Ranthambore is my favourite park.", Gaurav reminded me as I spoke to him on the phone. Gaurav Athelye's a friend and runs Jungle Lore - a wildlife tourism outfit. He'd suggested to me that I should definitely visit Ranthambore and promised to help us organise the visit. Our big cat trail landed at the town of Jaipur on 4 May. A harrowingly long drive got us to the town of Sawai Madhopur, where we'd camp for the next two days for four drives into the forest.Our hotel, the Hammir wasn't exactly in the lap of luxury. The fact that the AC wasn't working in the extreme heat when we arrived wasn't very comforting. That said, the hotel manager is quite willing to help guests out and help he did. I'd definitely recommend the hotel if you're backpacking and are looking for budget accommodation. I'm inclined to try the RTDC hotels or the Ranthambore Bagh the next time I go there, but I wouldn't recommend against the Hammir.Our first drive was in the absolutely picture postcard - Zone 3. Mind you, Ranthambore is a huge forest (1400+ sq km), but the tiger reserve itself is only 392 sq km. To ensure minimal disruption to wildlife, the reserve is divided into 6 zones and the officials are quite strict to ensure that vehicles don't cross over. Zone 3 is truly a wildlifer's dream - we didn't see a tiger (clearly), but the quality of wildlife and bird sightings were to write home about. The zone's centerpiece, the Rajbaug lake attracts birds and animals alike. You could sit by it's edge for hours and never tire of the sight. Our drive ended with a sighting of T-28 (a.k.a the 'Star Male') in deep sleep at the hunting palace in the distance. Disappointing drive for tiger sightings, but full marks for everything else.Our next drive was in Zone 2. Yet again pretty good bird sightings, but nothing out of the ordinary with mammals. Well, let me be fair. For a long time we kept listening to chitals, peacocks and sambars screaming their lungs off with warning calls. After an hour of investigation, we decided to probe further at a bush which we suspected was hosting a tiger. Our driver reversed the jeep into position. Saad, our naturalist cried out "Tiger!". Excited as we were, we squinted but couldn't see a thing. After much pointing and gesturing, we saw the stripes of a tiger as testimony. No, we weren't hallucinating. I have a photograph to prove it. Our second drive had gone by without seeing a tiger. Damn!Our third and penultimate drive on 6th May morning was unusually dry. We had to go to Zone 1, a picturesque, hilly part of the park. Unfortunately for us, the forest chose to show us nothing that morning. For the most part, it was a long drive through the forest, with neither mammal nor bird sightings. I have so little to say about the morning, that Zone 1 remains my least favourite part of not just Ranthambore, but perhaps the entire trail. For some reason, Saad was very stressed that we hadn't seen a tiger. We didn't mind all that much, but it was going to be disappointing to leave without seeing the big cat in action.Come afternoon, we decided that if we were really desperate to see a tiger, then that called for desperate measures. In India, when on important 'failure is not an option' kind of missions, we often wear a bandana on our heads. I got myself just that from a nearby handicrafts store. We couldn't let India's most famous tiger reserve let us go without some tiger photos. Our drive had an auspicious beginning- we were heading into zone 4, home to Machili, the world's most famous tigress.Our drive however, was quite eventful until we reached the top of a hillocks that seemed to have way too much human activity. "There's got to be a tiger about.", said Saad. As we made our way to where everyone was looking, we saw a celebrity retinue of vehicles make their way to a better viewing spot. It was Priyanka Vadhra, daughter of one of our ex-prime ministers. That if course was secondary to the fact that we had spotted not one, but two tigers - together possibly to mate. On a second thought, it wasn't. You see, India has no dearth of very important people (VIPs) and people will go to all lengths to please them. So as it turns out, Priyanka and her family got the best viewing positions. Not that we has bad positions, but I wouldn't have complained about being in her jeep that day. As far as the tigers go, they were pretty relaxed even with so many human beings around them. They lazed around for a while, snuggled with one another for a few moments, took a few quick drinks of water and then were promptly on their way to enjoy each other's company in seclusion.As we returned back to our hotel in readiness to hit the road, we talked about how awesome this sighting was. We'd heard no end of the quality of Ranthambore sightings and this one surely lived up to the mark. I personally thought that I'd just gotten a sampler of this wonderful, enigmatic forest - I've got to come back here next year to truly enjoy the forest for an extended duration of time.If you wish to visit Ranthambore, remember that it's one of the most tourist friendly parks of the country. Finding accommodation is quite easy as is booking safaris. The only catch is that you're likely to get a different driver and a guide each drive unless you do something about it. Especially when you're new to a forest, you're better off having the same naturalist guiding you through all your drives. The way to do this is to ask your hotel or to contact a wildlife tourism outfit such as Jungle Lore. That apart, just enjoy the Ranthambore forest (photos here) and the several surprises it keeps throwing at you. As far as we are concerned, we're now heading to Delhi so we can get our connection to Bandavgarh, our next stop on the big cat trail.© Sumeet Moghe

