Either way, the reason why I am putting together this blog post today is because, as I have mentioned a couple of days back in another entry, last week I spent a few days on the road while participating on the Lotusphere Comes To You events in both Madrid and Barcelona and, once again, I experienced what it is like being disconnected for a good chunk of the week without remedy. I thought I would be able to get by being on my own home country, but, as you will see shortly, things didn’t turn out to be all right at the end of the day.

This is not going to be a rant post, well, at least, it’s not the original intention I’m putting it together for. It’s the reality. My reality of travelling on a rather regular basis both inside and outside of Spain and time and time again having to struggle with this hard fact: that true mobile Web computing is a myth. It always has been; it’ll be for a long while still.

As usual, I thought I would have an opportunity to do some work getting connected to my company’s VPN connection during those days I was not participating at the LCTY2010 events, but, unfortunately, things happened in a slightly different way than planned. As a starting point, I got to stay at the same hotel I usually stay in, the Confortel Suites Madrid (Calle de López de Hoyos, 143), where the rooms are large, spacious, clean, with everything included and where the service is amazingly helpful and very competent. And, of course, they offer free WiFi throughout the building! Pretty neat, eh?

It surely is! It’s the hotel where I have stayed already a few times, because of the lovely perks I just mentioned above, including that free WiFi. However, this time around, things didn’t work out all right. I stayed there for two and a half days and throughout all of that time I just couldn’t help get connected to the WiFi (The entire time!) and, what’s worse, not even the Ethernet ADSL connection. Yes, for two and half days. I raised the issue a few times and got told the connection was working and therefore should be able to access it, but alas I didn’t. Yes, I guess that’s what you get for free WiFi, right? No, I mean, really, I didn’t pay a single Euro cent for it, so I guess they were thinking of not delivering much, so I was cut off altogether from it.

That’s probably just fine, if you know about it in advance (I mean, if I would have known about it beforehand I wouldn’t have gone to that hotel in the first place. I would have wanted to save myself some time, and a few frustrations). You can then say you can opt-in for the pay per day use and get by your day with ease and doing your work. No, that won’t work, I am afraid. And not just for this hotel. It looks like, by default, you rather have free WiFi, or nothing. There is no alternative for pay per use models you could make use of, which means that if that one doesn’t work you are out of luck, like I was for those couple of days! Ouch!!! Yes, it hurt and quite a bit!

I then thought, "Hang on for a minute, you have got the iPhone 3G with you and that has got tethering with it, why don’t you give it a try?", which I did and this time around the results were a bit mixed up! Yes, through my iPhone tethering I found out I could connect to the Internet, but alas it would not allow me to connect through my VPN connection, so I was half way there! Well, actually, I never moved from that position; so got stuck with a good valid Internet connection, but most of the content I wanted to access was behind the firewall so again, there I was trying to get some work done and struggling to pass by the fundamentals: getting properly connected in the first place.

During the conference events I actually managed to have a good, solid WiFi connection, which I am sure most of you folks may have noticed, as it gave me an opportunity to live tweet all of the different sessions that I attended, although I didn’t have much more time to get some work done along the way. So I had to wait till Barcelona and hope for the best!

After a three hour delay, and stuck at the MAD airport all of that time with no access to the Internet, since we were asked to go from gate to gate to catch our next flight, it was time for me to arrive in Barcelona where I was staying at the Hotel Rey Juan Carlos I, a lovely, fancy and elegant 5* hotel where everything was just perfect, including the venue of the overall event itself. Except, of course, for the Internet connection.

This time around they didn’t have free WiFi, but a pay per use wireless connection, as well as another Ethernet based one. I thought it would be all right to make use of it, so I eventually paid 20€ (Yes, 20€!!) for 24 hour uninterrupted connectivity thinking I would probably be on my way to finally get connected in a decent manner. No, not this time around. I eventually checked the speed of the network through SpeedTest and got these whopping results:

I know you may be thinking that those are not such bad speeds for a hotel WiFi connection and I would probably tend to agree with you, except for a minor reason, which I think is a good one: the 20€ I paid for it! I have got a 10MB download WiFi connection at home for which I am paying 49€ every month. So let’s do the math on this one. If I am paying for what I would consider an outstanding service, I would expect pretty much to get *that* kind of service and not something that even my 3G iPhone can outdo in no time!

