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

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

The Sweettt Podcast - Episode 7 - Conversations as The Future of Conferences

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

The Younger Generations & Their Impact on the Corporate World - Sacha Chua & Andy Burman

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

The Sweettt Podcast - Episode 6 - The Best Way to Share Knowledge

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, KM, Knowledge Management, Collaboration 2.0, Communication, Communities, Learning, Innovation, Personal Knowledge Sharing, PKM, Tertulia, Wordle, Jonathan Feinberg, Conversations, Conference Events, Enterprise2conf, Nik Canvin, Nancy Dixon, Facilitation, Facilitator, Carl Frappaolo

Giving up on Work e-mail - Status Report on Week 29 (Breaking the e-mail Compulsion)

If you would remember, last week I mentioned how I had a little bit of a surprise for those folks following the progress from my new mantra on giving up e-mail and continue to make much more extensive use of social software and social computing within the enterprise. This surprise has actually got to do with something that I thought I would be approaching as my next challenge for the next few months to come. And it all has got to do with the weekly progress reports I have been sharing over here in the last few months.

A couple of times back I have hinted already how, now that my current take of incoming e-mails has become rather steady between the 25 to 30 e-mails a week (Coming from the 30 to 40 e-mails a day!), my new challenge is to keep things going down and eventually get below the mark of 25, to be more precise, 20 e-mails a week! Yes, that is right. My next new challenge is to try to reduce the incoming e-mail count even more and starting slowly, but steadily, go below the 20 e-mails a week mark!

Kind of intrigued whether I would be able to make it or not, so we shall see how that goes. I must say that last week I was almost on the brink of doing it, well, even better, I had it, but it all got messed up on Friday! Here is the weekly progress report, so that you folks can have a look and see what I mean:

Yes, indeed, as you would be able to see from the above screen shot, I have hit a new record low on the count of incoming e-mails at work: 21 e-mails for week 29!!! WOW! Fantastic news, indeed! Going down from 36 to 21 during the course of a week is a huge achievement, and more when I wanted to get things going with this new challenge of under 20 e-mails starting last week! Wooohooo! Wonderful news!

But wait, things could have been even better! As you would be able to notice, the total amount of e-mails started being rather low from the beginning of the week and steady throughout the whole time, till Friday! Things changed a bit on that day, specially seeing the last few weeks. Up until Friday I was on the mark of 16 e-mails a week! 16 e-mails!!! (Can you imagine?!?!), but something happened on Friday that messed it up big time!

What was it? -you may be wondering, right? Well, what do you think? The Reply to All button! I tell you, I would kill that button from people’s inbox in a minute! Give me the chance and I can guarantee you I would! Any time! There I was, all excited about reaching a new low of 16 e-mails and I got one more. Ok, 17, not too bad, but then I saw a few people on the .CC list and right there, right then, I knew it was going to blow off! And it did!

About a few minutes later people started to "Reply to All", like crazy, adding their two cents and before I knew it I had 5 of them sitting in my inbox, of which I didn’t need ANY of them! Yikes! That’s the worst part, isn’t it? Getting the first e-mail is not that bad, it is getting the subsequent replies when you know you don’t need them and everyone else knows that you don’t need it either! Yet, the e-mail gets sent out and you are busted, Mr! And so I was, too! hehe

I guess I would need to start educating folks on when to use, and when NOT TO use "Reply to All"! I suppose I would start with something relatively easy: if in doubt, if you are really not sure about it, if you have got reservations about it all, DON’T send it! Or better, I could also go ahead and point folks to the very enlightening and educational article that Suw Charman-Anderson put together for The Guardian under the title "Breaking the e-mail Compulsion" and where a good friend of mine, Roo Reynolds, also gets a mention.

In that interesting and very relevant article you would be able to see how there has been some research done on the kind of impact that processing e-mails has got in our day to day productivity to the point where we seem to have gotten addicted to it & therefore waste precious amounts of time. I can certainly recommend you to have a go and read the article, because you are going to find it quite a fascinating read!

At the same time I am sure you would find very very entertaining the section "How to keep control of that runaway inbox", where you would be able to read about a good bunch of really helpful tips on how you can cut down on your own e-mail addiction and with very very simple steps. Most of which, if you ask me, are pretty much common sense. But, like I said, worth while a read, for sure.

Finally, and while I was putting together this blog post, I noticed how Suw also mentioned in her own blog a couple of comments on the article she published and towards the end she included a couple of related blog posts on this very same topic of cutting down on e-mail while at work: "Turning off email won’t help" and "Why e-mail is addictive (and what to do about it)" that I also found incredibly relevant. Specially the latter one.

There is very little I can say about each of them, other than encourage you all to have a look and go through them, as you would be able to relate to pretty much of the stuff that gets mentioned over there at the same time that you would find little precious gems like this one, taken from the second article referenced above:

"A final strategy, and one that is used in animal training to remove problem behaviours, is to reinforce an alternative, incompatible action. If you have a problem with your pet eagle landing on your head the most efficient way to stop it is to reward landing on a mat at your feet, rather than struggle with extinguishing head-landing. What this would mean in the context of email checking I will leave as an exercise to the reader."

Somehow, I feel that I may have gotten started myself cutting down on that e-mail addiction by reinforcing an alternative, incompatible? (Not sure just yet they would be incompatible, to be honest; still pondering about that one!) action. And so far it makes me feel incredibly productive and back in control of the flow of interactions at work, which, I guess, is the first step towards beating your own addiction: acknowledging it (Perhaps the hardest part, like for any other addiction), figuring out what’s wrong, finding that alternative, and taking it into action! And slowly, but steadily, start to move progressively away from e-mail as your preferred method for communicating, collaborating and sharing your knowledge!

What about you? Found the magic trick that would make it work for you? I would love to hear some stories on how you are moving away from e-mail and finally beating up that addiction for good? Want to share your story?

Tags: IBM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, e-mail, email, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Innovation, Productivity, Conversations, Progress Reports, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Collaboration 2.0, Communication, Re-purposing E-mail, No-Email, Addiction, Challenge Your Inbox, Reply to All, Suw Charman-Anderson, The Guardian, Roo Reynolds, Mind Hacks, E-mail Addiction, Solutions