I know that I am coming to this a little bit too late, specially after seeing all over the place the good bunch of folks who have already been talking about this particular topic I am going to talk about today. There has been an incredible amount of conversations already and to tap into each of them would take plenty of time, so I am going to skip through all of that and perhaps come back over the course of time and for now just spend a few minutes commenting on the original resource that originated all the buzz.

I have been drafting the blog post for this subject already and got so excited that I feel I am going to split it up in several parts with a link to each of them into this particular blog post. Too long, indeed, for a single post. So as you go along, come back to this one and find the links to the following blog posts so that you don’t miss out on any of them. Getting exposed to stuff like this podcast I am about to comment on is just priceless.

Yes, indeed, I am talking about the superb podcast put together by Jon Husband interviewing Dave Snowden on the Impact of Web 2.0 on Knowledge Management and knowledge workers. I realise that there is very little that I would need to add to describe the stunning piece of work that both Jon and Dave have done over the course of the years around the subject of Knowledge Management, but when Jon advised me the podcast was live I just couldn’t help bouncing up and down as I knew I was off to a wonderful trip down the memory lane on where KM was and where it is today with regards to social computing.

The podcast itself lasts for a bit over 30 minutes and it surely was really nice done. Very professional touch at the beginning and throughout the whole show. Notice though that at the time of putting together this blog post, the link to the Odeo episode does not seem to be working, so you will need to download the .mp3 temporarily from Dave’s Cognitive-Edge’s pages here. Hopefully, Jon would be able to fix the issue shortly. (Update 24-11-07): I just got pinged by Jon and he advised that the working link with the professional intro and the cleaned up interface can be downloaded from here. Thanks much, Jon, for the quick update and for sharing with us the corrected link! Greatly appreciated!

So far I have listened to it about three times and every time I listen to it again I learn something new. On top of that, and over the course of the last couple of weeks. I have been recommending it to plenty of folks to listen to it, if they would want to find out some more as to how social software is changing the knowledge sharing and collaboration landscapes and where we may be heading with things. And for now I am going to take this opportunity to share with you why I have enjoyed it quite a bit and why I keep recommending it to various different folks wanting to find out some more on the topic of KM and Web 2.0.

The podcast starts with a short introduction of who Dave is and what he does (His Cognitive-Edge blog would tell you that as well ) and right away it gets into the heart of the matter with Jon asking Dave what his thoughts are about Web 2.0, his definition of it and how it is shaping up the knowledge work taking place at the moment.

Dave comes to share how the main key differentiation from Web 2.0 versus traditional Knowledge Management from 10 years ago is how Social Computing tools "effectively self-assemble, self-organise and deal with informal connectivity learning", focusing more on the unstructured sharing of knowledge than on the structured one, which is what we have been exposed to so far for a good number of years . So in a way he mentions how if there is anything that works with social software is its immense power to connect people.

Now if you have been reading this blog for some time now you can probably imagine how glad I was to hear that. They say that content and tools are key, they say that processes are what rule our interactions and from what I can see, and Dave seems to confirm that as well, it is actually the people, and how they connect, what makes it all work together nicely and therefore the success from Web 2.0. So whoever was thinking that the focus should be on the tools and on the processes, probably should think about things again, because it is actually the nurturing of making those connections and empowering people to do so what actually matters in the Social Computing and Knowledge Management 2.0 space.

I actually agree with Dave 100% that if social software would have been available 10 years ago when KM was getting started, we would be talking now about a completely different story on knowledge sharing. It would certainly not have the negative reputation that we seem to still be suffering from at the moment. At the same time the focus would have been where it should have been all along and I suspect that if that would have been the case we probably even wouldn’t talk about Knowledge Management nowadays, but something else. Perhaps KM would not have survived till today in the way it was envisioned in the first place.