If you have it, and if you charge for it, the least we can all expect is that you would be able to deliver consistently, right? Well, it didn’t happen while staying in this 5* hotel and I surely was very surprised about it, because I thought it would be that kind of excelling service all around! It never arrived. And what’s worse is that I tried to using the iPhone tethering again while in Barcelona and that worked for the Internet connection, but not to help me get connected through the VPN option. Again! [Arrrgggghhh]

So once more, I was stuck for another day and a half, without access to my internal VPN network and on the brink of shouting out loud "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!"; I have had it! So much for relying on Internet Access services in multiple places that at the end, and due to the lack of them, one would have to go basics and start acting accordingly; thus here is what I’m doing from now onwards:

• Get one of those, somewhat not so cheap either!, UMTS devices that would help me stay connected regardless of where I may well be at all times; yes, I know and I do realise that’s going to be an expensive purchase, but then again, not more expensive than the several hundreds of $$$ I’ll be saving to the company not having to pay 20€ anymore per day trying to get connected through a very poor connection in the first place. It just doesn’t work that way, I am afraid, so moving along with the times: getting the independence I need to get my job done! That’s all what matters for Web Knowledge Workers nowadays don’t you think? I mean, can you imagine yourself travelling not having access to the Internet/Intranet? No, neither can I!
• Stop coming back to those hotels that have failed to deliver on what they themselves said they had in service; life is just too short to have to spend several hours trying to figure out whether you are connected or not; I just want to have things easy: start up the Mac … connected! Am I asking for too much?
• Create some sort of black list of those hotels where the service advertised in the specific area of Internet Connection didn’t deliver; more than anything else to help others avoid the frustrations I keep going through time and time again for continuing to come back to the hotels that don’t seem to put their act together. So this time around, I am starting with the Confortel Suites Madrid and Hotel Rey Juan Carlos I hotels in both Madrid and Barcelona, respectively, which failed to deliver (And they did a great job at it!) and managed to keep me disconnected for most of the week!

As you can see, staying connected while travelling still remains a challenge, and an expensive one, too!, if you ask me; and once again this week I will be putting things to the test when I travel to London to participate in the SOMESSO / Headshift Social Business Summit while I keep wondering what the network connectivity would be like, both at the event and at the hotel I’m staying. Will the latter be added into my already started black list? Time will tell … [Fingers crossed...] I just know I had to put a stop to this nonsense of not getting a good, decent Internet / Intranet connection, right when I needed, and even if I would have paid for it. There is a time when enough is enough, and for me that time has arrived today. And for you?

Tags: Mobile, Mobility, 2010, Smartphones, LCTY2010, Lotusphere, Travelling, Business Travelling, Business Travel, Mobile Web Computing, Hotels, Confortel Suites Madrid, WiFi, Internet Connection, Connectivity, Lack of Service, No Service, iPhone, Tethering, Hotel Rey Juan Carlos I, Black Lists, SpeedTest, Services, Pay Per Use, VPN, UMTS, Web Worker, Web Knowledge Worker, Access, Internet Access, Wireless, SOMESSO, Headshift, #sbs2010, sbs2010, Social Business Submmit, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Productivity, Mobile 2.0, Mobility 2.0

But, hang on, before I dive further into what I will be doing at the Social Business Summit, just wanted to let folks know that I’m already on the process of putting together a couple of blog posts summarising my experiences from last week’s business trips, with keywords like lack of connectivity (Nothing new!), physical social networking for the win!, Social Enterprise, Collaboration, cloud computing, and a vision. Hopefully, I may be able to sneak them in over the course of the next couple of days and if not I will do so when I get back from London the week after this other event. So stay tuned! (For now, if you just can’t wait to hear about what they were like, check out the live tweeting I did under @elsua_b for a taster).

Right! So why am I heading next week to London, you may be wondering, right? Well, a few weeks back Lee Bryant, CEO and co-founder of Headshift, part of Dachis Group, invited me to participate on the upcoming SOMESSO / Headshift Social Business Summit that will be taking place next week, on March 18th, where I will be moderating one of the panels: the one on Internal Use of Social Software, where I will try to share some further insights on what IBM has been doing for nearly three years now with one of its most successful social software adoption programs: BlueIQ.

It surely promises to be a rather interesting one, since I’ll be moderating a discussion where I will be sharing some of the various good practices we have been putting in place to help IBM accelerate its own adoption of these social tools; I am sure the interactions and conversations from those folks attending such session will also be rather insightful, as I’m certainly hoping they will be adding their two cents of how their own organisations are tackling the important topic of adoption of social computing (Both inside and outside their firewall(s)). If there would be a single word I could use at this point in time without revealing too many details just yet it would probably be "Interactivity!". So that would give you an idea of where we would be heading… Oh, but let me add another one as well though: "Provocative!"

