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

Smart Work for a Smarter Planet. I’m an IBMer, Too!

I am pretty sure that by now you may have heard / read plenty about the great things that are happening in Las Vegas at IBM’s Impact 2009 event. Lots and lots of really interesting nuggets and knowledge snippets are coming through from various different places. However, there was one in particular that caught my attention earlier on today, when I bumped into it, since it reminded me very clearly of a recent blog post I put together under the title “Why I’m an IBMer“.

Yes, it is another interesting and enlightening video clip, in this case, spread around by my good friend, and fellow IBM colleague, Andy Piper’s “Smart Work for a Smarter Planet. I’m an IBMer“, and which comes to reflect on the power of social networking and how it will shape our business relationships in the corporate world in the near future or right as we speak already for that matter!

The YouTube video lasts for nearly two minutes and it surely is a treat to go through. There are lots of very relevant tidbits on the topic of A Smarter Planet and how we, knowledge workers of the current knowledge economy we are engaging with, need to smarten up in order to get done more with less effort, i.e. keep improving our own productivity. In sort, work smarter, not necessarily harder… Does it ring a bell? (heh)

So I thought I would spend a few minutes today sharing that video clip with you folks over here. That way you can have a look on why I decided to chose the title of this blog post as what it is showing right now and why I’m still sold on the idea that social computing is going to change the business world as we know it by making it smaller, more human, more participative, less hierarchical, more authentic, more transparent and trustworthy. In short, the Enterprise of the Future!

Yes, indeed, I’m an IBMer, too!

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Trust, Smarter Planet, SmarterPlanet, Kool-Aid, IMPACT, IMPACT 2009, IBMIMPACT, Andy Piper, Work Smarter, Enterprise of the Future

The Machine Is Us/ing Us – Transcending the Web

As you may have noticed, over the last few days I haven’t been blogging much over here in this blog, mainly due to lots of things happening while at work (Some of which I am hoping to be able to share plenty more about over the next few days…, specially since it deals mostly with adoption of these new tools), but at the same time mostly because I have been taking a break from various social networking activities to reflect on how I would want to pursue further my own adoption of social software.

No, I am not going away any time soon, nor quitting any of the already existing social tools I have been using for a while. What I have been doing lately is giving it some further thought on how I would want to spend my time not only exploring social computing within the enterprise, but also how I could help spread the message around with its wider adoption. Once again, I sensed how I was starting to spread thinner than what I would have hoped for and therefore it was time to re-group again and think about how I would want to make continued used of these social tools.

I am sure over time I will be able to share with you folks my new approach towards some of the tools I have been using for a while; some of them rather surprising, and a couple of them rather thought-provoking (Like my continued use of Twitter, for instance), but for now I just wanted to let folks know that I am back to my usual regular blogging activities with plenty of really cool stuff to share with you all.

Starting with a YouTube video which, to me, represents something I have been mentioning as far back as 2002 with regards to what Web 2.0 is all about and what it means for us, not just as Internet end-users, but more as a modern, post-industrial society overall: it has never been (Nor will it be … ever) about the tools themselves, but it will continue to be all about us, as humans, most capable of transcending the Web and allowing us to change ourselves on not only who we are, but also what we do and live for in the current times…

Remember the wonderful video clip The Machine is Us/ing Us, that I blogged about a little while ago, that Michael Wesch put together and that changed our views on what the Web 2.0 movement was all about, well, check out The Machine is Us/ing Us – Dance Mix (And which Michael also referenced under the title “The Machine is Us/ing Us – Dance Mix“) where you can clearly see what I meant with Web 2.0 transcending the Web…

It is one of those YouTube videos that will surely give you goose bumps (It surely did to me and managed to bring me back to life as far as my blogging activities are concerned) and will remain a strong reminder for us all that Web 2.0 and social software, for that matter, are not just about the tools, quite the contrary, it’s all about us, our Internet culture, our ability to experience the Web in ways we never thought we could, mainly by reaching out and connecting with other people, to, in the end, help each and everyone of us make a difference!

What a performance!

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Web 2.0, Culture, Society, Humanity, Internet, Web, Dance, Ballet, Transcending the Web, Machine Is Us/ing Us, Michael Wesch, YouTube, Performances, Inspiration

Identity Management on Facebook by Josh Scribner

I guess it is inevitable, right? I suppose there is no way to stop it, either; perhaps it shouldn’t be after all. Who knows… We all probably realise though that the usage of Facebook as one of the most powerful social networking environments out there will continue to soar even more rapidly than right now, where it was just mentioned a couple of weeks back how it reached over 200 million users, as months go by and more and more people get exposed to social software in general. Yes, like I said, it is probably inevitable.

However, what most folks can do, but may not have realised about it just yet, is the fact you can establish, and control, how you would want to interact with it, specially if you are in the need of separating both your personal and your business interactions, because, as we all know, sometimes some things should remain just that: private.

So what can you do to tailor your own Facebook interactions to suit the various different groups you connect with in that social network, so that not only you can make sense out it, but also those personal and business connections you have in such powerful networking environment? I know that plenty of times folks have been talking about how you can protect your own privacy while using Facebook extensively. I could go ahead and share with you all some tips on how you can get things going, and start protecting some of those conversations, if you haven’t done so thus far.

Nonetheless, I am actually going to do something much better than that. If you need to take a closer look again in how you manage your identity in such social network so that you can split up interactions and define multiple levels of visibility, walk no further than a recent presentation that one of my team colleagues has put together and shared across in Slideshare.

Check out Identity Management for IBMers on Facebook by Josh Scribner. This is a slide deck that provides plenty of great tips on how you manage, and still make sense, of your identity in Facebook. It provides plenty of background on why we, end-users, need to watch out for what we share, how we share and with whom we share it. Because you never know how and where those interactions will turn up. Pretty much common sense, I can assure you all, but still plenty of sound advice on how you can improve your overall exposure to such social networking tool. Thus without much further ado, here you have got the embedded version, so you can take a look and judge whether it may be a good time now, or not, to re-evaluate how you are making good use of Facebook, both from a personal and business perspective. Worth while taking a look into Josh’s deck to get things going, for sure.

(A special thanks to Josh for sharing that lovely slide deck outside of the company’s firewall, so that other folks out there would be able to benefit as well from such nifty, and useful, presentation! Well done, Josh! And thanks for sharing!)

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Facebook, Privacy, Identity, Identity 2.0, Identity Management, Business Relationships, Personal Relationships, Josh Scribner, Slideshare, Presentations, Stream, Life Stream, Declarative Living