To be continued …

Tags: Jon Husband, Wirearchy, Dave Snowden, Cognitive Edge, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Social Computing, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration, Podcast, Podcasting,  Connections, People, Conversations, Self-Organisation, Learning, Knowledge Management 1.0, KM 1.0, KM 101, Knowledge Management 2.0, KM 2.0, Collaboration 2.0

I am sure that you would remember the blog post I created some time ago where I was referring to a recent presentation that my fellow IBM colleague, and good friend, Andy Piper, did on Social Media @ IBM. In that particular presentation he covered some of the stuff that is going in IBM sharing some further thoughts around some of the different social software tools that IBMers are making use of both inside and outside of the firewall. That presentation, which you can still get to go through in Slideshare, is just perhaps the perfect introduction to what I am about to share in this particular post.

For those folks out there who would want to know some more about the specific details as to how IBM did get started with social media, both inside and outside of the firewall, over four years ago, I would strongly suggest you check out the very insightful blog post put together by another IBMer, and good friend, too, George Faulkner: Social Media at IBM - Focus on Podcasting.

I know it is a rather long article, but in it George has detailed very thoroughly, and quite nicely, a lovely trip down the memory lane on how social media got started inside IBM in the first place four years ago; talking not only about the overall approach from IBM towards New Media, but also talking about some of the specific tools that we have been making use of all along. Examples like Blog Central or IBM’s Media Library, to name a couple; including as well some of the stats on their penetration in the corporate workspace. Very enlightening to say the least, specially for those folks who may want to know some more on the topic.

But things don’t stop there, because George himself has been very much involved (And still is, as a member of the Corporate New Media team) with Social Media himself. You may be remember a number of different podcasts that he hosted under the weekly podcast show ShortCuts or his involvement with IBM and The Future Of… series.

Finally, George has decided to jump into the Internet blogosphere with his own external blog (Blueprints - Podcasting and Social Media at IBM) and some of the different posts he has put together already would give you a strong sense of how he is living social software at the same time that you would get to read further on how IBM is continuing to spread the message about social computing with various different initiatives. George’s focus is on podcasting, as you may have noticed already, but I am sure that over the course of time you would be able to read some more on other stuff he has been involved with, along with his team, around the area of social software.

And that is the whole purpose of writing this blog post today. First to point you to a fantastic article he has put together under Social Media at IBM - Focus on Podcasting, but also sharing some link love with him and encourage you all to subscribe to his blog if you would want to find out some more on the IBM happenings behind social computing. There is a great chance that rather George may have blogged about some of the most interesting topics, and if not, I’ll be that he would be more than happy to accommodate any further queries folks may have around the subject of how IBM started embracing social media over 4 years ago and how it is progressing further in that massive adoption of new media within the corporate firewall!

Thus welcome to the Blogosphere, George! Yes, indeed, the waters are lovely! Glad to see you over here diving further on to the various different conversations! … Keep it up!

Tags: IBM, Andy Piper, Social Media, New Media, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Podcasting, Podcasts, Slideshare, George Faulkner, ShortCuts, IBM and the Future Of…, Blueprints, Link Love, Innovation, Collaboration, Communities, Knowledge Management, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, Learning

Tags: Podcasts, Podcasting, Taller de Podcasting, Podcasting Workshop, Cronicas de Esperantia, Mangas Verdes, Linotipo, Fran Saavedra, Canarias Bruta, Manuel Almeida, Victor Ruiz, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canarias, Pamela Systems, Skype, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Web 2.0, Knowledge Management, KM, Gestion de Conocimientos, Collaboration, Colaboración, Communities, Comunidades, eLearning, Educación

Sí, ya sé que vengo un poco tarde con el post sobre el I Taller de Podcasting de Canarias que tuvo lugar el 17 de marzo y que ya comenté en su momento, pero como lo prometido es deuda aquí tenéis una descripción de cómo fue el evento y de lo que aprendí durante las varias horas que estuvimos absorbiendo conocimientos, un montón, como dicen por aquí, del fascinante mundo del Podcasting.

