Yes, indeed, we are baaaaack! That is right, folks! We are back again at it! Here we go with another podcasting episode from The Sweettt Show, Living on the Bountiful Net that my good friend, and fellow co-host, just shared over at The Sweettt Podcast - Episode 7 - Conversations as The Future of Conferences. And we back into the action! Here is a short excerpt from what Matt wrote in that blog post that I am sure that you would be able to relate to quite a bit, specially if you get to travel, quite often, to various different conference events all over the place, and not just restrictive to a single geography or country, for instance. So here is the text:

"In this episode, we really point out all the things that are wrong about the modern conference and presentation format. In our conclusion of our August 15th discussion, we contrast this old guard presentation style with a more refreshing approach in which the audience is a key contributor to the event. When people gather together within conferences, this is a knowledge sharing event, designed to maximize the sharing of insights and perspectives."

At first sight you may be pondering that what we are actually doing is talking about the "barcamp" concept. No, we are not talking about such concept. In fact, we are talking about how we feel regular conferences would need to do to move into the 21st century. Have a listen to the whole episode and you will see what we mean…

Matt already shared his show notes from this particular episode and you would be able to read them all over here. Now, it is my turn to give it a show and share with you folks what I got out of that episode and what I learn while recording it with Matt. Yes, we do get to learn a thing or two, as well! And even better when those new ah-ha moments kick in live, right there, right then, and you have got that sense of accomplishment very difficult to surpass heh (Yes, you can tell I am loving the show quite a bit thus far, eh?). Here we go!:

- Still musing on the superb presentation that Carl Frappaolo did on Knowledge Management 2.0 and how disruptive it was from the traditional breakout sessions you get to attend on a regular basis. Hang in there, we are not talking about barcamp events …
- I still think about it along the very same lines: "Main tent / Keynote sessions are a waste of time from a knowledge sharing point of view."
- With the huge amount of events on Enterprise 2.0 flourishing out there nowadays, we need to look for new models of delivering the message. Traditional events need to move into the 21st century and become much more engaging than what they are now!
- People at conference events appreciate quite a bit not being talked at… (Too true!)
- Two way conversations rule at conferences, why neglect them? What would it take to change the model of delivery. Webcast format(s) are just that, for the Web, not in front of real audiences, real people!
- One of the best keynote speaker sessions I have been to this year from the various events I attended, and which I thoroughly enjoyed for the innovative approach, was that one of Harriet Pearson, Chief Privacy Officer at IBM, at IBM’s Web 2.0 Summit, who got started with her session by asking whether the audience had any questions, way before she started talking on the topic of privacy!
- Now, that’s the way to engage with an audience as a keynote speaker and grab their attention from the very first moment! Oh, and check out Harriet’s Facebook profile to see what she is up to (It will surprise you!)
- Will upcoming conference events be up to the challenge? Will you be up to the challenge? heh
- Moving on … ahhh, the obsession of slides for every single conversation. Wonder what the world was like before slide decks took over?!?
- "Without your slides are you naked?"
- Wish people would start giving up on slides. For good. They are just a tool, NOT your message!
- [Check out Matt's show notes on this section... Couldn't have put it in much better words than those! W00t!]
- Dave Snowden gets a mention for being on of those rare folks who doesn’t use slides and gets away with it! Powerful! Wish more folks would follow his example …
- Lou Gerstner gets a mention as well as being on of those folks who doesn’t use slides either!
- [Too funny that in the course of about a month from now I will eventually be meeting up face to face both of them! -- Stay tuned for more updates coming up on that! :-D]
- Musing on how BIG people feel when they know they have got a bunch of slides behind them is probably as good as it gets on what needs fixing!
- We will probably cover this topic at another time, since there is so much more to talk about! But let’s move on …
- Brainstorming on the best way of engaging with the audience from The Sweettt Show. We have got the blogs where some folks have been commenting so far, but what would you want to use to engage with our tertulia and be part of the show! Share your insights with us! More than happy to accommodate … Remember, this is our - your tertulia!
- We will figure it out at some point, I am sure …
- Introducing the podcast at the end of the recorded episode?!?! My goodness! What’s going on with these guys?!?! Are they crazy? (Probably!)