Good starting points, don’t you think? Well, that’s just the beginning! It will be a whole lot better than that! I tell you. If you haven’t seen it just yet, I would suggest you take a look into the agenda of the event and this other particular blog post that Lee himself put together and which would help set the context of what will be happening at the summit. From the agenda you will be able to see how both Jeff Dachis  and JP Rangaswami will be the keynote speakers, to kick things off to a superb start already, to then finish off with the invaluable contributions of the many delegates attending the three themed workshops (Internal Use Cases, External Use Cases & Market / Ecosystem Use Cases) helping establish and identify the necessary changes and actions, as well as challenges, to progress further into that "Social Enterprise" concept that a bunch of us have been talking about for a little while already…

Then at the end of the day, each of those three themed workshops will be reporting back providing a comprehensive picture of the current state of things and where we will be heading with social computing inside & outside the enterprise to define the next generation of interactions and models of engagement amongst knowledge workers, customers and business partners. As you can see, I just can’t wait for it to start! So much to share, so much to learn from, so many conversations and discussions to dive into; in short, now you know where my excitement originates from and why I am really looking forward to participating in this Social Business Summit.

More information details about the Summit can be found over here, as well as the agenda itself, which contains the details on how people can sign up for the event, if you are interested in attending (Got anything better to do on March 18th? hehe).

As usual, depending on how things go on the connectivity front, I may be able to live tweet some of the various sessions I will be attending and then share with you folks follow up blog posts with highlights from the event. I currently plan to be there on Wednesday, while I prepare the workshop itself, and staying till Saturday morning, when I get back home, so if you fancy getting together for a drink or two, or lunch / dinner, etc. etc. give me a shout and get in touch!

Can’t wait to see folks over there! … Just three more days …

Tags: SOMESSO, Headshift, Social Business Summit, Summits, Events, Conferences, Conference Events, Workshops, Lotusphere, LS10, LCTY10, Madrid, Barcelona, London, Lee Bryant, BlueIQ, Jeff Dachis, JP Rangaswami, jobsworth, Social Software, Adoption, Enablement, Social Web, Social Enterprise, Social Collaboration, Social Ecosystems, 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,Social Business Summit, SBS, #sbs2010, sbs2010

So here I am; more than happy to point you to two essential, and worth while going through, blog entries that will surely make you think quite a bit on how important trust is for Enterprise 2.0 to succeed within the corporate firewall (And beyond, for that matter!); yes, I do realise that trust is one of those recurring terms / themes that perhaps may have been abused quite a bit, specially in the workplace context (Just as much as terms like Collaboration, Communities, or, even, Knowledge Management), but then again, when you see the word trust you know pretty well what you are referring to and could very well explain it in a sentence or two.

Well, my good friend Oscar Berg has just done that over at one of his recent blog posts titled "Control is waste & trust drives value creation", where he shares a couple of golden nuggets worth while remembering, when describing how crucial trust is for any personal business transaction amongst peers, customers or business partners:

"Trust is the fuel for any enterprise. Trust in your purpose, trust in your peers, trust in yourself.

Trust drives value creation.

Control is a sign of trust failure. Control does not add value. Control is waste. Control restricts value-creation. It is something management adds when they don’t trust their employees to perform as expected" [Emphasis mine]

I couldn’t have said that in much better words that those employed by Oscar; trust is the glue that makes collaborative work happen effectively across teams, communities and networks by helping knowledge workers excel at what they know best: constantly innovate. Every move, every conversation, every personal business interaction happening in an open environment where there are no restrictions, no limits, "no rules", just a bunch of knowledge workers wanting to make a difference for their customers and their business by sharing their knowledge across and collaborating efficiently.

The rest of his article is just as good and equally thought-provoking, so I would encourage you to go and read through it and find out his thoughts on how that lack of trust impacts tremendously the overall performance and productivity of those knowledge workers. Priceless!

