As time goes by, and we get to read more and more on the various benefits from making use of micro-blogging social software tools like Twitter, I thought I would share today a couple of comments on one particular blog post referencing one of those various benefits from such tools, and Twitter in particular, that surely is very powerful not only from a business perspective, but also from a personal / individual one.

Check out New on YouTube: Use Twitter in Emergencies! by David Stephenson (Over at Stephenson Strategies), where you would be able to find a very helpful vodcast from David where he is clearly demonstrating how micro-blogging applications like Twitter could be used, specially, in emergencies, and not just to carry on with that declarative living we all seem to enjoy quite a bit. Here you have some of the reasons David gets to mention that should really be an eye opener to most folks who may not see just yet the clear perks of making use of such online presence tools:

• "it demonstrates that a Web 2.0 application that’s in wide use, so many people are already familiar with it and wouldn’t have to learn it in a disaster, can easily switch to serving a totally different function in an emergency
• it solves a serious problem in a simple way
• it harnesses the power of existing social networks during a disaster.
• a few smart municipal agencies and relief agencies "get it", and are already capitalizing on Twitter for emergency communication
• even if other government agencies don’t catch on, we the people can use it ourselves, without permission or government support"

What is really good about David’s blog post and YouTube vodcast is the fact that he makes it so simple, yet so effective and efficient to use, that it is almost no brainer getting ready with it: Just sign up and spread the word around through your various social networks. And off you go. Ready to go on with that declarative living of yours and ready to face whatever the emergency and keep those who need to know informed about what is going on. Hopefully, you will never need to make use of such social software tools for such purposes, but, just in case, it will take you about a minute to set things up and sharing David’s vodcast with those who you think would benefit from it right away.

Still think that tools like Twitter do not provide any value to everyone out there? Regardless whether you are on to social software or not, incredibly helpful tips as the one David shared with us a little while ago, can only confirm the penetration that social computing tools can have not only within our day to day work within the Enterprise, but also with our own personal lives.

Here is the embedded version of the YouTube videocast:

(A massive thanks to David for putting together such a great blog post and an even better vodcast for all of us to re-use and keep spreading the word around! Thanks, David! Well done!

Special mention as well the wiki space that Nancy White and a few other folks have been using to build further up on How have you used twitter to collaborate?)

Tags: Twitter, Metablogging, Micro-Blogging, Blogging, Online Presence, Declarative Living, David Stephenson, Stephenson Strategies, Emergencies, Vodcasting, Vodcast, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration, Social Networks, Communities, Innovation, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, Knowledge Sharing, Knowledge Management, KM

Tags: IBM, Roo Reynolds, Meta Evangelist, Virtual Worlds, 3D Internet, Second Life, Metaverse, Serious Virtual Worlds 2007, Coventry, Dennis Howlett, Flickr, Last.fm, IBM Rocks, Darren Shaw, Daz, Twitter, Facebook, Slideshare, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Networks, Social Capital, Social Computing, Social Media, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Communities

During the course of yesterday, one of my fellow IBM colleagues, and very good friend, Roo Reynolds (One of the two Meta-evangelists at IBM), shared over at his blog a very interesting post, where he has gone ahead and shared the slide deck, with audio, that he has put together for the Serious Virtual Worlds 2007 conference event in Conventry, UK.

The title of his pitch was Virtual worlds for corporate collaboration and you would be able to read a whole lot more about it over at his above mentioned blog post. Dennis Howlett also makes a good mention of the slide deck. And I thought I would go ahead and share a link to it over here as well, if you would want to find out some more what social computing is all about and how it is impacting, big time!, the corporate world. For good.

In that presentation you would be able to see how Roo gets to mention a number of different Web 2.0 offerings and the kind of impact they are having in the business world, and, much more importantly, how you can get the most out of it by helping others embrace the tools you get to use on a daily basis. To start with, his entire presentation is reusing pictures from Flickr (Not a single bullet throughout!) bringing strong messages as to why social networking matters for our daily interactions as knowledge workers.

