One Month Anniversary on the New Job as Lead Social Business Enabler

12 thoughts on “One Month Anniversary on the New Job as Lead Social Business Enabler”

    1. Hi Mat! Thanks! Ha! Yeah, who would have thought, eh? It feels like it at the moment, and enjoying it very much! On the email topic, I guess a bunch of folks have already found out about the punisher effect, mainly when they start playing the very same games that made me abandon it back in the day, over 5 years ago, but more on that soon enough in an upcoming blog post on the topic. It’s going to be quite interesting and perhaps a bit shocking for some folks 😉 hehe

    1. Hi Kim, ROFL!! You can definitely relate to? Any areas in particular please? hehe You know, one of the reasons why I decided to use this blog to share these kinds of insights about the new job was to eventually find out how much of what I do daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, relates to other folks having a similar role, but in different organisations. I can imagine how there are plenty of commonalities, despite the various different corporate cultures, so I would be very interested in finding out some more about the items from the original post that you can relate to… Perhaps we could learn from each other’s experiences 😀

      Thanks for the feedback shared across so far though. It’s much appreciated I am not alone! hehe

  1. Hi Luis
    It is great to see how excited you are by the challenges of the new job and how in so short a time you are reconsidering how and when you do things both inside and outside the organisation. There is a nothing like a new job to re-align oneself and re-purpose all ones’ skills.
    And where would the business world be without email and meetings?
    You are right to question both – and build in strategies to help minimize the impact of too much of either! Especially if you work in an organisation that has a long established tradition of social tools that “should” invalidate the need for extensive use of either! Should it not? 🙂
    Of course we know the reality to be different… so hopefully you’ll carry on evangelising alongside your executing – I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive are they?
    I was entertained by IBM’s “Think Friday” concept – surely thought up to ensure that no-one scheduled a meeting on a Friday afternoon?! 🙂 As for thinking anything sensible or productive at that time of the week (if my brain is anything to go by) I’d love to know the ratio of thoughts to actions produced during that afternoon time (OK so I won’t be very popular with IBM….!). That said – “Think Weekday” is absolutely how it should be and if I was going to have a Think day I would definitely put it in the first half of the week and have Friday afternoon for something different!
    But nor should thinking be confined to one day as you intimate. So here’s to Think Weekday! Love it!

    1. Hi Marie-Louise, my goodness! This quote is just so priceless: “There is a nothing like a new job to re-align oneself and re-purpose all ones’ skills.“. Amen to that one! You are so spot on, indeed, on what I am currently going through at the moment and glad you shared it across to remind me of it. Terrific!

      Well, that’s the whole thing… I think what I am after is not necessarily trying to kill email or meetings per se, but the inertia that comes with both where it looks like once you are dragged into them by your peers while attempting to get work done you eventually find out you can’t to the point where you can’t even liberate yourself from the spiral you have been dragged into in the first place!

      It’s that inertia that I am really interested in fighting off and see how social technologies can help out disrupt the whole entire status quo of both email and meetings, not so much the “tools”, but the inherent behaviours!

      I, too, don’t think the evangelising would be mutually exclusive from the executing. I think it would just become more focused and targeted, which is also perhaps what I should have done a while ago as well for that matter.

      RE: Think Friday!, that’s a great question for which I don’t have an answer at the moment, since I don’t recall that kind of un-activity being tracked, but it would be interesting to eventually ask and see what happens…

      And Think Weekday it is! 😀

      [Thanks much, once again, for the wonderful feedback! Much appreciated, as usual!]

  2. Luis, As always, insightful, helpful and inspiring. I’ve been getting some push-back as I’ve been trying to take my evangelist role into what you’ve so aptly termed as executor. I’m trying to lead by example and hopefully inspire others to be more social, knowing that it will ultimately make them more productive and effective. It’s nice to know that I’m not alone and I’ll continue to fight the good fight. Cheers!

    1. Hi Kelley, thanks a lot for dropping by and for the heads up! Glad you are finding these blog posts helpful and relevant to your work as well. Appreciated the feedback. I was thinking that we may be able to work together on some additional plans I am working on in terms of adoption & enablement. Feel free to reach out to me on Sametime at some point in the next 3 to 4 weeks when I am hoping to finish off the plan itself, and I would be looking forward to learning how you move along from evangelist to executor, without leaving the former behind for the latter 🙂

      Keep up the good work as well and let me know how I can be of further help as well, please. Speak soon!

  3. Interesting discussion on meetings. I would say that at certain levels in an organization, ‘getting work done’, is pretty much going to meetings. That is the ‘work’. 🙂

    1. Hi Dave! Thanks a bunch for the heads up and for the feedback comments! I can certainly imagine that situation, which I would say is a bit sad and disappointing if, once again, we justify “work” through the meetings we attend and everything! That’s not supposed to be the “work”, just like we were trying to justify our email use as work as well for that matter. Guess we would need a bunch of work in that area, still!

      We will have to keep pushing, gently, for that transformation piece 🙂

  4. Hi Luis! Interesting blog on congrats on your new role… change is good! I have utilized the “buffer” strategy quite and bit and it works wonders. Also, I am an OCM IBMer and we are currently doing OCM for a Social Business Project in DC – trying to change the culture from one in which folks are rewarded for the knowledge they own to one in which they are rewarded for the knowledge they share, and giving them the SB tools to do that. Let me know if you would be interested in seeing any of the materials!

    1. Hi Caroline, thanks much for the heads up and for the wonderful feedback! Appreciated the kind comments as well! Glad the “buffers” are working with you and I am suspecting I will have to be doing the same thing very very soon! It’s getting even more interesting at the moment! haha Seriously, need to figure out a way to #lawwM !! And soon!

      And glad there is another OCM IBMer out there! I will certainly be in touch in its due time once I adjust the learning curve to learn some more on what you are working on and will connect with you internally as well on w3C… I surely am interested in taking a peek at the materials!

      Many thanks for the kind offer to share and right on the money with this fabulous quote: “trying to change the culture from one in which folks are rewarded for the knowledge they own to one in which they are rewarded for the knowledge they share, and giving them the SB tools to do that

      That’s the journey, that’s the fascinating journey, indeed! 😀

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