Pero vamos por partes. Primero, hacer referencia a toda la gente que atendió el evento y que ya han creado sus respectivos artículos comentando cómo fue el evento. Segundo, por supuesto, las fotos del evento que podréis encontrar en Mangas Verdes, gracias a nuestro reporteros gráficos más dicharacheros: Manual Almeida (¡Vaya pedazo de cámara que se gasta el colega!) y Víctor Ruiz. Y luego, por supuesto, el agradecimiento a Octavio por haber habilitado la sala Luroa. En fin, un buen grupo de gente que se molesta y se preocupa, y mucho, porque todas estas tecnologías emergentes tengan su propio espacio en Canarias y los demás podamos explorarlas con comodidad y bastantes conocimientos para probarlas sin ningún tapujo. Vamos, de lujo.

Y, como siempre, lo mejor es siempre estar conectados y enchufados con los expertos en la materia con los que poder aprender bastante sobre el tema antes de lanzarse de lleno a explorar el medio. ¿No creéis? Y eso es prácticamente lo que hicimos los asistentes disfrutando de los conocimientos y consejos de gente que lleva mucho tiempo en esto del podcasting como Fran J. Saavedra, de Crónicas de Esperantia, o Charlie, Miguel y Pino del equipo de Canarias Burta. El evento en sí puede que no tuviera una altísima participación, pero lo cierto es que los que fuimos lo disfrutamos mucho, no sólo por lo didáctico del evento, sino porque parte del propósito fue también dar clases prácticas sobre lo que es el proceso de creación del podcasting y su correspondiente publicación en la red. ¡Increíblemente fascinante lo fácil que llega a ser una vez que te pones a la faena!

Y quizá fue éste el aspecto que más me llamó la atención y la que más me ayudó a dar ese empujoncito final para la creación de podcasts dentro de no mucho tiempo, la verdad. El gusanillo siempre ha estado ahí, desde luego, pero la charla por parte de Fran, Charlie y Miguel ha sido la que al final va a tener su fruto y me va a lanzar al mundo de los podcasts.

Como habréis podido ver si leéis este blog con regularidad, en el pasado ya he comentado cómo había participado en una serie de episodios con diferentes podcasters, pero siempre desde la perspectiva de invitado y nunca desde la perspectiva de productor de los diferentes episodios. Bueno, ¡pues eso va a cambiar y muy pronto!

Quizá ése sea el gran éxito del I Taller de Podcasting de Canarias. El hecho de que después del evento ya he empezado a poner las cosas en su sitio y estoy preparando el lanzamiento de mi propio podcast, que, por cierto, va a tener un poco de todo. En formato híbrido, haciendo podcasts tanto individuales como colaborativas, tanto en inglés como en español, tratando varios de los temas sobre los que ya llevo un buen tiempo comentando en los diferentes weblogs que mantengo: Gestión / Administración de Conocimientos, Colaboración, Comunidades, Educación y las Redes Sociales o el social computing.

Ahora sólo me quedan ultimar los detalles finales, como echar un vistazo a Pamela-Systems y en particular Pamela para Skype y decidir cuál es la mejor opción, y empezar a dar los primeros pasos. Habrá que ver cómo irá todo al final, pero lo cierto es que estoy bastante ilusionado con empezar ya que me va a permitir poder conocer a mucha gente que ya llevo leyendo durante bastante tiempo. Veremos a ver qué tal se nos da. De momento, agradecer, de nuevo, tanto a Fran, Charlie y Miguel, como a Octavio el haber organizado tal evento por primera vez en Canarias y que sepais que el gusanillo estaba ahí desde hacía tiempo, pero lo habéis despertado y con muchas ganas! ¡A por ellos! (Uy, perdón, ese último comentario pertenece a otro contexto )

Tags: Podcasts, Podcasting, Taller de Podcasting, Podcasting Workshop, Cronicas de Esperantia, Mangas Verdes, Linotipo, Atarecos, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canarias, Canarias Bruta

Sí, ya sé que llego un poco tarde a este pedazo de evento que se va a celebrar mañana en Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, durante la tarde / noche, pero más vale tarde que nunca, supongo . Probablemente, algunos de vosotros ya lo habréis leído en Crónicas de Esperantia, en Mangas Verdes, en Linotipo (Bienvenido de vuelta, Víctor!), en Atarecos, entre otros.

