If you have been following this blog for a little while now, you would know how Personal Knowledge Management, a.k.a. PKM, or Personal Knowledge Sharing (PKS), whichever term you would prefer to make use of, has always been one of my favourite topics to talk about and share some further insights over here and elsewhere. It’s been all along one of those areas that has always caught my attention since way back when I was first involved with KM in the late 90s. It’s one of those fascinating fields that has permeated successfully throughout time from traditional KM and into the world of Social Networking reaching a new level of awareness that surely makes it all worth while diving into, if you haven’t done so just yet. More than anything else, because, if anything, that interest will keep raising as time goes by! And here is why …

Managing knowledge is quite a daunting task; in fact, most people claim (I am one of them, too!) that it is almost impossible to manage it successfully. How can you manage what you yourself don’t know really that well after all? How can you manage what you are just not even aware you are knowledgeable about till you are confronted with it? How can you manage what you know till you eventually have a need for it to resurface again? Quite an interesting set of questions, don’t you think? So where does Personal Knowledge Management fit in then?

Well, indeed, it’s impossible to manage knowledge, even your own knowledge. However, knowledge workers can have a good chance to self manage some of that knowledge so that they can re-find and reuse it effectively and efficiently at a later time. There are a whole bunch of processes and traditional technologies that have been helping people try to figure out how they can have their own PKM strategy. And, lately, over the last few years, with the emergence of social software tools, that job of managing one’s own knowledge seems to have become much easier. Although perhaps still with plenty of room for improvement.

Either way, under that premise, and if you are interested in finding out plenty more how things like social bookmarking, Twitter, wikis, (social) tagging and even your blog! could help you get off to a great start with building your own PKM strategy, I bet you are going to enjoy the remaining of this blog entry… hehe

Earlier on today, I had the great pleasure, privilege and honour to invite my good friend and (P)KM extraordinaire, Harold Jarche, to spend a few minutes with one of the communities I co-lead inside IBM: BlueIQ Ambassadors (A bunch of enthusiastic and rather passionate folks around social networking, whose main mission is to help facilitate the adoption of social software within IBM … Yes, my daily job, too!). I eventually asked Harold whether he would be willing to talk and share some further insights around the topic of Personal Knowledge Management. One of the various passions that he has been talking about for quite some time now.

Of course, I was really excited when he agreed to participate in such virtual event, since I knew he was going to provide some really good conversations on the topic of PKM that would get lots of interesting and relevant dialogue on this subject. The expectations were rather high, but then again, if you already know Harold, he was up to the task and big time, exceeding all of them and delivering plenty more!! (With lots of attendees clapping virtually at the end of the session!). Absolutely wonderful!

And the great thing about this all is that in agreement with Harold we eventually managed to record both the audio and video of the virtual webcast and I am now more than happy to drop by over here and share with you folks a bunch of interesting and relevant links to that virtual event that I’m sure would make you think around PKM for a long while.

As a starting point, you could have a look into the essential, must-read article he put together on this subject under the title “A Personal Learning Journey“; from there onwards you could browse through his delicious PKM tags to then stop by this Slideshare presentation from where he grabbed a good number of slides for today’s event.

Once you have gone through that additional reading, it will get even more interesting, because you could actually check out the following couple of links, very much related to today’s event:

• Presentation Materials – Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) by Harold Jarche (BlueIQ Ambassadors)
• Audio & Video Recording – Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) by Harold Jarche (BlueIQ Ambassadors)

That’s right! Above, you would be able to find a link to the presentation that Harold used in PDF format and the second link is a streaming link that when clicking on it it will start playing the video recording of the session which will include the audio as well, so you will be hearing Harold, and a bunch of us!, commenting on PKM and what all the fuss is about

Of course, there are lots and lots of things that I could comment on with regards to the wonderful session that Harold did with us today, but I’m not going to do that right now. I would rather prefer you go and watch through it (Lasts for about 56 minutes, so get yourself comfortable first!) and then at a later time I will be putting together another blog post where I will share my two cents on what I learned from the event as well as I’ll put together some further insights on whether I share his PKM vision … or not.

For now, just to let you know that we have got much in common with both of our notions around PKM, to the point where his mantra Seek > Sense < Share is pretty much along the same lines of what I have been using myself for a long while now. But better get busy and start playing the recording itself to find out plenty more!

