My goodness!! What a week! And it is just Wednesday!! I am surely looking forward to the weekend! Hummm, did I say that it is just Wednesday?!? Can’t wait for it soon enough!! As you may have noticed, over the last couple of days, I have been doing a little bit of light blogging here in my external blogs, more than anything else because of how incredibly busy I have been with multiple projects whose deadlines are coming to a close this week. Phew! (Now you know why I am looking forward to the weekend!).

Between preparing a bunch of presentations for other folks and for myself on social computing for upcoming events I will be doing in all over the place (check out my Dopplr account for more details on where I plan to be over the next few weeks), and also putting together a bunch of enablement materials on various IBM social software tools for the team I am working with, things have been rather hectic, to put it mildly. On top of that, more and more people keep asking me to come over and present for them on social computing and explain some of the stuff that is going on at IBM in that regard, so kind of ensuring that I don’t mix up with those various invitations. That’s also taking a bit of time, for sure. Phew!

But, but, … but … I am surely loving it! I am enjoying it quite a bit because for the first time in several years that I have been doing lots of stuff around the subject of social computing, this time around the focus, the commitment, the energy to share that passion on social software all over the place is finding its way around and people keep asking about it and how they can engage themselves with it! And that, folks, is way cool! I have been saying this for a little while now, but the expectations that I had for this new job have actually exceeded all what I had in mind four months ago and ever so much more!! It is just fascinating!! I mentioned back then I was coming into my dream job and so far it hasn’t fallen short from that perception!

I am not too worried about the fact that it is taking me more and more of my time along with it, since I am thoroughly enjoying it thus far and that is what I always wanted in the first place for the last five years! I know that my regular blogging activities will be coming back shortly, too!

Apart from that, I am also enjoying my fight against my work e-mail and making some really good progress there. Still going strong! I know that I owe you folks out there a couple of blog posts on how things are going, and those will be coming up shortly. But for now, I just thought I would share a couple of comments in here to let you know that I haven’t forgotten about you . Just been a bit too hectic and that regular blogging will resume shortly with a whole bunch of stuff I want to share across not only from what I am getting exposed to, but also what I am seeing in the space of social computing in general and something major that will be happening to me in a couple of months that is going to change my life for good! Yes, it is that good! But you will have to wait till it becomes official … (Hint, hint, I already mentioned what it would be about a little while ago in Twitter). Yeah, I know, … a bit nasty! heh

But that will keep you busy trying to figure it out while I get back to normal over here and start putting together some more content on what drives my passion at the moment:

 Social Computing & Knowledge Sharing. Knowledge Sharing & Social Computing!

Tags: Blogging, Metablogging, Weblogging, Light Blogging, Dopplr, IBM, Social Computing, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Innovation, Remote Collaboration, Dream Job, Progress Report, Life, Work, Hectic, Twitter, Passion, Commitment, Energy, Efforts, Focus

Today has been one of those incredibly hectic days with all sorts of things happening in various fronts. One of them I am hoping to be able to blog about in the next day or two. We shall see. It’s been rather interesting and exciting (Apart from very thought-provoking at times!) at the same time. But more on that later..

For now, I just want to share with you folks a video clip that one of my fellow IBM colleagues shared internally and which, to say the least, will make you think twice about the things you and I care. Yes!, another one of those blog posts where it’s the small things that matter… And here it is why:

After watching through that I am sure that one gets to learn a thing or two on putting the right things into the right perspective, don’t you think?

Update 14/02/08 : Special thanks to David Rojas for the additional comments and for finding the video in YouTube, much better to link to and embed than the original, so … updated!

Tags: Life, Priorities, Work, Money, Perspectives, Small Things, Small Things That Matter, What Really Matters, Economy, Poverty, Richness, Wealth

Yesterday I didn’t get a chance to create a blog post to share with you folks some more highlights from the IBM Lotusphere event that took place last week. Apparently, my Internet connection had other plans for the day. So I am back today with a short blog post where I just wanted to share a few thoughts on what has been one of my favourite gadget experiences from the entire event. It surely wasn’t the amazing Lotus Notes on the iPhone, nor the super fine Lotus Foundations server (That fits quite nicely in an envelope!). Or a whole bunch of other ones. It was just my Nokia N95!!

