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

The Business Value of Social Software by Luis Suarez

We all know that plenty of people nowadays are trying to figure out what is the main business value and various benefits of using social computing within the enterprise. Yes, the good old Return On Investment (a.k.a. ROI) conversations for Social Software that I like to talk about so much lately. Well, here is another blog post to share some further insights on the topic. This time around sharing a personal story on how I am benefiting from social computing myself and how, as a result of that, IBM itself benefits from it as well (I would hope).

January 2004, I experienced what some folks would know as a serious wake up call in my life. One of those times we all get to go through, once in a lifetime, where we need to pull back, think about things that *really* matter to us, make the right decisions, re-engage back and move forwards. Yes, I know, one of those wake up calls…

Back then I was heavily involved for a while already with social software, although mostly behind the firewall. Yet, I knew that it may have well been *my* moment to prove the business value of social networking within the corporate world. I decided to approach both my local resource management team, as well as my, at the time, project manager and ask them whether they would allow me to work remotely from another country, in this case, Spain, my home country.

And while I do realise that perhaps not many companies out there are ready for such somewhat difficult decision to make, specially from a business perspective, the answer I got back was a loud and clear "Yes, Luis, as long as your perform the way you have all along". To which I said, "Of course, no problem! I can do that!"

From there onwards, a couple of weeks later, I moved back to Spain, to Gran Canaria, to be more precise, where I have been living, and working remotely, ever since. And this is where social computing kicks in, because right then I realised that if I wanted to make it work in my new situation I needed to be out there: visible; easy to reach and connect with; always willing to help and share my knowledge with those who needed it (And with those who may need it at a later time, too!) in an open and public way; willing to share my expertise, experience and know-how across the board with those who I know, and those who I may not know yet; willing to feed those resources with knowledge and expertise that otherwise would have remained in my own head, or my computer, for that matter, and therefore with very little access for others to enjoy.

Thus, as you can imagine, I increased even more my already heavy presence in the social software spaces, both inside AND outside the firewall, and that only meant that more information and knowledge from myself became available to others and, hopefully, some of that knowledge was helpful to them as well. That good old "Knowledge is power" suddenly transformed itself into "Knowledge shared *is* power" and lo and behold five years later, still going strong.

Yes, that’s right, today, March 17th, 2009, San Patrick’s Day, marks the 5th year I have been relying on social software to keep me employed with what I consider still my dream job at such large corporate environment as IBM’s, where both of my managers are thousands of kilometers away from me, yet, through the daily usage of social networking tools I know they are just an interaction or two away from me (In most cases even just a single tweet!)

I can imagine plenty of folks out there would be questioning whether I would have been able to make the same move without social software and work in such extreme virtual environment without it and relying on more traditional collaboration and knowledge sharing tools. To which I could probably confirm that I wouldn’t have been able to. Five years afterwards, I am 100% sure of it!

So what is the ROI of this, my personal, story?, you may be wondering, right? Well, perhaps that engaging with social software, embracing a new model of collaborating and sharing my knowledge (Much more open, transparent and public than ever before, ever since I decided to live "A World Without Email") with other fellow knowledge workers has allowed me to prove the point that you can work wherever you want, whenever you need, and with whoever you would want to reach across, depending always on the context, by making extensive use of social software and forgetting about measuring people just by their sheer presence versus their overall performance and results obtained. That is what social software has done not only for me, but also for the company I work for…

5 years on and still going strong! That is, to me, the real ROI for Social Software, both inside and outside of the enterprise world. But how about you? What’s your personal ROI story?

I would love to hear your thoughts plenty more over here or elsewhere. But, for now, time to go and celebrate San Patrick’s Day at my favourite Lebanese restaurant downtown (Beirut), and then, of course, off to the pub!

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, Return On Investment, ROI, Gran Canaria, Spain, Virtual Collaboration, Virtual Teams, Responsibility, Ownership, Involvement, Commitment, San Patrick’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Beirut, Lebanese Food, Work Life Balance, WLB, Balance, Priorities, Life, Work

¡¡¡Feliz Navidad 2008!!!