Ok, now that you have read Oscar’s article, check out the absolutely delightful piece that my good friend, the always insightful, Euan Semple, has put together over at infoBOOM under the title "The Trojan Mice Approach to Enterprise 2.0", where he touches based on one of the recurring themes I have been mentioning on this blog for a long while already; and that is the critical role that people (Knowledge Workers) play in the successful adoption of Enterprise 2.0 within the corporate world, regardless of the tools / technologies and processes that may be available out there. To quote:

"You can build as fancy and expensive a system as you like but if people don’t want to use it and don’t feel comfortable using it then you might as well not have bothered. To get people to embark on this sort of culture change you have to gain their trust and they have to learn to trust each other. This is a process that has to happen incrementally and over time. Those charged with helping it to happen have to be sensitive to the powerful dynamics they are opening up and respectful of those they are expecting to engage" [Emphasis mine]

Once again, Euan nails it; it’s never been about the tools, nor the processes in place, but on the people themselves making good, and responsible, use of those tools as what they are, enablers, to help execute on each and everyone of those business processes they may be responsible for. It would be only then when things will really progress further in the right direction; that one of a very much needed change where those business needs will be finally matched up with the true, up until now hidden and ostracised,  talent, expertise, skills, know-how, experiences that knowledge workers have been accumulating over the course of time and which have been waiting all along inside that closet of command and control for far too long.

Euan, once more describes it much better than I could and, as usual, in his very suggestive and succinct way:

"The trick will be to move from “command and control” to "engage and support”. Building trust takes time. Becoming comfortable enough to be “social” takes time"

The remaining challenge though may well be whether businesses would be patient enough to wait for that more than worth it change to take place or whether, instead, they would prefer to do things the usual way: business as usual…

Tags: People, Trust, Oscar Berg, Control, Command and Control, Value Creation, Business Value, Personal Business Interactions, Euan Semple, infoBOOM, Time, Change, Change Management, Business As Usual, Support, Engage, Enable, 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, Productivity

If you would want to find more details about the various Lotusphere Comes To You events around the world you can go and have a look into them over here, or at this particular link, where you will find the scheduling; in this case for Europe, but you could also access other geographies from there. The main Web site though for the Spanish Lotusphere Comes To You events can be accessed over at this link.

From there onwards, you can have a look into how you may be able to register for the event (If you happen to be around…), as well as check the agenda that has been put together for both events. Lots of interesting and rather relevant topics related to the main Lotusphere 2010 event that took place in January, as you may be able to see; I have now taken the liberty of sharing this screen shot of the agenda below so you can get a glimpse of what to expect:

You will see how in the agenda there is a key concept permeating throughout the entire event for both locations and that is the one on Collaboration. But not just collaboration for the shake of collaboration alone; more along the lines of Social Collaboration (i.e. The Social Enterprise) and Smart Work / Collaboration.

I will be speaking at two different time slots around the topic of Social Enterprise (One of my favourite topics as of late ) and the really cool thing is that in both cases I will be sharing the stage with a couple of very talented fellow IBM colleagues: Rafael Gallegos (Lotus Software Sales Manager SPGI) and Ed Brill (Director, Product Management IBM Lotus).

It will be the first time that I will be sharing the stage with both of them on a particular event, and I just can’t wait!, as I am sure it would be plenty of good fun! Ed and myself didn’t get much of a chance to talk while in Orlando, so it would be a good thing catching up, too! Plus it would also be a great opportunity to watch him deliver his session on "Smart Collaboration: la evolución del puesto de trabajo de colaboración" (I have already checked out his slideware for the session and I can tell you that you will enjoy it quite a bit! Lots of very similar topics to the ones I have been talking about over here for a while already …)

But don’t miss out the rest of the topics covered on the agenda, because there’re some golden nuggets out there as well worth while checking out, like "Modelos flexibles de adopción de las estrategias colaborativas" with David Gutierrez Serrano and Luis Sanchez Acera (Yes, another Luis! How many of them can you have doing very similar things in the same company, eh?!?!) and a couple of use cases / success stories of how IBM customers have been making use of Lotus Collaboration technologies all along.

Like I said, lots of good stuff! And I surely can’t wait to get there on Monday morning to go through the final round of details and get things going on Tuesday in Madrid and Thursday in Barcelona. Exciting, to say the least! As usual, there are a couple of online spaces that folks would be able to check as well to see how things go before, during and after the event. There are a Facebook and LinkedIn groups, as well as a Twitter ID. And from my side I’m hoping to be able to live tweet the event using my alter ego (Split personality) over at @elsua_b (And a few other tweets, coming through to you from the good old @elsua Twitter ID). Then I will be putting together a couple of blog posts with some of the highlights on my way back from both events, hoping to share with you what some of my main key findings have been during those couple of days.

