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

Giving up on Work e-mail - Status Reports from Week 31 through to Week 35

After a superb business trip to Mechelen, Belgium, last week where not only did I have a great time, but also learned quite a bit!, it is now time to get back into the swing of things at work. Well, not really! Friday was the day of a massive catchup with everything and, like I was mentioning in Twitter, it was the first time in over five years that I spent it talking more on the phone than through online interactions! Goodness! I almost forgot how fast & easy it is to catch up while you talk, as opposed to when you write! I should be doing that much more often, for sure!

Anyway, you would expect I would be having time to get things back in order with my regular blogging and other work related activities, right? Humm, not likely! I am already preparing, during the course of today, for another business trip I will be doing this week, once again. Leaving tomorrow and going to Madrid to participate in a very special event which I will be blogging about shortly. Stay tuned, because it is going to be quite an interesting one!

For now, though, I think I will go with this blog post where I will try to catch up with those weekly progress reports I have been sharing all along since I started giving up on e-mail at work and which I have been neglecting for a little bit due to the holidays to both Barcelona and London, then the business trip to Mechelen and a week here and there. So I thought I share with you folks what has happened during those weeks.

To start with, I will not be commenting on other interesting links I have bumped into or the conference events I have been to during all of this time, since I will be blogging about them separately and I would also want to keep this blog post on the short side. So, what I will do, without much further ado is to share with you folks the actual progress reports and I will comment, right afterwards, with a couple of thoughts for each of them, so you can get a glimpse of what’s been happening all around. Thus, let’s get started!

As you would be able to see, lots of things have happened during the last few weeks, while I have been preparing for my vacation, during my vacation, on the first business trip after the vacation and so forth! To get things going, it looks like I hit my new challenge twice in that period of time! Yes, that is right! On my new challenge, I proposed to keep that incoming number of e-mails even lower, 20 or less! And to my amazement, since I didn’t expect it to happen so soon, there have been two times that I have done it, as you can see on those weekly reports. One with a hit of 20 and another one, the one I am incredibly excited about, which is 13 e-mails! Yes, that’s right! 13 e-mails in a single week!!! That’s exactly what I am looking forward to with this second part of the challenge of giving up on e-mail at work!

Too bad that after I came back, and while I was in Mechelen, Belgium, that count went sky high, with one of the highest from the entire nine months I have been doing this! But not to worry, it is all an exception, from what I can see. That really high count of e-mails was eventually due to three different factors:

- InnovationJam 2008: I managed to put together and share a number of different ideas, despite the poor conditions regarding my connectivity during that time, and a couple of them picked up a nice momentum, which developed in several private 1:1 conversations, too! I am trying to put together some of the thoughts exchanged throughout the Jam conversations so that you folks can have a look at some of the amazing stuff that happened throughout!

- Calendaring & Scheduling: This is something I have blogged about already in the past, and it is probably the number #1 issue that still keeps me making use of e-mail at odd weeks, like week 35, for instance. Two days in that week registered really high peaks of incoming e-mails, because I was discussing with a few folks the final logistics for a couple of events I will be attending from here till end of the year! If calendaring and scheduling is an issue, imagine it even worse when people send you e-mail after e-mail to finalise details that could have been done in a very simple, yet very effective manner: a phone call! (Or through Activities!). I need to work more on this one, before it kills me. Or, worse, something else that is starting to take some shape and which would need some further thinking before I share it across. We shall see.

- 1:1 conversations: As more and more folks realise how I still use e-mail for 1:1 conversations of a confidential / sensitive nature, sometimes I do get a few of these, yes!, they come in batches!, of folks wanting to detail stuff in a personal private conversation. And like I have been saying all along, more than happy to accommodate those coming through e-mail. The rest will be going OUTSIDE the Inbox!

Thus there you go. In a single blog post the weekly progress reports from the five weeks I haven’t been able to detail before, due to vacation preparations, the time away on holidays, and the business trip to Mechelen. Oh, and there was something else that sparked two very nasty blog posts while I was on the road, but, not to worry, I will not be sharing them over here. Far too negative! I will be putting together a rather softer one on the topic, which has surely influenced as well some of the high numbers on concrete days. Here is a hint on what it will be about: connectivity or, better said, the lack of!

