She Will Always Be One Tweet Away…

Today, for the first time, in many many years that I have been working in IBM, something happened at work that made me go speechless! And those of you who know me in real life would agree with me how difficult that is. As you all know, this week I am mostly in Barcelona talking to different various customers on the topic of Enterprise 2.0 and social computing and therefore I have been so far a bit more disconnected than the usual home office time, but then again, all of a sudden and, in a split second that I go online with my Instant Messaging tool at IBM (Sametime) I get a whole bunch of IMs from people I work with asking me whether I have stopped crying after having heard the news…

And I thought … what?!?! What are you talking about? "You haven’t heard?" I get thrown back at me. "I haven’t heard what?" "Oh, you haven’t heard … Gia Lyons is moving into another job?" I went ahead and said … GREAT!!! "Outside IBM with Jive Software", I get thrown back again at me rather quick and off I go and shout out loud… "That’s just … (Insert your favourite bleep word here, please, hehe) AWESOME piece of news! The news of the year, for sure!"

Yes, that is right. Today I found out that one of those folks who I have always felt was rather special and unique, and still is! (Very much so!) is moving along into a new adventure and no other than with Jive Software, one of those companies that I have grown to have lots of respect for, and admiration for, the superb piece of work they are doing in the Enterprise 2.0 space helping break the barriers and hurdles the corporate culture has been putting together for a while now. Any company out there that is trying to do that and is successful deserves such admiration! For sure! And it’s got mine. For quite some time now, for sure!

So when I read the news that my good friend Gia Lyons was moving into such company as Jive I just couldn’t help, but being extremely happy for her, because I know she has made the right decision. I know Gia for several years now and I know what she is capable of ("Impossible" is one of those words that is not in her dictionary!). I do know as well that she is going to be thoroughly missed by a whole bunch of us sitting on the other side of the fence, but in my own personal case, and based on our own relationship throughout the years, both outside and inside of work, I am not too worried about it. Yes, she is gone from IBM; yes, she is no longer going to post to one of the most successful internal blogs there is right now; yes, I know she is not going to share quite openly all of her knowledge and various files she has been putting together behind the corporate firewall. And to be honest, I don’t care.

I cherish Gia dearly not because of what she has done for this company, and, believe me, she has done A LOT! But because of the various ways that she has been able to touch different people in multiple different ways, over and over and over again, starting with myself, leaving a mark behind that right now is almost just too painful to bear! Yes, indeed, she is that kind of special person. One that transpires pure genius on everything there is to know about Enterprise 2.0. One lively and unique personality that’s difficult to bump into in a lifetime. So contagious that just being around her you sense the energy & passion. Yes, that’s the word that would probably best describe her. And she is now going into a new adventure where that passion is going to come out even more! Whoooaaaahhhh!!!

Yes, I know I will miss her; yes, I know we will not be able to talk as much as we used to; yes, I know we may not be meeting in person as often as we did just recently (Still hope that we will be able to meet up at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston beginning of June); but today it is one of those days where I am very very grateful that we have got Twitter available, even if it has been rather flaky lately, because I do know that from now on, she is just going to be one tweet away…

Oh, and if you would want to get touched by her in multiple various ways as well that would make you think twice about the things you do in this space, check out her Internet blog over at Connected. She is just getting started with it for the last few weeks, but a good bunch of us have been privileged to get to know her from her internal one for several years now! Don’t miss your opportunity now…

If you ever get a chance to bump into her, stop her and get her to share some of that passion with you. It’s infectious, I am telling you, be warned, you will never be the same, like I am not the same person ever since I met her. Gia Lyons is one of those people I am extremely proud and honoured to have worked with. She has done so much for this whole social computing space that this particular blog post is already running short of words! So, yes, like I said earlier on … I … am … speechless … BUT in a WONDERFUL way!

Why? … Because She Will Always Be One Tweet Away…

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