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

Twitter and the Power of Micro-Blogging in Emergencies

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

“Virtual Worlds for Corporate Collaboration” by Roo Reynolds

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!)

Finally Joining the *Expensive* Mac Side!

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