He gets to talk as well about Last.fm (A social software offering I am just about to re-acquaint myself with, specially now that I am starting to use the Mac much more heavily), IBM Rocks (A superb Last.fm mashup put together by one other colleague, Darren Shaw, a.k.a. Daz), Twitter  Facebook (Of course!), as perhaps some of the most powerful social software tools there are out there to help improve your social capital skills, by getting to know what people are busy with, at the same time you get to nurture the different social interactions, something that I have been mentioning over here as well, as one of the crucial aspects for a healthy collaborative experience within the workplace.

From there onwards Roo gets to detail some more on the stuff he is doing around the virtual worlds space, including Second Life and Metaverse, IBM’s own internal dive into the 3D Internet. What is great about the whole presentation from Roo is that he gets to detail how how he has adopted a number of different social computing tools to help him work smarter, not necessarily harder, and connect with those folks who he would closely collaborate very often. And he uses social software to get the job done. Just brilliant!

The Slideshare presentation, which, like I said, contains audio as well, lasts for about 29 minutes and I can certainly recommend it to everyone who is new to the subject of social software and social computing as a very nice intro to the overall topic of how social networking tools are changing the corporate landscape. And for all of the good reasons.

Thus if you haven’t checked it out just yet, by all means, go and have a look into the audio and slide deck or just start watching it through from the embedded link I have included below:

(Great show, Roo! Thanks much for sharing it with us and for showing us that social software is not as difficult, nor complicated, as some people seem to think!)

Tags: Mac, MacBook Pro, Apple, Dennis Howlett, AccMan, Simplicity, Productivity Tools, iLife, iLife08, Picasa, ecto, Qumana, endo, Omea Pro, Omea, iWork, iWork08, Lotus Notes, Lotus Notes 8, Notes 8, IBM, IBM Productivity Tools, Camtasia, Screencasts, iShowU, Web Standards

A couple of days ago Dennis Howlett commented over at his blog AccMan on a recent post I created myself over here myself where I was mentioning how it was finally about time that I joined the Mac side and he was not surprised that I have made the move a few days back already and so far I am really enjoying the Mac experience. Certainly, to the point of not going back any time soon! And how spot on he is!

Yes, that is right! So far I am really enjoying the experience quite a bit. There certainly has been a bit of a learning curve, I am not going to deny that, but once you are over it, you come to appreciate one single aspect that I didn’t think of for quite some time while I was making use of different Windows machines: simplicity! That is probably how I could describe the last few days of working with my MacBook Pro: getting the job done with a lot less hassle and without having to figure much out! Good stuff, indeed!

However, over the course of those few days that I have started to make heavy use of my MacBook Pro I have found out that there is a price associated with it. And I am not just talking about how pricey the overall machine is (A whole lot more expensive than most notebooks and laptops out there!), but talking about the software applications available for it.

One of the things that I have come to notice is the fact that most of the applications I am heavily using on a Windows environment are not available for free on the Mac. On the contrary, they cost money and they aren’t cheap! That is how I have found out that I need to upgrade to iLife08 by paying a fee, if I would want to have a similar experience to Picasa (My favourite default app. for managing large amounts of photos). Or how I would need to pay for ecto, if I would want to have an offline blogging experience similar to Qumana, if not better. Or how I would need to pay for another tool called endo, if I would want to have an aggregator I could remotely compare to Omea Pro, my default offline RSS / Atom feed reader.

And all of that without even considering iWork08, which I am not sure I will be going for in the end, since I am anxiously awaiting in anticipation for the GA release of Lotus Notes 8, which includes the super fine IBM Productivity Tools that I am currently making heavy use of in my Windows machine. But more on that later, when I get to detail how I am successfully transitioning most of my work apps. into the Mac environment and enjoying every minute of it!

However, one of the major disappointments that I have been confronted with so far is one application that I make use of rather heavily in the Windows environment and which, apparently, hasn’t got a Mac version for it: Camtasia. Yes, that is right, I make use of it to create screencasts and I have been told that not only isn’t there a Mac version for it, but the only capable option offering similar functionality is iShowU, for which I would also need to pay a license fee (Thank goodness it is not as expensive as Camtasia’s is!).

And that is just some of what I am seeing at the moment while I am starting to consolidate my list of essential tools that I keep using in Windows and which I would love to make use of in the Mac. Well, it looks like I may need to adapt myself to the new needs and continue to pay for some expensive software, and hope that tool developers would think once and for all that to create a state of the art application for everyone to use you need to figure it out and make it OS independent, pretty much like in the Web you focus on creating applications that follow Web standards, instead of being browser dependent.