From here, just a very very special Thanks!! to Harold for being with us today and for doing a superb job in meeting up all of our expectations around the subject of Personal Knowledge Management and for sharing his insights, in-depth knowledge and expertise on that subject matter with us all! Wonderful stuff! Thanks ever so much, Harold!

What a blast!

Tags: Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, Personal Knowledge Sharing, PKS, Knowledge Management, KM, Collaboration, Knowledge Sharing, Learning, Education, Events, Virtual Events, Webcasts, Harold Jarche, BlueIQ, BlueIQ Ambassadors, Sense Making, Sharing, Seeking, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Connections, Productivity, Getting Things Done, Dropbox

I am sure you would agree with me that Social Computing, and, in particular, social software tools, still have got plenty of different challenges within the enterprise in order to provoke that massive cultural shift most of us have been looking forward to for a long while. One of those challenges has always been trying to accommodate the mobile workforce and provide something so relatively simple as offline capabilities from most of those social tools.

Yet, it is not happening as much as one would have hoped for, don’t you think? I mean, there are some Enterprise 2.0 Social Software applications out there that are starting to tap into the offline world. Alas, not as pervasively as what you would have hoped for. And that’s one of the main issues that most mobile knowledge workers have got right now as we speak with regards to their own adoption of social software in a corporate environment.

At IBM, where 50% of the workforce is mobile already, we are seeing this very same issue as well and the interesting thing is that more and more we are seeing how some of our various social software tools we are exposed to on a daily basis are making serious attempts to accommodate offline interactions. And the latest example is coming from one of my favourite social software tools: IBM’s Lotus Connections.

Actually, from one of the components I have started to rely very heavily on over the last couple of years: Dogear (Now graciously renamed Bookmarks after Lotus Connections v2.5 went GA). Check out "Bookmark Viewer for IBM Lotus Connections Dogear" by Hanspeter Jochmann, where you will be able to see how all of the bookmarks folks may have been storing in Dogear / Bookmarks can now be taken off into a Lotus Notes database that allows you to have a rich set of interactions, while working offline, and then synchronise them back to the server once you are connected again. Amazingly powerful! And something I was really looking forward to after having gone through some very bad experiences myself.

Remember Ma.gnolia? I was a big fan of it; I had several thousand bookmarks stored in it and was a rather heavy user all along… Till one day, I came to work, was on my way to bookmark a few sites and found out Ma.gnolia went through a server crash and LOST all of my bookmarks! Without a chance to provide a backup or anything. Just GONE! All of them! Ouch!! I thought I would have to re-create most of the work I put together in it, but lucky enough Dogear came to my rescue and allowed me to recover most of it.

Ever since that painful experience happened, I haven’t gotten outside and use any other social bookmarking site available out there. Not only because I haven’t been convinced that any of them would do what I would want them to do (Specially with the protection and backup of my own bookmarks!), but also because I don’t think I would feel comfortable going through that very same experience of losing my bookmarks once more, should they suffer from an irrecoverable server crash.

So I have decided to go internal and rely, almost exclusively, on Lotus Connections Bookmarks inside the firewall. And every now and then I synchronise them with my Dogear / Bookmarks over at ibm.com so that folks out there would have an opportunity to check the kinds of links that are of interest to me and that can be shared externally. For the internal ones, you know where they would go… hehe

Thus when Hanspeter shared this brilliant offline Bookmark Viewer for Dogear I just couldn’t help but giving it a try and all along to state I have been rather happy is probably an understament. It just works! My fellow colleague, and good friend, Luis Benitez, blogged about it and pointed out to a YouTube video that explains how that Notes database works:

And if you notice, it pretty much puts together that key concept of replication and "working offline" from traditional groupware tools into the space of social software, which, I am not sure what you would think, but I think it’s just pretty awesome! Best of both worlds in just a single application coming together nicely and allowing me to always be control of how I use it, whether I am connected or not. Just brilliant!

I just hope that plenty of other social software tools follow this very same trend, because otherwise we are going to continue missing out on a large chunk of the corporate workforce who are constantly on the road, disconnected, while at customers, and the last thing they would want to worry is try to figure out whether they can get connected to just bookmark a site. This Bookmark Viewer clearly shows the way it’s possible to accommodate those needs, because, after all, we all know what’s like being on the road without a live Internet connection, don’t you think?

