If you take a look into the agenda from the conference itself, you will notice how packed it is for most of the days and already starting like really early in the morning, till late in the afternoon. Networking opportunities in between sessions are very minimal and this was one of the things that I missed from the event itself. In most cases there are about 15 minutes break in between sessions where folks could interact with one another and follow up conversations.

Well, 15 minutes to make a move to the next session, pack all of our "stuff", have a "nature" break, or enjoy some refreshments, talking to folks about the session we just attended or simply just catching up with them, are probably far too many activities for just 15 minutes in between speaker sessions. So in reality the networking opportunities throughout the conference were very much restricted, if you count lunch as an exception, to the end of the day and as part of the local gatherings from various other networking events.

Not ideal, if you ask me. Don’t you think? So what would I propose, you may be wondering, right? Well, to begin with, I would extend the in between sessions breaks to 30 minutes, minimum, which I do realise would mean that there would need to be a new parallel track of sessions to be added to the already existing one, but I don’t think that would be too much of an issue. If there are conflicts with multiple sessions there is always a chance that video recordings of each and everyone of them would be made available after the event. I mean, for a conference on Enterprise 2.0, I wouldn’t think this would be too difficult, right?

But look at the benefits. You would be allowing folks to engage with the speakers after their sessions to ask additional questions, have some conversations on the corridors catching up with people and discussing key learnings from the sessions attended thus far; a quick stop-over the refreshments area to grab a software drink and a quick bite and back to business; and all of that without having the stress of knowing you need to rush off, because you only have 15 minutes. Well, now with 30m. things would be much much easier for everyone. And those networking opportunities will certainly help conference attendees to build stronger connections amongst themselves by starting the dialogue throughout the day and carry it on during the evening events.

And all of that with breaks of just 30 minutes in between sessions. I would think it would be very doable for future events, and as such I submitted this very same feedback for future occasions hoping to be able to extend my networking opportunities not just to the evening events, which were all great, but throughout the whole day, which would be more engaging and bumping from one session to the other without time for a breather … What do you think?

And with that I am done with this series of blog posts on the Enterprise 2.0 conference networking activities that we all got to experience last week, where you can see that those face to face interactions are just as good as ever; and as such we should exploit them as much as we possibly can. Now, from here onwards, it will be the time for my next round of blog posts detailing the highlights of the sessions I attended and what I learned from each and everyone of them… Another interesting ride I hope you will enjoy reading about, just as much as I did attending them…

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Highlights, Social Gatherings, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Software, Connecting, Connections, Face to Face, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Logistics, Organising Conferences, Feedback, Networking Breaks

And it looks like I haven’t been the only one; while doing my usual Twitter catchup this morning (Specially under the #e2conf hash tag), I noticed how plenty of those folks who were at the same conference were having post-conference fatigue symptoms, hehe, looking for a much needed "break" to get things going as well. And while wondering why that may have happened, it hit me. Big time!

Like I was saying earlier on, this year the amount of local gatherings (Dinners, tweetups, parties, etc. etc.) has been tremendous! More than in previous years, by far! I started with Sunday evening having a lovely dinner with a bunch of my favourite people in the Enterprise 2.0 space (See this picture for more details); then Monday evening’s tweetup with Connie Bensen, Rachel Happe & Jim Storer (From The Community Roundtable) on communities (Amazing event! Although throughout the whole evening I didn’t even had a chance to meet up with Connie! Grrr, guess next time!); followed by Tuesday’s Dachis Group Boston TweeUp that David Armano has been sharing a bunch of pictures over here to then finish up with my own team dinner.

Wednesday’s highlights in the networking space were a lovely dinner invitation by the Dachis Group where I had one of the most amazing conversation on social software adoption (Beyond just the IT industry) with my good friend Susan Scrupski and two incredibly smart and talented 2.0 people:  Greg Matthews and Ben Foster (Who I got to know during those conversations which I thoroughly enjoyed!). To then finish off the evening with one of the major highlights of the entire week!:

Andy McAfee’s party!! There are a bunch of pictures from such special event all over the place, but I am going to let you go and check the Twitter stream from after the party, where the word warning keeps coming up constantly and reading through you will see why … Andy surely knows how to throw a party and it certainly was a privilege being part of it! Lots and lots of great fun, drinks and amazing conversations! I would have gone to Boston just for this one, I tell you! Many many thanks to Andy for being so gracious in offering his house for hosting one heck of a party that will be remembered for years! At least, I will! (Thanks ever so much, Andy!!)

By Thursday you can imagine what my entire body was like, right? You now know what I meant I spent a whole week sleep deprived, but privileged to be in the company of people who I have been admiring for a long while and have plenty of respect for in the area of Enterprise 2.0 and why I keep coming back to this conference. Last week was another proof! Oh, that very same Thursday evening had another night out with my team where we spent a good time having a lovely dinner, drinks and musing on what we learned from the event itself over the last few days enjoying a delightful bottle of port back at our hotel to finish off a superb week! (Thanks a lot, Josh, for that one!)

I am sure that by now you may be thinking that there have been perhaps a few too many networking events at Enterprise 2.0 in Boston, right? Well, maybe; these are the ones I went to myself, including the usual last few rounds of drinks at the local Irish pub inside the Westin hotel, but there were plenty of others, too! The clear thing about these kind of local gatherings is that no matter what, when, how, why, there is nothing that would ever possibly substitute the face to face physical interactions of bright minds talking passionately about what drives them on a daily basis. Nothing.

That’s still what drives me to keep going to these conference events over and over again and why I have always been saying that an event of this magnitude without networking is no longer the event of events! Glad Enterprise 2.0 in Boston still is …

(A big shout with a special thanks to all of those folks I have met throughout the week, from "my" usual and dear suspects, to the bunch of recently met folks, with whom I had a wonderful week of constant inspiration flowing through! I won’t name you all, since I am sure I won’t do you all justice by leaving the odd name out here and there, but you all know who you are! Thanks much for being who you are! Please don’t change …)

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Highlights, TweetUps, Twitter, Party Time, Parties, Social Gatherings, Informal Meetups, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Software, Connecting, Connections, Friendships, Relationships, Face to Face, Pictures, Photos, Flickr, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Twitter, Connie Bensen, Rachel Happe, Jim Storer, The Community Roundtable, Dachis Group, Susan Scrupski, ITSinsider, Greg Matthews, Ben Foster, Andy McAfee, Port, Josh Scribner, BlueIQ, Passion

Well, fear not! I am back! Back into my usual regular blogging and slowly, but steadily, re-surfacing again in all external social software spaces where I usually hang out. It’s just the last couple of days I have been doing a massive catchup with everything that’s been happening at work, while I was away, but also, because I wanted to take some timeout and reflect on what I learned during the course of that week in Boston for Enterprise 2.0 and start drawing a mental picture of what I wanted to share as highlights and what not.

And I think I am ready! Ready to share with you folks my main highlights from what I flagged back then as the event of events, and still is! So much so that being away now for a couple of days from everything may have been a little bit as well to recover from that physical networking fatigue of just far too many people to talk to, but too little time all over the place and, in the end, not meeting up with enough of them. But let’s bring this one up in an upcoming entry …

For now though, I thought I would get things started with this upcoming series of blog posts by combining them with other things that have been happening and which I have also found a rather fascinating read from elsewhere and not related to the conference (That’s been part of the online catchup I have been doing so far as well…). So, hopefully, a combination of both highlights posts and the usual blogging will help get folks an idea of what’s been happening lately. And still keep up with the variety of topics so you won’t get bored in the process.

Thus you may be wondering why I am starting this series of articles with this one single highlight on Networking, right? Well, I think the answer is pretty obvious, but one of the major key highlights from the overall event was to be able to eventually meet up with a bunch of the incredibly smart talent that there is out there in the Enterprise 2.0 space and that I have had the pleasure, and honour, to hang out with in various social software spaces for a while now. To name them all it would not make good justice since I am sure I would be forgetting the odd name here and there, but I can certainly tell you this year’s Enterprise 2.0 conference has been one of the most networked events I have experienced to date!

One single event where my average sleeping time went from the usual 7 hours per day down to 4 per day and I still didn’t have enough hours in the day! One single event with the highest number of parties, TweetUps, dinner invitations, local gatherings, informal meetings that I can recall. Ever! Fantastic!!

Of course, I took some pictures, just like everyone else that was there. And one thing that I learned after the event is that my Nokia N95 is getting a bit too rusty and the quality of the pictures hasn’t been as good as I thought they would be. First time that happening. So I took tons of pictures, but most of them were far too dark, or with moving "targets", or just not good enough quality worth sharing. However, some others are, so I have placed them all in my Flickr account and here you have got a couple of them, so you can get an idea of what networking was like while at Enterprise 2.0 in Boston.

Then in another blog post I will share what that networking meant for me during the entire event as well as a couple of thoughts on how to improve it for the next year … Thus let’s get the ball rolling!

Ouchie! No comments on this one, right, Maggie?

(Goodness, I wish plenty of the other photos I took from the different parties and TweetUps I attended would have come out nicely… Alas they didn’t … double sigh … Although, on the other hand, seeing these perhaps it’s much better they didn’t come out after all that well anyway )

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Highlights, TweetUps, Twitter, Party Time, Parties, Social Gatherings, Informal Meetups, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Software, Connecting, Connections, Friendships, Relationships, Face to Face, Nokia, Nokia N95, N95, Pictures, Photos, Flickr, Maggie Fox, Luis Suarez, Dan McCall, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations

Well, that’s what I have been going through myself over the years. And I think it’s time that I put a stop to it. And look for some much more revolutionary and innovative way of keeping in touch with all of those great people I get to meet every so often. So, here, here is my new business card:

What the…? That’s not a business card, Mr! I bet that’s what you are thinking about this very moment. Well, yes, folks, that’s my new business card. A poken. My poken. My new business card. When I was last time in Madrid I met up with Nacho Guijarro, who happens to be a mutual good friend from a fellow IBM colleague, César Vitero, so we got to talk for a while and he introduced me to the concept of the Poken, and I went "My goodness! I want one of those! Like right NOW!" And a few minutes afterwards I had mine. Way too cool!

Pokens are fun! And they surely fulfil a need that most of us with a heavy presence in the social software world out there were missing out big time: a way to keep in touch with our new connections online and in our mutually shared social software spaces! Traditional business cards don’t do that; they are just too much focused on the physical world alone, which is probably why I never go back to them or why I don’t plan to use them for much longer! Yet, with my Panda Bear Poken (There are several designs, by the way, to suit everyone’s needs!) things are now different. Much different; I have got my list of new contacts right there! At my fingerprints and at the same social software spaces we already share a presence at! Just wonderfully simple and effective!

Well, I do realise that not many folks may have pokens with them, but I am surely looking forward to hook up with folks who may have one while attending this week the upcoming Enterprise 2.0 event in Boston. It sounds like it’s going to be plenty of good fun and I am surely hoping to put together another blog post at a later time detailing what my experiences have been during this week.

For now, though, if you would want to find out plenty more what Pokens are good for and how they can enhance a face to face event to help continue further with your new connections into the virtual world of socials software, check out this great presentation that my good friend, and fellow IBM colleague, Thorsten Zoerner, put together just recently on how an IBM event got the most out of the Poken experience…

So … Do you have your poken(s) ready, folks? I’m surely looking forward to have them "shake hands" then! Bring it on!

(Oh, and if you would prefer the traditional one, you can still get it from me if you go over here)

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Workshops, Seminars, Customer Meetings, TweetUps, Twitter, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Software, Business Cards, Biz Cards, Connecting, Connections, Friendships, Relationships, Face to Face, Virtual Handshakes, Handshakes, Meetings, Nacho Guijarro, César Vitero, IBM, Pokens, Poken, Thorsten Zoerner, IOD2009, Slideshare, IBM Information On Demand, Berlin, 2009

• Reality 2.0: Enterprise Social Networks (A Field Research Study) #e2conf24 with Mike Gotta, which I am sure will be another great speaker session from Mike, detailing some of the really good work he has been doing on the research study on Enterprise 2.0. Alas there will be a couple of other conflicts to fight with in this same time slot:

  Starting with Social Software – Creating Value Today, Establishing Opportunity Tomorrow – Sponsored by IBM #e2conf48 with Jeff Schick which I think would be a rather interesting session for folks wanting to find out plenty more what IBM is doing in the space of Enterprise Social Software with nifty and powerful offerings like IBM’s Lotus Connections. But, there will be another conflict in between with this one as well, for me. Goodness!

