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

Blog Talk Radio – Business Value of Social Networking with Mark Masterson and Luis Suarez

With meetings and activities galore happening at work right as we speak, and with the usual catchup of the daily routines in multiple social spaces, I think that today is going to be one of those days where blogging will be rather light, as opposed to keep sharing some additional insights on that topic that keeps coming up over and over again on Social Computing and business processes. So, you will have to excuse me for a minute till I get back into my usual swing of things. Or, alternatively, you could go ahead and join my good friend Mark Masterson and yours truly, later on today, at 3pm EDT – 8pm UK – 9pm CEDT, at the Blog Talk Radio show, with John Moore as our host, talking about the "Business Value of Social Media".

Yes, that’s right, later on today, in just a bit over an hour, both Mark and myself will be spending a few minutes with John talking about the business value of Social Software. I know, indeed, one of my favourite topics from all along: the good old ROI of Social Networking. Now, if you have been reading this blog for a while … you will know more or less what we will be talking about, but, in case you may not have, here is the link to the details of the show itself.

As you may have noticed already, Blog Talk Radio is one of those shows where folks can participate live and as such you would be able to join us as well by dialling in using this call-in number: (347) 324-3248. We would very much like to have you on today’s show and participate with us in, I am sure, what promises to be some pretty interesting and exciting conversations around business value of social computing, and, perhaps, even a bit of the little movement a bunch of us got started with a few days back: Hippies 2.0.

Who knows what else we would end up talking about… Either way, knowing the subjects both Mark and myself have been talking about for a little while now, you would realise that if you are into Social Computing in the Enterprise, you are in the right spot! So, come and join us later on today! And be ready to share your thoughts on what you think the business value of social networking is all about! Happy to engage in a, for certain, enlightening and insightful conversation where we will all learn a thing or two. For sure!

Can’t wait to be on the show already! And you? Will you join us as well? … We hope so!

See you there!

Tags: Blog Talk Radio, Podcasts, Podcasting, Radio Shows, Mark Masterson, John Moore, Business Value, ROI, Return On Investment, Hippies 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Productivity 2.0

The Sweettt Podcast – Episode 12 – Sources of Quality

Over the course of the last few months a bunch of folks have been asking us why The Sweettt Podcast, that weekly podcasting tertulia I used to co-host with my good friend, and fellow colleague, Matt Simpson, went into a dormant status and whether we would be picking things up again any time soon. So in the last few months we have been revisiting the opportunity to re-vive the podcast and after a few conversations here and there, we are very pleased to announce that The Sweettt Podcast is back!

Yes, that’s right! It’s been nearly a year ago since we published the last episode and during that period of absence both Matt and myself have been getting together on and off to check whether we would be ready to come back to it or not. And after a few conversations we have been having, we decided that we are just benefiting far too much from that dialogue, so we decided to re-vamp the show and get back to it, after the rather long hiatus, on a weekly basis, although perhaps with a few changes we hope folks would appreciate as well.

I am sure, at this point in time, if you were a regular listener of the podcast, you may be wondering what were the topics we discussed on our welcome back, right? Well, not going to reveal much of it for now, since you can start listening to (Or downloading) the podcast right away from here, but I will certainly share with you some of the highlights of what we tried to cover over the course of 1 hour 48 minutes:

1. Flaming excuses for not posting our discussions for the past year (bonus – clean the inside of your computer screen!)
2. The iPad experience, and what it takes to achieve quality (bonus – a cartoon!)
3. Web Filtering – pros, cons, goods, and evils
4. Employee happiness as a source of quality and productivity
5. And then… Luis turns into a Robot

As you may have noticed, we touched base on a whole bunch of topics going from some flaming excuses as to why it took us so long to come back, along with explaining a little bit the new format of the podcasting series; then we talked about some of the various different reasons as to why I can’t wait to get my hands on an 3G iPad to, finally, be able to ditch both my 3G iPhone and iPod Touch (Diving into what user experiences with mobile gadgets should be like, or would be like very very soon! </stop drooling>).

From there onwards we touched base on some pretty interesting topics we keep hearing, or reading about, out there on the Internet around Social Computing and how some businesses are starting (If not fully on board by now!) to introduce Web Filtering. We covered the pros, the cons, the good, the bad and the ugly of filtering or blocking content for knowledge Web workers and, eventually, we started off a conversation on what employee happiness means and whether the motto "Happy People Produce Quality" (From the first project team I was part of when I started working for my current employer IBM over 13 years ago) would still stand in today’s corporate reality or whether we should be focusing on something else.

