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

¡¡¡Feliz Navidad 2009!!!

Yes, indeed, it’s that time of the year, once again, and whether you are out there about to celebrate such time, or not, I thought I would drop by to share a couple of quick words (Just in case I may not be able to later on today, seeing how things are starting to get busier than ever … hehe) to wish everyone out there a Merry Christmas and, specially, a very Healthy, Happy and Prospeous New Year!!

Hope you all have a rather peaceful and enjoyable time with your loved ones, treasuring those precious little moments that make it all worth it, all the way! And now instead of me sharing a bunch of words that will probably distract you from what you are about to embark on… how about if I just share over here a link to a short video clip that stars one of those 2009 characters difficult to forget and which has meant so much for a bunch of us not only on how to tell a good story, but also how to relate to it all the way from what we have been doing over the last few years …

Of course, I’m talking about "The Man Who Should Have Used Lotus Connections" (From Jean Francois Chenier) who wouldn’t leave us in such a special time just like that. After all, "sometimes, Web 2.0 is about being social"…

¡¡¡FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!

Tags: Navidad, Feliz Navidad, Christmas, Merry Christmas, Life, Work, Jean Francois Chenier, Lotus Connections, Connections, Best Wishes, Happy New Year, Health, Prosperity, Happiness, Bliss, Things That Matter, Special Moments, Joy, Fun, Stories, Storytelling

Tenerife

Goodness! Where does time go?!?! It looks like it was only yesterday when I created the last blog post over here and when checking things out it turns out that it is eventually nearly two weeks since the last one! Whoahhh! Talking about being busy, eh? Well, not really. Errr, I mean, I have been rather busy, indeed, as we are coming closer to finish off another amazing year, but I have also been busy in doing something else that happens usually at this time of the year for me and which I can’t skip just like that: my holidays!

Yay! Indeed, it looks like the yo-yo effect that you folks are seeing with my recent blog posts over here has got to do with the fact that holidays have taken their toll and have managed to keep me disconnected and away from everything online for a little while. Then when coming back to work things are rather hectic, as usual, trying to catch up and, before I know it, it is nearly two weeks that I have been away from this blog. Whoah! (Again!)

Anyway, I am now back again into the full swing of everything online and, as such, regular blogging activities will resume in this blog from here onwards. Just my usual self. In fact, next article is going to have an interesting observation I have been pondering about on what, to me, seems to be *the* real barrier towards full adoption of social software within the enterprise. And, in this cases, just before you jump into the wrong conclusions out there, it hasn’t got anything to with work, enterprise nor business. (Interesting, eh? Well, coming up shortly!).

To get things going though, and to resume my regular blogging activities, I thought I would share with you folks a few words of where I have been over the last few days (Although I have been back at work for a couple of days already!). As you may have noticed, for a good number of months, I have developed that habit of sharing a picture every time that I put together a blog post over here. Most folks have realised that those pictures are actually rather special to me.

Yes, they are all pictures I have taken myself from the island I have been enjoying tremendously for the last five and a half years: Gran Canaria. Each of them has got its own story; some of them are even related to the article I publish next to them; some of them just bring back so many good memories from when they were taken; most of them are dear to my heart making me realise how lucky I am of living where I live.

Either way, beginning of December, I decided to finally put an end to something that I almost felt embarrassed about: the fact I have been in Gran Canaria for nearly six years and I didn’t had the decency :-O to go and check out some of the other equally stunning Canary Islands. Yes, I know! Shameful! So I thought it was a good time to put an end to that and a couple of weekends ago I decided to spend a long one in the other one island that has been attracting me for a while now, right from the start almost: Tenerife.

That’s right! I decided to jump into the ferry and spend a whole weekend of disconnectedness and just pure unwinding! And wildly successful, in my opinion! Why? Well, you may want to pop over into my Flickr account to get a taste of it, but mainly because of breath-taking, mind-blowing and incredibly humbling experiences as this one:

Or this other one:

Or how about this other one?:

Not bad, eh? Well, I could tell you a whole bunch more of the stuff I went through, constantly being wowed with full unbelievable emotions and experiences, but I think I’ll just leave you with those pictures for now letting you know I will be adding a whole bunch more over the next few hours into a new set I created a couple of days back … As stunning and incredibly amazing as this one:

Like I said, regular blogging activities will resume from here onwards, as usual, but that weekend I spent in Tenerife surely made me wish I would have taken on photography when I was a lot younger, because these pictures don’t really make justice to some of the stunning sceneries and magnificent landscapes I got to witness over those four days of intense brilliance!