  The Outlook for Enterprise 2.0 Abroad #e2conf50 with Oliver Marks moderating the panel and with Richard Collin, Soren Stamer, Thomas Vander Wal and Luis Suarez as the speakers. Yes, that’s right; yours truly is going to miss both Mike’s and Jeff’s sessions, because at the last minute I have kindly been invited to participate in this particular panel with such an International panel of participants that I just couldn’t refuse. Specially, when the topic of the panel will be around how the market conditions and adoption of Enterprise 2.0 outside of North America. Stay tuned, because our panel will be rather provocative, putting on the table some of the challenges for adoption of social software that most folks don’t want to talk about … (Sorry, that’s how far I can say for now … heh)

• After trying to solve that conflict with the agenda, the next session I will be attending will be the one on Twitter-like Tools for the Enterprise #e2conf20 with Gil Yehuda as the moderator and David Schwartz, Mark Dowds, Ross Mayfield, Tim Young and Yoshi Maisami as the main speakers which I am sure would be a rather fascinating panel on the role of microsharing / microblogging tools on the Enterprise and their role in changing the way we communicate, collaborate and share knowledge. Perhaps one of my favourite topics as of late, judging by my own interactions using several of these tools on a daily basis, both internal and external…

  But, once again, there will be another conflict, because I also would want to attend this particular session from a fellow IBM colleague, and really good friend, who after all of these years I will have the chance to finally meet up face to face!, Jennifer Okimoto, with Enterprise Web 2.0 Anti-Patterns, ROI and Metrics #e2conf29. Originally this session was going to be done by another good friend, and now former IBMer: Aaron Kim, but unfortunately Aaron won’t be at the conference (Although he will be thoroughly missed! For sure!), so Jen will be chiming in instead. So I will need to see how I can resolve this second conflict of the day …

• And, finally, the last session of the day that I will be attending will be this one: Strategies for Building Sustainable Online Communities #e2conf46 with Oliver Marks, again as moderator, and with Andy Fox, David Wormald and Ted Hopton as the speakers. Again my interest in attending this session comes from a long time experience having done community building for a while and always keen on learning plenty more, realising that we may still be at the tip of the iceberg on all there is to know about managing, facilitating and participating in online communities; one of the hottest topics in the Enterprise 2.0 world at the moment, specially with that growing obsession from every business to have a communities program. Well, this panel session will surely set the stage on how you can move further with the development and sustainability of those communities themselves. Really interesting topic, I am sure, specially, if you come to consider how communities are perhaps the major drivers of social software inside the corporate world…

And that would be it, folks. The event of events will then wrap up with the usual Enterprise 2.0 Town Hall #e2conf17 session; this time around with Steve Wylie, as the moderator, and Jessica Lipnack, Oliver Marks and Susan Scrupski as speakers, detailing what the event has been like, what we learned, our biggest ah-ha! moments of the event and the usual recollecting of feedback to provide an even better Enterprise 2.0 event in 2010!

Thus this blog post puts together the last final details before the show starts tomorrow. I hope you enjoyed this series of "What to Expect" from Enterprise 2.0 event in Boston. And let the fun begin! I may be able to share a couple of quick blog posts here and there in between, but remember that I will be live tweeting most of the time over at @elsuacon, as well as my usual twitterings over at @elsua.

Then later on, and over the following couple of weeks, I will be reflecting some more with highlight blog posts from each day on what I learn and detailing some more of the details I will be originally sharing through my live tweeting… And, finally, for the real social networking activities, the socialising part of the conference event, as usual there will be only one place; the one and only: Twitter through @elsua

Are we ready? Ready to be WOWed once again? I surely am!

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Agenda, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Reality Check, Twitter, 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, Mike Gotta, Jeff Schick, IBM, Lotus Connections, Connections, Enteprise Social Software, Oliver Marks,  Richard Collin, Soren Stamer, Thomas Vander Wal, Luis Suarez, Europe, Asia, South America, Privacy, Security, Data Ownership, Gil Yehuda, David Schwartz, Mark Dowds, Ross Mayfield, Tim Young, Yoshi Maisami, Microsharing, MicroBlogging, Enterprise Messaging, Jen Okimoto, ROI, Return On Investment, Anti-Patterns, Aaron Kim, Online Communities, Sustaining Communities, Andy Fox, David Wormald, Ted Hopton, Social Software Adoption, Town Hall, Feedback, Ah-ha Moments, Steve Wylie, Jessica Lipnack, Susan Scrupski, Live Tweeting, @elsuacon, @elsua, F2F Social Networking, Social Networks, Socialising, TweetUps

Well, I am going to take that opportunity now, as I am on my way to Boston through Madrid and then Philadelphia and I have got a long flight ahead of me from MAD to PHI alone. Thus without much further ado, and thinking about continuing with the series of blog posts I started this agenda drop down of the event, here are the details of what I will be up to for Day 2. And, in an upcoming blog post, I will put together the much shorter one for Day 3. Here it goes:

• Applying the Social Dimension to the Lockheed Martin Mission #e2conf13 with Andy McAfee as the moderator and with Christopher Keohane and Shawn Dahlen as speakers. This is one session I’m really looking forward to, because, apart from being moderated by the one and only, the always inspiring Andy McAfee, I am keen on finding out what Lockheed Martin has been doing since last year where their presentation was one of the biggest hits of the event! So the expectations are very high on this one! We shall see…
• The Future of Social Messaging in the Enterprise #e2conf14 with Irwin Lazar as moderator and a whole bunch of speakers that I am not sure whether they would have plenty of time to share their insights. Either way, great line-up is probably the word that comes to mind with folks like Al Literati, Dan York, David Marshak, Fernando Egea, Laura Fitton, Mike Gotta and Tim Young.
  Reason why I’m interested in this particular session on Enterprise Microsharing is because I am keen on finding out plenty more what folks are doing around the subjects of security, governance and compliance with this new model of engagement that seems to escape all of that and so much more! Would be interesting to find out what vendors are doing in this space, although I think I know what one of them is doing already … hehe
• Does Social Media and Marketing Matter? #e2conf15 with Peter Kim, as moderator, and with Ben Foster, Greg Matthews and Morgan Johnston as the speakers. As you would be able to see the main reason why I’m attracted to this session, apart from listing to the always insightful Peter Kim, is to see how both worlds collide, or perhaps overlap. Who knows… I am talking about the Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 space. Are they similar? Do they step into each other’s toes? Can they co-exist? Should companies help promote both aspects? Lots of questions to be looking forward to!
• Launch Pad 2009 #e2conf16 with Stowe Boyd; This particular event on the agenda should be plenty of good fun, specially since one of my favourites is in the Final 4! Yes, indeed, over the last few weeks a good number of candidates have been competing to win the Launch Pad 2009 contest and during this time slot in the agenda we will see who is the final winner or not. For now, just one single word: watch out! for Manymoon, because it will surely make folks drool all over the place. If you are interested, find out plenty more on what each has got to say over at Enterprise 2.0 Launch Pad Web site.
• Enterprise2Open Introductions #2open - This one would be the kick-off from another one of the big hits from last year; the "unconference"of Enterprise 2.0. I’m surely going to try to make it to several of the "unsessions" that will be taking place during the day, since the whole "unevent" will be hosted by three of the folks in the area of Enterprise 2.0 that I admire and have a lot of respect for throughout the years: Brian Magierski, Ross Mayfield and Susan Scrupski.
• Networked: How the 2.0 Enterprise Makes Itself Transparent, Participatory, and
  Collaborative #e2conf40 with Jeffrey Stamps and Jessica Lipnack. I am sure you may be wondering why I would be interested in this particular session, right? Well, apart from the fact that Jessica will be one of the speakers (She is one of the folks I have been following for a while as well that has been a pioneer in the area of virtual collaboration, way before people started thinking about it!), also the fact that for someone who has been advocating more openness, transparency and more public interactions as part of his new mantra of living "A World Without Email" there is no way I can skip this one… Yes, I want to continue walking the talk! heh
• Community & Social Network Sites: Think Adoption, Not Deployment #e2conf27 with Mike Gotta as the moderator and then with Dan McCall, Erik Johnson and Kishan Mallur as the speakers. Reason why I would want to attend this one? Well, I have been doing community building program through multiple business units, since as early as 2001 and I guess I haven’t got escape on this one either. However, here is another reason why I am interested on this session; all along I have been saying that communities are the major drivers of social software adoption both inside and outside of the corporation and I am rather interested in finding out how this session continues to confirm that insight. Or perhaps not…
• Privacy, Data Ownership and Identity in an Increasingly Social World #e2conf39 with Irwin Lazar as moderator and with Kailash Ambwami, Many Gill and Sam Curry as the speakers. One of the key areas within Enterprise 2.0 that’s grabbing my attention more and more by the day at the moment is actually privacy, as well as identity, specially over here in Europe where privacy laws are a completely different beast on its own, you end up having a fascinating debate with a no easy solution to suit everyone. And if you add there, on to the mix, Data Ownership… WOW! Loaded topic! Looking forward to it!
  (Oh, by the way, If you have been involved with Social Networking sites and the various implications behind privacy and identity, I would love to know some more from you… Drop a couple of lines in this post or reach out to me to talk some more. Eager to find out plenty more! Thanks!)

Phew! That’s it! Quite an agenda for Day 2, indeed! Hope you will forgive me for explaining perhaps a bit more than what I should have on my motivation to try to make it through this agenda on Day 2 of the event, but I guess when you are stuck in a plane for over 8 hours you have a tendency to write more than what you probably needed in the first place. And I think this is what just happened with this blog post

(Later on in the evening the fun will continue, of course, having already been booked for two different meet-ups where I hope to take social networking into the extreme. Back where it should belong all along. Face to Face social networking FTW!!! … And starting to sense it’s going to be a long long week of sleepless nights! Think I’ll need to take a vacation when I come back, just to be able to digest all of the stuff I’m really looking for getting exposed to!