But that will be the subject for another blog post. For now, time to leave things here. Hope you enjoy the massive catch up on all of those progress reports from the last few weeks and off to the next blog post that will contain a lovely surprise for those faithful readers that despite my somewhat irregular blogging activities, they still keep up with this blog eventually. Hang in there, lovely surprise coming up for you shortly!

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, Shape Your Future, Travelling, Business Trips, Mechelen, Belgium, Madrid, Spain, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Twitter, Shapeyourfuture, Social Innovation, InnovationJam 2008, IJam08, IJam 2008, InnovationJam, Calendaring & Scheduling, Calendaring, Scheduling, Confidentiality, Sensitive

Trip to Mechelen, Belgium, to Present at IBM’s Shape Your Future Innovation Event

After a wonderful holiday, away for a few days, first in Barcelona and then in London, I am back to work! First day back and already on the road, too! Yes, indeed, over the next couple of days I will be in Belgium, in Mechelen, to be more exact, where tomorrow afternoon I will be presenting at IBM’s Innovation event "Shape Your Future". And all of this while the engaging and mind-blowing InnovationJam 2008 is taking place over the next few hours!! Goodness! So much to talk about and share, yet so little time! Hang in there, folks, while I am trying to get back into my regular blogging activities as well, but I guess we will have to go one step at a time, right?

So, let’s get things going with IBM’s Innovation event "Shape Your Future", where you would be able to see how tomorrow afternoon I will be speaking, once more, on the topic of "Thinking Outside the Inbox" where I am hoping to bring together as well some of the various conversations I have been having in the recent past from a couple of other events I have been engaging with.

The slide deck continues to be the same, i.e. giving up e-mail at work, but pretty much the speech has evolved tremendously over the last few weeks, since I will be incorporating some of the most relevant and interesting conversations I have been having all along in the last couple of months. Hope this session will be recorded somehow, so I would have an opportunity to perhaps share such recording with everyone. At the same time, stay tuned for some really good news on the progress reports, because I have got something for you I am sure you are going to enjoy quite a bit! You will see…

If you would notice, this is the sister event I presented at, not long ago, in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and which I blogged about not long ago as well. Thus it follows a similar structure. You would be able to find information about the event over here, from where you can also find out some more about each of the speakers who will be there (I seemed to be missing from the list, but not to worry, I know I will be there, too!), as well as the location in Mechelen.

But perhaps the most interesting part of the two day event would be, of course, the programme itself, apart from the (Social) Networking, for sure! In it, you would be able to see what the keynote speaker sessions would be about, as well as the various breakout sessions, including the one I will be doing, and from peeking through it I am certain you would be able to see the quality of the materials presented around the topic of shaping your future and how each of the speakers will bring together a new, fresh air into the next level for Innovation!

And, like I said, all of that happening at the same time that the InnovationJam 2008 is taking place over the course of the next couple of days! I haven’t blogged, nor mentioned much about it, because at the beginning I was not really sure whether I would be able to participate in it, or not, since it got started yesterday while I was still on holidays and will continue over the next couple of days while I am on this business trip, where I am just finding out, the hard way, as usual, how unreliable a good Internet connection has become nowadays. As soon as I have got a few applications running it runs into a hard stop and I cannot longer move on further with engaging in such event or catch up after the holidays. Ahhh, well… So much with regards to pervasiveness and broadband penetration, right? Not likely!

I just hope it will improve while I am here, because otherwise it would be too bad to miss the whole thing out! I hope not! One thing for sure that I am certain is going to win is the networking side of things, so if you are around in Mechelen, over the next couple of days, and if you would want to get together for a drink or two, give me a shout and we will find some time, I am sure!

For now, time for me to prepare the event(s) of tomorrow hoping the broadband connection will be restored to what’s supposed to be and see if I can finally catch up with InnovationJam 2008 and starting jamming a bit! How about you? Are you jamming yet?