Thank you, Tenerife! I will be back again! One day. I know. For sure!

Tags: Holidays, Weekend Breaks, Breaks, Unwinding, Disconnectedness, Disconnected, Work, Life, Balance, Work Life Integration, WLB, Work Life Balance, Spain, Canary Islands, Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Mount Teide, Teide, La Rosa, The Rose, Flickr, Pictures, Photography, Humbling Experiences, Landscapes, Brilliance

A Century of Progress

I am sure you may have noticed how the last couple of days this blog has been a bit quiet. If you have been following me recently on twitter, you would know that I have been away on what promised to be the last business trip for me for what is left of this year. It was a trip to Madrid to meet up with a customer and conduct a workshop on social software adoption, especially sharing further insights on what my team has been doing in that area over the last couple of years.

Lots and lots of great discussion, as well as very thoughtful and straight to the point questions from the participants that made it very very interactive, helping me realise I would have never thought I could talk for that long around this topic, but I guess that 6 1/2 hours can give you plenty of time to talk about lots and lots of different things. Specially, if you’re passionate about them!

Anyway, I won’t be able to share the slides that I used with you folks (Although if I sanitise them enough I may be able to, so I would need to look into that! Will keep you posted…). However, I am already working on another draft post where I will be sharing some thoughts around another slide deck from one of my team colleagues (Josh Scribner) who recently presented on this very same topic of social software adoption at a conference event in the US. Thus stay tuned for more information details to come through …

For now, and in order to resume back my regular blogging activities, I thought I would share with you today a rather short video clip under the heading "A Century of Progress" that I think you would be interested in. Intriguing title, I’m sure, you may be wondering, right? Well, not really so.

At a time when most of us can’t probably imagine any longer working for extended periods of time for the same company (Yes, a lifetime career is what I was thinking about … hehe), due to the new reality of the corporate world and our society as well, I suppose, here comes this video that portraits IBM, the company that I currently work for, celebrating its near 100th anniversary. Yes, I know! Nearly 100 years "working for the world"… Amazing!!

Well, it gets much more astonishing! At a time when, according to the latest statistics, knowledge workers hardly ever, anymore anyway, work for a company more than five years in a row, here I am pointing you folks to this video about IBM, where, doing some quick math, I just realised I have been working for this company for nearly 10% of those 100 years. Whoahhh! Who would have thought about that, right? Someone who, nearly 13 years ago, started working for that company while he was on vacation in the Netherlands for just two weeks before heading back home …

I know, I know, it is just unbelievable! Here I am putting together this post highlighting this rather interesting video clip as I just went through my 10th year anniversary with IBM as a full time regular employee (November 1, 1999), and in a couple of months I will be celebrating again the fact that on January 1997 I will be celebrating 13 years that I first started working for IBM in the first place.

WOW!!! I guess time does fly when you’re having plenty of good fun! It surely has been quite a journey, one I am rather proud to have experienced it to the fullest so far and one that I would have plenty of people all around to be grateful for, mainly, for helping shape up who I’m today. To all of you out there, you know who you are, don’t hide away!, a big special Thanks! for being there and for making that journey ever so much more enjoyable! Quite a learning experience! And still going strong …

Time and time again I get told I’m lucky for working at the place where I work, and do the job that I do, and mix and mingle with an incredibly amazing pool of talented people who are not just passionate about what they do, but they also make it contagious, which is probably why I really enjoyed the rather inspiring ending quote from that YouTube video as well: "When people think, the world wins".

Yes, maybe lucky, or privileged, or both! So here’s hoping I will make it for another 10 years, Why not? After all, it’s IBM, right?

Happy 10th anniversary to yours truly! And Happy nearly 100th anniversary, IBM! Thanks a lot for allowing me to share this wonderful journey with you all along…

Tags: IBM, Anniversary, 100 Years, Century, Innovation, Think, Changes, 10 Years, Progress, Josh Scribner, Social Software Adoption, Loyalty, Grateful, Achievements, Work, Life, Work Life Integration, Benefits, YouTube, Videos, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management