All of that, of course, if I managed to have a good connection to the Internet, although having the events hosted in Spain is going to make things a lot easier this time around … Yay for iPhone tethering!!

If you would want to get together for a drink or two, or just basically drop by and say "Hi!", you know where you can find me, right?

Don’t forget to register, if you are going to be around during those dates! Look forward to seeing you all next week and exchange a thought or two on what a Social Enterprise is all about …

Tags: Lotusphere, Lotusphere Comes To You, LCTY, #ls10, #lcty10, #lcty, Conference Events, Madrid, Barcelona, Spain, Agendas, Lotus Knows, Collaboration, Social Collaboration, Social Enterprise, Social Web, Smart Work, Remote Collaboration, Rafael Gallegos, Ed Brill, David Gutierrez Serrano, Luis Sanchez Acera, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, @elsua_b, @elsua, Registration, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Innovation, IBM, Lotus, IBM Lotus, Networking, Social Networks, Communication, Connections, Productivity

So today I thought I would share the links to both of those video links, so you could have a look at them yourself, sit back, get yourself a cup of coffee, or tea, and enjoy them. If you are into Internet and Social Media statistics and interesting facts, both of them would be your thing, to say the least.

The first one comes from Phil Bradley’s blog, which I bumped into from a recent tweet from my good friend David Gurteen, and that reads "State of the Internet 2010". The clip lasts for a little bit less than 4 minutes and it shows plenty of really interesting statistics and facts about our own use of both email and social networking tools up to 2010. If you folks have been following with interest my initiative of living "A World Without Email", you will enjoy it… I am sure (hehe):

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

The second video clip is a YouTube one from VisibleTechnologies that tries to follow up along the lines of that series of clips explaining "What Is Social Media?" and which surely presents some interesting facts as well on our use of such social tools; some of which would probably need updating a bit, since the video is over a month old and things surely have improved since that time. But still worth while going through it. It lasts for a little bit over 5 minutes and you would be able to watch it directly from here or the embedded one below:

Hope you enjoyed the videos, just as much as I did! And fear not, I am now back into my usual regular blogging after the last couple of days of being absent from this blog. Yes, of course! It’s good to be back! Which would also give me an opportunity to catch up with some of the comments that people have been sharing across in previous blog posts. Hang in there! I will get through them during the course of the week! Many thanks for sharing them across and for adding further up into the conversation! Greatly appreciated, as usual!

Tags: Internet, Web, State of the Internet, Phil Bradley, David Gurteen, Videos, Videosharing, VisibleTechnologies, YouTube, 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, 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

If yesterday I blogged about how important both people and passion are for a successful adoption of social networking for business, both inside and outside of the firewall, today I thought I would share with you folks a link to a YouTube video that, if anything, permeates some of that very same passion from all over the place! indeed, go and watch "What the HELL is social media". If you are into social computing, you will enjoy it; if you are not, it may convince you this time around…

It’s a little bit over 2 minute YouTube video that explains, quite visually, 10 main different reasons why knowledge workers should be paying attention, and care!, about social media, social software, or whatever other related term. Yes, I realise there are differences between all of them, but the main key concepts would still remain the same.

And those key concepts are the ones mentioned throughout the video clip itself. Created by Kama Glover and Tim Fogg (And compiled and edited by Peter Kerwood) it will be one of those videos that I am sure you will be using rather extensively from here onwards in those upcoming workshops, where you could sneak in a couple of minutes of visuals right before you start your events and get people on the right track from the very first moments. And jazzed up quite a bit in the process, too! I know I will, even if I don’t agree with statements like this one: "[On Facebook] It has won the social networking war". Well, maybe it’s still a little bit too early to say, don’t you think?

Here is the embedded video so you can hit PLAY and starting going through it. Then let me know through the comments if it would, indeed, be one of those videos you would reuse for an upcoming presentation on 2.0 that you may be working on already … or not. I would be curious to know what you thought about it and whether it’d help get some of those 2.0 messages across…

Tags: 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, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Customers, Clients, Kama Glover, Tim Fogg, Peter Kerwood, Facebook

Yes, I know most of you would be able to differentiate between one and the other, if I would ask you to go ahead and define them all; however, two of the key characteristics that will define them all would those ones I have just shared above on all about the people and passion.