And that would be it, folks, for this our 7th episode of The Sweettt Show on Conversations as The Future of Conferences. We hope you enjoyed it and get ready for the next one, because it is just around the corner! And it promises to be just as entertaining … we hope …

Oh, dear, I won’t let you go just yet … I nearly forgot to include as well in this blog post the Wordle (Thanks, Jonathan!) from this episode, so here you have it:

Tags: The Sweettt Show, Sweettt, Matthew Simpson, Matt Simpson, The Sweettt Tertulia, Podcasting, Podcasts, Episodes, Series, New Media, IBM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Conversations, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Collaboration 2.0, Communication, Communities, Learning, Innovation, Personal Knowledge Sharing, PKM, Tertulia, Wordle, Jonathan Feinberg, Conversations, Conference Events, Enterprise2conf, Carl Frappaolo, Bountiful Net, Dialogue, Barcamp, Harriet Pearson, CPO, Chief Privacy Officer, IBM Web 2.0 Summit, Facebook, Presentations, PowerPoint Obsession, Dave Snowden, Lou Gerstner

After all of the travelling that I have done over the course of the last few months you would think I would start getting used to the fact that the worst part of travelling is to catch up with everything that has happened while you have been away. And I am not talking about just corporate e-mail, since that is not a problem for me any longer. It doesn’t exist for me anymore. I am just talking about getting together with my various social networks, teams and communities and find out what has happened since I left. In this case, beginning of last week! And WOW! Have things changed or what? Thank goodness folks have been telling me what’s been happening and I have caught up with everything I needed to!

So we are back again, resuming our regular blogging activities over here and with plenty of things to share with everyone! So I better get started so that you folks can catch up with what’s been happening lately. To get things going, here is a blog entry where I am going to be sharing with you folks the highlights from Day 2 at the IBM Innovation event "Shape Your Future", that I have blogged about a bit already last week.

The day was just as exciting, if not more, as Day 1, with plenty of things happening, like meeting up & speaking with my resource manager in The Netherlands, who I haven’t seen since 2003! Talking about working virtually and still at it rather strongly, while distributed, eh? Goodness!

But let’s talk about the Shape Your Future event itself, since I am sure that would be much more interesting for you. The morning started with a quick, short wrap up from what happened the day before and from there onwards we moved to the first keynote speaker of the day: Marcel Bullinga, who talked about Innovation & The Future. If I were to describe Marcel’s pitch with a single word, it would probably be inspirational! Yes, nothing more, nothing less to expect from a futurist! Utterly enjoyed it and, as you may be able to see from all of the live twittering I did during his session, rather intense, too! And only keynote speaker not wearing a suit! Just the kind of people I like!

If you would want to have another glimpse of what Marcel talked about on the topic of Innovation & The Future have a look into this video link that condenses pretty much his thoughts in a bit over 90 seconds! Once again, rather intense!

Alternatively, you can check out as well Future Check and you will see what Marcel is predicting for 2020. Quite some fascinating stuff & very much looking forward to exciting times ahead of us, too!

From there onwards, we moved on to the next keynote speaker session with Peter Hagedoorn, Senior vice president & Chief Information Officer(CIO) at Océ and Rob Beijleveld, Managing Director at ICT Media BV Owner, who both talked about the Enterprise of the Future, Implications for the CIO.

Anther really interesting and engaging talk where I captured a number of different twitterings with which I can surely identify with and which are reflecting on what the CIO of the Enterprise of the 21st century would be like. Keywords like prosumers; Internet companies; globalisation; people, processes & tools; etc. etc. But I think I could summarise the entire keynote session with a couple of quotes I captured live:

"Modern organisations are open collaboration communities, business decisions are taken at all levels, processes are global and are the glue in the company to company collaboration; all IT-technologies are allowed (Provided they can communicate)"

Or this other one:

"Legacy "thinking" companies will not survive in the globalised Internet society; thus change or die"

Does it ring a bell? (hehe)

From there onwards, it was time to move into the breakout sessions, where, if you remember, I was going to be one of the speakers; within the section "Social Innovation" and already on the subject of "Thinking Outside of the Inbox - How to Survive without e-mail?". The session went really really well, with a full room packed with folks, very interactive and engaging and getting lots of great feedback! Wish it would have been recorded, so I could share with you what was on people’s minds while I was telling them to challenge their inbox. But alas, it wasn’t. Either way, always refreshing to get feedback from people on what would be some challenges for them and sharing some practical tips from my side on how I have been managing without corporate e-mail for nearly eight months!

