average was around 30 emails approx. a week.

Things are looking good with no strange surprises and still going down consistently and thinking that if things would go on like this I will be very very close to regularly hit the below 20 emails a week mark I proposed to myself as a follow up challenge for this year. So something to look forward to over the next few months, although I can tell you that this week has been quite different! But that’s the story for another blog post.

What made this blog post an exception though in my new regular blogging series on this topic of giving up on email was a specific article that got published this week and which I think most folks interested in this topic would find it a nice read, too!

If a little bit over a year ago I reached that massively huge milestone, with this back then experiment of Thinking Outside the Inbox, having an article published in the NYTimes under the title "I Freed Myself From E-Mail’s Grip" (Which I blogged about a couple of times), this year is no different!

A couple of days back I managed to get another article published on this very same subject over at CIO.com, although seeing the time of the year I thought about giving it another flavour, one that I am sure most of us could relate to. The title of the article is "How to Stop E-Mail From Ruining Your Summer Vacation" and as you may have seen already it was also syndicated by Computerworld and IT Business Canada.

In that article, I reflected quite a bit on that new flavour I mentioned I gave to this new piece, which is basically the various different issues we face every summer when confronted with the everlasting dilemma of whether we should enjoy our holidays away from everything, rewinding and charging our batteries, or take our work with us in the shape of a laptop, a Blackberry or whatever mobile device. Yes, *that* difficult to answer dilemma we face every single year and from which we never seem to learn.

Well, this time around I tried to do something different; so while putting it together I reflected on the kinds of interactions I usually do without using corporate email and still get the job done. So I went through each and everyone of them and picked up what I thought were the best tips to share from what I am doing on a regular basis to help other folks tame the email beast, escape its yoke once and for all and truly enjoy the well deserved holiday break, where I am sure we can think of better things to do than going through email, don’t you think?

Thus to such extent, I am not going to reproduce the entire article itself; I would encourage you all thought to go over to "How to Stop E-Mail From Ruining Your Summer Vacation" and read through it, but for now I will want to go ahead and, as a teaser, share with you what some of those tips are, so you can get an idea of what to expect from the article:

1. "Probably the biggest productivity gain you can make is to avoid e-mail for filesharing
2. Put your project status reports in a wiki
3. Are people asking you the same question again and again?
4. Do you e-mail a newsletter?
5. This may sound tricky, but avoid e-mail for thank-you notes
6. Avoid "flame" e-mails altogether
7. Train people around you to follow these hints"

I am sure you would be able to find plenty of other nuggets I tried to get across on that article on what it has meant for me to live "A World Without Email" while at work, throughout all of these months; the challenges, the lessons learned, the many advantages, the overall experience in itself and, at the same time, still enjoy my offline time with what really matters: my well deserved, relaxing and nurturing vacation. But how about yours? Still thinking about going this summer on "staycation"? Hopefully not …

(From here onwards, and to wrap up today’s blog post, I would also like to give a BIG thanks to my fellow IBM colleague Colleen Haikes whose great help, support, patience and further advice have been rather instrumental in helping the original article see the light. So many many thanks, Colleen! I thoroughly enjoyed the experience! Much appreciated!)

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, A World Without Email, NYTimes, Email’s Grip, CIO, Computerworld, IT Business Canada, Summer, Vacation, Holidays, Unwinding, Charging Batteries, Offline, Quality Time, Life, Work, Life Work Balance, LWB, Staycation, Rest, Colleen Haikes

VMC Interview with Andrea Vasceralli and Luis Suarez

Last couple of days have been rather intense, specially at work, preparing for another business trip next week, lengthy customer workshops on Enterprise 2.0 and Social Software Adoption, ramping up activities from my daily work for what’s left of this summer and so forth. Which is why I didn’t get a chance to put together a blog post yesterday and why I am going to take a short break today from my series of articles on the Enterprise 2.0 conference highlights in Boston. But not to worry, I will continue with them shortly as well once again.

If you have been reading this blog for a while now you will know that for the last few years I have been living, and working remotely, from Gran Canaria, while still at IBM, my current employer. Yes, I know, there isn’t a single IBM office anywhere near me, closest one is in mainland Spain, but yet, I do have an IBM office in here, i.e. my own home office

Plenty of folks wonder how I can keep working productively in such remote environment when both of my bosses are thousands of kilometers away from me; they keep wondering how I do keep in touch with my peers, customers, business partners, various other thought leaders in this 2.0 space; they keep questioning whether teleworking can be a realistic solution for the corporate world of the 21st century. You know the usual stuff most Web / knowledge workers working from home remotely get asked every now and then. Like where is your water cooler, Mr.?, or, like some of them would say over here, at this side of the pond, where is your coffee corner, my friend?

So far I have been able to share some of my thoughts on this subject, and several other similar ones, in a couple of blog posts I put together a little while ago under the titles "The Future of Work by Luis Suarez (Goodbye Cubicle, Hello Couch)" and "Giving up on Work e-mail – Status Report on Week 46 (Living without Email – One Man’s Story. Are you Next?)", respectively. Well, it looks like now I have got another one to refer to. And this time around having done a live face to face interview with another good friend of mine, who came to visit a few days back: Andrea Vascellari. (Funny how I have met more people who do related work to what I usually do over here in Gran Canaria than when I was living in The Netherlands for over seven years! I wonder why … heh)

That’s right! A few days back, Andrea was over here in Gran Canaria, in Las Palmas de G. C., to be more precise, on vacation and we eventually spent a good afternoon enjoying the little pleasures this island has got to offer on a splendid summer Saturday afternoon. A couple of beers and an incredibly good conversation can do that to you!