(Oh, before I forget another special thanks to Hanspeter for helping make our lives much much easier with our own adoption of social software tools in combination with those other tools we have been using for a long while now! Talking about a nice, tight and smooth integration of the 1.0 and 2.0 worlds! Well done, Hanspeter! Thanks ever so much!)

Tags: IBM Lotus Connections, Lotus Connections, Connections, Bookmarks, Dogear, Social Bookmarking, Social Bookmarks, OpenNTF, Bookmark Viewer, Lotus Notes, Notes, Databases, Offline, Mobile Workforce, Workforce, Knowledge Workers, Mobility, IBM, Hanspeter Jochmann, Replication, Synchronisation, Ma.gnolia, Crashes, Data Protection, Data Ownership, Data Backup, ibm.com, Luis Benitez, YouTube, Videos, Screencasts, Groupware, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Productivity, Productivity Tips, Tips, Hints, Tricks, Hacks, Hacking

Continuing further with the weekly progress reports on my new mantra of giving up e-mail, as in corporate e-mail, here I am again with another progress report, this time for week 26, where, it looks like, things have gone back to normal a bit. Or so it seems. You would remember how, for week 25 I reached a new low with regards to the incoming count of e-mails received, as I have blogged about it a couple of days back. Well last week things settled back into what I have been getting used to for the last few weeks already. Here is the screen shot of the report:

Yes, indeed, back again into the 30 e-mails coming through during the course of week. Somehow, I am starting to get used to such number, more than anything else because it makes a round number of 6 e-mails a day approx. although I am still keen on lowering it down more and more perhaps to 10 to 15 a week! Thus the fight is still on. Let’s see how it goes further…

For today though, I would like to share with you folks a couple of links that I have bumped into or that some other folks have passed on and which I am sure you are going to enjoy quite a bit. The first link comes from Alan Lepofsky, former IBMer and very good friend, and who recently moved into SocialText, for those folks who may not be familiar with the huge piece of news that hit a couple of weeks back! Alan pointed me to this particular wild idea, which I think is very much spot on with regards to the kind of e-mail overload that plenty of folks can identify with: "Broken business processes contribute to our email overload".

In it you would be able to find some really really good gems like this particular paragraph for which I just couldn’t stop smiling while reading through it:

"Worse than the volume of email is the amount of mental energy required by each email recipient, ergo worker, to parse each exception and determine what to do with it. E-mail was once intended to increase productivity and has now become so voluminous it is counter productive. Basex determined that business loose $650 billion in productivity due to the unnecessary email interruptions. And, the average number of corporate emails sent and received per person per day expected to reach over 228 by 2010."

Indeed! Maybe that’s the problem we have been having all along. Maybe that’s where it all got started. Maybe it was down to use to complicate our own corporate existence by putting together whatever the various different business processes and then create exception after exception after exception to ensure we could all possible scenarios. And as a result of that we all went mad using e-mail all over the place to process those exceptions.

I can surely agree with the idea that business processes are the main culprit, perhaps, as to a large chunk of the e-mails we get on a daily basis and kind of wondering whether we may need to STOP, re-think things again and go back to K.I.S.S. Yes, keeping things simple, straightforward, brief, with not so many exceptions would probably help us improve the way we interact through e-mail. However, why not take things further into the next level? Why not re-think the model of engagement and move straight outside the Inbox and start re-building processes with a 2.0 flavour where perhaps openness and transparency would be part of the criteria behind them? What is it out there that may be stopping us from doing that?

I mean, we all know that most of the processes we work with throughout the course of the day are somehow broken, so why not fix them? Why not re-evaluate their validity, update them accordingly and start making use of social software tools within the enterprise. Wouldn’t it be quite something to, at least, give it a try? I am sure right from the beginning we would be able to see the benefits, like that former link / idea puts it nicely within the following quote:

"Socialtext has been building out business practice support using their customizable Enterprise 2.0 platform to return email back to its rightful place in the communication stratigraphy, which is not as the catch-all for exception handling. Their business social software makes the process more productive, reducing email by 30%."