And this is not the first time I blog on this very same topic; when most folks are talking about how social computing / networking is all about a new wave of social tools on the Internet that would help us become more productive while sharing our knowledge across and collaborating with our peers, I keep thinking that we should probably not make the same mistakes we have done over the decades in trying to justify such kind of movements as technology / tools based, because they aren’t. They are all about the people behind them, and tools are just that: tools. Enablers. And that’s where it all ends for them.

And that’s when it gets really fascinating and exciting for us all! Did you have a look into my good friend’s, Chris Brogan’s, blog post titled "When This All Gets Cool"? If you haven’t, I would strongly suggest you take a look, because he has put together one of those articles that would surely resonate with you all quite a bit and won’t left you indifferent. Yes! It is that good!

Chris shares on that blog post pretty much basically what I have said above on where the real focus should well be all along, as more and more businesses are starting to explore various different efforts on social software adoption, both inside and outside of the corporate firewall: not on the technology, nor on the tools, but on where we could get the most out of the whole experience. To quote him:

"Social media are a bunch of tools. They let us see things a bit differently. They empowered new ways of working together. But they’re just the tools. When this all gets cool is when we start really turning this stuff on our own passion projects, on our bigger goals, on what COULD happen."

What he has managed to do with that blog post is to inspire tremendously a whole bunch of folks into doing (Or continuing to do…) things 2.0 related in a completely different way: i.e. making a difference! So if you did enjoy some of the brilliant suggestions he made on what other things we could do with social software tools (Other than thinking they are the primary focus), I would suggest as well you take a look into the extended commentary where plenty of folks have been chiming in and sharing plenty of golden nuggets of what passion for what they do would mean to them and, most importantly, how they are attempting to make a difference in how they interact with things! Just brilliant!

Yes, it’s all about the people! It’s all about the passion your let permeate through every single part of your body, and brain!, wanting to share it across with others. And make it contagious! That’s exactly how I felt yesterday when I did go through one of the suggestions Chris offered in his post: "Give your local school teachers or library a free class on how to use the tools for their projects".

Ok, it wasn’t my school, but rather ESCOEX International Business School in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria; it wasn’t a talk with the school’s teachers, either (Nor the library!), but instead it was a rather energising two hour event with a bunch of amazingly talented group of youngsters wanting to make a difference and surely preparing for themselves the way to do just that!

I bet when they saw me coming into the classroom, they were expecting to hear about this strange guy who telecommutes, has got his bosses thousands of kilometers away, works for a rather, perhaps too large, corporation making trouble for living "A World Without Email" and just probably wants to tell his story and go back home. Funny enough I had other plans for the session … and for them…

I didn’t use a single set of slides! In fact, I didn’t bring with me any gadget whatsoever other than my mobile phone, which I didn’t even use at all during the entire time; they were probably thinking they were going to learn some things from me on what it is all about using social software tools in a business environment. Yet, I was the one who had an opportunity to learn so much from them all that I am still digesting most of the incredibly cool things that we discussed during the entire session.

I am working already on a follow up blog post where I can share some of those various different insights with you folks. If you would want to take a peek, ahead of time, into some of the stuff we discussed during the session I would highly recommend you have a look into today’s blog post that my good friend Víctor Ruiz put together under the title "Luis Suárez (IBM) y su lucha contra el correo-e" (Yes, it’s in Spanish!).

In it he details, very nicely!, a good chunk of what we discussed and comes to conclude whether I live in a parallel universe, or a different world altogether, since it looks like things within local businesses are going rather slow at the moment, and perhaps for the next few years still, with regards to their own adoption of these social tools to try to keep making a difference.

Yet, there I was! With all of my passion for the topic, focusing on the people, on their conversations, on each and everyone of the students knowing we may not be that far off from that reality I seem to be living in. I won’t be disclosing further details on what I mean by that (In an upcoming blog post you will see what I mean…), but one thing that I can certainly share with you all, and which resonated with Chris Brogan’s blog post I originally mentioned above, is that "To me, the cool stuff has very much yet to happen. We can do SO much more".

And yesterday I witnessed, and experienced!, the sheer talent behind those younger generations who surely are passionate about what they do, and who certainly want to make a difference in this world. They may let them do it; they may not, but one thing that surely came out from yesterday’s event at ESCOEX International Business School is that they are going to try it damn hard and I am surely going to help them succeed! Will you?

