You probably thought I would actually get busy writing another blog post where I would be summarising 2007 or sharing my views on some predictions for 2008, as we are coming closer to the end of another incredibly exciting year. Yet, I am going to save you the trouble of having to read about such things here, as I am sure there are plenty of other places out there, where you could have some exposure to some really good insights on various different topics. Instead, I am just going to take the liberty to wish all of you, who I have been in contact with through whatever the social software tool, as well as face to face, a Happy New Year and, much more importantly, a very very Prosperous & Healthy 2008!!!

Yes, that is going to be my wish for the New Year we are about to get started with. Lots of prosperity and good health, specially for the latter, because, without it, there isn’t anything we can do. Sometimes we take for granted the little things, those that keep us going day in day out. Health is one of them. We always take it for granted and yet we couldn’t survive without it. So instead of wishing all sorts of cool things to happen all over the place and to all those folks out there I’ve been in touch with, I am just going to keep things simple. Stay healthy, be healthy, and the rest will just come along nicely!

That is right! As simple as it would get. Lots of good health for the New Year and hope that everyone gets to fulfil whatever their dreams may well be. Mine is going to be to try to stay healthy, too, so that I can enjoy being in touch with those I love and care for, those who have given me another incredible year without asking for anything in return. Those who care enough to be themselves and allow me to be part of their lives. And, of course, wishing to stay healthy so that I can keep enjoying this wonderful place I live in.

Here you have got some pictures I took yesterday from one of my favourite places in Gran Canaria: Roque Bentaiga. If you have taken a look in the past to the ones I have shared already in my Flickr account, this particular series is a special one, since I got to visit the monolith and climb it as far as it is possible. Quite an incredible experience, I tell you! Here you have got some pictures and hope to share some more later on. And, yes, the place is as mystical as you could have ever imagined!! And quite humbling, too!

¡¡¡Feliz Año 2008!!!

Tags: Feliz Año, Happy New Year, 2008, Happy 2008, Prosperity, Health, Wishes, Dreams, Gran Canaria, Roque Bentaiga, Mystical, Humbling, Flickr, Photography, Photos, Nokia, Nokia N95

Over the last few days I have been having one of those technology withdrawal moments that will indicate a before and an after in how I get to experience it from here onwards. I am sure very shortly you’ll be able to find all of the different details on why I have come to that situation. However, that is another story. For today though, I just wanted to create a short blog post where I could share with you those special wishes we all get to exchange at this time of the year. I know that quite a few of you would be in full celebration mode by now and to all of you let me take this opportunity, if you are celebrating, to wish you all a Merry Merry Christmas!!! I bet that by now you are all engaged into preparing everything for a lovely evening with your loved ones and just wanted to share some of that spirit sharing with you some pictures I took last weekend from what’s starting to become a custom, and a tradition, for myself.

Yes, I am talking about the "Belén de arena" that every year takes place in Las Canteras beach, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and which this year is just as spectacular as ever. So in the spirit of keeping things short, so that you folks can continue further with the various different preparations, and, like I said before, a Merry Christmas to everyone out there who may be reading this and to everyone else I have crossed paths this year!!! It surely has been an exhilarating experience, as always! And look forward to an incredibly exciting 2008!

And here you have got some of the pictures I took last weekend with my Nokia N95. The rest of the series you can always find them at my Flickr account:

¡¡¡Feliz Navidad!!!

Tags: Navidad, Feliz Navidad, Christmas, Merry Christmas, Spain, Las Palmas, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Playa Las Canteras, Belen, Nativity Scene, Christmas Tree, Sun, Sunshine, Belen, Flickr, Pictures, Life

While still trying to digest some of the fantastic, overwhelming and exciting reactions to the initial blog post on Next Generation Knowledge Sharing & Learning Online Conference Event - In Spring 2008? and while I am still trying to figure out a couple of things before I comment further back into that particular blog entry on further steps, I thought I would go ahead and do some light blogging on a topic that I seem to have been tagged from a couple of folks already, who I read on a regular basis and who have been participating in a couple of different memes on a very similar topic: Seven things you didn’t know about me by Martin Koser and Gullible about Work / Blog Balance by Reasonable Robinson.

Yes, that is right. It is another meme where the rules seem to be pretty straight forward:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.

2. List EIGHT random facts about yourself.

3. Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names.

4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.

And although Martin’s meme post seems to be slightly different I thought about combining both of them since the overall outcome seems to be pretty similar. So here we go with the meme post and here you have eight random facts about myself that you may not have heard / read elsewhere:

1. I was born and raised in a very small village in León, which is where I have spent a good chunk of my life. Another good chunk is spread around The Netherlands (Where I lived 7 years) and, finally, Gran Canaria, where I have been living for nearly four years now.

2. I first got exposed to the world of computers in high school (Yes, I was one of the folks who owned an Amstrad CPC 464!) and back then my marks on computer lessons were really bad, which gave me the impression I would never, ever, work with computers. Fast forward to today … Already 10 years in the IT world and still going strong!

3. After I graduated from University, I spent one year working in Thale, Germany, where I got to experience one of the most severe winters in my life thus far with up to -30C. for several days!! But I must say I loved the overall experience quite a bit!!

4. First time I came to Gran Canaria was in 1996 (For a very short period of time) and back then I knew I would be coming back at some point. It took me only 8 years to make that happen

5. I actually got my job at IBM while I was spending a two week holiday in The Netherlands in 1997. Probably the longest two weeks I’ve ever known!! (Already heading for my 11th year in the company!)

6. While working for IBM, I spent another year of my life in Dublin, Ireland, where there is very little I would need to explain, if you ever have been there. Yes, I know, I need to get back there for a short visit and catch up some time soon!

