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

On Holidays!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a good everyone and see you all soon!

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

Gran Canaria – Melonera’s Sunset

Today has been one of those days that, although there haven’t been too many meetings or conference calls, has been packed solid all along and without taking even a breath throughout! Phew! Yes, I know, one of those days. In particular there have been a couple of instances from different interactions, specially with tools!, that have been everything, but enjoyable (Including the fact that http://elsua.net has been down for some time earlier on today, still is a bit shaky, while I am checking things out with my Web hosting provider ). So I am really glad that is now all over and here I am, once again, sharing that weekly blog post giving you a glimpse of what it is like living in this gorgeous island of Gran Canaria.

But this time around I am going to be mentioning something else that I thought was really really cool and that I was rather excited about. As you well know, on this weekly series of blog posts about Gran Canaria I have developed the tendency to share both some pictures and short video clips of various places that have impressed me all along from this island and way at the beginning I was actually making use of DailyMotion to store those videos, well, it looks like things are going to change from here onwards.

No, I am not talking about stopping with the sharing of those videos. On the contrary, I am going to keep it going stronger than ever. For sure. What I am really going to start doing is making good use of the wonderful new feature that the fine folks of Flickr have put together. Yes, video!!!  How awesome is that? Right next to the good bunch of pictures I have been sharing all along I will now be able to add Flickr videos as well and share them as part of the same flow. Love it!

Yes, yes, I know that most people have been indicating how sharing videos in Flickr is a little bit limiting, since you can only upload videos which are 90 seconds long, but I tell you what, that’s just more than enough for me! In fact, most of the video clips I am planning on sharing will be that length anyway, so it makes perfect sense to place them together next to the pictures, don’t you think? And for those video clips longer that 90 seconds? -You may be asking, right? Well, I will continue to make use of DailyMotion, of course!

So let’s get the ball rolling then! Earlier on today I went ahead and shared a couple of short video clips in Flickr in almost no time, with a very user friendly interface and along the same lines of flow you get with sharing pictures and they are both part from a single series I created from one special place in my heart that gives me shivers every time I get to go there.

The name of the place is called Meloneras and is just on the very south of the island of Gran Canaria. It is one of those emergent touristy spots in the area where you will be able to find some of the finest hotels from the south of the island. Definitely, a good place to stay. For sure. However, what it also has is one of those stunning everlasting boulevards that would allow you to take long long walks along the coast enjoying quite some marvelous sunsets, both in winter and summer time! The most spectacular ones are the ones happening during the winter time when the sun sets across the Atlantic ocean. Just brilliant!

The funny thing is that I happen to live about 7 to 10 minute drive from there, so I get to go every now and then with the dog and spend one hour or one hour an a half unwinding from everything else and enjoying just one of those special places that only when you get there you realise the kind of beauty you are contemplating. I tell you, very few things can get better than that! And if not judge for yourself with these two videos I shared earlier on:

What did I say? It kind of makes you think you would want to be there, right? Well, that is just how I felt myself earlier on today a couple of times while I was struggling with a couple of tools. Perhaps next time I should just leave it and enjoy another one of those unforgettable sunsets @ Meloneras!

Want to join me?

Tags: Gran Canaria, Meloneras, Costa Meloneras, Sunsets, Daily Motion, Flickr, Flickr Video, Life, Life Work Balance, LWB, Tourism, Boulevard, Unwinding, Walks

What Did You Get for Christmas? I Got an Avatar from Far Far Away!

While James Dellow, over at ChiefTech has put together a really nice and well thought out blog post under The Potential for Enterprise Metaverses where he is actually exploring further the role of virtual worlds (i.e. Second Life) to enhance the overall business collaboration and eLearning experiences in the corporate world, and while Jasmin Tragas has put together an incredibly enlightening article on Avatar Affinity, here I am again revisiting the world of the metaverse. Yes, that is right. Even though I have been in Second Life for quite some time now, in the last few months I haven’t spent as much time as I should have, or could have.

Well, things may change from here onwards, folks. Now it seems to be a good time. I think it is time to revisit it again and continue exploring its full potential within a working environment to help improve the way we share our knowledge and collaborate with other knowledge workers across the border in this distributed world. But to me there is one other special reason why I am going to hang out much more in Second Life this year. And that is my current avatar elsua Gaea. Allow me to explain further.

Back on the 6th of January, and while over here we were celebrating the Three Kings or Three Wise Men, I got pinged by Jasmin Tragas saying that there was a lovely present awaiting for me in Second Life and that I should check it out shortly. And I did. Whooooaaahhhh! I got a lovely new outfit for my avatar, which lately was a little bit left behind. Of course, I had to try it out and lo and behold somehow my inspiration to keep on making use of Second Life re-gained its full energy and commitment. So much so that I already got a couple of community events piled up for the next few weeks and I will be participating as well in a couple of interviews around the subject of social computing!

Earlier on today I actually spent a few minutes with Jasmin hanging out together chatting about a few things around knowledge sharing, social software and collaboration. First time we ever hanged out together in Second Life and before we knew it we went further with a photo shooting session, then we played drums and before we knew it time flew, when you are having fun!

Here are some of the pictures we took:

So, if late last year I lost the connection with my avatar, something that for one reason or another may have happened, I guess that thanks to Jasmin I got it back, not only for her spot on article on Avatar Affinity, but also because she spent quite some time and effort in putting together a really cool outfit for my avatar without asking anything in return. There you have it, the power of social networking and connecting with other knowledge workers regardless wherever they may well be!

And then they may say that virtual worlds don’t help get people together and connect, well, they may need to think about it twice now!

Fancy hanging out in Second Life some time soon? … I am ready

(Thanks ever so much, Jazzydee Raymaker, for the lovely present! It is greatly appreciated!!!)

Tags: Second Life, Avatars, Jazzydee Raymaker, elsua Gaea, Jasmin Tragas, James Dellow, ChiefTech, Wonderwebby, Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, Social Computing, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Virtual Worlds, Metaverse, Affinity, Connections, eLearning, Remote Collaboration, Knowledge Management, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Fun, Play, Play at Work, Social Capital