Some pretty interesting conversations that would take most of the actual podcasting episode, till the very last few minutes, when my Skype connection decided to play funny and make me become an automaton, a robot, which is funny, because that’s the main conclusion I have reached over the years on the main dangers behind Web Filtering. Oh the irony of technology some times … !!

So we stopped recording at that point and I am sure we would be covering that very important topic, once again, in the near future. For now though we thought it was a good welcome back! and we are surely looking forward to the next one! Like I said, you would be able to listen to the episode directly from this link, or download it for later playback with this other link. Alternatively, if you are using an .MP3 mobile device you would be able to subscribe to our iTunes podcasting series link and grab that and other future podcasting episodes.

We hope you will enjoy The Sweettt Podcast, just as much as we do when we record the episode(s) live! And, remember, if you would want to participate in any of these episodes feel free to reach out and get in touch with Matt or with yours truly. We do certainly treasure having guests in our tertulias and we hope to see you soon again!

(Gosh, it’s *good* to be back! It’s been far too long …)

Tags: The Sweettt Podcast, Sweettt, Matthew Simpson, Matt Simpson, The Sweettt Tertulia, Modern Salon, Tertulia 2.0, 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, Conversations, Dialogue, Communities, Learning, Productivity, Flaming Excuses, Apple, iPad, User Experiences, Web Filtering, Filtering, Blocking Social Media, Blocking, Employee Happiness, Happy People Produce Quality, Automatons, Robots

Spark – CBC Radio – Full Interview: Luis Suarez Explains How to Quit Email

After a couple of rather long blog posts I think it is now a good time to probably go for a short one, don’t you think? A little bit of a breather; actually, I thought I would go and share with you folks a follow up blog post from one I did earlier on this week and which I would think you would find quite interesting, specially if you have been following my little project of living "A World Without Email".

Earlier on this week, you would remember how for the weekly progress report for week #29 I mentioned that later in the week, yesterday, to be more precise, I would actually be spending a few minutes doing a Skype interview with the wonderful Nora Young from CBC radio show Spark, where I would be talking much more in detail about how to give up on corporate email for good and how I have been doing it for the last 18 months and counting…

And it looks like the interview is now available at the CBC Spark blog under the following title: "Full Interview: Luis Suarez explains how to quit email". You will be able to listen to the podcasting episode directly from that blog post or you could download the MP3 from here.

It lasts for a little less than 28 minutes and in it we had a great conversation throughout where I started giving some background on why I begun with this initiative over 18 months ago; the consequences and key learnings over time; the kind of responses I have been receiving all along; where I would go further from here, and, perhaps the much more interesting part, which is the one where I share a few tips that would help out everyone out there, who may be interested, how to perhaps not give up on email altogether in favour of social software tools, but certainly how to reduce quite a bit of that email clutter we have probably gotten too used to and, instead, make good use of social software tools to share our knowledge and collaborate with other knowledge workers.

I must say that being interviewed by Nora was actually plenty of good fun, because we eventually managed to talk about a good number of things I didn’t touch base in the various blog posts I have done so far, or the numerous conference events I attended last year or the ones I have been involved in this year so far. I was surprised about that, because I thought I had said most of the stuff around this topic of giving up on corporate email already, but it looks like Nora just asked the perfect set of questions to help me share a different set of insights on what it has been like living without email at work for over a year and a half now and still going strong…

So, I am going to keep this post on the shorter side of things, and leave it over here for now. And if you would be interested in listening to the interview I did with the delightful Nora (We surely had plenty of good laughs, too, on common misuses of corporate email! Hilarious some of them!), you can head over to the original blog post Dan Misener put together, or, alternatively, you could download the .MP3 file from here.

Hope you enjoy listening to it, just as much as I did participating in it. It surely was a blast and I would want to take this opportunity to give a special thanks to Tony Burns, who made the introduction with Dan possible in the first place and to Nora & Dan himself for having me in their show! Thanks ever so much, guys! It was fantastic and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Tags: Tony Burns, Alumni, Dan Misener, CBC Spark, Spark, CBC Radio, Radio, Nora Young, Interviews, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, email, Productivity, Re-purposing Email, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload, A World Without Email, Diversifying, Fragmentation, Email Clutter, Reducing Email Clutter, Radio, Podcasts