Thus yes, it is a completely new experience and one I am probably not going to walk back from any time soon, as I have mentioned above already, but I am hoping that over the next few days I will be creating a number of different weblog posts on how I have made of my MBP my default work machine without having to pay much more money for it, specially for the software. Thus stay tuned for some more to come, because I feel it is going to be a fun ride and if you have got some hot tips you would want to share with me from your experience … I am all ears

How many times have you tried to convince people about the business value of social software in the enterprise and failed in the attempt? How many times have you tried to describe different social computing terms to different folks and never managed to get the message across successfully? How many times did you wish you had an elevator pitch ready to explain different social networking concepts? Too many, I am sure, like most of us.

Well, here is something for you that you may find interesting and very very relevant to your job of evangelising on social software. I surely do find it incredibly re-energising! It is actually coming from Sachi and Lee LeFever, from Commoncraft, and it is a super fine series of very short video clips with some compelling messages describing some key concepts of social computing itself.

There are four videos put together not lasting for more than five minutes each and if there is anything that I can say about them all is that they are very educational and enlightening at the same time that they are really good fun to watch. What else could you expect from Commoncraft than getting to know about these important Web 2.0 terms and have plenty of  good fun in the process. And taking just a few minutes, which would make them perfect candidates for your elevator pitch!

I am surely going to be re-using these video clips all over the place hoping to continue spreading the message all over, so that even those folks who may not be that technical would have the perfect opportunity to get to know about some of these concepts. I just wished the clips would have come out a lot earlier, as I am certain they would have saved us all plenty of time explaining some of the basics and get everyone on board right away. That is just how *good* they all are!

I am not planning on expanding further much more on this, so I think we better get going with them. That way you would have an opportunity to enjoy them just as much as I did. They are just terrific and if not check out as well the different links I will be sharing below from different folks who have been promoting these very same videos. Excellent stuff!

- RSS in Plain English (3′ 43′’ and referenced already by other folks such as Social Media Club, Nancy White, Jack Vinson, Anol Bhattacharya, Joitske Hulsebosch, Miguel Cornejo Castro, Chris Collison, Dan Keldsen, George Siemens, etc.):

- Wikis in Plain English (3′ 52′’ and referenced by George Siemens, Anol Bhattacharya, Beth Kanter, Shel Holtz, Rex Lee, Joitske Hulsebosch, Rich Hoeg, Chris Collison, Dan Keldsen -Highly recommended reading, by the way, from Dan on the topic of Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 and some of the basics):

- Social Networking in Plain English (1′47′’ and referenced by George Siemens, Chris Collison, Chris Fletcher, Joitske Hulsebosch):

- Social Bookmarking in Plain English - demonstrating del.icio.us (3′25′’ and referenced by a whole bunch of people. Amongst others: George Siemens, Chris Fletcher, Beth Kanter, Techmeme, Nancy White, Mashable, Jeremiah Owyang, Shel Holtz, Anol Bhattacharya, Craig Cmehil, Martin Koser and Robin Good with a superb overview over here):

Thus there you have it. Four gems that will get re-visited over and over and over again in order to provide a clear guidance on how to learn quickly and effectively four different key concepts around the subject of social computing and social software. Thanks ever so much, Sachi and Lee, for putting together these fine video clips and for making our lives a whole lot easier after sharing them! Well done!

(Oh and if you are having difficulties trying to differentiate blogs from message boards here is a bonus link from Commoncraft as well that explains the main differences quite nicely! Good stuff!)

Tags: Social Software, Social Media, Social Computing, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Commoncraft, RSS, Syndication, Social Bookmarking, Social Media Club, Nancy White, Jack Vinson, Anol Bhattacharya, Joitske Hulsebosch, Miguel Cornejo Castro, Chris Collison, George Siemens, Beth Kanter, Shel Holtz, Rex Lee, Joitske Hulsebosch, Rich Hoeg, Dan Keldsen, Chris Fletcher, Techmeme, Mashable, Jeremiah Owyang, Craig Cmehil, Martin Koser, Robin Good, Wikis, Plain English, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Collaboration, Communities