Positive Psychology. Goodness! How cool, and how timely, is that concept? At a time where we are constantly being bombarded by all sorts of various different news items, most of them on the negative side of things, about the global financial crisis, the need to reboot this or that other country in order to get back in shape, their own public institutions, their own business models, or their societies in general, here comes positive psychology to go and change all of that and demonstrate to all of us how we may have been holding, all along, the wrong end of the stick! Well, time to change all of that! Welcome to "The Happy Secret to Better Work". If you have been following this blog for a while, you would probably know by now what a big fan I am from TED Talks. Those rather inspiring, thought-provoking, mind-blowing at times, truly life transforming presentations / speeches by incredibly amazing talented folks on a wide range of topics. Well, in the last couple of weeks I have bumped into one that would fit in that profile and so much more! The beauty of this one is that it’s totally unexpected on its final outcome, and you will see what I mean shortly, and on the good side of things it’s just a bit over 12 minutes long. So rather easy to digest, pause and ponder, and even worth while watching several times!  This particular TED Talk I’d like to spend a few minutes on today is coming from Shawn Achor under the rather suggestive title "The Happy Secret to Better Work" and in it Shawn shares plenty of insights around some interesting issues that we seem to keep neglecting and that perhaps we shouldn’t, like the dangers of measuring the average, because, according to him, that’s exactly what we are going to get: the average, instead of excellence. His views on wanting us all move the entire average up, so that we don’t just focus on our current average, is just remarkable.  Essentially, he comes to proclaim that in order to become better at what we do and to become better at who we are, we need to focus on the lens which the brain sees the world and change that lens so that we would also be capable of changing reality, our reality. That way, by shifting that focus, we would have a great, unprecedented, opportunity to change our happiness, our education, our business. Anything. And everything. Mind-boggling, to say the least! But it gets better as you move along through the TED Talk. What he then comes to state in rather powerful messages is how we need to shift gears into changing, or even better, reverting the formula for happiness and success with a rather simple equation: focus on the positive and not on the negative. Going away, slowly, but steadily, from that mantra we have lived on over the course of decades along the lines of "If I work harder I will be more successful, if I am more successful I am happier". More than anything else because every time our brain hits success, you already get to change automatically that goal of success, meaning it’s already embarking on to the next piece of success. And if happiness is on the opposite side of success we will never reach that state of happiness. What we have done, according to Shawn, is "push happiness over the cognitive horizon as a society". WOW!!! I told you, mind-blowing! But there is even more, because coming close to the end of his dissertation he mentions how what we should eventually be doing is focusing on raising everyone’s level of positiveness in the present, so that the brain would experience what it’s called a happiness advantage. Meaning that if our brain is positive it will perform significantly better than thinking neutral or negatively. Yes, I know. Think about it, it makes perfect sense, don’t you think?  So essentially, what we would need to do in both our work and personal lives, is to find a way to become positive in the present, then our brains will work even more successfully. Doing so it will make us all happier, but it would also turn on all of our learning centers in our brain allowing us to adapt to the world in a different way and better. Much better. Wrapping up his TED Talk presentation, Shawn proclaims that when thinking about small changes rippling outward we could surely start creating lasting positive change with a good number of very simple, yet, incredibly powerful, things to consider, such as these: "3 Gratitudes Journaling Exercise Meditation Random Acts of Kindness" No, don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil all the fun explaining much in detail each and everyone of those items I have just quoted above. Instead I would strongly encourage you all to make time (Like I said, a bit over 12 minutes…) and allow Shawn to wow you big time by watching the video, because he’s certainly going to do that, I can guarantee you! In fact, I would take things even one step further and state that Shawn’s Talk will not leave you indifferent. Rather the opposite. Forever. It will challenge you to think there is a better way out there, a way you can certainly influence right off after you finish watching the attached embedded video clip:    Because, like he just said, by doing that not only would we be creating "ripples of positivity", but eventually we would be creating a real revolution that we can all relate to and feel even more attached, engaged and committed to providing us all with much better quality lives, lives where fulfillment and happiness rule big time altogether over everything else! And that’s just such a fine feeling, don’t you think? You bet! It’s already helped me think about things in a completely different manner, whether work related or on a personal level, to the point where something I was not expecting did eventually happen. Moments of happiness galore, if I can say that! WOW!! Rather liberating and incredibly re-energising to say the least… Yes, you should try it, too! Thank you, Shawn! 