From there onwards, the event went on further with lunch and another round of breakout sessions, which I skipped, because I had the great honour of doing a press interview with Het Financieele Dagblad (With Jeroen Bos) to talk about my new reality of working with social software tools, as opposed to corporate e-mail. Unfortunately, the article with the interview, with the title "Hemels werken zonder e-mail", was only done for the paper version and currently not available online, so I am afraid you will have to grab a copy of the paper and read through it, because I tried to track it online and I couldn’t find it… (I know, a pity… Not very 2.0, eh? heh … Sigh)

Anyway, after having done the press interview, and after finishing off with some serious social networking while having a cup of coffee, we all headed to the last one of the breakout sessions and right from the beginning I knew I was going into the right one! Yes, that one of Joel Waterman, Program Director, Lotus Unified Communications Products South West Europe, who talked about "Collaborative Innovation". 

This was probably one of the best presentations from the two days and one of the breakout sessions from which I learned the most. I live twittered quite a bit on it! And if I were to describe the main reason(s) as to why I enjoyed it quite a bit, it would probably be the fact that Joel showed everyone why social networking tools like Beehive, Lotus Connections, Lotus Quickr, Lotus Sametime, Lotus Notes 8, etc. are my main tools to provide "Collaboration in context" and away from the traditional mail box. Very very powerful to see how UC2 (Unified Collaboration + Communications) will be shaping up how we collaborate and share our knowledge without not necessarily using corporate e-mail. Yes, I know, double w00t!!

The presentation that Joel was just so spot on that I had to ask him whether I could share it externally or not, outside of the firewall, and after having a very good conversation with him, I managed to get the deck from him and I have uploaded it, with his permission, into my Slideshare.net address. You will be able to find it over here, and I have also embedded it below, so that you can check it out right away. Hint: Pay special attention to slides 20 & 31, if you would want to know some more about some of the key success factors I have been going through all along, while giving up on e-mail:

From there onwards we went off to the last keynote session of the day with Peter Korsten, Global Leader IBM Institute for Business Value, who talked about the CEO Study 2008, which was actually a repeat session on the same theme from Day 1. So instead of me talking to you all about it, why don’t you just head over to Enterprise of the Future and find out some of the really fascinating stuff that came out of it on the topic of disruptive innovation!

And that was it! Time to then get things going with some pure social networking activities having a drink or two and a couple of snacks and preparing for a lovely evening with some friends in good old Rotterdam where two words would be the highlights of the evening: Summo (Restaurant) and cocktails!

And you probably know what followed up next, right? heh

Hope you enjoyed the review with the highlights for Day 2 of Shape Your Future and look forward to the next IBM Innovation event, which, by the way, is just around the corner And I will be there, too! …

Tags: IBM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, e-mail, email, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Innovation, Productivity, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Collaboration 2.0, Communication, Re-purposing E-mail, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, IBM Netherlands, Shape Your Future, Travelling, Business Trips, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Twitter, Live Twittering, Shapeyourfuture, Social Innovation, Stories, Key Learnings, Exposure, Engagement, Involvement, Enterprise of the Future, Marcel Bullinga, Future, Future Check, 2020, Peter Hagedoorn, Rob Beijleveld, CIO, Prosumers, Internet Companies, Globalisation, Change, Change Management, Het Financieele Dagblad, Jeroen Bos, Press Interview, Joeal Waterman, Collaborative Innovation, Beehive, Lotus Connections, Connections, Lotus Quickr, Quickr, Lotus Sametime, Sametime, Lotus Notes 8, Notes 8, Lotus Notes, UC2, Unified Collaboration and Communications, Communications, Slideshare, Peter Korsten, CEO Study 2008, CEO, Summo, Cocktails