Tags: IBM, Connections, Quickr, Lotus Connections, Lotus Quickr, Lotus Notes 8, Notes 8, Groupware, Screencasts, Demos, e-mail, Calendaring and Scheduling, Instant Messaging, Activity Centric Computing, Composite Applications, Mashups, Syndication, Newsfeeds, RSS, Atom, Integration, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration

It looks like the last couple of days I have just been posting about particular screencasts that have become available regarding IBM offerings that are in the pipeline to go live some time during the course of this year and which touch the realm of knowledge sharing and collaboration. So far I have been posting about Lotus Connections, then Lotus Quickr and it looks like I may well have one more for you. At least, for now. This time around on another offering that I have been making use of myself for a number of months and which some of you may find interesting as well, specially since it is something that I have covered over here already in the past and which I mentioned I would be digging into it further some more.

Yes, I am talking about the next version of Lotus Notes 8, currently in beta 2, and which will go live some time during the course of this year. Not far from where we are today, actually. Going along with the previously mentioned screencasts on Connections and Quickr here you have got another screencast on the subject of Lotus Notes 8. It lasts for a bit under six minutes. And pretty much like with the other two, you can download the demo directly from here or get a copy of the script over here as well. It is one of those demos that I would certainly recommend to all those folks out there who would want to see the word groupware reinvented, once again. Whether you like the application or not, this particular screencast will show you what Notes 8 has got to offer. Lots of things, you would agree with me, but if there is anything clear coming out of it is the fact that it is no longer just that e-mail client that people seem to have learned to love or hate.

It will be a whole lot more than that. Yes, it would allow you to still process and work with your mail, and implementing a lovely set of features for that, too, by the way, but the key thing is how Notes 8 is going to extend its reach into other areas to encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration both in a synchronous and asynchronous fashion.

In this particular demo you would then be able to find out a whole lot more about how the new Lotus Notes integrates plenty improved e-mail, calendaring & scheduling capabilities along with Instant Messaging, next to Activity Centric Computing and Composite Applications. Features like improved threaded discussion follow up, side preview, recalling messages that have been sent out already, etc. are now put together with sidebar applications, like Lotus Sametime 7.5.1, Activity Centric Computing, Quickr Content Libraries or a customised RSS / Atom feed client that you can use to subscribe to your favourite feeds.

You would also be able to see from that screencast how Lotus Notes 8 provides an enhanced calendaring feature that, if anything, will be noticed for its compatibility with other popular Internet calendaring formats. From there onwards, you would also be able to check how the Address Book has been improved tremendously with business cards where you can see the pictures of your contacts along with some key basic data, making it a lot easier to remember who you have worked with in the recent past.

And from there onwards we go into the most exciting part of the demo itself which is basically talking about Composite Applications, also known as mashups, and how Notes 8 is actually going to introduce them as part of the client itself. In this particular demo you would be able to see a concrete example of one mashup and how it has been put together into the Notes 8 client itself. This is certainly going to be one of the most popular features from this offering as it would allow end-users to create their own mashups within Notes and share them with whoever else in the project teams. And all of that without having to make use of any other application. Pretty nifty.

Finally, the screencast finishes off sharing some further details on how you can also access Office applications like a word processor, a spreadsheet and a presentation to be able not only to create your own Office documents, but also to process a wide range of files you may be receiving in your Inbox from other knowledge workers. And again without having to leave the Notes client. All of them are nicely put together into a single seamless experience. Quite handy, if you ask me, don’t you think?

So, there you go. The last weblog post on screencasts demoing IBM tools that I will be doing for a while and which touch base on the next generation of Lotus Notes, Notes 8, which is probably going to differentiate itself from its former predecessors as the one client that puts together traditional communication tools like e-mail and calendaring along with several other social computing components, like RSS / Atom feeds syndication, Activities, Quickr, Composite Applications and Lotus Sametime 7.5.1.