Thus, as a result of it, we recorded a follow up video interview of nearly 27 minutes where we discussed a whole bunch of topics that he has put together in a lovely blog post over at "Luis Suarez – VMC Video Interview". To give you an idea of what you will find in it, here you have them once more:

"Questions & Discussion Topics:

• What do you do at IBM?
• How does it feel to work remotely for IBM from from Gran Canaria?
• Some examples of social software implementation at IBM
• Which is the response from the client’s side on the use of social software?
• Did the need of adopting social software come from the clients of from IBM?
• Do you think that social software could/can speed up communication processes within certain groups?
• Which are the problems you are facing at IBM when trying to implement new tools/solutions?
• How’s the feeling of working in a transparent environment?
• How to overcome cultural roadblocks to innovation?
• What do you think about Google Wave?
• The more we move on the more skills are needed to get the best out of social software/tools
• A world without emails
• A world without emails – How was received by IBM?
• The future of communications"

As you can see, plenty of ground to cover in those nearly 27 minutes on some of my favourite topics, including, of course, living "A World Without EMail" and what it is like not using corporate email any longer at work! (Although this week, I can tell you, it hasn’t been pretty, but more on that one later on!); so I am going to keep things short on this blog post and just point you to the interview itself, which I have also embedded below:

From here onwards, and to wrap up, I just want to send across to far, far, far away Andrea a big and special Thanks! for wanting to meet up while he was enjoying his vacation over here and for offering and doing the recording of one of our conversations. I thoroughly enjoyed it and hope you will, too. Many thanks, Andrea, and till next time we cross our paths or you may venture into coming back home

Keep having fun!

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, Gran Canaria, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, e2conf, Boston, Highlights, Future of Work, Future of the Enterprise, BlueIQ, Social Software Adoption, Communications, Marketing, Marketing 2.0, Social Media Marketing, Transparency, Openness

Enterprise 2.0 Highlights – Think Differently, Work Differently

And with the start of a new week at work, here I am again, ready to pick things up from where I left them last week, detailing some more about the various highlights from the Enterprise 2.0 conference event in Boston that took place a couple of weeks back. This time around, and before I venture into sharing some further insights from the corresponding days and their packed agendas, I will go ahead and cover what, to me, has been one of the major key learnings from the entire event itself. Something I have noticed has changed this year, and on the right path, too, and perhaps signaling the tipping point of no return. But let’s see it with an example …

A few days back my good friend Laurie Buczek put together the first blog post (Of many more to come, I am sure!) over at her new "home" (i.e. Her new Internet blog Beyond the Cube – Welcome, Laurie! – Gotta love that title, too!), which, to me, is one of my favourite reads so far that captures really nicely the nature of that tipping point I just mentioned above on where we are with regards to Enterprise 2.0 adoption within the corporate world. Check out "Think Differently. Work Differently."

Plenty of really good quality stuff in there! At the same level of a recent blog post she put together  under "Why Intel is investing in Social Computing", and which I referenced over here, as well as the very insightful video interview she did with Stowe Boyd just recently for Open Enterprise 2.0 (Which, by the way, was one of the other stars from event in Boston).

Like I said, go ahead and have a good read. You will find plenty of amazingly inspiring quotes and I thought I would capture a couple of them over here, so that I can use them as examples of what that major highlight at Enterprise 2.0 in Boston was all about. Starting with this one:

"At the heart of becoming a social enterprise is a new path to think differently, connect instantaneously, discover serendipitously, innovate radically and work differently"

She then makes it personal and shares the business value she is getting from making use of social software tools herself, while at work:

"For me personally, I have found a lot of value in a transparent method to provide updates, disseminate information & gather feedback directly from stakeholders across the company."

To then wrap up with another brilliant quote that touches base on that tipping point comment I have mentioned already a couple of times, which, I think, puts it nicely where we are with Social Software Adoption within the enterprise:

"Welcome to living and breathing social computing. It truly takes thinking differently in order to work differently. [...] It is all about becoming a true social enterprise that harnesses knowledge & people power to stay ahead of the competition"

Yes, indeed, that’s one of the major key highlights from the conference; for the first time ever, a vendor driven event like the one in Boston has now moved passed that social software tools focus and matured into realising the key challenge is the social computing adoption within the corporate world and in a business context. Forget about the tools, forget about everything related to IT, and processes, perhaps, too. And welcome to the challenge that is awaiting all of us out there:

Overcoming whatever barriers to try to transform the traditional corporate world as we know it and progress further into that new model of engagement where work doesn’t get done in a hierarchical manner as such anymore than through the collaborating and knowledge sharing that will be happening more and more through networks and communities.

Are you ready? Have you moved passed that social tools focus already? Are you ready to dive into the heart of the matter and truly experience such transformation that will regulate the 21st century corporate world from here onwards? Ready to engage in the new Knowledge Economy?

I bet you all are! So let’s do it! Let’s focus on what we need to focus and let’s get the job done!

(Many thanks, Laurie, for being such an inspiration once again! And welcome on board to the Internet Blogosphere! Glad you could finally join us!)

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Reality Check, 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, Serendipity, Serendipitous Encounters, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Productivity, Enterprise 2.0 Stars, Stars, Laurie Buczek, Intel, Beyond The Cube, Stowe Boyd, Open Enterprise 2.0, o2e, Transformation, Labour Economy, Knowledge Economy, Change Management, Change, Business Value, Personal Business Value, ROI, Return On Investment, Challenges, Opportunities, People, Enterprise 2.0 Adoption, 2.0 Adoption, 20Adoption