Will your passion help them make a difference at whatever they truly believe in? Not sure about you, but they certainly have mine! For a long while …

Tags: 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, 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, The People, Passion, Passionate, Tools, Enablers, Web 2.0, Chris Brogan, Escoex, International Business School, Gran Canaria, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Victor Ruiz, Making a Difference, Things That Matter

It features a quick introduction by Anne Marie McEwan (Who I started following in Twitter a little while ago and from whom I have learned quite a bit so far), and in it she spends a little bit less than 5 minutes describing what her company, The Smart Work Company (Gotta love that name, too!), is all about and what their main mission is: help people, and their businesses!, become smarter at what they already doing through better ways of learning and managing.

If you care about Web work, about the next generation of knowledge workers, about the impact that social technologies are having in the current business world, about how meaningful the concept of networks is in helping shape the next wave of our leaders, this would be one video you would want to watch! Yes, indeed, it’s that­ inspiring and surely a treat to watch!

And you know the best part of it all for me? The narrative! It’s so beautifully told and with such a nice pace that it surely makes you stick around till the very end and when you are done you keep wondering where you could get more! Well, I guess that would be The Smart Work Company. I am sure that Anne Marie and her team would be incredibly successful with such important mission and if you ever wonder how it is all about working smarter, but not necessarily harder this video clip and its various messages clearly show, and lead!, the way!

Hope you enjoy it, just as much as I did …

Very very nice piece of work, don’t you think?

Tags: Anne Marie McEwan, The Smart Work Company, TheSmartWorkCompany, Smart Work, Working Smart, Learning, Managing, Management, Leaders, Innovation, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Productivity, Knowledge Workers, Knowledge Work, Narrative, Stories, Storytelling

Yes, I know, and I fully understand it, since I experienced it myself in the past, I realise that for plenty of folks out there, it may not work out all right altogether, more than anything because of that ever increasing sense of being overwhelmed by the event itself AND the backchannel. Where do you place your attention, right? Can you focus on both tasks at the same time? I mean, paying attention to the event and then the backchannel as well? Quite challenging, indeed!

It’s not easy, I agree with that, but in my experience that’s just at the beginning; just till you get the hang out of it; till you have attended a good number of them to make them feel second nature to you. It’s only then when you would be able to see how powerful such backchannel conversations can be to enhance the overall experience of what’s been shared across, and when you are soliciting input with a bunch of team / community members, that’s probably as good as it gets, too! Having everyone on the same page listening to that specific media and giving them an opportunity to expand that user experience by chatting with others is just priceless. And those who may have tried it out already could probably vouch for that last statement as well…

However, how do you get started? How do you overcome the initial hurdle(s) of starting to incorporate backchannel chats into both virtual and face to face events? Are there any good resources out there you could leverage to get things going? Yes, there are!

Here is one of my favourites: check out the short blog post from iLibrarian on this very same topic: "7 Things You Should Know About Backchannel Communication", which references a whitepaper put together by the good folks behind Educause that provides a very clear, insightful, very helpful and thorough overview of the main key benefits behind backchannels (Link to .PDF here)

In that specific article the folks at Educause start setting up the stage by putting together an scenario of how it could well work out for one of those virtual events I mentioned above: a lecture and using Twitter as the backchannel. From there onwards, there are seven different sections that cover, very nicely, the overall content of why these kinds of online events do matter, more and more by the day, in helping facilitate a much richer, endurable and engaging overall experience. And I can tell you, after having participated in hundreds, if not thousands!, of them over the course of the last few years, they have now become an indispensable and integral part of how I enjoy these kinds of events myself.

Here you have got the seven questions put together that the whitepaper covers, so you can have a glimpse of what you may expect on that two pager .PDF article:

1. What is it?
2. How does it work?
3. Who’s doing it?
4. Why is it significant?
5. What are the downsides?
6. Where is it going?
7. What are the implications for teaching and learning?

I realise the article has got an embedded flavour for a learning / education background, but if you scratch that out and change it for business it still does make perfect sense, which makes a rather interesting resource for those folks out there interested in wanting to spice their (virtual) events even more and continue introducing some more of those 2.0 elements that everyone keeps talking about while attending those virtual events.

Then perhaps in a later blog post I will share with you folks my Top 10 reasons on why I do benefit the most from backchannels for events not just as a communication tool, but also as a powerful real-time collaboration environment that is, by far, superior to any other kind of collaborative tool. But for now, how are you benefiting from backchannels yourself? Do you still find them an overwhelming experience? Can you live with or without them? What do you think? Do they make sense in today’s interconnected world?