It's not often that you see 10 tigers and still retain a sense of disappointment. Happy as we are at the end of our Bandavgarh safaris, we see a huge scope for improvement with the tourism policies at this reserve. More on that in a bit. If you were ever in two minds about which Indian tiger reserve is likely to afford the best guarantee for tiger sightings, then it's got to be Bandavgarh. Why? Take a few factors into perspective. The Tala tourism zone is just about 102 sq km and has about 22 tigers in it. That gives you a tiger density of about one in every five sq kilometres. This apart, you can seek the assistance of the tracking elephants which when they find a tiger, will mark the spot where the tiger's resting and then take turns to transport you so you can view the tiger in it's natural habitat. Don't listen to what armchair conservationists may say in criticism of the tracking elephants. These animals do not interfere with the big cat's natural movement and make far less noise than safari vehicles. When observing secretive animals, using any intelligence and assistance is never a bad thing. Add to that the presence of some really bold tigers like Kankatti, B2 and the new and upcoming Bamera male, you have a heady mix for tiger sightings.This being said, the park management needs to get it's act straight with it's tourism policies. Wildlife observation is a matter of luck and patience. Depending on the kind of wildlife you wish to observe, you'll need to invest time and energy to get the sightings you want. The park management has made this very difficult. They've divided the zone into four tracks - A,B,C and D. These tracks combine to make four 60 km routes (AC, CA, BD, DB) that safari vehicles have to complete whether they like it or not. When on safari, the prescriptive routes make it really difficult to stop even for a 5-10 minutes near an animal you wish to observe. I hate the Bandavgarh route system with a passion, if you haven't noticed already. The park management seems to be hearing the visitors though and there's talk of potential changes next year. The management plans to halve the number of vehicles allowed in the zone and double the safari prices. This'll ensure that we can reduce the disturbance for the animals and also keep the park revenues intact.Now that's a lot of background information, so I'll keep the rest of the experience report short. We stayed at the White Tiger Forest Lodge of the MPTDC which in my view is just unbeatable, comfortable accommodation right by the edge of the forest. The air-conditioned and the air cooled rooms are equally comfortable and with all three meals included, the deal's a steal. In addition, you have some really hospitable staff who will do all it takes to make you happy. If you book the safaris from the lodge, then be sure to ask for Yadav as your driver. The gentleman has been at Bandavgarh for two decades and knows the park like the back of his hand. Most importantly, he's developed a great intuition for all of the park's tigers and can often guess with great accuracy the routes they're likely to take. You will of course need a good guide, but since that's really out of your control given the park's rotation system, you're well served if you have a knowledgeable driver.We didn't have Yadav as our driver for the first drive, but we more than made up for it in the next two drives which had us bumping into 8 tigers in a day - my best tally ever. In the following drives we saw a tiger each, bringing our tally to 10 tigers in Bandavgarh. We didn't get the best photographs at the park given that we didn't have the opportunity to wait at most of the spots for long and if we'd found tigers resting we had to leave them before they got into a good photo position. I'm not complaining though - every moment you spend with this regal animal is an absolute privilege and something to cherish regardless of whether you get a photo or not.I need to also put in a word for the Bandavgarh Interpretation Centre which is just near the Tala gate. It's a great showcase for this small, yet incredible park and has a great photo gallery on it's first floor. Bandavgarh is famous for tiger sightings but the interpretation centre is a good place to visit just to learn about the incredible biodiversity of the park and the things you should keep an eye out for. All in all, Bandavgarh gets high marks in my book (photos here) and the only reason it doesn't get a perfect 10 is because of the accursed route system. Hopefully that changes soon.If you're visiting Bandavgarh, try seeking the help of MP Tourism to arrange your transfers, stay and safaris. The fact that we paid just about INR 7500 each for this awesome experience tells you how inexpensive they can make things for you.© Sumeet Moghe

I really like Inc. I mean, I really heart it. I discovered it by pure chance a few weeks back and I am now completely hooked up to it, mostly not only because of the top quality articles, publications, videos, etc. etc. they keep putting up on their Web site, but also because of how helpful it’s proving to be as an essential resource "to help entrepreneurs and business leaders succeed". Seriously, if you are looking for topnotch quality content that could very well help you redesign the workplace of the future look no further than those folks. They are doing an outstanding piece of work so far! Ohhh and talking about the workplace of the future, how about if today we spend a few minutes talking about redefining that space embracing over 100 years of research, instead of ignoring it like we have done in the last few years. Ready? Well, here it comes: Stop Working More Than 40 Hours a Week. Seriously, it’s not helping you become better at what you already do, and, definitely, it’s harming more than you would know, and realise about, and not only your own work, your colleagues’, your customers but, eventually, your business itself in the long run. That is, indeed, the rather thought-provoking premise from a recent Inc. article put together by Geoffrey James under the title: Stop Working More Than 40 Hours a Week which comes out in a rather timeline manner, since I, too, recently blogged about this very same topic under "40-Hour Work Week - The Magic of Sustainable Growth".  