I knew I made a heck of a purchase a few months back, when I acquired the Nokia N95, but up until the Lotusphere event I didn’t really have the chance to test it out properly in such a massive event as that one. And, boy, was it up to the test or what?!? And big time!! With it I have been taking lots of pictures all over the place. All in all around 300 for the entire event, of which 268 are already in my Flickr account. I have been listening to various different podcasts, both related to the event and non-related. Watched a good number of vodcasts, too! (Gotta love the quality of the image and the sound!). Surfed the Web as much as I could do with the free wireless available throughout the premises, so I could check out what people were blogging about during the event or Twitter here and there about the different places I was or just simply checking out some of the Web sites from the various announcements that went live during the course of those few days.

Of course, I used the N95 quite heavily as well to make plenty of phone calls to meet up with people. Sent a whole bunch of SMS, played a few games while waiting on the hotel lobbies to meet up folks, etc. etc. But if there would be a single reason why I am in love with the Nokia N95 is because of this:

Yes, I know, there are very few words that can describe the quality of the output from those videos for such a tiny little device like the N95, which I now carry with me everywhere I go! Because you never know when it’s going to happen again, right?!?

(Stay tuned because last couple of blog posts with further highlights from Lotusphere are coming up shortly!)

Tags: IBM, Lotus, Lotusphere, Lotusphere2008, New Media, Social Computing, Social Software, Social Networking, Collaboration, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Learning, Podcasts, Vodcasts, Twitter, Nokia, Nokia N95, N95, Apple, iPhone, Lotus Foundations, Lotus Foundations Server, Flickr, Videos, Multi-Media, Multimedia, Blogging, Metablogging

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

As most of you may remember from a recent blog post I created a few weeks back, today was my first day at my new job as part of IBM’s Software (SWG) Tech Sales and Social Software Programs and Enablement Teams. Overall, I have been having an incredibly busy day with plenty of meetings, getting to know folks, prepare a number of different initiatives and tasks (Some of which I am hoping to be sharing over here as well at some point), buzzing around from one place to another, but all in all with plenty of good fun! Yes, I mentioned it way back, when I was first announced it, to me, this is my dream job come true! And today I have been able to validate that hunch. And big time!

Like I have just mentioned, I have been having some really good discussions around the subject of social software and the adoption of social computing within the Enterprise. Today, for instance, I participated, as one of the panelists, on one of the most powerful IBM (Behind the firewall) communities monthly events around the subject of ROI for Social Software (Yes, one of my favourite subjects recently) and the dialogue around it is still buzzing around in my head, despite the fact it took place several hours ago. I got to come back to it again and share some more insights on that particular subject.

Also another thing that I have been working on today is starting to figure out how to reach out to larger audiences and get them more involved with the subject of social networking. We already have got something piled and almost ready to go, but it will actually be taking place at a later time this month. Not to worry, I shall be blogging about it as well.

So, as you can imagine, it has been really busy the whole day today, with hardly any chance to hang out in many of the various social networking tools I frequently engage with, but I knew from the beginning of the day that it was going to be that hectic and still looked forward to it, as I knew I was going to be able to contribute into several different places on how knowledge workers can start embracing some of that social software culture!

But all that excitement was topped by something that has got to do pretty much with the subject of this blog post. Yes, I had an interesting, very busy, incredibly enlightening and rich day at work, but a day like today, 8 years ago, I became an IBM full time employee, having worked before for over two more years with a contractor company to IBM. Yes, that is right, I have been working for this company since 1997, but on November 1st 1999, I became an IBM full time employee.

Who would have thought that a bloke like me, graduated as an English teacher in 1995, at the University of Salamanca, Spain, would have been for so long in one of the largest IT companies in the world doing what he loves the most: working as a Knowledge Manager, Community Builder and Social Computing Evangelist! And landing in what appears to be his dream job, too!!

Is there a better way to celebrate your 8th anniversary in a company having gone through all that? I doubt it. The whole day has been an exhilarating set of events, one after the other, and if someone would have told me 8 years ago where I would be in 2007, I would have probably told them they were crazy. But then again, it looks like I am the one who is crazy, because I am still having plenty of good fun. And big time!

Tomorrow is Friday, just a day before the weekend, so guess what I will be doing after I am done with work… of course … CELEBRATING!!! It doesn’t happen every day that you make 8 years (10 in total, with the contractor work) in a job you never thought you would be getting the hang out of it long term. Well, you never know. I may have … after all.