Efectivamente, mañana, a partir de las 4pm GMT empezará el I Taller de Podcasting de Canarias! ¡Fantástica noticia! Todos los detalles del programa los podréis leer de mano de Fran en Crónicas de Esperantia. Lo cierto es que, al leerlo, uno no puede nada más que comentar lo espectacular que va a ser el evento. Único, más bien, diría yo.

Aquí tenéis un fragmento para poneros un poco los dientes largos:

"Los podcasters canarios vamos a celebrar el próximo día 17 en la Galería de Arte Luroa a partir de las 16:00 horas el I Taller de Podcasting de Canarias con el que vamos a intentar acercar el maravilloso mundo del podcasting, sus posibilidades en todos los ámbitos y su funcionamiento a todas aquellas personas que quieran conocer algo más de una palabra que ya está sonando muy fuerte en los medios y que se le vaticina un futuro prometedor como herramienta de comunicación."

Por supuesto, que me voy a dejar caer por allí. Ya llevo algún tiempo involucrado en el mundo de los podcasts habiendo participado en unas cuantos episodios y la verdad es que me apetece mucho el poder ver un poco más del mundillo que los podcasts en cuanto a producción,  edición, herramientas y demás tema logístico.

Y encima de todo ello habrá algo que me parece de lo más interesante e intrigante:

"Durante el transcurso del taller estableceremos conexiones con podcasters de todo el mundo que participarán activamente en el taller a través del audio y de las herramientas gratuitas que usamos para interconectarnos."

¡Fantástico! Pues con poco más que añadir os invito a los que estéis por aquí que os dejéis caer por la Galería de Arte Luroa mañana a partir de eso de las 4pm GMT y allí nos veremos. ¡Por supuesto!

Y, por último, desde aquí simplemente dar las eternas gracias tanto a Fran como a Canarias Bruta por haber conseguido un programa espectacular y tan atractivo. ¡Seguro que se nos hará corto, como mínimo! ¡Allí nos vemos!

(For those of you who may not understand Spanish, the above text is a weblog entry that mentions the upcoming podcasting workshop that will be hosted, for the first time, tomorrow afternoon in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. If you are reading this and are in the area and want to know some more about the fascinating world of podcasting come and join us! We would be more than happy to have you with us!)

Tags: Twitter, Twittering, James Governor, Maggie Fox, Social Media Group, Social Media Collective, SMC, Podcasting, Podcasts, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Software, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 , Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Management 2.0, KM 2.0, elsua, Second Life, ITtoolbox, IBM, Jams, Innovation Jam

Oh My … I am still enjoying my Twitter addiction, got started with it yesterday and just cannot get enough of it! I never thought I would be having so much fun in such a short time! And I certainly agree with James Governor when he said earlier on how addictive it can get, because it actually is and pretty much so! However, this is not a weblog entry about my twitterings. I am actually working on an upcoming post where I am going to share an interesting review of why I feel that people should give it a try in order to help improve the quality of their existing social networks by combining their regular weblogging with some more micro-blogging. So stay tuned for some more…

The main reason why I am sharing this particular weblog entry with you folks is to actually point you to a recent podcast I have been doing with the ever so insightful Maggie Fox, over at Social Media Group, as part of the Social Media Collective podcasting series.

If you would remember, not long ago I created a weblog entry over here mentioning how just recently I joined the Social Media Collective. In that post I mentioned how one of the different initiatives that is going on within the group is a podcasting series conducted by Maggie and just a few minutes ago she has just published episode #5 where I am the guest speaker.

Over the course of nearly 29 minutes, you would be able to listen to some of the stuff that both Maggie and myself talked about around the subject of social computing, or social media, as she prefers to call it, and a whole bunch of other stuff. And just to give you a quick preview of that podcast episode here you have got the Show Notes:

"Luis is incredibly enthusiastic about social media (or “social computing” as the Europeans seem to like to call it). We talk about his three blogs (Elsua.net, The Knowledge Management Blog and his internal one at IBM), how he loves the fact that the Collective feed allows him to keep up with all his favourite bloggers in one place, how blogging helped him break his email addiction, his work at IBM helping companies build collaborative communities, how Knowledge Management has changed, the notion of the enterprise-wide “Knowledge Jam”, IBM’s perspective on and history in Second Life, social media vs. social computing, and empirical proof that all Spaniards hate celery."