I know that you may be wondering with that title above how I can combine something that is happening this week in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where I am attending & presenting at IBM’s Shape Your Future innovation event with the weekly progress report from last week on my giving up e-mail at work. Well, you will have to excuse me on that one, but I thought it was just perfect timing, specially with that title, and more than anything else, because of what has happened last week, which has helped me Shape My Future for the next few months (Or more… Time will tell…) and what I have just experienced on the first day of the event. But let’s get things started where they should.

If you have been reading the last couple of blog posts on the weekly progress reports, you would know how now that I have settled down on the regular 20 to 30 incoming e-mails a week I thought it was a good time to get things going with another challenge, still very much related to what I have been doing over the last few months, but a new challenge, nevertheless: to reduce that incoming number of e-mails even further and take it to the limit of 10 to 20 a week. Yes, you have read it right. 10 to 20 e-mails a week!

Well, I am now happy to report how I have been able to reach that new challenge as of last week! Yes, that is right! On week 30 I got the number of incoming e-mails down to… Ok, let’s see the progress report:

Yes, indeed! 20 incoming e-mails during the whole week! Just brilliant! I must admit that I thought it was going to take me a bit more time, but then again I have been able to divert most of the conversations coming through e-mail and into various other social software spaces and the end-result is that I am game on my challenge already! That mark of 20 e-mails or less! And right on the first couple of weeks! Fantastic!

So what does that have to do with IBM’s Shape Your Future- you may be wondering, right? Well, I have been attending and presenting at the first day of that IBM innovation event that uses the motto of "Shape Your Future" by pushing innovation into a higher level and, in case you may not have seen it, I have been doing some live twittering over at @elsuacon (Or go and search for #shapeyourfuture in Twitter) and from the various tweets you would be able to see how we are still a little bit behind in pushing that innovation into new levels.

Don’t take me wrong, innovation is happening all over the place. It is one of the commonest buzzwords used all over nowadays, but if you come to think about social innovation and how these social computing technologies help influence not only the way we collaborate and share knowledge, but also the overall corporate environment, we are still a little bit behind. Can you imagine that over the nearly 500 people there perhaps one or two, counting myself in there!, may have been using a computer throughout the event, connected to the Internet to share with the rest of the world what happened? Hummm, I guess you don’t find conferences like that any more, right? Specially when you get approached by someone who thinks that you are so lonely at the event that you decided to open up the Mac and get connected! Well, not really, I was so excited with the overall event that I opened up my Mac, enjoyed the awesome free wireless at De Doelen, and shared with the world what was happening! And live! Never lonely, my friend! My social networks are always with me, wherever I may go! Even at events like this one!

At the same time earlier on today, I gave a 10 minute presentation as part of a track on Social Innovation, where I introduced the topic of "Thinking Outside the Inbox". Yes, my own way of shaping my future within the corporate world. The session was very well received and had lots of questions for just those 10 minutes, but the best part was after the session was finished when I got approached by a number of different folks sharing with me their stories on how they themselves have been gradually moving away from corporate e-mail. And there I was thinking, this is just great! Not only am I getting lots of positive feedback, I am also getting to hear stories about how other folks are doing similar things, to what I am doing, at their own companies. Problem is that they are not sharing those stories! And we need more! We need to ensure people understand what that social innovation is all about and how it is actually happening as we speak!

That is, how we need to keep pushing the limits on the ways, methods and tools we have used to traditionally collaborate in the past and how they may need to be redefined, if not re-purposed altogether! So, to me, the biggest key learning I got from this first day is that this kind of social innovation is truly happening all over the place (Check again through #shapeyourfuture), yet we are not doing a very good job at sharing it with other people. We need to go out more; we need to engage with other knowledge workers by sharing our experiences at the same time that we would want to not only exchange information and knowledge, but also share our learnings throughout the whole time. Somehow I feel that is where our next challenge is going to be as knowledge workers. Not only absorbing that knowledge, so that we can apply it accordingly, but also we need to be capable to sharing further on those social innovations as they happen. Because after all, who would want to re-invent the wheel nowadays, if we know there is one out there we could re-use that is doing just the perfect job!?!