I am not sure what you folks would think, but I’m starting to find it a rather fascinating topic, that is, how we actually manage work, without trumping our personal lives at the same time. When we all know, giving the current financial turmoil, how more and more is being asked from knowledge workers nowadays, i.e. work longer hours, while on the road, while at your home office where telecommuting is no longer there, therefore you have a couple of extra hours you could make use of, while on vacation, etc. etc. or at a time where we see how pervasive work has become with the emergence of social technologies, but, mostly, also, because of the huge impact on the corporate world by mobile altogether. Yes, it’s expected that we should be putting longer hours on what we are working on; it’s expected that if we don’t do that we are slacking off; it’s assumed that if you don’t work those longer hours, you just basically don’t have enough work, which is, obviously, not seen as a positive outcome, as a knowledge worker. Essentially, it’s just like we can no longer have an excuse not to put longer hours at work, for free, and not only our very own managers would be frowning upon us, but even our very own colleagues, too! Yes, I know, I can sense all of you out there nodding away in violent agreement with that scenario. But how wrong is it? I mean, there used to be a time when we all used to think that those who remain behind at the traditional office were pretty sad souls who just couldn’t get their work done in 8 hours and therefore were punished to stay behind till they would finish it. Gosh, a few years later, it looks like things have turned around 180 degrees and nowadays it’s actually the opposite: if you leave your (home) office by the end of those 8 hours, something is wrong with your productivity: rather your fault or just basically not having enough work. Where do you think you are going, Mr.?, is probably almost everyone’s perception when you decide to leave the office on time.  The reality though, as I have blogged in the past, is that numerous decades of research have proved that we start dropping off on our productivity levels when we reach 40 hours, beyond that we keep failing to deliver, yet, we expect people to stick around just because we feel it would make us more productive and therefore provide better business results. How wrong! It’s actually quite the opposite, as Geoffrey nicely describes it on that article I referenced above, as you basically would just be accounting for burnout and eventually be creating more trouble than helping out. Yet, we keep expecting it to take place. Yet, we all feel guilty if we "leave the office" before our colleagues do and we get frowned upon if we don’t stick around long enough. And that long enough is no longer according to your own terms, but someone else’s! We need to stop that. And the sooner, the better! Yes, social networking tools for business, as well as mobile, are making that job really tough, since work has finally transitioned from a physical space, a la having to go to the physical office every day, to a mental state, where work happens wherever you are. You are work, work is you, as some folks would say, but at the same time You are life, life is you, I would say.  And in most cases we are the only ones who know how to get the best out of it not just for ourselves, but also for those around us, the ones who we care the most about in the first place! So if that extensive research has proved that 40-hour long work weeks are the best option to remain productive, why don’t we stick around with that notion, instead of giving in to that work and peer pressure? You know, there used to be a time when, back in the day, I always felt sorry for those folks who had to stay behind at the traditional office finishing up work because they just couldn’t finish it off on time. I would try to help as much as I could on my own ability, but time and time again they ended up being on their own. Few years later. I am still sorry, but this time around for those folks who, on purpose, decide to "stay behind in the office" working a few extra hours, for free, without having anything in return, just because it looks good to their bosses and to their peers, because, you know, if you don’t do it, it would look like you would be lazy around. Seriously, why do we keep having this obsession of endless work days with 7, 8, 9 or even 10 hours of meetings, and then have to finish off work, when it’s just that same research I have mentioned above the one that has proved time and time again it’s just an unsustainable model in the long run? What are we trying to achieve eventually? In a way, we are just killing ourselves, slowly, but steadily, and without even realising it. Yes, I know, we may be all working really hard, specially, now with the pervasiveness of social networking tools within the workplace, because they enable us to put up more work hours breaking the barriers of timezones, geographies, and whatever else, but what at what costs? Is it really worth while sacrificing your only one single life on this planet and those who matter to you the most for that promotion, for that advancement in your career, for that looking good to your boss and colleagues, when eventually, according to that research, you won’t be even capable of enjoying it to the fullest just simply because you would lack the energy, the good health and the ability to do so? Really, do you think it’s worth while the fight? Or aren’t out there much, much, better things that you could be doing instead? It’s interesting to note how time and time again I always have plenty of people admiring how religious I have become in protecting my own personal, private time, versus work time, in becoming a zealot on how I split up what’s work and what’s everything else. Basically, what I have been talking about in the past around "Work Life Integration", versus work life balance where I have always claimed that there isn’t such balance because work always wins. What most folks may not know though is that I have become so good at it, because I learned, through the hard way, as usual, how to do it. It goes back to 2004, January 22nd, to be more precise, when I learned that unless you look after your own personal life and make it count, no-one else is going to do it. And I had to reach the state of being in a rather poor healthy status to realise about it. Stress was one of the minor worries at the time. I was very happy I was in time to react and acknowledge that I no longer need to apologise to anyone when I am done with work within those 40 hours. There is no reason to do it. It’s not even worth it. Yes, you may think that you may be risking your own career, but let’s face it, do you want to risk your career or your own life? You know, you still have the choice. Always have. At a time when most knowledge workers spend 3 years per average on any given job, if not shorter altogether (More on this one shortly!), I guess it’s time that we, knowledge Web workers, start protecting more, and set the boundaries of both work and personal, because at the end of the day, if we ourselves don’t do it, no-one else is going to do it for us. And don’t worry, there isn’t even a need to apologise. To anyone. After all, you are all looking after your own health. And that’s just priceless. And much to treasure for, regardless of what other people may think or say. You would still need to break the chain and keep challenging the status quo to keep your sanity intact. You need it. They need it. We all need it.  Oh, by the way, if you have got a chance, take a look into the 4 minute long video clip, towards the bottom, (Wish I could share the embedded code below…), included in Geoffrey’s article, that features Lisa Price - President and Founder of Carol’s Daughter - sharing plenty of insights on how she manages it all, no apologies to anyone either, and you will see why I titled this article in the way I did…