Thus without any much further ado, go and have a listen. Hope you enjoyed it! And feel free to append any comment over here, over at the Social Media Today with Maggie Fox Web site or at Maggie’s weblog.

Thanks ever so much, Maggie, for giving me this opportunity to participate from the Social Media Collective podcast series! Way too much fun!

(Previously, on elsua - The Knowledge Management Blog at ITtoolbox)

Tags: Wikipatterns, Atlassian, Confluence, Wikis, IBM, ShortCuts, Podcasts, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Web2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Knowledge Management, KM, Communities, Patterns, Best Practices

Over the last few days I have actually been reading off my RSS feeds on a new offering put together by the folks over at Atlassian, the same guys behind the fine Confluence wiki engine, that I wish it would have been made available some time ago. Yes, that is right. I am talking about Wikipatterns that Stewart Mader has put together with his team and which he announced over at Introducing Wikipatterns.com a couple of days ago. What fantastic resource, indeed !

Reason why I mentioned above that I wish Wikipatterns would have been made available some time ago is because it would have been a really nice and handy resource that I would have been able to reuse for the several podcasting episodes I have been doing lately with my colleagues from ibm.com over at IBM Shortcuts around the subject of wikis and getting the most out of them.

Yes, that is right. I have mentioned this in the past, although over at my other Internet weblog. For the last couple of months I have been participating in the IBM ShortCuts podcast sharing a number of different tips on making the most out of social computing tools, and lately, have been talking a bit about wikis and how different teams and communities can make the most out of the whole experience.

And this is exactly why I would have loved Wikipatterns would have become available sooner so that I could leverage with some of the great stuff that has been shared over there. But what exactly is Wikipatterns you may be wondering, right? Well, it is, of course, a wiki page where a number of different patterns have been put together that detail how you can get the most out of wikis with the least effort possible. That is, with this particular offering you can read all about the dos and don’ts of participating in a wiki. What is good for the team or the community and, much more interesting, what is not that good for your team or your community when making use of a wiki.

However, what I really like about this particular Web site is the fact that for the first time there are a number of different roles identified from different wiki users. So by observing pretty close how the rest of your team is collaborating in such a shared space as a wiki you have got the opportunity to identify those "people patterns" or "people anti-patterns" and be able act upon them if you may need to. Not only from the perspective of helping find the most active and participative wiki collaborators, but also those other folks you would need to watch out and perhaps act upon them at some point in time.

Impressive, eh? You bet! I think that Wikipatterns is going to be one of those services that will prove incredibly useful for all of those businesses that are still struggling with the adoption of social computing within the enterprise as it would allow them to get the most out of the already existing collective knowledge and experiences put together by other knowledge workers who have been making use of wikis for quite some time already.

So Wikipatterns is the perfect Web site to point people to, who may be a bit skeptic about the whole thing of sharing knowledge and collaborating in an open environment where everyone is at the same level and encouraged to add content on top of each other’s content. Like I said, I wish this offering would have been made available several months ago because I would have been able to make use of it to convinced a few on why they may need a wiki, or not, instead of having to do it the hard way. Either way I am hoping that Wikipatterns continues to grow further showing, and demonstrating successfully, to people how wikis could become one of the most powerful collaborative and knowledge sharing environments to date.

And all of that, not to worry, without you having to worry about anything. Just leveraging on the already existing experiences from different knowledge workers. Way cool, eh? I now just wish I can find some time to help out and add some further content to it, because there more there is to it, the much better it would be for everyone else to learn how you can improve your own wiki experience. I already signed up (Only takes a couple of minutes!) and I am surely looking forward to find some spare time to add further up into it… How about you? Are you ready to share your best, or not so best, wiki experiences?

Let’s do it!