If it sounds *so* easy, what’s stopping / preventing us from diving in and address those broken processes? Exactly! Nothing!

So what are we waiting for then? Are we just too lazy, or gotten to much used to dealing with the exceptions that we just don’t care in improving the way we work? I am not sure about you, but I refuse to think that is the case. So what is stopping us?!?

The second link is eventually a whole lot more fun, as well as educational and enlightening on what the possibilities are on moving away from the good old e-mail system(s) into a much more open and collaborative environment: in this case a wiki (This particular example coming from Socialtext as well).

The link is actually a screencast that Alan himself put together over here. It lasts a little bit over three minutes and it demonstrates how certain collaborative tasks, like gathering input, or brainstorming, can be better achieved through a wiki, which, in this particular case, taps into your regular e-mail. So those folks very keen on making use of e-mail, they still can. The rest can also then go into the specific wiki and see how they can each contribute into the overall effort.

Alan’s screencast is a very good example of how a wiki, Socialtext, in this case, can help you reduce, tremendously, the amount of e-mails you get on a daily basis as well as reducing your outbound e-mails to others. And if not, check out how easy it is:

After watching the screencast you would have to agree with me that most of the times it is not that difficult, right? It is probably just a matter of thinking outside the inbox and Alan just demonstrated it how easy it is …

Tags: IBM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, e-mail, email, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Innovation, Productivity, Openness, Transparency, Progress Reports, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Collaboration 2.0, Communication, E-mail Abuse, Visibility, Awareness, Think, Re-purposing E-Mail, Delegated Tasks, Education, Co-Working, Learning 2.0, Peer to Peer Learning, Screencasts, Wikis, Socialtext, Alan Leposky, Business Processes, Processes, E-mail Overload, Basex, Tutorials

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!

Tags: IBM, IBM Lotus Connections, Lotus Connections, Connections, Profiles, Communities, Weblogs, Dogear, Social Bookmarks, Activities, Activity Centric Computing, Lotus, Screencasts, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0

In the past, you would remember how there have been a number of times where I have been talking extensively over here about the upcoming release of an IBM product in the area of social computing for the Enterprise called Lotus Connections. I know as well plenty of folks have shown their interest in getting to know some more about this particular offering, since most of those different weblog entries that I have created thus far have been amongst the most visited over a short period of time. So with that in mind I thought it would be the perfect opportunity for me to bring things further into the next level.

Seeing Lotus Connections perform live! Yes, that is right! Instead of me telling you some more on what is actually behind such offering as far as talking on the subject of Profiles, Communities, Weblogs, Dogear (Social Bookmarks) and Activities, I think it would be a whole lot more beneficial if we would actually get to watch it live and check how each of the different components come together into a single unified collaborative and knowledge sharing experience.

Take a look then at the following demo that the IBM Lotus folks have been putting together:

• Lotus Connections.

It is a screencast that lasts for a bit over six minutes and in it you would be able to see how Connections actually works, which is probably as good as it gets. Because with that particular business end-user scenario you will be able to watch some of the very practical uses that this particular application has got to offer and how knowledge workers can benefit from it not only from the perspective of improving the way knowledge gets shared across but also how those same knowledge workers connect with one another to collaborate on getting the job done. And all of that without having to use multiple other tools in the process.

As you may be able to see from the Web site where the screencast is stored, you can watch the demo live or rather download it so that you can view it a later time offline. Whatever is easier for you. And also for those folks who may be looking for the script of the screencast you can also download it from here. 

Thus without much further ado and without taking too much time off from you for the demo itself, I would strongly encourage you all to take a look into the screencast on Lotus Connections and find out some more as to how IBM is planning to progress further into adopting social computing within the Enterprise and beyond. I bet that you will find it quite entertaining and enlightening. Because, above all, you will be able to see something very important and which may not be just related to Connections, nor to IBM itself: the fact that you can conduct effective business using social computing to address real customers issues and find solutions for them in the shortest time possible by empowering people to reach out for information and connect with other knowledge workers. Yes, that is right. Putting together the best of both worlds: knowledge and the people behind that knowledge. Can social computing get better than this? I doubt it.

Another step closer towards the final integration of social computing into the regular business processes that try to address customers’ real needs and act upon them. Excellent stuff! What social computing was ever meant to be!