There couldn't be a better way to end the big cat trail. While my photography form didn't hold it's own at Corbett, I can safely say that being in the Terai is the real deal when it comes to Indian forests. There's no other forest in the subcontinent that is home to 227 tigers, several thousand Asiatic elephants, 585 species of birds and more than 30 species of reptiles. In short, an extended stay at Corbett has to be a wildlifer's dream. Corbett does have it's ills, but let me blend them into my experience report.Corbett is one of the most frustrating parks to book accommodation for. You'll be surprised that I say this, because a web search will yield several hotels around the park. The fact is that if you're serious about wildlife you want to stay away from the noisy boors who'll come to park for a drive because they have nothing better to do. Staying in one of the outside resorts means that you'll enter the forest with these people and each time you see a tiger, there'll be a mini traffic jam with people shouting like it's a fish market. So, most wildlife enthusiasts choose to stay at one of the several forest rest houses in the park - the most popular of these being Dhikala. Dhikala is about 49 kilometres from the Dhangari gate of Corbett Tiger Reserve and is in the thick of this magnificent jungle. Only residents at the rest house can drive through the safari routes here and getting accommodation is so tough that only enthusiasts take the trouble.To tell you the fact, the reservation system is from the dark ages. You fax them a request months prior to your arrival. You keep calling them every day to follow up on your request. You then send them a demand draft when they confirm your booking (yes, even electronic transfers don't work). All this, and you now need to find a good safari jeep and a good driver. After all that trouble, I still wasn't able to get accommodation at Dhikala for both my nights and I ended up getting a night at Dhikala and a night at Bijrani, a rest house slightly more on the outside of the forest. Getting accommodation at Dhikala is truly an insider's job and in hindsight I recommend you take the services of either of the following folks to take the load off your head:Ramesh Suyal (highly recommended on most travel guides)Dhikala.inTigerland Safaris and ToursDhikala is a great place for spotting wild elephants, hog deer, barking deer and a wide variety of birds in a really dense, forest. Tiger sightings are a matter of chance and more so here, given the dense cover they have. We almost missed the only sighting we had here and the tigress we stopped for was so offended by the fact that we'd blocked her route, that she lunged at us in a mock charge emitting a huge roar. Before we knew it, she'd lunged across the road and neither of the five cameras trained on her had an opportunity to get a photograph. A great sighting - one that left our hearts racing. In our one day at Dhikala, we ran into several elephant herds and saw several exotic birds. Before we'd even sampled the zone properly, we had to head out of the zone and check into our rest house at Bijrani.The Bijrani rest house is quite old in itself. Established in 1928 as a hunting lodge for the British, it serves as an in forest accommodation for tourists. The zone however, is shared across both day visitors and lodge residents. This tends to make the zone quite noisy, despite the fact that your accommodation can get you several minutes of tranquility when at the rest house. Do remember that you can get out early each morning and stay back late each evening when all other vehicles are likely to be racing against time to reach the gate. Bijrani is also a comparatively drier zone which makes game spotting somewhat easier.Now did we see a tiger at Bijrani? You bet we did - a young female who chose to sleep in a little cave in almost human fashion. It seemed to make no difference to her as the guides and visitors on the hillock above her made a huge ruckus about her presence. We left her fast asleep, only to come back in the afternoon to watch her lounging in her private pool after the long siesta.I must put in a word for the elephant safaris at Corbett. In my view there's no better way to experience the forest. Remember that it's not the best perch for photography or to get the best sightings, given the elephant's always moving and that it's a lot slower than a safari vehicle. However, the ability to see the forest from the inside, on an all terrain animal is quite something. No gorge is too deep, no slope too steep. If you had to follow a tiger into the bush, the elephant's your best bet. It's also a great way to experience first hand how man and animal can be such good friends. The trust and understanding between the elephants and their mahouts (handlers) is something to see so you can believe. The mahouts also have really interesting tales to tell so even if you don't get great wildlife sightings, you can have a really entertaining ride through the thickets.Anyways, Corbett was the last stop on the big cat trail this year. It's been quite amazing - we've spotted 49 big cats; 28 lions, 20 tigers, and 1 leopard. I think it's quite humbling to be stuck one short of a half century; nature's way of showing she's still in control. I am returning to Bangalore enriched by this experience. I've learned so much and I am more appreciative of this country's biodiversity than I was ever before. The big cat trail will be on the road again in the summer of next year and my plan is to visit the following parks:TadobaPenchRanthamboreCorbettDudhwaSunderbanKazirangaWhile it's quite impossible to upload all my photographs from the big cat trail, I've put together a small selection of photographs here. As always, my work is under a Creative Commons license.© Sumeet Moghe