You may have noticed how over the last few days, and after the massive piece of news I shared a couple of weeks back (By the way, thanks ever so much everyone! for the lovely comments!), things have gone a bit quiet over here, once again. And must confess that has happened due to several reasons which I am shortly going to detail over here, so that you know what I have been up to so far heh

To start with I have been on holidays (Still am till the beginning of the New Year!) and although I have been having a good rest and almost in disconnected mode from everything, I have been rather busy having to handle all of the paperwork of the country transfer from IBM Netherlands to IBM Spain and, believe me, it hasn’t been an easy task, specially since one of the weeks I have been away already has been rather hectic. Through e-mail!! Who would have thought about that, eh? But not to worry, I will be sharing some further insights on that shortly, as part of the weekly progress reports, which I am running a couple of weeks behind, I know. But we will eventually get there, I am sure.

I have also been rather busy catching up with folks offline, specially during this time of the year where everyone seems to pause for a little while and have a chance to enjoy some peace and quiet, reflect on the year about to finish and treasure what each and everyone of us has or what we may have been involved with lately. What in Twitter I have been calling beers&friends, if you know what I mean.

But if there is a single reason why I have gone a bit dormant over here and why I think it is still going to be like that for another couple of days, is because, as some of you may already know, I am already working on what will be happening in 2009 for me, as far as Thinking Outside the Inbox is concerned. I am putting together a new theme, a new master presentation deck, a new pitch, something really cool that will be happening to one of my blogs (http://elsua.net) and which will impact the other two I am currently maintaining and that has been keeping me far too busy to blog about it overall. At least, for now.

I hope that very soon I will be able to unleash some really interesting piece of news happening with http://elsua.net and that will be the kick-off for 2009 for everything related to elsua. Thus stay tuned for plenty more to come up very shortly!

For now though I just couldn’t help coming over here for a few minutes and share with you folks some those special wishes we all have been exchanging all over the place and which I am sure are getting you into the spirit of the special times we are going through. Yes, indeed, it is Christmas!!! Yay! (But you already knew that!)

That’s why I just want to wish you all a Merry Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, with plenty of good Health and Prosperity for 2009!!! And also want to take this opportunity to give you a special thanks! for sticking around and for dropping by every now and then over here in this blog and for sharing plenty more insights that I would have ever hoped for and help contribute into some of the conversations we have been having all along. Without them, I am sure things would have been completely different. So here I am, taking a couple of minutes to thank you all for those contributions and hope that we can keep the dialogue going throughout 2009!

Till then, all the very best for you and your loved ones in this special time of the year and here is to a wonderful 2009!!!

Tags: Navidad, Feliz Navidad, Christmas, Merry Christmas, Spain, Las Palmas, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Playa Las Canteras, Flickr, Pictures, Life, Work, elsua, Thinking Outside the Inbox, 2009, 2008, IBM, Christmas Tree, Holidays, Sun, Fun, Special Times

On Holidays!

I was on my way to put together a new blog post over here on this blog, one of the various drafts I have got piled from the plenty of stuff that happened this week, and to comment on a few others I have bumped into in the last couple of days, yet my brain has not been very co-operative for the last couple of hours. Main reason being that as of now I am officially on holidays! Yay!

Yes, indeed, I am going to take a short break, from the moment I get to post this entry and till November 17th when I would be back again to work! One full week of doing nothing else than enjoy the lovely sunshine, get a very much needed rest (Specially for my heavily overused wrists!), enjoy the lovely food & friendly people around me and catch up with some very much needed work / life balance! And then back on to my favourite activity: face to face social networking! Not bad, eh? Yes, I know! Not bad at all! heh

Leo Babauta, over at the fine Zen Habits, put together just recently a wonderful blog post on the topic of striking a good balance between life and work under the title "How To Find That Elusive Balance Between Work and Life". Plenty of really good and helpful tips shared over there and worth while reading the article. For sure.

For me, it is now my own turn to find and enjoy that balance for the next few days and here you have got a couple of snapshots of how I am planning to let life win this everlasting battle of work vs. life:

Thus, if you don’t see me in the various social networking spaces where I usually hang out, you know exactly where I will be, at least, for the next few days. Because, just like Leo finished that blog post on striking a good life / work balance:

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving." – Albert Einstein

Have a good everyone and see you all soon!

Tags: Holidays, Vacation, Gran Canaria, Beach, Sun, Mountains, Hiking, Fun, Balance, Work Life Balance, Rest, Life, Work, Leo Babauta, Zen Habits, Maspalomas Dunes, Maspalomas, Dunes, Landscapes, Sunsets, Spain, Photos, Albert Einstein, Wisdom