Tags: Holidays, Work, Life, Barcelona, London, Belgium, Mechelen, IBM, Shape Your Future, InnovationJam, InnovationJam 2008, Innovation, Jams, Collaboration, Online Collaboration, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Jamming, Connectivity, Broadband, Pervasiveness

Trip to London to Present at Web 2.0: Practical Applications for Business Benefit

If last week, during my vacation in Barcelona, I was twittering quite a bit about the various issues I experienced throughout the whole week with some very poor performance on wireless connectivity throughout the couple of hotels I stayed in, as well as my mobile SIM card with Yoigo (Not to worry, I have got a couple of blog posts I need pruning first a bit more before I let them go out into my blogs, but I can surely guarantee you they will be fun! NOT!!!), this week things have changed completely. And for the better! I am enjoying a lovely, and pervasive, standard ADSL connection at the super fine Hyde Park Executive Apartments in London, where I am going to stay for about a week.

Yes, indeed, I am on the road again! What a year, eh? Incredibly hectic and exciting to say the least! I am just going to do a little bit of fast forwarding and ask you folks to hang in there for the various blog posts I will be sharing over the course of the next couple of weeks with some of the highlights from the amazing time I had while in Barcelona; like I said, one of my all time favourite cities in the world! And, specially detail some more about the wonderful people, and conversations we had!, I have met over the last few days.

But that will need to take a little break, because, like I have mentioned above, I am on the road again, this time to London, to get busy with a few things I wish I had the time to detail earlier on, if it weren’t for the appalling lack of connectivity over the last 10 days! Alas, it didn’t happen. (Sigh) Anyway, moving forward (For now…)

Yes, I am in London. Yes, I am still on holidays! , enjoying a few days catching up with one of my favourite, and most cosmopolitan, cities I have been to in my short life. Even though I have seen most of the city throughout the course of the years, it still amazes me how much it continues to change & thrive and give you that impression that you need to explore it again just to catch up since last time! In my case that would be 2005!

But that’s not the only reason why I am here. I am also here in London, because for the first time in a couple of years I have now finally managed to be able to make it to one of those Web 2.0 related events I always wanted to attend, but never quite managed to make it. Till this year…

I am talking about Unicom’s Web 2.0: Practical Applications for Business Benefit that will kick off on October 1st, and for a couple of days, at MWB Victoria and where I will not only be attending as a regular attendee throughout the entire event, but also I will be speaking at one of the sessions on the first day.

You will be able to check out all of the details of this very interesting and engaging event, I am sure, if you get your hands on the event’s brochure or if you check out the Programme / Schedule. In there you would be able to read how folks I have been following for a while now, and whom I have got plenty of admiration and respect for, would be participating as well at the event. People like Euan Semple, Penny Edwards, Leisa Reichelt, Suw Charman-Anderson, Dominic Campbell and, of course, David Gurteen, who I have known, and have followed!, for many years now and with whom I am finally going to have a chance to meet up face to face! Oh, and the same would be happening with Euan!

Can you see where my excitement comes from? heh Well, it gets better!

As I have mentioned above already, I will be sharing the agenda / programme with such an amazing bunch of folks talking about, yes, you know it already, my favourite topic this year: Thinking Outside the Inbox! Although this time around with a slight tweak here and there of the speech itself. Here is an excerpt of what I will be covering during my session:

- "The changing nature of collaboration
- The role of communities in helping accelerate the adoption of social computing
- Enterprise social software what it is and why you should care about it.
- Practical examples of social software in the enterprise, its Web 2.0 characteristics and benefits vs. traditional collaboration tools"

I am not sure whether the sessions will be recorded or not, but it is my understanding the slide decks will be shared, although, they are almost identical to the ones I have been using all along. The pitch, though, will be different.

I am not sure whether I would be live con-blogging or tweeting (@elsuacon) the rest of the event, since it would pretty much depend on the connectivity we would have throughout, and so far my experiences haven’t been that good for multiple other conferences. We shall see how that goes! But needless to say that even if I cannot report about the conference live I will still be putting together some highlights after the event is done and I am capable of finding some free time!

Free time? Yes, not much this time around either! Because there is another good reason why I am here in London during the next few days and that is to participate on my first London Knowledge Cafe where both Unicom and David Gurteen have offered me the unique opportunity to expand further on why, how, since when I have been giving up on e-mail at work and also explain further how other folks can start doing the same thing I have been doing now for over 8 months! (No, I haven’t forgotten either the blog posts on the weekly progress reports about how things are going. Those are coming up, too! And stay tuned, because they are looking good!).