Ok, back to Social Business. After the last few days where I have been blogging a number of different times about some musings on redesigning and refining further along the workplace of the future, it’s time to get down to business again and continue to share further insights around social networking / computing for business or the good old Social Business itself. By the way, stay tuned because very soon I will be putting together an article where I will explain why I’m going to move away from the social business concept into another one that I think is much more accurate and fitting in helping explain where we are today with the whole mantra behind Social. But till then, how about if one of these days you come to work and you bump into a rather controversial article, a superb read, actually, that questions the whole social business industry, right where it hurts the most:  Social Networking for Business doesn’t count much on today’s CIO’s top priorities, after all. Disappointing or a huge opportunity? Both, eventually! A couple of weeks back Prem Kumar Aparanji, a.k.a. Prem, put together an article where he was reflecting on a recent research study by Gartner (Strongly recommend going through the links he references to get a better grasp of what the survey tried to accomplish), where some really interesting data came up; the most thought-provoking piece was probably that one where it was mentioned how Social Networking (for business) wasn’t a top priority for CIO’s out there in 2012. Not all CIOs though, but about 100 of them who took part in the survey study, which I still think is significant enough to notice. You would expect that it would be rather worrying that, still in 2012, the whole area of Social gets questioned and even misses the point of reaching the Top 10 priority list from CIOs. In this case it comes up as the 11th priority. And, it may well be, indeed, worrying to some extent, but it is not new. It’s been happening all along for a good number of years already. But with a different name.  Indeed, I am referring to good old Knowledge Management and Collaboration, once again, just to detail a bit more the parallel roads both fields have been running all along. And it’s interesting to notice how when I used to work within the European Knowledge Management deployment team inside IBM, about 11 years ago, we faced the very same upsetting reality: KM (And Collaboration, for that matter), wasn’t the business top priority at the time. In fact, it didn’t even show up on the Top 20 priority list for Lines of Business. Thus, a few years later, seeing how social business is coming into the Top #11 is not such a bad achievement. On the contrary. Lots of opportunity in here! So, I know what you are thinking now, if social is not in the Top 10 priority list from (some) CIOs why is that? I mean, what’s happened for that scenario to be so gloomy and yet strike us as a common reality for the last 18 years and counting… First with KM and Collaboration back then and nowadays with Social Business. Well, I am not sure what you folks would think, but I tell you what my gut feeling has been telling me all along: KM, Collaboration, Knowledge Sharing, Social Networking AND online communities have always been "taken as a given" by both IT and the business. And the higher you go in the organisation the much more ingrained that perception of being a given it is. Just think about it. When was the last time that you, as a knowledge worker, received some kind of formal, (or informal) training, or education, for that matter around how to collaborate effectively, or share your knowledge in a much more open, transparent and public manner? Even through email (Yes, I know, quite an oxymoron right there, right?!?). Probably never, I would guess. But then again when you join a company that’s one of the traits that is expected of you: be a team sports, of a rather open and collaborative manner, that is, a good team player who can collaborate across the board, otherwise it would be rather tough. Or simply put in another way, in today’s current working environment, would you be capable of getting work done on your own, in a single project, on a single team, and with a single set of priorities and goals without having to collaborate with others? I will go and answer that one for you… You won’t. You never have. You never will.  That’s why collaboration, whether traditional or social, is no longer a nice-thing-to-have but more than anything else a business imperative. Yet, it’s hardly embraced by the corporate world. Why? Because everyone feels that every single knowledge worker out there is a collaborator by nature and as such it’s a given that everyone would know how to collaborative effectively. When we know that’s not going to happen, at all, and to prove that we have got the perfect example that’s been demonstrating and showcasing it decade in decade out and we are still struggling with it: email. I probably don’t need to say much more about it, right? Although I can perhaps formulate a single question to try to address and answer that concern: do you feel you are effective and productive enough in your day to day collaborative work today using email, or traditional knowledge based repositories for that matter? Like I said, no need to provide an answer on that one, although I think we all know it already. I think we all know what really needs to happen to turn that situation around 180 degrees and start thinking it’s a good time to shift gears and realise about a single fact that would change the way we do work today: never underestimate the power of (social) collaboration.  Whether you are the CIO, the CFO, or from whatever other high end of the org chart, you should always consider the fact that not everyone is a true collaborator, that not everyone knows, and fully understands, how to use (social) collaborative tools, that not every knowledge worker out there would know how to get work done in a open, collaborative, transparent and public manner and that as such you would need to accommodate an opportunity for knowledge workers to get properly trained not only on how to make use of the various knowledge sharing, collaborative and social networking tools, but also the behaviours that would involve such change. Social collaboration is all about a mindset. In fact, I would come to question the validity of using social networking tools to collaborate effectively. You can still do that, that is, become much more open, public, transparent, trustworthy, engaged, committed, etc. etc. without perhaps even relying on (social) tools. They are more cultural traits of how knowledge gets shared across. And for that, it’s always important to have the right level of support and don’t expect other people to embrace new ways of working, because they are just simply not going to work.  