Blog post drafted on Saturday 20th, which was then posted on Sunday 21st after a 12 non stop sleep…)

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Agenda, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Reality Check, Twitter, 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, Stowe Boyd, Ross Mayfield, Peter Kim,  Jessica Lipnack, Lockheed Martin, Andy McAfee, Christopher Keohane, Shawn Dahlen, Unified Communications and Collaboration, Enterprise Messaging, Al Literati, David Marshak, Fernando Egea, Laura Fitton, Mike Gott, Tim Young, Irwin Lazar, Enterprise Microsharing, Launch Pad 2009, Manymoon, Enterprise2Open, Unconferences, Unsessions, Brian Magierski, Susan Scrupski. Mike Gotta, Dan McCall, Erik Johnson, Kishan Mallur, Social Software Adoption, Adoption, Privacy, Security, Data Ownership, Identity, Kailash Ambwami, Many Gill, Sam Curry, TweetUps

This is going to be a day with a fully packed agenda, and since I will be expecting to do plenty of live tweeting from most of the sessions I think I’m just going to keep things rather short and add a line or two next to the sessions I am planning to attend. That way you folks get an idea of what I will be up to, and, much more interestingly, you can already have a good sneak preview of the kind of topics Day 1 will have for us all. Thus without much further ado, here are the list of session(s) I’m planning to attend so far:

• Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom: How Online Social Networking Will Transform Your Life, Work and World #e2conf9 with Matthew Fraser – Where I’d expect a good reality check on how social networking has got more to do with a lifestyle fully embracing the Social Web than just about a bunch of social software tools. No, I haven’t read the book just yet (On my To-Read list…)
• Open Enterprise 2009 #e2conf11 with Stowe Boyd & Oliver Marks – Where they will both be presenting to us their key findings on the Open Enterprise 2.0 initiative they have been working on and which I have blogged about already a couple of times… I am sure this session is going to be one of the key highlights from the entire event! No doubt!
• Winning Open Enterprise 2009 Case Study #e2conf12 with Stowe and Oliver, once again, where they will announce one company that "will emerge from this process as a business that truly exemplifies these goals and will present their case study at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference." Intrigued … (Is all I can say so far!)
• Enterprise 2.0 Reality Check – What’s Working, What’s Not, What’s Next #e2conf10 with Matthew Fraser, Christian Finn, Nate Nash, Neil Callahan and Ross Mayfield – The first panel session of the day and, I am certain, the first reality check on where Enterprise 2.0 is, and where it is heading… I expect this one to be an eye opener for most of us…
• Lessons Learned From Internal Communities #e2conf30 with Peter Kim, Jamie Pappas, Joan DiMicco and Patricia Romeo – My interest on this one? Well, I have been doing online facilitation, online virtual communities / community building since 2001 and I still feel I’m at the beginning of the learning curve. So I want to learn more! And I know I will with this session…
• Transition Strategies for E2.0 Adoption #e2conf26 with Lee Bryant AND / OR Help! Marcom Doesn’t Get Social Media! #e2conf19 with Maggie Fox, Chris Almond, Gil Yehuda, Marius Ciortea and Robin Bordoli – Yes, I know! First double conflict of the conference that I will be facing, since both sessions look really good! There is very little that I’d probably have to say about Lee that I haven’t said it already; always insightful; always knowledgeable; in short, a must watch! But then what can I say about folks like Maggie, Chris and Gil, who I know and have followed for a long while now, and always learn something new from them? A perfect chance to get to know both Marius and Robin, don’t you think? Well, let’s see how I resolve this conflict …
• How Twitter Changes Everything #e2conf21 with Jessica Lipnack, Bill Ives, Clara Shih, Isaac Garcia and Patti Anklam AND / OR Open Enterprise 2009 In Depth #e2conf37 with with Stowe Boyd & Oliver Marks – Arrrggghh! 2nd conflicting items in the agenda for the conference! My decision as to which one to make would pretty much depend on the morning sessions with Stowe and Oliver; right now I am feeling pretty inclined towards listening to folks I have followed and admired for a while in the Knowledge Management and Virtual Collaboration space, like Jessica, Bill and Patti, and excited to get to find out plenty more about Clara and Isaac! Plus most folks know already my everlasting love / hate relationship with Twitter, so wondering whether this session will finally make me go either way! We shall see…

And that’s it, folks, for Day 1! Pretty intense and exciting, don’t you think? Like I said, these are the sessions that I plan to attend and, as such, I will be looking forward to sharing further insights live, while we are there, through my tweets over at @elsuacon. Then later in the evening there are a couple of various different networking events, but, like I said, I will be putting together a short blog post detailing plenty more details about my favourite activity while at conferences… Stay tuned!

And get ready! In the next few hours I will be sharing the sessions I plan to attend for Day 2! And watch it, because there will be conflicts again! I told ya, *so* much to experience this year! Where will you be next week? I hope to see you there!

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Agenda, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Reality Check, Twitter, Live Tweeting, 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, ROI, Metrics, Return On Investment, Cultural Barriers, Barriers of Adoption, Open Enterprise 2009, oe09, Oliver Marks, Stowe Boyd, Matthew Fraser, Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom, Christian Finn, Nate Nash, Neil Callahan, Ross Mayfield, Peter Kim, Jamie Pappas, Joan DiMicco, Patricia Romeo, Lee Bryant, Maggie Fox, Chris Almond, Gil Yehuda, Marius Ciortea, Robin Bordoli,  Jessica Lipnack, Bill Ives, Clara Shih, Isaac Garcia, Patti Anklam

So, instead of putting together a massively long post, I’m just about to start a bunch of shorter ones, detailing what my current planning for the event would be like starting with next week Monday, the pre-event day itself, if you allow me to call it like that, and that way you can see what is driving my interests at the moment (Specially in the areas of Social Computing, Knowledge Sharing, Learning, Collaboration, Communities and, of course, Enterprise 2.0), as well as providing some insights on what you may expect, just like me, from the event of events! Thus let’s get the ball rolling!

Implementing Enterprise 2.0: Exploring the Tools and Techniques of Emergent Change #e2conf1 (With Dion Hinchcliffe)

The pre-event day is always the one about workshops; perhaps one of the most interactive days and, as such, I am sure this year is not going to be any different. And this specific one is the one I plan to attend during the course of the morning. As usual, it will be hosted by my good friend, the always insightful and resourceful, Dion Hinchcliffe, who will be sharing with us "an in-depth overview of the state of Enterprise 2.0 from grassroots, emergent collaboration to large-scale social media strategy".

He usually does this session every year before the event really gets started and, to be honest, for those folks who may not have been exposed to Enterprise 2.0 just yet, or for those folks who would want to know what else is happening out there, it’s one of those workshops not to be missed! If not, check out the section on "You Will Learn" listed at the main agenda. Always plenty of new stuff to learn about, whether you are a primer into, or well versed in, social computing, you know it’ll be worth the time!

Reality 2.0: Getting Started With Enterprise Social Networking #e2conf4 (With Mike Gotta)

And this will be the second workshop of the day that I plan to attend, the one in the afternoon, and one that I have been looking forward to diving in plenty more, and for a while now, since Mike has already blogged about what he will be touching base on under "Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Social Networking Workshop" and it surely sounds like one workshop not to miss out on either!

I know, and have followed, Mike for several years now and I consider him to be part of the pool of some of most eloquent and amazingly talented industry analysts in the Enterprise 2.0 scene. And surely finding out plenty more about the recent study the Burton Group conducted around Social Networking will be the key highlight from the workshop itself. I am sure. Specially, if you read further on the section on "You Will Learn" that I am reproducing below:

• "What are the critical issues confronting social networking project teams, and how organizations are responding to those challenges and opportunities
• How project teams are dealing with the business case for enterprise social networking, including concerns over ROI and metrics
• What cultural issues do social networking projects tend to surface, and how did organizations in the study address legal, HR, compliance and security considerations
• What difficulties project teams will likely encounter as they try to convince employees to adopt social networking platforms (e.g., profiles), and what adoption tactics were used to jumpstart participation (e.g., expertise location, communities).
• How interviewees felt their IT organizations were handling with the topic of social networking, along with high-level impressions from participants regarding their experiences with different tools (e.g., IBM Lotus Connections, Jive Software, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server)"

Doesn’t it want to make you be there like today? It certainly does it for me! And that’s the reason why I am really looking forward to his workshop, as well as that one from Dion. I bet it’s going to be quite an amazing couple of workshops! And to top things further, at the end of the day, I will be participating in the first, of several, TweetUps! Yay! But that will be the topic for another blog post on the various networking activities I will be participating in and hanging out at… Like I said … There is just *so* much going on this year!

For now, though this is what I plan to do during Monday 22nd 2009, at the Enterprise 2.0 pre-event in Boston. But how about you? What will you be up to?

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Agenda, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Reality Check, Workshops, Dion Hinchcliffe, Mike Gotta, Burton Group, Emergence, Change, Change Management, Study, Surveys, Twitter, TweetUp, TweetUp Events, 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, ROI, Metrics, Return On Investment, Cultural Barriers, Barriers of Adoption, IBM Lotus Connections, Jive Software, SharePoint, Vendors

There is just so much happening before, during and after the event itself that I doubt I would be able to fit it all in a single blog post. So this year I have decided to take a different approach and perhaps put together a bunch of blog posts over the next few days that will detail a little bit what it is that you would be able to find over there, if you get a chance to attend the event live or remotely, if you can’t make it this time around. But let me tell you that it will surely be plenty of good fun! All over the place!

You will be able to get a glimpse of the quality of the keynote and breakout sessions if you peek quickly through the agenda itself. Later on this week I will be sharing with you folks my already selected agenda of the stuff I will be looking forward to. It hasn’t been an easy choice, I tell you, but I am sure it will be worth it. And very much so!

At the Enterprise 2.0 Blog you will already be able to get a taster of some of the amazing stuff that will be happening there, during the event, like witnessing the Launch Pad Final Four main stage presenters that will be there (Watch out for Manymoon as one of the most impressive new ideas coming out there in the Enterprise 2.0 space!) or checking out for yourself some of the key findings that both Oliver Marks and Stowe Boyd has been going through with their Open Enterprise 2.0 initiative, launched earlier on this year, and whose results they will presented during the event.

And the list of happenings goes on and on and on! Non stop! Like I said, I will be blogging over the next couple of days on some of the really good stuff you should go, check out and follow up further with, because there is just so much to share across and talk about that one or two entries are not going to do justice to the kind of stuff we will be exposed to as we are getting closer to the kickoff of the event!

As usual, and, like I have been doing at most face to face conference events that I have attended so far, there is a great chance that I will be live tweeting at @elsuacon, more thank live con-blogging (I will be putting together blog posts with highlights on a per day basis digesting through my notes captured through the live tweeting itself). This time around there is going to be a fundamental change on how the conference has been running all along. The focus, this time around, will be around making use of Twitter to help folks enhance the face to face experience(s). And to such extent, if you check out the agenda itself, you will notice how each keynote and breakout session has got its own hash tag! Thus following up with each and everyone of the sessions will be much faster and easier for everyone, whether you are attending live or virtually.

But there are some other really cool things happening. All of the sessions will be recorded through video and made available at some point. So there is a great chance that we would be able to catch up through various different highlights on what the sessions were like, if we can’t be there in the same room. W00t! At the same time all of the keynote speaker sessions will be live streamed, too!, so you will have a chance to get a taster on what to expect from the rest of the event itself. Double w00t!

This year, at Enterprise 2.0 in Boston, there will be more case studies than ever before, giving a chance to those attending face to face to find out plenty more how pioneering companies from all over the world have been able to deploy successfully Enterprise 2.0 techniques getting all the benefits from this new model of engagement, both inside and outside of the firewall.

I have been assured that the wi-fi during the event will have some really high expectations that it will be working just right this time around, as opposed to some of the irks we experienced last year, which, to me, is music to my ears, because there will be plenty of really good stuff we would want to capture live, while in there, and spread it around as much as we possibly can! And that’s something I’m more than happy to experience beginning of next week, when the event kicks off… Fingers crossed that everything will work out just fine!

Phew! Already going on the long side for this blog post. I told you, there are just so many more cool things to share about Enterprise 2.0 in Boston next week! I will wrap up, for now, mentioning that I will be arriving into Boston on late Saturday evening and will be there till Friday afternoon, before flying back home. So if you would want to get together for a drink or two, or hanging out for a while, you know how you can contact me

Finally, last, but not least, in case you may be a bit undecided just yet about making it to the Enterprise 2.0 event of events, go ahead and use this code (CNAPEB27) for 30% off a conference or workshop package, or a free Pavilion Pass, which sounds enticing enough to perhaps give it a try, if you happen to be around the area during the course of next week.

Either way, not to worry, in upcoming blog posts I will be trying to share with you folks some further insights on what to expect from the Enterprise 2.0 event in Boston, and how I plan to spend it while I am there! So far the overall agenda is piling up quite quickly, so hoping to be able to share the final details in the next few hours…

Are you going to miss out on Enterprise 2.0? I hope not. I just can’t wait for it to get started and begin to absorb plenty of key learnings on where Enterprise 2.0 is heading and where we all are at the moment. Ready for an Enterprise 2.0 reality check? I surely am, baby!

I will see you there!