You would be able to read plenty more about it over at "Could you stop using e-mail?" and, as you can see, it is an open to everyone event, where I will try to be as provocative, enlightening and entertaining as I possibly could be, so that you can learn a few tricks on how you can free yourself up from e-mail at work. For good! Just like I have done!

Phew! And that would be it! That’s some of the stuff that’s happening this week, while I am in London, about to enjoy, I am sure, a brilliant time! Oh, oh, did I mention I am still on holidays till next week Monday, October 6th? Well, I may not be working, indeed, but you all know there is no way that social networking will stop and, specially, my favourite one, pure face to face social networking!

Thus, if you are around, or in town during those days, and would want to meet up for a drink or two, or food, get in touch! And we will surely meet up! It may be coming through as a packed up social agenda, so if you see I am not very active over here in the next few days it may well be that, once again, life has won that everlasting battle with work in striking a balance. And I will probably be spending the time doing something else than sitting in front of the computer …

And, of course, I will probably be using my Twitter ID to share some highlights along the way, as well as one other way to get in touch with folks, whenever I managed to be online, promising to be a good week for that this time around! About time, too!

See you around!

Tags: Unicom, Web 2.0, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Computing, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Remote Collaboration, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, Personal Knowledge Sharing, Barcelona, Travelling, Holidays, Connectivity, Wireless Access, Yoigo, SIM, ADSL, Hyde Park Executive Apartments, London, UK, United Kingdom, Business Benefits, Business Value, Agenda,  Euan Semple, Penny Edwards, Leisa Reichelt, Suw Charman-Anderson, Dominic Campbell, David Gurteen, No E-mail, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Giving up E-mail, Twitter, Blogging, Metablogging, Con-blogging, Live Twittering, Live Tweeting, London Knowledge Cafe, Knowledge Cafe, Face to Face

Social Software - The Basics By Jon Mell

I was just about to share another blog post around the topic of the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin (Remember you can get a 35% discount by registering with this code: webeu08gr23 - Don’t miss it!), which, like I have mentioned yesterday, I will be really looking forward to attending it this time around, specially after going through, once again, the impressive list of speakers who will be there at the event and the diversity of the topics that will be covered! Yet, something refrained me from doing that. Instead, I am just going to share with you a short, incredibly powerful entry, that I am sure would make you smile quite a bit for how simple it is!

And all of that due to one of those wonderful instances where serendipity does its magic. One of those serendipitous knowledge discoveries that clearly show the power of social computing, and, in particular, social networks.

It all starts with a fellow IBM colleague, and a good friend, Larry Hawes (Don’t forget to check out his Twitter bio! Quite inspirational!), who tweeted the following snippet:

"Here’s a post on "selling" social software that is absolutely brilliant in its simplicity. A short, must read! http://tinyurl.com/3jyxfb"

Boy, who could resist such temptation, right? Of course, not! No-one would! So I went over and checked the link and to my surprise who do I find there? My other good friend Jon Mell, who just recently joined the forces of the incredibly smart, resourceful and talented Headshift gang (Congrats and massive kudos to both Jon & the Headshift crew, by the way!!). Jon eventually put together a blog post under "Social Software - The Basics" (Still can’t figure out how I missed it!) that, after reading it, I thought I doubt anyone would ever be able to put it all in such simple terms. Yes, indeed, social software with a K.I.S.S. at its best!

It is just *so* accurate as well and so much anti-definitions (And you folks know how I feel about putting together definitions for such concepts like Knowledge Management, Enterprise 2.0 or Social Computing, amongst many others! ;-)) that I am going to take the liberty of quoting it over here to help spread the message around, because if we would all think along those terms we would be making our lives so much easier! And for the better! Thus here it goes. Social Software - The Basics:

"Do you believe that there is business value in who you know as well as what you know?

Do you believe that a strong network of contacts can help you get things done and make things happen?

Would you like to help your employees get things done and make things happen?"

You would have to agree with me that it is just priceless, right? Well, hang in there; it gets better; check out his ending line to a brilliant post:

"If so, then the question is not why would you use social software, but why would you not?"

(hehe) *I know*, plenty of food for thought in there for us all to chew in as the weekend kicks in … Have a good one everyone!