Thus, don’t be shy! Share your story, share with all of us how you are shaping your future adopting and embracing these social computing tools, because there is a great chance you will not be alone. And, even better, there is always a place for you to connect with others while you are sharing those experiences. Why? Because we have all been there! We just need to get the word out more often!

"The Enterprise of the Future is Hungry for Change" (That was just one of the really nice quotes I have been exposed to during the course of the day, and not sure what you would think about it, but I just can’t wait for it to happen! Can you?)

Tags: IBM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, e-mail, email, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Innovation, Productivity, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Collaboration 2.0, Communication, Re-purposing E-mail, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, IBM Netherlands, Shape Your Future, Travelling, Business Trips, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Twitter, Live Twittering, Shapeyourfuture, Social Innovation, Stories, Key Learnings, Exposure, Engagement, Involvement, Enterprise of the Future

As we are starting to wrap up the summer and as I am getting started myself with another round of business travelling (Starting this week with a trip to Rotterdam, The Netherlands), I thought I would share with you folks a reflection that I have been pondering about during the course of the last couple of months and which keeps coming back. Over and over again.

To my surprise and amazement, it looks like time and time again a number of different articles keep popping up on how the younger generations, while entering the workforce, are surely changing the way the corporate world operates and perhaps not in the best of terms. I am sure you may have been reading one of those articles lately which would possibly make you wonder where things stand with such generation and yourself (If you have got one of those links to those articles, feel free to go ahead and share it in the comments section! I would love to read some more on the topic!).

Most of those articles seem to be portraying a real threat from such generation for the rest of the workforce, possibly including you and me, when I am actually thinking it is going to be quite the opposite. It’s going to be a huge opportunity for us all. We just need to grab it and here is why.

As a starter, however, I surely am glad to point out there are also a number of really good and thoughtful articles, fortunately, that certainly hint how we can best get the most out that younger generation of knowledge workers and how we can engage with them from the first day they enter the workplace! Nevertheless, I am going to take another approach and share with you my story on how I have been getting involved with such younger generations as it would highlight some of that potential and amazing talent they bring with them!

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you would know how for the last few months I have been following a new reality of mine, which has been giving up e-mail at work, and instead use various social software tools to collaborate and share knowledge with other knowledge workers. However, very few people know, unless you have attended live one of the various conference events I have participated in over the last few months, that one of the main sources that inspired that blunt move were actually the several folks belonging to that younger generation that I have been working with all along.

Yes, that is right! That younger generation inside the company I work for, IBM, that I have been exposed to over the last couple of years, taught me how it is ok not being obsessed with (Or addicted to!) e-mail (They just don’t use it! At least, not as much as the rest of us have been doing all along!); how there are hundreds of other (Social) tools out there that make interactions happen much easier and much more efficient and effectively. And faster!

They surely have taught me through the hard way, in most cases, how content is no longer key, more than anything else, because as soon as you hit that save / publish button it is already out of date! Instead, they have taught me how you can get so much more done by nurturing the relationships of those folks you connect with. Yes, those social networks, those communities that provide a strong sense of belonging, ownership and responsibility for getting things done in a proper way. They have brought a new meaning to the concept of social capital; perhaps the one that should have been there from the very beginning when Knowledge Management started talking about it over a decade ago! Yes, that kind of social capital that has been neglected over the years by most businesses.

They have been the ones who have made me understand that playing political games while at work, through the use, and abuse, of .CC and .BCC, is not only a waste of time, but also of energy and effort with the immediate consequence of deteriorating relationships incredibly fast! In short, they have shown me how collaboration and knowledge sharing happen, in most cases, faster than ever, in real-time; how content is not the end goal behind sharing what you know, but who you share it with and what gets done with it afterwards!