Not too bad for just another e-mail client…

Tags: IBM, Lotus, Lotus Connections, Connections, Lotus Sametime 7.5.1, Sametime 7.5.1, Lotus Notes, Lotus Notes 8, Notes 8, Lotus Quickr, Quickr, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Software, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Content Management, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Collaboration, Communities, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, Quickr Personal Edition, Quickr Standard Edition, Quickr Templates, Windows Explorer, Microsoft Office, Screencasts, Demos, Weblogs, Wikis, Syndication, Newsfeeds, Innovation

There have been a number of different weblog posts that I have been sharing over here and which have been dealing with some of IBM’s latest offerings in the space of social computing for the enterprise. So thus far I have been talking a few times about the upcoming Lotus Connections, Lotus Sametime 7.5.1 or even the upcoming Lotus Notes 8, which also introduces some more social software components that I may be able to detail some more as time goes by. However, it looks like lately I am actually sharing some further details based on different screencasts that are coming out and which I think are a whole lot more compelling than myself detailing how they actually work.

That was the case with the recent weblog entry I shared about the latest IBM Lotus Connections screencast a few days ago and which, to date, has been one of the most popular weblog entries in here in the last few weeks. So I guess there is an interest in finding out some more. Well, it gets better, folks. Because today I am actually going to talk about another screencast that has just been published, but this time around not about Connections any longer, but about one of the most powerful collaboration, knowledge sharing and content management tools that may be out there available to knowledge workers. Yes, I am talking about IBM Lotus Quickr.

Why am I am saying that this particular offering could well be the next killer app.? Well, because, amongst many other things, it is an offering that tries to combine both the best from traditional content management with some of the latest emerging technologies, like wikis, weblogs, content syndication, etc. etc. And all of that taking place from a single point of entry: your Quickr space.

Let’s have a look into it with this particular screencast I mentioned above and which has now become available for everyone to play directly from the Web or downloading it to your own machine for later viewing. There is also an additional script you can download if you wish to.

In that particular screencast, that lasts for a bit under five minutes, you would be able to check how Lotus Quickr is actually going to provide a Personal Edition for managing your own content, your own knowledge, in a seamless way and empowering you to share that same content (Or not), including rich media, with other knowledge workers through a wide range of options.

On top of that, and perhaps one of the most interesting features that Lotus Quickr is going to put together is actually what has been called Connectors. Connectors would allow you seamless access to content from other popular business applications:

• Windows Explorer: by right clicking on a file and selecting Check Out and / or Dogear options
• Microsoft Office applications: i.e. Excel, Word, PowerPoint, through the Actions Menu and where the Check Out option is also readily available.
• IBM Lotus Sametime 7.5.1: Through the usage of a plugin that connects with the Quickr content libraries and which you can interact with by collaborating with other knowledge workers in a real-time fashion discussing specific files that have been shared across along with the original invite to chat. Pretty impressive if you would want to discuss a document straight up front without having to go ahead and send it across.
• And, finally, IBM Lotus Notes 8: Through that popular sidebar we have seen in the past and with which you can drag and drop attachments in new e-mails or just send the links to keep your mail box under control, but still having access to the documents right when you need it. Oh, and here is another cool thing. Lotus Quickr would also allow you to detach attachments from your Notes mails into the Quickr content library space so you can keep your mail box under control as well with not so much clutter. A huge time saver if you are one of those who needs to keep things as tidy as possible within your e-mail.

In this particular screencast you would be able to see as well how the Standard Edition is actually going to provide an additional set of Templates that people can work with further. In this demo you would be able to listen to the customising of the Innovation Place template where it is showing some of the social computing elements that I mentioned earlier on, and which makes Quickr rather attractive as it puts together wikis under the Idea Development area or Team Blog that would help team members share information faster and much more effectively and, finally, the Innovation News to receive newsfeeds from other external resources related to whatever has been discussed in that particular space.

And that is just an example of one single template. There are many more, depending on the needs of the tasks at hand. So that is also going to make it a rather interesting option on its own, i.e. the fact that you can work with multiple different templates based on what you are trying to achieve. Yes, that is right, power to the knowledge worker, as they would be able to define how they would want to work and what kind of customisation you would be going ahead for your team or for your community. Not bad at all!

Thus, if you would want to have a quick look at what IBM is doing around the area of merging both traditional content management capabilities with a richer end-user experience putting together some other popular social software components I would strongly encourage you to watch this under five minute screencast, because there is a great chance that it may well be just what you were looking for. I, for sure, would be looking forward to the Personal Edition becoming available later on this year as I bet it will probably become my latest Personal Knowledge Management tool and perhaps the one I will be sticking around with for a while. But that would be the time for another series of weblog posts, I am sure, thus stay tuned!