Tags: Web 2.0 Expo, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Speakers, Berlin, Germany, Networking, Social Networks, Discounts, Web 2.0 Expo Europe, web2europe, Basics, K.I.S.S., KISS, Serendipity, Larry Hawes, Jon Mell, Headshift, Simplicity, Definitions, Food for Thought, Musings, Ponderings

Trip to the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin - Are You Ready?

As the Web 2.0 Expo in New York City continues to take place over the course of the next few hours and already producing some really good outcomes, I thought I would let folks know about something that I am really excited about. No, I am not in New York City for that event, although I wish I were (I would have been able to meet up plenty of really smart and talented folks in the Social Computing space, apart from catching up with a whole bunch of good friends, colleagues and thought leaders in this space). However, I surely am going to be at another Web 2.0 Expo. Yes, indeed, the one in Berlin!

That’s right! I am really excited about the whole thing. For the first time in a couple of years I will finally be able to make it to one of those events that I always wanted to go to: The Web 2.0 Expo and probably at one of the best locations, don’t you think so? Woohooo! Can’t wait!

Like I said above, I am incredibly excited to go there by the end of October and for multiple various reasons which I am going to detail over here trying to keep things short and sweet. Too much to talk about each of them, for sure! Perhaps I will be expanding further into multiple blog posts, but let’s see:

- I will be going to Berlin, arriving on October 19th, and I will not be alone. My entire team will be there as well as a whole bunch of fellow colleagues, and good friends, who have been helping us out driving the adoption of social software within IBM. Pretty excited about meeting them all up face to face and hang out together the entire week!

- I am certainly looking forward to being there after having gone through an agenda where it is going to be incredibly difficult to pick up which sessions to go to! Yes, indeed, they are that good! But I will expand further on that one. Too much to talk about in such a short time!

- And if the agenda is quite impressive, the list of speakers is just as worth while meeting up! I am looking forward to catching up with a whole bunch of people I have met throughout the years and who I still keep in touch with social software (Or course!), but also at the same time meet up with some others who I have started following lately, but haven’t had a chance to get in touch with just yet. This event would be the perfect opportunity for that!

- Oh, yes, I will also be speaking at the event, on October 23rd, and on the topic I am sure you are all familiar with hehe Oh, oh, and my boss’ boss will also be one of the speakers! Pretty excited about that, too! Remember, my entire team will be there! It would be the second time I would be able to see them in the last year! W00t!

- Of course, one of the items I will be really looking forward to would be the networking throughout the event! Let’s face it, folks! This is as good as it gets! One of the best, and perhaps most relevant, Web 2.0 events taking place in Europe this year! Everyone is going to be there! Will you? Let’s meet up!

- Finally, I am also pretty excited to share with everyone a little surprise, which I am sure some people may appreciate, specially if you want to be able to make it, but perhaps things just didn’t work out all right. I have just been given the opportunity to share with you folks, the faithful, and ever engaging, readership of this blog (I read and go through each of the comments you all drop & already working my way through sharing my two cents for each of them! Hang in there for just a little longer! I’ll eventually be coming around all of them!) a special discount with which you can register for the event and get 35% off the original fees!

Yes, that is right! If you would want to attend the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin and would want to get a lovely discount, go ahead and use this specific code: webeu08gr23 when you register for the event. And off it goes. My special thanks to everyone who is a regular reader / commenter on this blog and my token of gratitude for sticking around through thick & thin all along! Without you all folks this blog would probably have been something completely different! That’s for sure!

So, you see where all of this excitement was coming from, right? Yes, indeed, I surely am and I hope you would be, too! Specially if you manage to make it to the event of events in the Web 2.0 space! And if you would want to get together for a beer or two (With what a perfect timing, eh? heh), give  me a shout and we will meet up while in there! (I will be there from October 19th till the 24th!)

Oh oh, like I said, stay tuned, I still got another lovely surprise for one of you folks out there… But that will be put together in an upcoming blog post where I will be expanding further on some of the items I mentioned above!

Thus, are you ready? Will you be at the Web 2.0 Expo this year in Berlin? Get in touch & don’t forget to make use of the discount!

Tags: Web 2.0 Expo, web2ny, New York City, NYC, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Speakers, Agenda, Berlin, Germany, Networking, Social Networks, Registrations, Discounts, Web 2.0 Expo Europe, web2europe