Thus Happy 8th Anniversary, Mr! Hope you still go strong for another 8 years!

Tags: IBM, Software, SWG, Tech Sales, Social Software, Social Software Enablement, Social Media, Social Computing, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration, Communities, Anniversary, University of Salamanca, Spain, Knowledge Worker, Celebrations, Life, Work, Job

Today is Blog Action Day! and I was actually pondering earlier on whether I would be one of the folks who would be creating a blog post related to the subject of the environment (or not), which is what Blog Action Day! tries to promote; every blogger creating a blog post for the day in their respective blogs and help spread of the message: “Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future“. James Governor, a.k.a. monkchips, mentioned that I should go ahead and share some further insights and here I am.

You may probably think, after reading that paragraph, that I may not be really concerned about the environment, right? Well, that is not the case by all means, specially living in such fragile place as I have been living for the last three and a half years. It has always been in my mind. I have always been watching different T.V. programmes on the subject to help educate myself on how I could help, or take different tests like the Ecological Footprint Quiz (Where I scored 4.3 where the average for Spain 4.7, mainly because of the different flights I have taken this year, which makes me wonder quite a bit, too! Perhaps I should stop travelling as much as I have been doing this year altogether) that would show how much on track I am. Not good enough, I know, but still trying really hard to improve my footprint by the day, it is a continuous learning process, because after all it’s the least we could all do, don’t you think?

So, while I have been thinking what I could blog about on the subject for Blog Action Day!, I mean, trying to establish the relationship between the environment and Knowledge Management along with Social Computing, it just hit me big time! And here I am. Putting together a few thoughts on how I think both KM and Social Computing could help out bring forward the conversation on how to preserve what’s been given to us so that we can pass it on to later generations in best of conditions.

They say that both KM and Social Computing are all about having an impact. An impact in the way you share knowledge, you collaborate, you connect and innovate with others. An impact that, if anything, has always been notorious for taking action, your *own* action, into wanting to change things and make things happen the right way.

Thus, in a day like Blog Action Day! I have finally decided to take action myself and comment on something that I have always found hard to believe and that has bugged me for quite some time now, but yet it’s happening day in day out. I am not sure what is going to happen next, but, at least, that is my way to show I care and how this article will be the kickoff of something that I hope will be happening soon.

We all know that one way to improve your footprint on the environment is to apply and live by the word recycle. Yes, recycle as much as you can! But what happens when you live in a small town of say 10,000 people, or less, like I do, and you find out there isn’t a single container you could make use of to recycle paper, plastic or metal? Yes, that is right. I live in a place that seems to be not very environmentally friendly since, except for glass, everything goes into the same bucket. That doesn’t seem to be right, does it?

That is why, thanks to Blog Action Day! and to prove the power of Social Computing and KM, I am going to start taking action myself and spread the message around. Recycling is essential for us all, not just for big cities. It’s our responsibility to recycle all we can, so that we can continue to educate ourselves in how to preserve what has been given to us. It is our responsibility to act now! (Regardless of where you are).

They say that the biggest impact of KM and Social Computing is when applied locally and I truly believe that (And for a number of years now). Thus with the excuse of today’s blog post I am actually going to take some action of my own, and continue to blog every now and then on how the little town I live in makes some more substantial progress into encouraging us all recycle more properly by providing us the means of doing so. Because, otherwise what is the point of everyone else recycling except us? What is the point of spreading the word around on things that are just not right, if we don’t react and fix them right away?!?! How difficult could it be to provide us with the right means to do some serious recycling of everything we make use of? Is it really that complicated? I doubt it.

Stay tuned for some progress as we move along. Feel free to link to this blog post to enhance that impact we can all have in our daily lives. Does your small town recycle enough? Does your local town hall worry too much about the waste we are all generating? If not, what are you willing to do to make it happen? I am not sure about you, but today I just got a new mission started. Want to join me? Start local and have that impact you always wanted to have: respect the environment!

Tags: Blog Action Day!, James Governor, Monkchips, T.V., Cuatro, Ecological Footprint Quizz, Ecological Footprint, Travelling, Recycle, Recycling, El Tablero de Maspalomas, Gran Canaria, Spain, Social Computing, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Collaboration, Innovation, Technology, Impact, Environment, Local, Earth Day