For the last few years, that has been the kind of interactions I have been exposed to all along. And in most cases throughout the summer! Yes, that’s right! Summertime, for me, is one of the busiest times of the year. Why? Because I keep getting approached by a good number of those folks from younger generations who are doing their PhDs, while at IBM, around the topic of social software, social computing and Enterprise 2.0, and how they are all changing the way the corporate world operates through them.

And, instead of turning them away, because, you know, we are all busy people, and, after all, they are just interns or people working on their PhD (They will go away!), I prefer to stick around and learn about what they will be working on. Main reason being me getting the opportunity to get an exposure on how they think and how they work, and, most importantly, how they connect with others! They are the new blood of any other smart company listening up out there and whoever is turning away that opportunity from finding out more about who they are, they are just missing out big time!

That’s why in most cases I get to interact with them making use of everything else than just e-mail. We hang out in Facebook, in microsharing sites like Twitter, Last.fm, ma.gnolia, Slideshare, blogs, wikis, Skype, etc. etc. Not even mentioning the plethora of Enterprise social software tools we have got inside IBM and which I have been mentioning over here somewhat over the last couple of years.

This year I have been engaging with various folks from that younger generation of the workforce and the fascinating thing from being able to participate in their PhDs is that this year I have been working with folks from Germany, France, UK, the U.S., Sweden, The Netherlands, Switzerland, amongst several others, and let me share with you one single tidbit I have learned all along: the potential differences you may be thinking about with that group of folks from all over the place are just not there! To them it is all about part of that global village, where most of their friends and connections are scattered all over the place, but still within the same kind of work environment: The Global (Integrated) Enterprise! Their globally integrated enterprise!

And guess what? We will have to decide whether we would want to be part of it, or not, because if there is one thing coming out very obvious from them is the fact that they are not stopping for us to catch the bandwagon, We better do it or, if not, we will see how they move on faster than we can breathe in and out!

Want to see an example? I have got one for you. Two actually.

Check out Sacha Chua. Sacha is one of those millennials, one of those Gen Yers (I cannot believe I am using such term at this stage of the blog post! heh) who has recently entered the corporate space, in this case, that one of IBM, and way from the beginning she has been making quite an impression  difficult to forget! She is incredibly smart, with one of the most extensive social networks I have seen (I wish I had the kind of in-depth from hers at her age!!), very committed towards getting things done for everyone with a huge boost of their own productivity. She has got a passion for her job that I find it very difficult to surpass it on other folks, even to the point where it is contagious! And big time!

And, if you don’t believe me, check out the following blog post she put together under the title "Squee! Won Slideshare’s Best Presentation Contest!", where she mentioned how she made it through and won the Slideshare Best Presentation Contest Category for "About Me"!, which, not sure what you would think, but seeing the panel of judges, is quite an achievement on its own! Here you have got the reason why she won the contest:

(Here is a bonus tip on another presentation she has put together which will help you understand where they come from and where they are going …)

And if Sacha’s example is not enough proof of it, here is another one with which I am going to end this, rather long, weblog post. Check out Group Persona Visualization. This is a recent new entry into alphaWorks, which will also be appearing in IBM’s Technology Adoption Program (a.k.a. TAP), that enters in full force the realm of Web 2.0 visualisations. Here is an excerpt of what it is:

"Group Persona Visualization builds a foundation for analysis of group interactions. The service collects and interprets randomly distributed data from individuals to create a summary of a group’s overall feelings, perceptions, and activities. Group Persona Visualization is intended to inspire communication and collaboration among groups in which status information is often fragmented across a wide variety of Web locations.

The service interprets the status and activities of groups by collecting data from a range of social networking sources. Users create groups on the Web site and put in the sources where they personally express their thoughts, feelings, and activities (blogs, twitter, instant messaging, etc.). The software then pulls information from those feeds, interprets it according to defined standards, and displays an overall conclusion of the group’s status."

Some pretty amazing and interesting stuff, right? Well, let me share with you that such project came together over the course of the last three months under one of the BizTech teams, in concrete the one from the UK, where Andy Burman and a few other college students have been doing some stunning piece of work in helping understand usage of 2.0 by visualising it in very powerful ways to improve and increase collaboration and knowledge sharing amongst knowledge workers.