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Dopplr, Boston, MA, Agenda, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Reality Check, Enterprise 2.0 Blog, Launch Pad Final Four, Final Four, Manymoon, Oliver Marks, Stowe Boyd, Open Enterprise 2009, Twitter, Live Tweeting, Live Con-blogging, @elsuacon, Case Studies, Keynotes, Breakout Sessions, Wi-Fi, Wireless, Connectivity, Code, Discount Code, Attendance, 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

And so I was intrigued… Knowing Jon, I was very intrigued. So I kept going along with my day and all of a sudden he goes and tweets back again the following tweet: "New blog post – Business 2.0 looking at business driving enterprise social software tools, rather than the other way round http://is.gd/YTjJ". And the suspense was over!

I right away head over to that blog post that he put under the heading "Business 2.0" and my head was completely blown away! What an outstanding reading! One of the best I have read through in a long while! Going through it felt good. Perhaps too good! But if you have been a knowledge worker for a while now getting exposed to social software in general and making heavy use of it you will know exactly what I mean and also you would come to the conclusion that exciting times are ahead of us! And I just can’t wait!

Here is one of the several precious gems that Jon shared in that article:

"Organisations need to trust these professionals, they will not be in the office from 9-5 every day. These are exactly the sorts of people who thrive on their personal networks, they are the people who you go to when you need to know what’s going on. Social software brings the same level of productivity increases for these people as type-writers and then word processors did for a previous generation of workers. It takes their natural propensity to connect, to share, to add value and extends it in the same way the internet extends our access to information."

To then finish off with this other one:

"It won’t be enough to hire knowledge workers to survive and thrive in this recession. Organisations will have to change their business practices to take advantage of their abilities, and provide them with the tools to be effective. Word, Outlook and even Sharepoint won’t cut it. They will need custom built social platforms, or products such as Confluence, Jive, Socialtext and Lotus Connections."

Those two quotes probably describe some of the stuff I have been doing for a long while now so well that it’s even scary! I probably wouldn’t have been able to describe it much better myself! And I bet that folks who see themselves as Knowledge Workers 2.0 in the current business world they would feel the exact same way. I am sure! And they probably wouldn’t be wrong…

So what does that blog post from Jon Mell have got to do with the first part of the title from this blog entry, i.e. with Clay Shirky? And that ambiguous title of "Institutions vs. Collaboration"? Well, believe it or not, quite a lot. Allow me to explain …

You will need to go into the TED – Ideas Worth Spreading Web site and check out a presentation Clay did back in 2005! around this very same subject, but perhaps with a bit more powerful message on how the process of knowledge sharing and collaborating was starting to shift from old models into new ones and all of that provoked by the emergence of social computing. And that dating back to 2005! The title of that presentation is Clay Shirky on institutions vs. collaboration and you will be able to find it over here (Embedded version below…) and, like I said if earlier on today, if reading Jon’s blog post was quite an inspiration and a burst of fresh air, Clay’s 20 minute presentation will be like being hit by Inspiration in its purest form! Yes, that good!

Needless to say that is one of those TED videos everyone who considers themselves as knowledge workers should watch; whether you watch it before or after reading Jon’s article it won’t matter; you will be ending up on the same sweet spot, only four years apart in time from one to the other! And you will be left with a single thought in your mind for a long while: exciting times are ahead of us and I am surely excited to be part of it all! And you?

Tags: Business 2.0, Institutions, Jon Mell, Headshift, Knowledge Workers, Knowledge Workers 2.0, Confluence, Jive, Socialtext, Lotus Connections, Connections, Clay Shirky, TED, Ideas Worth Spreading, Inspirational, Inspiring, Inspiration, 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, Twitter

And so we did take part on these two different fun podcasting episodes, where we talked about a whole bunch of different topics, but always with some of the best highlights, in our opinion, of Lotusphere 2009 running in the background. Now those episodes are readily available for replay and I am sure you may be wondering what we did talk about actually with both Neil and Stu, right? Well, here is a quick synopsis of what you will find in both episodes, to give you a taster of what to expect:

Collaboration Matters 8 – Los Dos Luis (36MB download and running for 26 minutes in Spanish with Neil)

• Lotusphere – the excitement and the challenges
• Successes and challenges for Social Software
• Is Social Software "Mainstream"?
• A Year without email – working in different ways?

Collaboration Matters 9 – LS09 Connectr BoF Review (41MB download and running for 30 minutes in English with both Neil & Stu)

• What is a Connectr?
• Who was there and what did we discuss?
• Tools versus Enablement & adoption
• What Social tools are people using – injecting Social Software capabilities into the existing application landscape
• Actually using Social tools – asking questions and opening up the Silos
• Do Social Software Best Practices really exist?
• Who is driving social software adoption within organisations?

As you will be able to see plenty of really good and interesting topics where both Luis Benitez and myself shared our two cents on what we have been seeing in this social software space for a little while now and where we may be heading next. On episode #8 I even got a chance to talk about living "A World Without Email" and this particular episode may be more interesting to those folks who speak Spanish, since we had the entire conversation in Spanish! Funny enough, it’s probably one of the very few podcasting episodes I have done in my native language. Yeah, too funny!

On episode #9 you will be able to get a grasp of our first public reactions to the BOFs session both Luis Benitez and myself did along with Stu on the topic of Connectr. Perhaps one of the most engaging and interactive sessions I have been talking around the subject of Enterprise Social Software, adoption, social tools, the so-called "best practices" of social software (Priceless that one, I can tell you know, and something I will be coming back to shortly as well with a couple of follow up blog posts) that I can remember in a fully packed room.

So, I am going to leave it there for now, and would encourage you have a listen to episode #8 where you can find out plenty more about social software at the same time that you can practice your Spanish skills , or have that rare chance where you can hear me talk in Spanish about some of the 2.0 subjects I have been really passionate about all along. On episode #9 you will be able to find out, first hand, what we learned from the BOFs session (Connectr) we did at Lotusphere.

From here I just want to take this opportunity to share a special thanks! to both Stu and Neil for their time and for their kind invite to the Collaboration Matters podcasting show and to my tocayo for sharing along all of the good stuff he has been doing all this time in the field of social computing and, more specifically, around IBM’s Lotus Connections. Thanks, guys!

Tags: Collaboration Matters, Stu McIntyre, Neil Burston, Connectr, 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, A World Without Email, IBM Lotusphere, Lotusphere 2009, Lotusphere2009, LS09, BOFs, Lotus Connections, Connections, Enterprise Social Software, Social Software Adoption, Best Practices

However, today, and while we are all waiting for the various video clips from the conference keynote and breakout sessions to become available online for us all to enjoy further, I thought I would point you to one that I am sure you will enjoy quite a bit, specially if you are interested in how a large corporation like IBM is making use of social software to help drive openness and innovation into new levels.

Check out Openness and Innovation in a Web 2.0 World by my good friend, and fellow colleague, Andy Piper, which he presented to a nice crowd on Friday morning. Then, as a follow up, I would recommend you have a look into a couple of blog posts he shared late last week to help provide plenty more context and background on the purpose of the slide deck he used.

In that presentation you will be to see how a large business like IBM decided to support and fully embrace social software a few years back, by continuing to trust its employees to extend further on the already strong corporate brand, bringing out thousands and thousands of strong, passionate and committed voices who all along have been understanding what it is like this new wave of social interactions in a corporate environment in order to help boost knowledge sharing and collaboration across the board. And doing all of that in a trustworthy, prepared and enabled culture environment where a key strong message resonates out loud: do not fear!

I can’t wait to watch the video recording of Andy’s pitch, as I am sure it was as thought-provoking and revealing as his slide deck is, but for now, and, while we wait for that clip to become available online, we will have to enjoy his deck over at Slideshare and the blog posts I referenced above. And that’s just the beginning, folks. Wait till some of the other outstanding sessions become available as well…

Like I said, one event on social computing within the enterprise to remember! And for a while!!

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, SOMESSO, SOMESSO 2009, smo09, Conference Events, Events, London, UK, Openness, Trust, Enablement, Cultural Change, Culture of Sharing, Andy Piper, Slideshare, Videos, Presentations

Why, you may be wondering, right? Well, mainly because it looks like the presentations from such great event are starting to become available (As Sandy Carter herself mentioned earlier on a couple of days back on Twitter). And as the materials start been shared across I thought I would point you to one of my favourites that I am sure folks who have been reading this blog for a while already would enjoy quite a bit.

It’s a lovely presentation that my team colleague, Jeanne Murrary, did during the event under the title: Business Value from SOA and Web 2.0 – Innovation, Relationships and Results and which touches base on some of the key success factors for the adoption of social software within the enterprise, after providing some really good background on the emergence of social computing in general, as well as sharing some further insights on how social software tools will change the way we work.

If you are interested in seeing the penetration of social software within IBM as far as usage is concerned, you should check out slide #13 for some quite revealing statistics. Also check out from slides #17 to #23 where you will see some key points behind proving the business value of social networking (Yes, I know, one of my favourite topics! heh).

Finally, from slides #24 to #27 you will be able to get some further details on what it exactly is that I get to work on with Jeanne, and a few other of my colleagues (Including a community with over 630 social software ambassadors / evangelists), on a daily basis in helping accelerate the adoption of social software within IBM by fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Either way, I thought folks over here would want to check out that really nice deck Jeanne put together for IMPACT 2009, which describes a little bit the kind of disruption social software is having within IBM, its potential business value as well as detail some more what I have been up to for nearly two years now. And still going strong …

Not bad for a challenge to have, eh?

(Thanks a bunch, Jeanne, for sharing the slide deck with us! Really nice work!)

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, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, IMPACT, IMPACT2009, IBMIMPACT, Sandy Carter, Smarter Planet, A Smarter Planet, Work Smart, Jeanne Murrary, BlueIQ, BlueIQ Ambassadors, SOA, Business Value, ROI, Return On Investment, Adoption, Emerging Social Tools

An event that will take place round the clock for 24 hours, as I have just mentioned, and which so far has got an outstanding agenda and a terrific line-up of incredibly talented and very knowledgeable speakers (Check Tony Karrer’s blog post to get more details on both of those topics!). But just in case, here is a little bit of a teaser of what the event is going to be like as well:

"For 24 hours starting April 21 at 9:00 am Pacific time, Learntrends will host a series of online conversations on boosting the performance of organizations through learning. [...]

Our goal is honest dialog. No commercials. No presentations. Few or no slides. Often, we expect to throw three or four great people into an online fishbowl and let the conversation go where it will. At other times, participants will simply talk about whatever is on their minds, with a host and time cop occasionally nudging the conversation back to the theme of improving the process of learning in organizations. Here is more of our vision for the event"

There have been a few folks (Jay Cross -here and over here as well, Harold Jarche, George Siemens, Tony Karrer, Clark Quinn, etc.) who have also spent a few minutes putting together various blog posts talking about the event itself and sharing some further insights about their own expectations from what promises to be one of those massive online happenings difficult to forget.

The best part of this round-the-clock online event is that it is free to sign up for it; you can come and go as you may please (You can drop by and drop off at any given point in time of the event!); and on top of it all, you yourself can contribute as well on those conversations! Perhaps a glimpse of the future of conference events? Who knows, but you can see where my excitement comes from, right? Well, that’s not all of it just yet!

There are plenty of ways of getting involved with the event. You can suggest a topic for discussion ("You don’t need to be an expert to start a conversation here. What do you want to discuss?"); or you can check out the Learntrends Twitter handle and the Learntrends Twitter search feed, as well as the URL for the live event (Remember as well though that, if you miss the event, "conversations will be recorded and made available on the web to foster reflection and continuing discussion") and so forth.

Part of my excitement as well comes from what George Siemens has already blogged about last week under "Leveraging the human network" and that is the fact that both him and yours truly will be discussing "Learning in an era of networked intelligence". Yes, indeed, I will be one of those privileged folks who will be sharing the stage with George and participate from the event as well sharing my two cents on how I feel Learning is getting impacted by the emergence of social software, and other collaborative and knowledge sharing tools, in the workplace. Going to be plenty of good fun, I am sure! I just can’t wait for it to get started!

Will you be there?