7. I was first exposed to Knowledge Management by the end of 1999 and during that time I already sensed it was going to be the field / discipline I would be developing my skills & expertise over the course of the years. Two years later I was working, full time, in a Knowledge Management team. Till today. (And, yes, still going strong, in case you are wondering…)

8. And, finally, I initially got started with my blogging experience back in 2003, as a way to prove to myself how I could work smarter, not necessarily harder, relying on the community and my social networks to get the job done versus having to do the job myself re-inventing the wheel over and over again. Four years later, and just a couple of days after the 10th year anniversary of the word "Weblog", I still feel the same way. Blogs, and plenty of the various different social networks where I hang out, still make me work smarter. Much smarter! Not harder.

And that would be it. Next on this blog post is to actually tag another 8 people who would be willing, hopefully, to take the challenge and share with us 8 factoids about themselves that we may not have heard elsewhere. So here is my list of folks I would love to hear some more from on this particular topic. In random order: Jasmin Tragas (a.k.a. Jazzydee), Thomas van der Wal (a.k.a. wanderwal), David Stephenson (a.k.a. DavidStephenson), Susan Scrupski (a.k.a. ITSinsider), Dennis McDonald (a.k.a. ddmcd), Stuart Henshall (a.k.a. stuarthenshall), Andy Piper (a.k.a. andypiper) and Jon Husband (a.k.a. jonhusband).

I am sure that I could have included a whole bunch of the folks I get to interact with on a daily basis, so feel tagged as well if you would want to chime in a well. Why not, right?

Either way, I am sure that with this particular blog post you actually got to find out about stuff on me that you probably haven’t seen / read elsewhere. Hope you have found it just as entertaining as it was for me to put it up going through that trip down the memory lane.

Now time to go ahead and digest some of the wonderful discussions going on Next Generation Knowledge Sharing & Learning Online Conference Event - In Spring 2008? and see where it would take us all… Fancy joining us on that wild ride, too?

Tags: Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Blogging, Metablogging, Blogs, Meme, Things, Martin Koser, Reasonable Robinson, Tagging, Leon, Spain, Gran Canaria, Amstrad CPC 464, Thale, Germany, IBM, The Netherlands, Dublin, Ireland, Blogiversary, Weblog Anniversary, Work Smarter, Jasmin Tragas, Wonderwebby, Thomas van der Wal, David Stephenson, Susan Scrupski, ITSinsider, Dennis McDonald, Stuart Henshall, Andy Piper, Jon Husband, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Web 2.0

I thought I would be able to create another blog post today, but after all of the excitement going on over the last couple of days with the new job and everything, and thinking it is already Friday, end of a fantastic week, my brain is in party mode, as you can imagine. It is finding it hard to concentrate and I can’t blame it for it. So I am going to keep things short in here and be your YouTube pimp, once more.

Here are a couple of videos that caught my attention recently. The first one because of its originality and funky tunes, and the second one (In Spanish, I am afraid), because of the message it tries to portrait. Something along these lines:

"Let’s suppose each morning you find 1.440 euros. Without doing nothing to earn them.
You can give them away, spend them, have fun with them or burn them.
But the ones you haven’t used, at the end of the day, will disappear.
That’s how life works. The difference is that what you find each morning are not 1.440 euros. Are 1.440 minutes.
Think carefully what you’re going to do with them.
…
Have fun."

Oh, and here is a bonus video clip (One of the most hilarious videos I have seen in months!)

Have a good one everyone!

Tags: YouTube, Videos, Fun, Humour, Technologic, 1440, Commercials, Panda Bear, Fun Stuff, Friday!

The weekend is just around the corner. Finally done with a very intense day at work with plenty of different meetings and conference calls. 7 hours in total of pure delight. NOT!! Almost brain dead! Again. And then I bump into the following video clip that made me jiggle quiet a bit and is helping me big time getting into the weekend mood!

If you remember the series of video clips I shared over here not long ago under Social Software … in Plain English from Commoncraft, you surely are going to enjoy this one from Kelly Stewart:

Incredibly funny, don’t you think? Oh, and a very good reason why I have always preferred to use the term Social Computing vs. New Media heh

Have a good one, everyone!

Tags: New Media, Commoncraft, Kommon Kraft, Plain English, New Media, Media, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Collaboration, Communities, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Kelly Stewart, Video

I am sure that if you have been reading through my blogs for a little while now you would know how, more and more, I am relying on my MacBook Pro to carry out my daily job rather than whatever else I have been using in the past. I know that for plenty of folks out there this wouldn’t be really any piece of news, but, believe me, to me it surely is. And very good ones!

I could talk about the many, many things I am thoroughly enjoying over the last few weeks. I could talk about the excellence on the multimedia components. I could talk about the really good quality of different Mac apps. I could talk about the incredible community of folks who share their passion about the Mac day in day out. And the list goes on and on and on. Yes, I know, I guess I could talk about that, yet, I am not going to. Instead, I am just going to share with you all why today is going to be a light blogging day and why every day I am becoming more and more a Mac fanboy:

4 Windows crashes, 4 Windows reboots, three of my most frequently used Windows applications out of order and still not knowing what is going on with them. Complete waste of productivity for the day… Enough said!

Yes, folks, I never thought I would be saying this, but I am becoming a Mac fanboy. Just wished that would have happened quite some time ago. So many frustrations would have been just a thing of the past. Sigh

(Stay tuned, because, as a follow up, I am writing up a blog post where I am sharing how this MacBook Pro is helping me improve my own overall social software experience, both inside and outside of the corporate firewall. Who would have thought about that, right?, just a few months back, eh? )

Tags: Mac, Apple, MacBook Pro, MBP, Windows, Notebook, Lenovo 3000 N100, Fanboy, Productivity, Tools, Productivity Tools, Reboot, Crash