Yes, indeed, if you still think that these younger generations are wasting their time goofing around in their favourite social networking sites with their friends and connections while at work, think again! It is not happening now and doubt it would ever do. They are smarter than that and the couple of examples I have mentioned above, Sacha Chua and Andy Burman’s team and their efforts, are just a tiny proof of the kind of talent that is changing the way the workplace has been operating all along. And not sure about you, but I just can’t wait for it to take place!

There is just so much for us all to learn mutually from one another!

Ever thought about introducing reverse mentoring at your company? Now it may well be a good time for it!

(I am hoping as well that over the next few days I may be able to share with you some of the really good stuff that those folks I have been helping out during the summer have been doing and which they are almost wrapping up in most cases … Stay tuned!

And get ready for next summer when they come over to your door and ask for your participation. Take the challenge!)

Tags: IBM, Rotterdam, Netherlands, Shape Your Future, Innovation, Generations, Gen Y, Gen X, Baby Boomers, Boomers, Enterprise, Workplace, Corporate World, Generational Differences, No-email, Collaboration, Real-Time, Online Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Social Networks, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Social Computing, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Personal Knowledge Sharing, PKM, Personal Knowledge Management, Social Capital, Facebook, Microsharing, Twitter, Blogs, Wikis, Last.fm, ma.gnolia, Slideshare, Skype, PhDs, Thesis, Global Village, Global Integrated Enterprise, GIE, Sacha Chua, Millennials, Gen Yers, Group Persona Visualization, TAP, Technology Adoption Program, TAP, Visualisations, BizTech, BizTech UK, Reverse Mentoring

I am sure that you may have heard about this one already, but, just in case, Summer is over! Yes, indeed, September is here and it looks like everyone is back at work. And as such, I am back again on the road! After a month and a half of no travelling, due, in most cases, to the holidays, I am back at it! And it promises to be quite intensive over the next few weeks! At least, till the end of October! I am not sure whether you have been checking out my Dopplr account or not, but I have already updated over there the different trips I will be doing over the next month and a half. Starting next week!

Yes, that is right! I am starting another round of travelling beginning next week going to The Netherlands, more specifically to Rotterdam, to present at an IBM event I have been looking forward  to for a while now: Shape Your Future (at IBM’s 3rd Innovation Week). This is a yearly event where the entire time is dedicated to explore how Innovation is changing the corporate world and how it is shaping up the enterprise of the 21st century. In the last few years I have been missing out on it due to other commitments, but this time around I am going to be there! And I can’t wait!

So you may be wondering what I will be talking about in that event, right? Well, I am scheduled to speak on September 10th at noon CET and, of course, it couldn’t be any other way, I will be talking about my favourite subject over the last few months: my new mantra of "Thinking Outside the Inbox". I am going to be using the same slide deck you have all been exposed to in the past, except that the speech is going to be slightly different, much different, actually, since I will be adding a few elements based on some of the recent experiences I have gone through while moving through the months giving up e-mail at work. It should be fun!

I am hoping that the overall event may be recorded and therefore I may have a chance to grab a copy of the session and share it over here, whenever it is ready! We shall see how that goes…

However, for now, and just to give you a glimpse of what the event would be like, check out the Homepage of the event, the actual programme, the interesting and varied list of speakers as well as the location, right in the city centre of Rotterdam itself! Nice one!

It will be as well the first time in four and a half years that I will be back to The Netherlands, where I lived for seven years (Three and a half of which I spent them in Rotterdam itself!) and where I started my IBM career a bit over 11 years ago! So that’s also going to be an interesting experience! And needless to say that if you are around and would want to get together for a drink or two give me a shout and we shall meet up! Planning to arrive on Monday early evening and leaving on Thursday afternoon. I am sure we would be able to find some time to catch up!

Stop talking Innovation; Start experiencing it!