Tags: Learning, Learning 2.0, Informal Learning, Informl, Emergence, Conference Events, Events, Learning Events, Learning Activities, Learning Trends, Corporate Learning Trends, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Learntrends, Tony Karrer, Jay Cross, Harold Jarche, George Siemens, Clark Quinn, Free, Discussions, Human Networks, Networked Intelligence

Well, fast forward to today’s corporate environment. Specially for those businesses that have been paying attention to the whole movement of social computing within the enterprise. Why? Because that old perception of how useless and trivial social capital could well be has drastically changed into perhaps being the main engine that keeps the corporate world running. Yes, indeed, it is amazing how things change if you give them a little bit of time.

You may be wondering why I am putting together this blog post, right? Amongst many various reasons, because I wanted to share with you folks a link to a presentation that Tara Hunt did just recently (And the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, to be more precise) where she talks about that same topic: how crucial social capital has become nowadays with the emergence of social software.

She calls it the Whuffie Factor. In fact she has got an upcoming book on that very same topic that I just can’t wait to get my hands on it to start reading it. For now though I will need to content myself with that video link I would want to share with you folks over here. So why would I want to suggest to you all to have a look and listen to what Tara has got to say?

For various different reasons, to be honest, but most of them having to deal with the concept of social capital. And, more specifically how important and key it’s becoming within the corporate world to help improve both personal and business relationships; increase trust levels; build up stronger ties amongst knowledge workers (And their customers!); help accelerate innovation by empowering employees make connections with one another by just chit-chatting, but that will eventually resolve in people “becoming trustworthy friends” (Introducing the concept of loyalty with their peers); getting the message across that having fun at work is a healthy activity (And very much encouraged, too!); that building communities, both inside and outside of the firewall, with a specific purpose (business related or not!) helps employees have a stronger sense of belonging and ownership, therefore influencing the attrition rates every business is exposed to; and the list goes on and on and on …

I could keep talking further about this topic plenty more, but I think with that introduction it is probably sufficient for now. Social Capital is here to stay; it will change the way we connect, collaborate and share our knowledge with our peers and, interestingly enough, the biggest push (and driver) of social capital adoption within a business environment is eventually social computing. Whether we like it or not, it’s here to stay; it is here to help us survive and become smarter at what we do. So why stop it, right? You may as well want to get the most out of it and embrace it. That’s just exactly what Tara talks about during her presentation and here is the video from that inspiring talk. You can also watch it below with the embedded version:

The Whuffie Factor: The 5 Keys for Maxing Social Capital and Winning with Online Communities (Tara Hunt) from Steffan Antonas on Vimeo.

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, Social Capital, Whuffie Factor, Chit Chat, Chit-Chat, Tara Hunt, missrogue, Web 2.0 Expo, San Francisco, w2e, w2e09, Trust, Business Relationships, Personal Relationships, Knowledge Workers, Fun @ Work, fun@work, Adoption, Ownership, Sense of Belonging, Loyalty, Customers, Clients, Online Communities

The next presentation I am going to talk to you about though is eventually one that I have enjoyed myself quite a bit as it puts together some interesting slides on how IBM is making extensive and good use of social software, both internal and external, at the same time that it details as well how social software is influencing IBM’s involvement with A Smarter Planet (An initiative I am sure most of you have heard about already).

For some background information on the presentation, check out this blog post from my good friend (And fellow IBMer) Adam Christensen under the title: Berlin presentation: The experiment is over (now it’s time to get real value out of social media). It’s a deck he just used this week to go and present in Berlin at the fine and always interesting re:publica and which he introduces in that blog post with thought-provoking quotes such as this one: "[...]Which is why I think we are at a point where experimentation for the sake of experimentation is over [...]"

Adam talks as well, both in that post, as well as in the slide deck, on the topic of Jams (In particular, the InnovationJam) as the originator of much of what has been happening with A Smarter Planet (In case you would want further background information on that topic) and I can certainly confirm that it makes up for some interesting reading.

Either way, I want to keep this blog post short, so with that introduction, and without much further ado, here you have got the direct link to the slides (In Slideshare) and also the embedded version (Check out slide #11, if you are interested in further details on IBM’s adoption of social software, both inside and outside the firewall):

And if after going through that slide deck from Adam you would still want to learn and find out more, check out this 4:51 minute long video interview where Adam gives a bit more background on the main purpose of what he tried to achieve with such thought-provoking proposal: it is now the perfect time for us to terminate with the social media experiment and about time to get down to business! What do you think? Are you ready?

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, Productivity, A Smarter Planet, SmarterPlanet, Adam Christensen, Berlin, Germany, re:publica, re:publica09, Pilots, Experiments, InnovationJam, Jams, Slideshare, YouTube, Video, Interviews, Presentations, Events

Well, my good friends and fellow IBM colleagues, Sandra Kogan and Chris Reckling, have finally shared the slide deck they put together for their presentation at this year’s IBM Lotusphere 2009 and when you eventually go through it you will be able to see the various similarities with that one from Scott, except that this time around, both Chris and Sandra have put together a good listing of the various social software tools for the Enterprise that IBM is offering to customers under three different scenarios: "a project manager, a sales person and a Web 2.0 marketing guy".

Chris posted the presentation into Slideshare, but he has also shared a short blog post on the topic over at his own blog and I thought I would link to it from here as well to share with you folks what it would be like getting exposed to some of the tools I myself get exposed to on a daily basis on my quest to live "A World Without Email". Over time, and as more and more exciting news get released on the super nifty upgrade of Lotus Connections v2.5, amongst many other interesting and relevant news, I shall be sharing some further insights on each and everyone of those social tools / components.

But, for now, here is a taster of what it is like going to work and not having to use corporate email to stay as productive as ever, if not more!

Not bad, eh? Not bad at all, indeed!

(Although this week has been radically different than usual, although that would be the subject for another upcoming blog post!)

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, Meet Charlie, Scott Gavin, Sandra Kogan, Chris Reckling, IBM Lotusphere, Lotusphere 2009, Lotusphere2009, LS09, Slideshare, Presentations, Lotus Connections, Connections, Enterprise Social Software

They are both from my good friend, and fellow IBM colleague, Ed Brill, who just recently participated in a couple of different events (One of them virtually, with all of its various challenges). In both events he eventually gets to talk about social software within the corporate world and not only how he is benefiting from something so powerful as corporate blogging, but also about how social software is increasingly disrupting the corporate world to a certain degree.

At the same time on one of the presentations you would be able to see how he is sharing his insights on having a good balanced approach towards adopting both behind the firewall social software tools as well as external ones. And all of that including a couple of slides of how IBM itself is tackling its own social software adoption mentioning the program I am part of and of which he is one of those Social Software Ambassadors as well.

Thus without much further ado, here you have got the couple of presentations for you to page through as well as the corresponding posts from Ed’s blog giving you some further details and background on each of the events he presented at just recently.

Oh, by the way, just in case you were wondering, I *do* share plenty of the insights that Ed puts together on both slide decks as how I view and live social software myself, both inside and outside of the firewall. Just in case you are wondering … After all, I am also one of those (Social Software) Ambassadors heh

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, Productivity, Ed Brill, Social Software Ambassadors, BlueIQ, Social Software Adoption, Business Value, Corporate Blogging, Metablogging, Blogging 101, Virtual Teams, Virtual Collaboration, re:pubica, re:publica09, Career Development, Career, Development, Personal Development

Well, today it is my turn, although I am not going to focus on the content nor the form improvements of the events themselves (I will be doing that at a later time after I have reflected plenty more on what some of the folks I have been following for a while now have been saying so far), but on something else I also feel it is equally important and that has been in my mind for a long while now: the logistics!

Not to worry, this is not going to be a post where I will keep objecting about the poor quality of wireless connectivity throughout the duration of the event itself, but something more fundamental, which is eventually going to change the way I will engage in upcoming events, from now onwards, since no-one seems to be caring about such important issues as my own health!

Yes, indeed, one of the things I have noticed in most of the events I have attended both this year and last year was the lack of commitment and involvement from the conference organisers to look after the health of the attendees of the event, specially that one from those folks heavily involved with both live con-blogging, or live tweeting, amongst various other online activities, where the conditions are far from being optimal.

I am not sure about you, but I am starting to get tired of having to spend a good amount of hours sitting on uncomfortable chairs, with both my Mac and my Nokia N95 on my lap, rather live con-blogging, live-tweeting or taking pictures, in very awkward positions that by the end of the day my wrists only feel just that: pain, pain, pain! I am having enough of that, if you ask me.

I have been working with computers for over 12 years so far and all along I have been watching out for my wrists, elbows and shoulders as to help me prevent from suffering repetitive strain injury (a.k.a. RSI). I try to exercise as much as I possibly can, move around, sit in a comfortable, ergonomic position, ensuring my Mac is just on the right place for me to inflict the less pain I can to my body. And that seems to be working all right (Knock on wood!). Except when I go and attend conference events. The whole concept of ergonomic postures disappears entirely and my wrists get to suffer not only during the event itself, but also for a few more days afterwards, while I try to recover from it all.

So I am having enough of it. Really. And I feel sorry, because after attending a couple of events already this year and still going through the same thing, I have decided that my participation in sharing further thoughts, clippings, knowledge snippets, etc. live is going to be reduced dramatically, specially if conference organisers don’t look up to improve such overall experiences. "Why?", you may be wondering, right? Well, because if I don’t do it, NO-ONE will! And we are talking here about people’s health conditions, in this case, my own health; the one I need to treasure and nurture if I want to keep feeding myself and paying my bills.

I know that this may sound a little bit like a shocker and perhaps a trivial thing for most folks, but, like I said, I am starting to get tired of how inconsiderate conference events can be in this case, when it could all be fixed with putting together a number of good seats and tables, specially for those folks wanting to share with the rest of the world what’s happening at that event live.

Yet, it is not happening. Of the last 30 or so events I have attended in the last 18 months, only one of them got it right, EventoBlog in Seville, Spain, in November last year, which is the one of the various reasons why it still remains one of my favourite events to attend! They had a large room, with an overall amazing free wi-fi experience, but what I enjoyed the most from a logistics perspective was the fact they had plenty of tables at the front of the room where folks could sit comfortably, stay connected at all times with whatever the device and type away, respecting our health! Just brilliant! The way it should always be. For sure!

I just wish other events would learn from them about how increasingly important these health issues will become, specially as more and more people start engaging and participating from social software tools to share their experiences live while attending these conferences. So if next time around, whenever I get a chance to attend another one of them, you don’t see much live activity coming from me, you may already know the answer as to why that’s happening … I am just watching after my own health!

Tags: Conference Events, Events, Technology, Web, Live Con-blogging, Live Tweeting, Pictures, Logistics, Improvements, Repetitive Strain Injury, RSI, Health, Fitness, Fit, Ergonomic, Wireless, Wi-Fi, User Experience, EventoBlog, Seville, Good Practice, 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, Productivity, Health Improvements

Ouchie! As you may have noticed, for the first time in 6 weeks, I have gone over 25 emails on the weekly incoming count and maxed at 31, which I know for most folks that would be nothing, but since I put myself a follow up challenge for this second year to stay on 20 or below, I guess it’s something to watch out for.

You may be wondering what may have caused such sudden increase and I must confess that, once again, most of the email traffic I had from last week was due to the lovely (NOT!!!) Reply to All button. Yes, that button that presumes you would need to know about stuff, when in reality you don’t, nor you wouldn’t. But still it keeps reminding you that you need to know about something. Well, I don’t. And if I would, not to worry, I shall certainly be letting you know about it. Give me an opportunity to decide whether I want to be involved in subsequent replies or not, please, but spear me from a bunch of emails I wouldn’t need on the first place. Oh well…

Moving on forward, I thought as well I would share with you folks, what I think, would be an interesting link, specially for those folks who understand Spanish, and may want to learn further on why I started this my new reality on "A World Without Email".

Late last year, November, to be more precise, you would remember how I presented at what, to date, remains one of my favourite conference events I have attended so far: EventoBlog, in Seville, Spain. Yes, I did the well known "Thinking Outside the Inbox" and just a few days ago I found out that the session was recorded with both video and audio and is now ready for replay at Vimeo.

