Three weeks ago I started what, to date, has been one of the most amazing and wonderful holiday periods I have had recently. Totally disconnected a large chunk of the time and enjoying every single minute of it! So much so I guess I just can’t wait for the next one!
Alas, three weeks later, it’s all over now. I am back at work! Back online. Back to my virtual work / personal life. Back on to catching up mode as well – as usual! Either way, it’s been fun! Yesterday, was my first day at work and I spent the entire time talking to a bunch of folks as well as trying to get up to speed with what happened since so last year! And I am now done with that catchup! So that basically means that regular blogging activities will resume from here onwards on this blog once again, as well as a bunch of other social networking related ones both inside and outside the firewall!
Yes, it’s good to be back! Fully re-energised and with your batteries fully charged ready to take on to another year of exciting activities, events and whatever other happenings around the subject of KM, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Social Computing and, of course, Social Software Adoption. On my first day of catchup I have bumped into a whole bunch of very interesting, thought-provoking and inspiring links to content that I am sure I will have a chance to share with you all in the next few days / weeks… Starting today with one of the most amazing video clips I have watched in the last few months! But one step at a time …
Before I go into it I thought I would share with you folks something else. Something you already know about (Or heard of!), if you have been following my little experiment for a while now, something that I plan to keep talking about and sharing further insights on, more than anything else, because somehow I feel that 2010 is going to be *the* year! And you will see what I mean by that on an upcoming blog entry where I will share some further details on another experiment I have just started a couple of days back and which I think most of you would find interesting, if not too controversial. But again … one step at a time …
I thought today though I would talk about the weekly progress reports of that experiment of living "A World Without Email" that I have been running for nearly two years now and which I am sure you may be curious about, since three weeks without checking email and being a massive chunk of that time totally disconnected, could have probably disrupted it quite a bit and get me in some trouble. Well, may be. May be not …
If you check out the weekly progress reports for weeks #46 and #47 you will see something rather stunning and unique that didn’t happen in the past; in fact, hasn’t happened in the 13 years I have been working in the corporate IT world! Yes, that’s right! 13 years! If you check out those weekly progress reports you will see how for those two weeks I have received a total whopping number of 6 emails for both weeks! 5 and 1, respectively! Oh my… yes, 5 emails in a single week, and most amazing … ONE single email in an entire week!
Oh, yes, I know what some folks out there are going to say, "It was a quite time of the year with most folks on holidays and everything" and they are probably right, but then again how many folks out there could state that in those two same weeks they have just received 6 emails (ONE in week #47!). Probably not many, right? But there they are; the two weeks with the lowest number of incoming emails ever (Except for one week last year where I got 3 in the entire week!) — SIX emails! Whoahhhh! Nice one!
Alas it didn’t last for much longer, because here you have got the progress weekly report for week #48:
where you will be able to see how folks seemed to have come back to work again on that week, because I went from one email the previous week … to 20 the week after. But that’s not too bad. In fact, not too bad at all! Still right on target for that follow up challenge of receiving 20, or less emails, a week. We are there, folks, we are there! Just four more weeks to complete the second year experiment of giving up on corporate email and, instead, make use of social software tools to collaborate and share knowledge with my fellow colleagues and peers.
Yes, I know I am probably having far too much fun with all of this, and you are probably right, but after the link I am about to share with you, I think that fun has just gotten started! I am enjoying it far too much and guess I’ll continue to do so for a while. After all, who wouldn’t want to go away on holidays for three full weeks (And a bit more!) and come back finding out he / she had a lovely surprise with just 26 emails received sitting in their Inbox?!?
Yes, indeed, the fun will continue for 2010, I am sure! And I am hoping to be sharing plenty more insights on the overall experience and how I am making it work for me and those I regularly work / collaborate with. But now, talking about fun, I would let you all go and watch the wonderfully delightful video clip that my good friend Chris Brogan found yesterday and who shared it over at this blog post: "Are You Ready for Fun".
It’s about a YouTube video that lasts for a little bit over five minutes, and which has got the nice and enticing title of "The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun" and that’s exactly what you will find in there… Not just plenty of great fun watching it through, but also plenty of very powerful messages on how much fun influences us all as who we are: human beings with emotions and with that unique capability of enjoying and celebrating a bit of fun every now and then. Well, after watching through the video, make that not just a bit of good fun, but plenty of it! That’s the kind of impact the video clip will have in you after you watch it. I am sure.
I can certainly recommend you stop doing everything you may be doing at the moment and click on the Play button below. Sit back, pump up the volume, relax and get ready to go through one of the videos that will surely change the way you view things for 2010. It surely has changed mine and in an upcoming blog post I will comment on it some more so you can get to see why. But for now, let’s keep the fun going, shall we?
Tags: Holidays, Vacation, Charging Batteries, Disconnected, Unwinding, Time Off, Fun, Fun Stuff, Chris Brogan, Principles, 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