Tags: IBM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, e-mail, email, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Innovation, Productivity, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Collaboration 2.0, Communication, Re-purposing E-mail, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, IBM Netherlands, Shape Your Future, Travelling, Business Trips, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Dopplr

Goodness! It looks like we are on a row, eh? Here we go, with, yet again, another episode from The Sweettt Show, the Tertulia 2.0 podcasting series I am co-hosting with my good friend Matt Simpson, where we are back at it again talking around the subject of "The Age of Conversation" and where this time around we dive into, amongst many other things, "The Age of Conversation".

Matt already shared the details and the link to this particular episode and I can certainly encourage you to have a look into the initial description he put together, because it is rather descriptive of what you would find throughout the episode itself. Here is a short excerpt taken directly from his blog post:

"Engaging in meaningful discourse enables us to truly know what we think we know, by getting a chance to hear what we have to say. The ability to recognize certain facts and patterns is only an introductory level of understanding. However, when we can freely recall information & ideas, and actually generate language based on those concepts, this is an indication that a deeper, more thorough level of understanding is achieved."

I would also suggest you take a look into his show notes as you would be able to find a nice outline of what we discussed over the course of nearly 25 minutes and which I am sure you are going to find rather enlightening with all of the different links included.

At the same time, and also, to keep things going, I will go ahead and share with you folks my own show notes, so that you get a flavour as well of what I got out of this particular episode, where you will see that we are still touching base on our own experiences around Enterprise 2.0 in Boston, from back in June (And Yes! I still need to put together the highlights and share them with you over here, but doing it through the podcast is probably just as good, right?). So here you have got them:

"- Still on the "Age of Conversation"
- On the importance of Introduction on a podcast… Or not? Probably not, right?
- Forget that you are recording in the first place! You would be much better off, believe me.
- "Feelings inside of you are a tremendous source of information [...]", bunch of wise words, indeed! Glad Matt shared them with us!
- Ok, ok, no traditional Intro on Sweettt.com. Let’s bring it on! Natural conversations rule!
- Oh, oh, I think we just set up on an outroduction for the podcast.
- Nik Canvin, fellow IBMer and communitybuilder, gets another mention… Where is he nowadays? What’s he up to?
- Nancy Dixon gets another mention on describing how to get the most out of speakers. And it is not their speech or their lovely presentation, but something else…
- Facilitating a conference event is not an easy task, but certainly dominating your session would probably not be the right way, would it?
- The best conference events out there are those where dialogue and conversation take place. Not where people pitch at you whatever they would want to without allowing for interaction back at them! Doh! Any conference available out there following this format, please?
- No names mentioned, but those folks who were at Enterprise 2.0 may well remember one of the keynote speaker sessions doing it all along these very same lines and totally wrong. Right from the start, and right till the end of the *next* keynote session!
- Leaving your comfort zone can be a real challenge, eh? Are you willing to do just that?
- It is *good* to let control go, people! Specially if you are in the Enterprise 2.0 field!
- Ahhh, the power of the lobby!! That’s where the *real* conversations take place!
- Go out and seek out those conversations. Don’t wait for them to come around your way!
- Why is it that most Subject Matter Experts feel threatened when leaving their knowledge comfort zones? Are they still expecting, or expected, to know it all? Hallo?!? Not anymore! Welcome to the 21st century! Wake up! Move on and dive into the conversations. You are missing out!
- Instead of patronising the audience, next time around try by facilitating the session with the audience. See the difference!
- Carl Frappaolo, one of the speakers at Enterprise 2.0, gets a mention on how he got it right, from the very beginning!
- And his session was one of the best from the entire conference!
- *That* is just how you engage, as a speaker, on whatever session you may be providing: get the best out of the audience!"

And with that stay tuned for our next episode where we expand plenty more on this very same subject of engaging with your audience at conference events as the best, and most effective, method of knowledge sharing and mutual learning!

Oh, and if you thought I would let you go and listen to the episode directly or download it from here, it is not going to happen just yet. Why? Because I thought I would share with you as well the lovely Wordle (Thanks, Jonathan!) that Matt put together for this episode. Here it is:

Have fun!

Tags: The Sweettt Show, Sweettt, Matthew Simpson, Matt Simpson, The Sweettt Tertulia, Podcasting, Podcasts, Episodes, Series, New Media, IBM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Conversations, Knowledge Sharing,