The fine folks over at EventoBlog blog have also put together an entry referencing the video, including as well, what I think was one of the best blog post coverage links I have seen in what I was trying to convey throughout the roughly over one hour show: "El hombre que mató al correo electrónico" ("The man who killed email") by Gonzalo Martín.

I guess I could say plenty of things about EventoBlog and everything (Just wish Twitter wouldn’t have such a bad memory, since most, if not all!, of the live tweeting from that session is gone now!), but I think I am just going to leave it for a follow up blog post, since I want to share further details on what other conference events can learn from such an amazing experience we had in Seville.

For now I will leave you with the embedded video of EventoBlog’s Servicios y Technología 2.0 en la empresa (a.k.a. Enterprise 2.0) by yours truly (Which lasts for a little bit over 55 minutes), where you can watch the recorded session. In Spanish; which I would think is perfect timing for those folks who have been asking me where I could blog about the topic of giving up email at work in Spanish. Well, this video would be as good as it gets. Nearly one hour talking about the subject! Hope you enjoy it, just as much as I did not only during the session, but also during the entire event!

EBE 08 – Conferencia de Luis Suárez from Evento Blog España on Vimeo.

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, EventoBlog, EBE08, A World Without Email, Gonzalo Martin, Conference Events, Empresa 2.0, Colaboración 2.0, Collaboración, Gestión de Conocimientos, Comunidades, Lotus Connections, Connections, Madrid, Seville, Spain, Twitter, Vimeo, Evento Blog España

Yes, that’s right! Tomorrow I will start with a half and half vacation / business trip into mainland Spain. More specific going to Madrid and then Barcelona. I will be spending a couple of days off in both cities and in between I will be taking part of what promises to be quite an interesting couple of events taking place during next week: Lotusphere Comes to You 2009 (Lotusphere llega a su ciudad 2009).

As you will be able to see from the agenda, both events are going to be rather intense and on a fast pace, since there would be plenty of stuff to cover for just one morning each. Still it promises to be rather exciting to be able to get together in a single place IBM’s customers, various business partners as well as a bunch of IBMers, talking about some of the really nice stuff that was shown during Lotusphere 2009.

In this particular edition there are plenty of news to be shared as well and as such there are plenty of new sources of information. There is a blog with a tremendous amount of detail on what the event will be like and other pieces of relevant details that may be of interest; there is also a Facebook event for folks to hang out before, during and after the event, as well as a Twitter ID, where people can reach out to digest some more info details.

But, let’s go back into the agenda for a minute:

As you would be able to see, pretty intense, like I mentioned earlier on! Take a look though at the time slot 11:15 to 11:45am where yours truly, along with another fellow colleague, will be talking on the topic of Web 2.0 and how it has moved into the corporate world under Enterprise 2.0. We will be talking about collaboration, productivity and adoption within the enterprise, but at the same time we will be spending some time in discussing the huge opportunity for social software in the current business environment as well as cover the latest news related to perhaps a couple of the most powerful Enterprise 2.0 products IBM is offering at the moment: Lotus Quickr & Lotus Connections.

We will be mentioning some of the really cool features coming up with both Quickr and Connections, specially with v2.5 of Connections, where there are some pretty fundamental changes worth while exploring further.

Like I said, one event to keep an eye on. For sure! If you would want to register for the event head over here and sign up! If you also fancy getting together before, during or after both Lotusphere Comes to You events (Madrid & Barcelona), for a drink and / or a chat, you know where to find me already, right?

See you there!

(Oh, and not to worry, I won’t be talking about "A World Without Email", unless you ask me to )

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, Productivity, Re-purposing Email, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload, Lotusphere, Lotusphere 2009, Lotusphere Comes To You, LS09, LCTY09, Lotusphere Llega A Su Ciudad 2009, Madrid, Barcelona, Spain, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Lotus Quickr, Lotus Connections, Quick, Connections, Business Value, Adoption, Social Software Adoption

Those moments were actually a number of conversations that throughout the event I had the pleasure of having with my good friend David Tebutt, who was also at Lotusphere (And who blogged his experiences over at his own blog), where we eventually brainstormed for quite a bit on the whole thing around the subject of proving the business value of social software.

And the result of those great conversations is this wonderful piece he has shared not long ago over at CIO.com (Available as well over at CIO.co.uk) under the heading: "CIO Technology Analysis: The business value of collaboration software". In that article David gets to expand further on how key and paramount Collaboration is becoming within the corporate world, yet it is not as pervasive as you would have expected.

The entire article is filled up with plenty of precious gems that clearly state what are some of the challenges the corporate world has to face in the Knowledge Economy of the 21st century, as well as some of the advantages of embracing and fostering an effective knowledge sharing culture. I am not going to reproduce any of them over here; instead I would certainly encourage you all to go and read through it, specially if you are also interested in finding out how IBM is embracing these new knowledge sharing and collaboration tools within the social software space to help deliver plenty of value add that surely is benefiting the entire enterprise (Highly recommended if you want to catch up with some measurements on IBM’s internal use of social computing tools).

However, what’s rather interesting from the article itself, including those insightful gems, is another part of the conversations we had where over a couple of beers here and there, we came up with a good number of the most relevant value-related benefits. And here you have got them:

1. "Find: people, places, information – quickly by using profiles, and other people’s tags and bookmarks as accelerants.
2. Validate: people especially. What have they posted? What do others make of them? You could arrive at a shortlist for a project team much more quickly and at greatly reduced cost than before.
3. Direct dialogue: with customers (and suppliers), internal and external. This eliminates filtering and politics and leads to more rapid understanding. It could mean fixing things that have gone wrong or identifying new product and service opportunities.
4. Capture information: from people as they’re working or reviewing online material. This could prove especially valuable if faced with staff churn or retirements.
5. Connections: spread internal innovation widely and rapidly – bad ideas don’t get traction but good ones do.
6. Communities: increase staff morale and retention through a sense of belonging and recognition."

Some of these various benefits, we both fully realised, may not be easy to quantify, nor qualify, like David mentioned, but then again we may not need to altogether, as long as organisations have "an open, collaborative and trusting culture. Without that, it can never work. But with it, social software can transform the way we collaborate and share information."

Yes, Sir! I couldn’t have agreed more with that final statement from David! Now, the remaining challenge is … is your business culturally ready? If you are not sure just yet how or what to answer, allow me to share with you another superb article, this time around published by Matthew Hodgson (At the AppGap), under the title "The ROI of being social at work" and which, I am sure, would prove to be rather helpful in laying out the answer(s) for us all.

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, Productivity, Lotusphere, Lotusphere 2009, LS09, Lotusphere2009, Highlights, David Tebutt, Tebbo, CIO, BlueIQ Ambassadors, Evangelists, Ambassadors, Culture, Trust, Matthew Hodgson, AppGap, ROI, Return on Investment, Business Value, Value Add, Openness, Transparency

A few days back, you would remember, I put together a couple of blog posts where I was sharing further details about the good number of online resources about the event itself, i.e. Lotusphere. Resources that I was planning on using myself as well as check them out throughout to see what was going on, specially for such an event of these dimensions (I bet plenty of us would have wanted to clone ourselves to be at multiple places while in there!).

Well, it didn’t happen. From day one (Monday to me, since I arrived Sunday evening) and right till the very last day, Thursday, the WiFi connection at Lotusphere was everything, but functional. Don’t take me wrong, I am ok without it, since I was there in person, but given the relevance of the event, we all know it is a good thing to share the news with the rest of the online world, so we all expect to have a fully functional Internet access. Yet, it didn’t happen.

Most of you folks who have followed this blog for a while now, as well as my twitterings, know that I have adopted the approach to live tweet @ elsuacon, so that apart from capturing live thoughts I’d then want to blog about at a later time as highlights, I would also have the opportunity to share those thoughts with anyone out there who would want to follow up on them. Well, at Lotusphere, it didn’t happen, at least, as often and as much as I would have hoped for. On the contrary, rather erratic!

To the point where I gave up altogether and decided to focus on enjoying the event from an offline perspective, i.e. lots of superb conversations face to face with the folks attending / presenting / demoing at the event. And in that respect I had a blast! (More on that at a later time)

By the end of the event, at the Closing General Session it was mentioned how the wi-fi didn’t cope with the high peaks throughout the event, not because of the bandwidth, but because of the lack of enough access points for us all to access the Web and while I do praise the explanation, and apologies, of what happened, I am still disappointed that such an important and relevant conference event as Lotusphere didn’t plan ahead that well, in this area, the fact that technical folks are always going to carry multiple devices with wi-fi enabled, at the same time that they would be watching on the Internet the unique events that took place throughout the week. That’s to be expected, I would think, specially coming from where it is coming: IBM.

Poor planning? Maybe. I don’t know. For me though one of the biggest disappointments of the year. For sure. Why? Because I realised that even my own company cannot put together a proper wi-fi network connection for us all attending it live to cover the IBM event of events as thoroughly as we would have hoped for! And that, my friends, hurts. Ouch! It really hurts!

(You may be wondering whether I will be putting together further highlights of the Lotusphere event, right? Well, yes, I am, but they are going to be just like my live tweets. Erratic and not complete. So I’m going to wait for all of its content to become available online, including the recordings, if they are made available as well, that is, and comment further on those sessions I thought were worth while talking about, specially those dealing with the same topics I get to blog about over here. Stay tuned!)

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, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Dialogue, Connections, Relationships, Lotusphere, Lotusphere 2009, Lotusphere09, LS09, Events, Conference Events, Orlando, Florida, Internet Access, Wi-Fi, DAI, Decent Access Initiative, David Terrar, Twitter, Live Tweeting, Highlights

More than anything else, because there is plenty going on already and the event hasn’t started just yet! And like last year, I will be heading down there with part of my team, the Social Software Programs and Enablement, a.k.a. BlueIQ, although this time around we will be doing plenty more stuff while attending the event. So I thought I would put together this blog post where I would be able to share with you folks, specially if you are going to be there in person, what we will be up to. So without much further ado here it goes:

• Monday – Ambassador welcome lunch 12:00-2pm: A whole bunch of the Social Computing ambassadors / evangelists from our community at IBM, along with Gina Poole, our team exec and VP of Social Software, will be there having lunch with us. Thus whether you are one of our BlueIQ Ambassadors community members or just want to perhaps become one, come and join us! Just look for the blue balloons!
• Monday afternoon (3:15-4:15pm): Unsession #1 – Ted Stanton. Yes, that is right! If you would want to informally find out more about Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Lotus Connections, ROI for Social Software and so on, come and join us at the fountain of the Dolphin hotel (Yes, that one!) where Ted will be sharing with us his various insights on the kind of impact of Enterprise 2.0 within the corporate world and perhaps share some further details on the Connections announcements from the morning, amongst many other things! Be there!
• Tuesday – Ambassador dinner 7:45pm: Second chance to meet up with some of IBM’s brightest Social Computing evangelists who have made it into Lotusphere and enjoy a lovely dinner with them. And Gina will be there, too! (Me, too, of course! )
• Late Tuesday morning (10:00 – 11:00am) – unsession #2 — Luis Suarez. Probably I wouldn’t need to say much more about this one, but if you would want to find out plenty more how I have successfully given up on e-mail at work, this would be your chance to come over and find out some more! Like, did you know that Lotusphere 2008 was the final "event" that made me start this quest?
• Wednesday afternoon (1:30-2:30pm) – unsession #3 – on Lotus Mashups. This unsession would be the perfect opportunity for you folks if you would want to know plenty more about mashups and what IBM is doing in this space with the IBM Mashup Center.

Intense agenda, eh? Well, there is plenty more! At the same time that’s happening we will be hosting a booth under the theme "Social Software in Action" where my team and myself will be more than happy to share with you folks various details on how our program works in helping accelerate the adoption rate of social software within IBM. We have got a couple of demos on the tools which we use to keep evangelising everything related 2.0 into IBM, plenty of success stories to share from how other IBMers have been successfully adopting social software and become more productive as a result of it, anecdotes, experiences from our invaluable Ambassadors community and a whole lot more!