Tags: iLibrarian, Educause, Whitepapers, Education, Learning, Backchannel, Instant Messaging, Twitter, Micro-Sharing, Lotus Sametime, Sametime, Business Value, Communication, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Resources, Virtual Events, Conference Events

Yes, that’s right! As more and more mobile devices, mainly smartphones, are starting to look with much more detail into the mobile Enterprise 2.0 world, we are beginning to see how plenty of our favourite social software tools for business are making it through and rather successfully. So eventually finding an expert, while you are on the road, or working remotely, is probably no longer the big issue it used to be.

Check out the recent blog post that my good friend, Dennis McDonald put together on this very same subject and which I have referenced above already under Collaboration In Your Pocket Is Here! In that article Dennis states very clearly what are some of the biggest challenges that Mobile 2.0 has got ahead, if it would want to make it through successfully. To quote:

"[...] We see in the demo nothing but the basic elements of enterprise expertise management — access to individuals and groups and the ability to locate and obtain access to needed expertise.

These functions incorporate the essence of expertise management that I wrote about here and here back in 2006. Now, though, the tools and functionality have become more accessible, more streamlined, more user friendly, and much more mobile. Hopefully all smartphone interfaces will be able to access such apps in the future"

He is actually referring to this demo shared in YouTube that shows IBMs Lotus Connections on an Apple iPhone (Wish it would contain sound as well; it would be have so much more effective! Oh well…), where the main focus is eventually on keeping things as simple as possible: i.e. finding the experts at your fingerprints with as few steps as you possibly can, without much clutter, so you can connect with them right away to help you answer those questions that came up while you are on the road and without access to your computer or a reliable network.

Of course, the response should be fast, almost in real-time, more than anything else, because that’s what you will need right there, right then, but still keeping yourself on task, without any other distraction than just getting the job done! I couldn’t have agreed more with Dennis on this important point, where bloated features are left behind to help speed up the process of the task at hand; somehow I sense that’ll become incredibly empowering when your connectivity is seriously challenged. That way you can make the right connections right away and if you would need to come back for more complex interactions you can do so from the comfort of your own computer, whenever you are back connected online.

That YouTube demo is a good showcase of how that simplicity should work out for everyone out there exploring their extensive use of smartphones as their mobile computers. It surely is the right step forward into making it a reality at some point in time in the near future:

But does that necessarily mean that 2010 will be the Year of Mobile? Both Peter Kim and Bill Ives have put together some very compelling blog posts on the topic stating that would be the case. Yet, somehow, I remain skeptic, rather skeptic, to be honest, on this one. And mainly, for two single reasons that I see as big barriers of entry to make that dream of Mobile 2.0 become a reality:

• Your company mobile phone: I do realise that this may well be a rather localised barrier, specially if you are reading this from the US or some European countries, like Germany or the UK, but my current company mobile phone, in 2010!, doesn’t allow for anything else than voice and SMS / text messages. No data transfer in place, no plans to incorporate it any time soon! How does that put me in a position to state that 2010 will be the year of Mobile? Well, may be not so fast, at least, in my country, Spain.
• The carrier: of course, you would say I could buy my own smartphone and use it for work, which I do, I own an iPhone 3G, yet the problem arises with the carrier: always the carrier (Amongst several other huge issues I’m skipping for now, like battery life, to name one…). The current contract with my provider (Movistar) is less than desirable; rather expensive and the two most frequently used / seen words in such device are two I never thought I would be seeing so often: No Service, which, I think, speaks for itself, don’t you think?

So, while social software tools are starting to make good progress into entering, successfully, the realm of the mobile world, making that social business experience much more endurable allowing you to carry it on with you, wherever you may well be, there are still some more fundamental challenges, showstoppers, that we should probably not ignore, nor neglect. In fact, I would start believing it would be the N Year of Mobile, whenever those two issues are fixed, universally. Till then, I will remain skeptic, no matter how cool a mobile social software application demo would look like, even if it is about one of my favourite Enterprise Social Software tools ever!

Tags: Finding Experts, Expertise Location, Expertise Locators, Web 2.0, Experts, Subject Matter Experts, Enterprise Micro-Sharing, Enterprise Micro-Blogging, Micro-Blogging, Micro-Sharing, Lotus Connections, Connections, Real-Time, Business Cases, Use Cases, 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, Dennis McDonald, iPhone, Apple, Demo, Mobile, Mobility, Mobile 2.0, Smartphones, YouTube, Peter Kim, Bill Ives, Text Messaging, Data Transfer, Movistar, No Service, Universal Mobility