Feel free to drop by and talk to us! We would be more than happy to share with you what we have been doing successfully for over a year now! And if you just want to come by and say "Hi!" that is fine, too! Oh, and if you bring a coffee or tea with you for us, even better! heh

Another activity I will be participating in and for which I am very excited about is the one taking place on Monday at 6:15pm-7:15pm. A BOF: BOF409, where along with my good friends Stu McIntyre and Luis Benitez (My tocayo) will be talking "[...] through some of the real-world experiences that we’ve had implementing Lotus Connections and similar social software solutions, the value that organisations and individuals have gained from them, and some of the directions in which Connections might go in the future". Plus a couple of other surprises here and there …

Finally, and like I have been doing with all of the events I have been attending over time, I will surely be blogging plenty of the highlights from the event itself, taking a whole bunch of pictures, capture a few video clips here and there, and, of course, I will be doing plenty of live tweeting, as usual, over at @elsuacon. Oh, by the way, stay tuned, because there is something else coming up, too, that I won’t be mentioning much about just yet, but that would be really exciting when you get to find out more about it! It’s something we will be doing at Lotusphere, but will last us for months to come! For now, looking forward to an intense and exciting Lotusphere 2009!!

Are you ready?

I surely am and I hope you, too! And, like I have said above, if you would want to get in touch to say "Hi!", go for a drink or two to catch up with things or just check out what will we be up to, you know where to find us / me

Update – January 19th: As usual, like in any live event there are always some last minute changes. So here we go: On the 19th of January unsession there is a change of agenda and time. The new time is at 3:15pm till 4:15pm and the change of the agenda is that we would have, indeed, Ted Stanton, but at the same time we are also privilege to have the remaining 30 minutes from Ted with my good friend, and tocayo, Luis Benitez, where he will be sharing some of his experiences in the Enterprise 2.0 world from various of his customer stories. Should be fun! We hope to see you there!

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, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Dialogue, Connections, Relationships, Lotusphere, Lotusphere 2009, Lotusphere09, LS09, Events, Conference Events, Orlando, Florida, Social Software Programs and Enablement, BlueIQ, Evangelists, Ambassadors, Gina Poole, Ted Stanton, MeetUp, Lotus Connections, Connections, e-mail, email, Productivity, Communication, Re-purposing E-mail, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload, Lotus Mashups, IBM Mashup Center, BOFs, Stuart McIntyre, Collaboration Matters, Luis Benitez, Twitter, Live Tweeting

But life goes on and we are all on our way on to the next thing. And that, for half of my team, would be to head down tomorrow afternoon to Orlando, Florida, to attend what promises to be the IBM event of events for this year that I mentioned in a previous blog post. Yes, I am talking about the already impressive Lotusphere 2009 and it hasn’t even started yet!

Things have already kicked off with a huge amount of resources: blog posts, podcasts, twitterings, Facebook events, gatherings, etc. etc. and I have got a sense that this year, more than ever, it is going to be almost impossible to catch up with everything. So I thought I would go ahead and share a quick blog post over here pointing out a number of helpful resources that I think would be worth while following before, during and after the event. So let’s go!

• Lotusphere Agenda / Program: This is probably your starting point. Find out there what the event would be like, the sessions happening throughout next week, plus plenty more! Oh, and don’t forget to check out the agenda while on the move through the Notes DB (Put together by the Genii Software folks), the Blackberry version or the fine iPhone Web interface.
• Blogs: To start with, and like usual blogging is going to be  bigger than ever, I think! So I will just highlight a few interesting resources to keep up with everything happening: Google Blog Search, Technorati, Ed Brill’s excellent blog which I am sure will be covering all of the important announcements coming up!, the Lotusphere Blog (Recently created and already containing loads of relevant info and links about the event), Chris Miller’s IdoNotes (Where, once again, he has done a tremendous piece of work sharing plenty of tidbits about the event itself and how to stay connected) and, of course, PlanetLotus (With perhaps the most comprehensive coverage of the entire event, since plenty of us will keep feeding it as time goes by).
• Facebook: With over 530 members already exchanging information and knowledge about the event itself.
• Twitter: Of course, we couldn’t have Lotusphere 2009 without Twitter, specially now that more and more folks have joined the conversations happening in real-time. A couple of places to watch out for: Lotusphere Twitter handle and Search Lotusphere. I will also be doing plenty of live tweeting at @elsuacon, but more on that later on…

I know that there are plenty more places to go and check out. But I think the ones I have mentioned above are the ones that will give you a little bit of a sense of some of the amazing things that will be taking place starting off tomorrow at Lotusphere 2009. However, if you feel there is another interesting and relevant resource to keep up with the event itself that I may be missing out on it, please feel free to drop a comment with the link to it and I will add it into the original blog post itself.

In another upcoming blog post I will be sharing with you folks what I will be up to during the entire week, so that if you would want to catch up face to face you know how you can get hold of me or where I will be hanging out.

For now though time to get ready for a lovely TweetUp event I will be participating in, here in Raleigh / Durham, NC, with a group of fellow IBM twitterers, plus a bunch of thought leaders in the Enterprise 2.0 space, like @gilliatt and @leewhite. If you want to come along, we will be at City Beverage in Durham, at 4pm EST and everyone is more than welcome to drop by, join us for a drink or two and have plenty of fun! See you there!

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, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Dialogue, Connections, Relationships, Lotusphere, Lotusphere 2009, Lotusphere09, Events, Conference Events, Orlando, Florida, Raleigh, Genii Software, Blackberry, iPhone, Google Blog Search, Technorati, Ed Brill, Lotusphere Blog, Chris Miller, IdoNotes, PlanetLotus, Lotus, Facebook, Twitter, TweetUp, City Beverage, Durham

The purpose of my trip to Rotterdam this time around would be to meet up with a couple of customers to talk about Social Software and what IBM is doing in that specific area, both internally and externally, with a specific focus on the social and cultural changes happening in the corporate environment versus just a social software tools focus.

Then the other reason why I will be going to The Netherlands is to eventually take part in one of those special events around the world of Innovation that you know is going to have a significant impact and will leave you behind with too much food for thought. Yes, indeed, I am talking about the event that every year the Dutch Innovation Platform puts together around the subject of higher education, research and innovation. This time around with the title: "Above the ground level" ("Boven het maaiveld") and hosted at Van Nelle Ontwerpfabriek in Rotterdam itself.

You would be able to find more information and further details about the event itself over at its main homepage or, alternatively, you can also download the full agenda from here. As you go through it you would be able to see how at 15:30 pm local time, I will be presenting on what’s been one of my favourite topics as of late (And if you have been reading this blog long enough you would know already which one it is, right? ): "A world without mail", where I will be sharing my experiences on what’s been like giving up on e-mail for the last 10 months and a half in such a big (And e-mail driven!) corporation as IBM!

Needless to say that I am incredibly excited about taking part in this particular event, as I am sure you would be able to see from the quality of the actual agenda itself; and to be able to present a glimpse of the kind of impact that social computing is having within the corporate world as part of that Social Innovation that a few of us have been advocating for a little while now is probably one of the best ways of ending an unforgettable year. One that has surely changed the way I work, interact, connect, collaborate and share my knowledge with other colleagues, but not only that, also my life! Why not.

If you are going to be around that time in Rotterdam next week, and if you would want to get together for a drink or two to catch up, feel free to give me a shout and we will make it happen. I will be there from Monday afternoon, till Thursday afternoon, like I mentioned above, and after I get back I will go ahead and share some further highlights from the event itself. I am sure it would be one of those events hard to forget for a while! As usual!

Ready to Innovate with a capital I?

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, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Dialogue, Connections, Relationships, e-mail, email, Productivity, Communication, Re-purposing E-mail, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Netherlands, Dutch Innovation Platform, Innovatieplatform, Conference Events, Events, Social Innovation

As you may have imagined, regular blogging activities will resume this week again, and while I am preparing the three blog posts with some of the highlights from such a wonderful event in Seville (i.e. EBE08), I thought I would pick things up with, yet again, another weekly progress report from my giving up on e-mail at work, which is going to become very handy as that was also the subject of the presentation I did on Sunday the week before and it surely provoked the kind of reactions I was hoping for. But let’s start one step at a time…

You would remember how over the last few weeks I have been blogging about an increasingly larger number of e-mails received, because of a numerous variety of reasons having to deal with my own clumsiness, the infamous "Reply to All" button and whatever else. Over time I was starting to get worried that I would end up on a dangerous frenzy of e-mail exchanges from which I would not be able to escape. Well, here you have got the progress report from the incoming e-mail count I got while I was on holidays, and then attending EventoBlog in Seville:

Excellent stuff, don’t you think? Back again, and after a couple of weeks of seeing such an increase, we are back in business and already on target for my follow up challenge, which is getting 20 e-mails, or less, a week! And a couple of weeks back, when I made the 10th month in a row without using e-mail at work (Yes, 10 months without using corporate e-mail!!), I eventually got 20 e-mails during that entire week! Not bad. Not bad at all, indeed!

And all of that while I have been away for the entire week, as well as attending and presenting at that particular event over the weekend, which is probably a much more compelling case! Wooohooo! I wonder what last week would be like … (More on that one coming up soon!)

For now, though, and after going through such a great week with some really interesting figures, I would want to share with you one interesting link, which I think would be quite relevant for this post, as well as making a short annotation on upcoming changes with regards to this particular blog. A whole bunch of folks have asked me offline whether it would be possible for me to eventually create a series of blog posts, in Spanish, describing what I am doing, what the experience is like, challenges, lessons learned, good tips / advice, things I have learned, how to get started themselves, etc. etc.

And time and time again I have been wanting to, but never found the chance, nor the opportunity, to make it happen. Well, that may well end up soon! And all of that thanks to EventoBlog! Why? More than anything else, because of the huge amount of reactions, skepticism and constructive feedback I have been receiving on what I have been doing all of these months! And I think it is time I engage as well with the Spanish blogosphere, more than anything else to help bring in further some more awareness on what it is like working, and living!, without e-mail at work.

So starting up very soon I will be putting together a number of blog posts that will try to link to some of those conversations and I will pick things up from there and try to get some dialogue going right here, BAU. But in Spanish! Thus we shall see how that goes.

For now though I would want to wrap up this particular blog post with an interesting link, which I think would be worth while reading for you folks, interested in the subject. It’s eventually a press interview I did with Delia Rodriguez (From Soytu.es), while at EBE08, where we had a good and lengthy conversation on what I have been doing, i.e. not using e-mail at work, and, as a result of it, she put together a really good read over at Cómo librarse del correo electrónico. Yes, it is an interview / article in Spanish and that’s why I think it would fit in quite nicely for those folks who were asking for additional content in Spanish as well.

Well, there it is. A rather lengthy interview with Delia where I have shared my experiences on what it is like not living with e-mail at work on a daily basis and have to struggle with it, but, instead, use it as one of the various other options, or choices, available out there, along with a whole bunch of social software tools. Then towards the end of the article she describes a number of different tips I have put together on how other folks can get started with it and gradually move away from e-mail. Yes, also in Spanish, but I think most of you folks would understand some of the concepts behind, as you would be able to relate to it quite a bit. Here you have got those tips:

"1. Identificar los correos sin valor. Suelen ser los informativos, los de resultados, los FYI (‘For Your Information’). Se pueden sustituir por un blog, que además tiene comentarios.
2. Acabar con las newsletters. También pueden ser sustituídas por Wikis, que pueden ser creados entre todos y no por unos editores. Cada grupo debe crear sus contenidos.
3. Comenzar un proyecto piloto con un grupo que utilice el software social. Que sea pequeño, así si falla no ocurre nada, pero si triunfa el ejemplo se extenderá.
4. Inculcar desde arriba que no mirar el correo electrónico es bueno. Si los grandes ejecutivos no lo manejan y tienen secretarias que se lo filtran ¿por qué no hacer lo mismo?"

Thus there you have it, another week gone by, another week right on target and from here onwards, and as a way to help provide some additional answers to people’s queries mentioned during EventoBlog, very shortly I will start publishing some content in Spanish about what I am doing in this area, but also about the usual topics I have been blogging about as well all along. So, ¡¡prepárate porque va a ser divertido!!

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, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Dialogue, Connections, Relationships, e-mail, email, Productivity, Communication, Re-purposing E-mail, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload, EventoBlog, EBE, EBE08, Events, Blogging, Metablogging, Seville, Spain, Flu, Cold, Delia Rodriguez, Soytu.es, Soytu, Blogosfera, Spanish Blogosphere

COUGH! COUGH! COUGH!

Yes, that’s right, as a consequence of having the air-conditioning of the venue, Hotel Barceló, really blown up, I have now returned back home and a couple of days later, I am almost knocked out by a nasty cold I am going through that’s not even helping me think very clearly either for that matter! Ouch!!!

And it looks like I haven’t been the only one either! A few of the folks I have connected with through Twitter after the event have also been commenting on the same thing. So it looks like the airco managed to knock us all out while at the venue! Double ouch!

What’s the immediate result of that, you may be wondering, right? Well, for me, that this is going to be the first blog post with some of the highlights from EventoBlog: a cold! And a nasty one, too! So you may need to excuse me for a couple of days while I try to recover with some hot chicken soup, hot milk & honey, some drugs (hehe, not that kind!) and see if in a couple of days I can come back up in full force with those reviews and on to my usual regular blogging.

So if you see this blog going dormant for a couple of days or so, you know why. The lovely, and apparently, very powerful air-conditioning from the venue event. And you know the worst part, that I mentioned it throughout the entire event how we needed to do something about it, and nothing happened, eventually. Oh, well … Next time, I guess…

Off now into recovery mode for the next day or so without blogging, probably. But fear not, I will be back! I will be back with those highlights entries and share with you some of the great stuff I experienced throughout those couple of days. This is just going to remain as an anecdote I am going to remember for a little while, since it’s been a few years since I had such a nasty cold hanging around!

Thus see you all in a couple of days …

Tags: Cold, Flu, Sick, Ill, Blogging, Metablogging, EventoBlog, EBE, EBE08, Highlights, Barcelo, Hotel Barcelo, Conference Events, Events, Seville, Spain

Oh, something else that I think you should go ahead and check out. There have been plenty of blog posts on the topic of the Web 2.0 Expo and everything, but if I were to recommend a single one resource for some amazing coverage through live con-blogging that would be the blog from Adam Tinworth, over at One Man and His Blog. Head over to his blog and read through his posts and you will see what I meant when I wrote amazing coverage!

Also, like I have been mentioning all along in the various highlights blog posts, I have decided not to embed any of the slide decks from the event and just point you folks to the lovely piece of work from Slideshare where they have put together a nifty presentation pack, where you can watch through all of them as you may see fit. So, I am just going to embed that specific pack for the last time, so you can have a look into the various presentations that were used for Day 3:

From here onwards, I will try to detail what Day 3 of the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin was like and, to be honest, I can certainly say that it was one of the best days I have had in a long time while attending a conference event and I am just hoping this entry will try to make it some justice, because there is plenty of ground to cover. So let’s go!

To get things started with the day, the first hour and an half was dedicated to a bunch of keynote speaker sessions, some shorter than others, but all of them briefer than the usual keynotes covering a wide range of topics and thinking that, instead of me sharing with you all what they were like, since, once again, the Wi-Fi was not as good as what it could have been, I am going to make it easier for you folks and link over here to the YouTube videos that have already been shared for each of those speaker sessions (Notice as well that previous keynote speaker sessions are now available as well over here, if you would want to catch up with any of them!) and then perhaps add a line or two on each of them and see how it would go from there:

- John Lilly in Conversation with Brady Forrest: If you would want to find out some more on what’s happening around the world of FireFox and where it would go from there into the near future as our preferred Web browser in the 2.0 space!

- Tariq Krim (NetVibes): On what it means to be a Web 2.0 entrepreneur in Europe where the Internet is a saturated market already; where social attention is cannibalising media attention (revenues); and where there seems to be a unique opportunity for entrepreneurs!

- Luis Suarez on Thinking Outside the Inbox: I am sure there would be very little that I would need to add on this one (Specially if you have been following this blog for the last 9 months!), but I can certainly describe the experience as rather intense and re-energising: early morning, no slides, only 10 minutes, try to convince everyone that challenging your Inbox and moving away from it is a gradual process that you need to start (And no-one else!) if you would want to make it work. It begins with you. You are the one who has got to challenge it and make it work according to your needs and not everyone else’s! … Loved it!

A number of different folks have been blogging about such session and helping spread the message around and I could say all sorts of things about it (Thanks much!), but most of you folks already know it, so I am going to keep it short and just embed the 9 minute long video that was recorded:

- Patrick McDevitt on Tele Atlas (Slide deck here): To me describing what the future of application development and design would be like, that is, a co-creative process between developers and end-users based on the powerful interactions coming up through a community of passionate end-users engaging and providing feedback on how to improve your already existing, or new!, products! It will not get better than that! And Patrick already shared how they are doing it themselves and how much they are benefiting from the entire approach!

- Dion Hinchcliffe on There Goes Everybody: Focusing the Power of People and Today’s Network on Opportunity, where he may have hinted how we may be reaching the tipping point of creating copycats of already existing Web 2.0 applications (i.e. Twitter & its Twitter clones, anyone?) and it may well be perhaps a good time where we shift gears and start thinking about providing some real business value exploring other options or ways of integrating more of the Web 2.0 applications into the day to day, business as usual, business processes. That’s certainly where the next challenge is, indeed, as well as a huge cultural shift within the corporate world pointing towards a much more engaging and participative knowledge sharing culture.

From there onwards, we all took off to enjoy a coffee break and I had the great pleasure and the honour of hanging out with some of the folks I have been following, and admiring!, for a long while now. Folks like Dion Hinchcliffe himself (We finally got to meet up face to face after all of this time!), Martin Koser (As insightful as always!), Björn Negelmann (Ever so smart in his commentary and always preparing for the next event!), Jemima Gibbons (More on her later!) and Ronna Porter (First time we met & thoroughly enjoyed the conversations with her on the impact of social software within the corporate communications world!) are just a few! Too many to include them all in a single blog post!

However, there is one person I met on that Thursday that I am going to single out, and for many many reasons (Far too many than I can put together over here!) and that is JP Rangaswami (Author of the essential Confused of Calcuta). By now there is probably very little that I can say about JP that may not be known to those folks working around the area of Enterprise 2.0, but for those who may not be familiar with him, JP is one of those leading thinkers provocative enough to shake the ground in such a way that would make you think about a specific topic without you wanting, nor realising, about it and then getting the best out of you!

I have known, virtually, JP, for several years; I am a big fan of this blog for a long while now; we follow each other in Twitter, connected in Facebook and whatever else, yet this was the first time we ever met face to face and to me, the entire conference was worth it just to shake the hand of one of those guys who is helping us all make our jobs easier by breaking through the ground in the 2.0 space. Yes, that’s JP. That’s the impression he will leave on you. It will help you get on the right direction with just a few words!

And it is funny I am saying all of this, because this year, time and time again, we kept missing each other on various events and the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin was the one where we finally met! And I had the privilege of watching him do the next keynote speaker session on the topic of Web 2.0 vs. the Water Cooler: How Web 2.0 Has Changed the Way We Communicate at Work.

In it, JP basically drew the lines of how the corporate world operates and he did that in very very simple terms: Directories, Groups, Communications & Scheduling, all along with the growing need to search and find relevant content and connections to help get the job done! Yes, that’s right, that is basically what a corporation is solidly based on; in such simple terms. Then it is up to us to make it more complex, cumbersome, burdensome to a higher degree that we no longer know what we do and where we work. Simplicity rules!

At the same time, he touched based on the topic of the younger generations entering the workplace and providing a solid account of how they are going to change the way we operate and collaborate with our peers. You can imagine how by now I just kept on nodding rather heavily as I felt rather identified on how I have shifted myself to their model of interacting by moving away from corporate e-mail and it surely was interesting to see how I no longer felt like I am alone in this from the perspective of what other companies are doing or continuing to embark on. Very inspiring and refreshing!

I could go on and on and on detailing what JP’s session was like. Along with the one from Stowe Boyd, which I talked about in a previous entry, it was, by far, my favourite session from the entire event! Worth while attending the event just to listen to JP … and learn! If you would want to find out some more on what it was like check out what other folks captured live during the session. Stunning!

From there onwards, to me that was the end of the conference as I had already planned a lunch meeting with my team and a small group of IBM social software evangelists and we went back to the hotel. Then later in the afternoon we had a very good (And productive) meeting discussing and shaping up activities for 2009 and right after getting ready for a bus tour around the city from where I took a whole bunch of pictures I will be sharing in my Flickr account very shortly. Then dinner and drinks with them and a brilliant way to finish my stay in Berlin and attend the Web 2.0 Expo.

Mind you, there are still a couple of things I would want to mention, before I wrap up. First one is the fact that another good friend of mine, Suzanne Minassian (Product Manager from Lotus Connections) was also one of the speakers (Too bad it was at the same time as JP’s session!) and detailed quite a bit as well how IBM has been embracing social computing within and outside the corporate firewall using technologies like our very own Connections. Recommend checking it out if you would want to find out how I have managed to successfully walk away from corporate e-mail using such social tools …

Then, finally, the other session I would want to recommend, but that I couldn’t attend was the one from Tom Raftery on Electricity 2.0: Using the Lessons of the Web to Improve Our Energy Networks (Slide deck can be found over here). There is very little that I would need to say about this one, since another good friend, Andrea Vasceralli (I wish I would have been able to talk to him much longer!), managed to record it and put it up in his own blog over at Electricity 2.0 – Tom Raftery’s Keynote (Web 2.0 Expo Berlin). Believe me, it is worth while the 37 minutes it lasts!

Oh, one very very last thing, I promise. I know that plenty of folks keep asking me to explain, much more in detail, what it is that I do at work being part of that special team of social software evangelists that Gina Poole (Along with Wolfgang Kulhanek, my direct manager) has been leading for a while. Well, instead of me detailing all of that, I am going to take a different approach this time around…

I would go ahead and ask you to go to Jemima Gibbon’s blog, once again, and read Inverting the Pyramid, where you would be able to go through an interview Jemima did with Gina where she gets to explain what working for the Social Software Programs & Enablement team is like. Then you will understand, perhaps, a bit better what I meant, a bit over a year ago, when I wrote that I was just landing into my dream job!

What a perfect way of finishing up the series of blog posts on the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin. Yes, I realise there are far too long blog posts, but I am hoping they will help serve as a taster of what it was like being at such an amazing event as the Web 2.0 Expo itself. Hope you enjoy reading through them just as much as I did capturing all of these thoughts, as well as experiencing it live! And from here onwards, regular blogging will resume as usual, but for now … till next time! …

Have a good one everyone!

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, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Dialogue, Connections, Communication, Web 2.0 Expo Europe, web2europe, web2expoeu, web2expoeu08, w2eb, Highlights, Travelling, Business Trips, Twitter, Live Tweeting, Berlin, Germany, Flickr, Pictures, Slideshare, Stowe Boyd, stoweboyd, IBM, Gina Poole, Walk the Talk, Thinking Outside the Inbox, No-email, Re-purposing E-mail, Adam Tinworth, One Man and His Blog, Coverage, Live Con-blogging, John Lilly, FireFox, Mozilla, Brady Forrest, Tariq Krim, NetVibes, Entrepreneurship, Patrick McDevitt, Tele Atlas, Co-Creation, Dion Hinchcliffe, Martin Koser, Frogpond, Björn Negelmann, Jemima Gibbons, Ronna Porter, JP, JP Rangaswami, Confused of Calcuta, BT Design, Simplicity, Suzanne Minassian, Lotus Connections, Connections, Tom Raftery, Electricity 2.0, Andrea Vasceralli, Wolfgang Kulhanek, Dream Job