That’s why the role of executives, in whatever the organisation, is so important and rather critical, and in the context of social business, even more! Because knowledge workers, as they become more aware and excited about new, smarter ways of getting work done, would need plenty of support, sponsorship, servant leadership, commitment and proper attention to ensure the right mix is put together. I mean, imagine what would have happened if back in the day, folks would have been educated, and trained, on how to use email properly as a powerful collaborative and knowledge sharing tool, instead of being considered today a huge productivity drain, provoked by ourselves, in the first place!  That’s certainly something that we wouldn’t want to have around nowadays with regards to Social Business, don’t you think? Take, as an example, the recent entry posted over at Mashable under the suggestive title "5 Things That Waste Your Time at Work" and think about it for a little bit. Here are those productivity wasters:  "Trying to contact customers or colleagues Trying to find key information Duplicating communications Attempting to schedule meetings Unwanted communications" Now, if your company suffers from any of those business pain points, do you feel that having proper education and training on social networking tools AND habits would help you address and fix some of them accordingly? Take the example of tagging. Done and shown properly, it’ll help address #1, #2 and #3 right there! With very little effort, and yet with tremendous potential and huge benefits. And that’s just tagging. Think now of the huge amount of unwanted communications you could reduce by adopting that social mantra of narrating your work, working out loud or just simply observable work. And the list of use cases goes on and on and on… Here’s another one: how much time do knowledge workers waste on inefficient meetings? Those meetings they get dragged into time and time again for hours no end every single day. Well, imagine what it would be like if those same knowledge workers would reduce, dramatically, the time they spend on meetings and get work done smarter, not necessarily harder, using social, collaborative and knowledge sharing tools.  Still think that Social Collaboration is a given, and therefore should not be in your Top 5 priority list? Hmmm, you may need to re-think again the business pain points you are trying to assess and a find a solution for. Because you may have it already right there! Waiting for you … 

When I went to Ranthambore this year, I was pretty awestruck by the glory of the men's moustaches there. As some of you know, I was inspired enough to grow my own moustache. A week down the line, when I was back at work I thought of the Movember tradition and wondered if people would be willing to donate to a charity if I kept growing my moustache. My colleague Nikhil's been growing one of his own -- we could potentially double up. Without a second thought, I posted a poll on our social business platform - myThoughtWorks. Now wait a minute - was that related to work in anyway? Was there an ROI to allowing a posting of that nature? Errrm... no! I personally think there's value in such a thing though. That value is fun.In a way, I consider myself fortunate to work for a company that lists 'Fun' as a value. It's quite easy to get very uptight in social business. It's quite easy to forget that the water cooler has gossip, the team rooms have jokes, colleagues have fun with each other and that we often strike strong personal relationships at work. A true social business platform needs to mirror these real aspects of human behaviour. In today's blogpost, I want to outline a few patterns that you may actively want to foster in your community to encourage the value of fun.Help people find others with similar interestsIf you've read the book First Break all the Rules, it links to a Gallup study that claims to reveal the formula for innovation in the enterprise."Employees who have best friends at work are seven times more likely to be engaged in their jobs, while those who have at least three "vital friends" at work are 96% more likely to be satisfied with their lives." - GallupThere obviously is a certain importance of emotional connection to the enterprise. You're less likely to leave if you have friends in the company. Friendship stems from common ground. Common ground emerges from common interests. Simple implementations such as profile tags and people search can help people find other people with similar interests. What's the ROI? Is retaining your employees valuable for you? Is 96% employee satisfaction valuable for you? Does employee engagement mean much to you? If the answer to either of these is yes, then you perhaps should care.Simulate the Gossip LoungeWhether you like it or not, your people are saying things. Some of these are useful pieces of information, some are musings, some are questions, some are pieces of feedback for you to react on. Think of the way you react to your network on Facebook. Simulating the gossip room on your social business platform allows you to have a constantly updating view of what people are saying to each other. It's fun for people to broadcast their views - it's valuable for you to listen to them. What do people care about? In my case it seems to be the speed of myThoughtWorks in Australia. In your case it could be a fascination with moustaches!The Gamification Phenomenon"In other words, with games, learning is the drug." - Raph Koster (theory of fun)Still a topic of debate, but we can't deny that we're brushing shoulders in the workplace with a gamer generation. Heck, this may not even be a new phenomenon. As Byron Reeves says though, the current 'gamer' generation has a few strong beliefs:competition is funfailure doesn't hurtrisk is part of the gamefeedback is best when it's immediatetrial and error is the best planbosses and rules are less importantgroup action is commonIn his talk at DevLearn, Byron argued that play is not the opposite of work. Play on the other hand can facilitate interest in work. In that talk, Byron showed us how doctors are playing games at $15 an hour to only improve their diagnosis skills. This can't be opposite of work. There's some obvious benefit that gamification has towards individual motivation. There's perhaps a reason why you're so addicted to Angry Birds on your iPhone or Harbour Master on your iPad. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you can make a dull job interesting by gamifying it. That's just putting lipstick on a pig. What is interesting is how badges, points, reputation systems can help add a fresh level of interest and motivation to knowledge sharing, feedback, personal learning and challenging work. How can people get immediate feedback for desirable behaviour on your platform? How can you recognise the most active contributors? How can you reward achievements without promoting a class culture? Check how Foursquare gives badges - can you try something similar?Learning at work, but not just about workPeople are people and have more dimensions to them than just work. People want to learn about photography, origami, art. They may want to practice a sport. Going back to the thought about helping people find others with similar interests, it's also crucial to help people pursue their non-work passions through the company. For example, I've discovered a passion for photography; I work in a company of geeks and many geeks like photography. The fact that ThoughtWorks allows us to have a special interest group on photography on the social business platform means a great deal to some of us. It's an opportunity to share our work amongst people we know and learn from each other about lenses, photography tips and what not. This has no direct impact on the company's bottomline but again it tells me that the company is willing to share their investment in my personal growth and also it allows me to make connections with others in the enterprise. If you believe Granovetter, then it's the weak acquaintances that have solutions to your toughest problems. The guy who runs the photography interest group could be the business analyst who can help you with that tough problem on your project. Who knows what solutions some of these weak ties can lead to? While I think we're starting to cross the chasm with adoption of social business platforms in the enterprise, there's still a great amount of thought we need to put in so these platforms mirror common human behaviour. To overuse a cliche, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and perhaps an even duller knowledge worker. The ideas I've put out on this blogpost don't even cover the tip of the iceberg for this crucial aspect of social business. At ThoughtWorks, we take fun seriously but even we have miles to go with the way we're integrating fun into our collaboration platforms. I'd love to hear of ideas that you may have in this space - fun means heaps to this company. Comment unabashedly so I can learn from you!On a sidenote, I'm hosting RubyConf India this week and while it's quite unrelated to the stuff I blog about I'm quite excited to be master of ceremonies for a second time. If you happen to be there by any chance, do say hello. I'm sure it'll be great to catch up.© Sumeet Moghe

If earlier on this week we were talking about the increasing concerns on how high level executives, CIOs mainly, keep taking for granted social collaboration and how perhaps they need to shift gears and stop considering it’s a given, here’s today’s blog post where I will reflect on a recent article put together by the always insightful Rachel Happe at The Community Roundtable under the troubling heading "The Community Strategist Squeeze", where she comes to highlight the current state of what’s been asked of community managers, facilitators, leaders, builders, stewards, or whatever other term you would want to use: deliver plenty more with a lot less. And the more you do of that, the much better off for the business. Never mind the community facilitators. They never have.  As you well know, Rachel is the co-founder of The Community Roundtable, along with Jim Storer, a rather smart, helpful and very resourceful and talented peer to peer network of community builders that has been around for a couple of years already and that time and time again they keep producing some of the most amazing reports, and other brilliant deliverables, that one can find out there on the Social Web around the art of managing online communities, whether internal or external. Their latest example is The 2012 State of Community Management, a superb white paper / report that I strongly would encourage everyone to read and go through to see what’s happening in this space of facilitating effectively online communities and where we are at that daunting, yet, exciting and rather rewarding task. I will be putting together another separate blog entry at a later time on that very same report, but going back into the actual piece that Rachel wrote I thought it was incredibly revealing how little things have changed in the last 10 to 15 years, perhaps even more, with regards to online communities. Yes, I know, we do have nowadays better community tooling all around with all of these emergent social technologies, but it looks like some of the most fundamental, deep routed problems are still alive and kicking: businesses keep ignoring the value of online communities, and continue to treat them as just another project resource. When we all know that’s not the case, quite the opposite. They are rather dynamic, living organisms that keep corporations alive providing them with an identity, a corporate culture difficult to surpass and, above all, a strong sense of belonging and ownership by the community members that cannot be found, nor seen, anywhere else within an organization to the point of going the extra mile in getting work done. Just because they all share that common passion: wanting to help and learn from others on that particular subject matter that gathers them around. Yet, online communities keep being treated as mere resources you can exploit to your own abilities, needs and wants, without realising that they, too, have got their own that you, as a business, would need to feed and nurture if you would want to keep your communities alive in the medium, long term. Communities are different beasts. They are not (project) teams, they are not networks, nor organisations, yet we keep treating them as if they were. See? Nothing much has changed since the late 90s and beginning of the 2000s.  Back in the day, around 2000, when I was still doing traditional Knowledge Management, Collaboration and Learning, plenty of businesses invested, initially, rather heavily, on the concept of Communities of Practice, the traditional formalised, structured communities and for a good while they were rather successful. However, as time moved on and as the businesses realised how they could start squeezing them one by one to no end, demanding more and more by the minute from their community leaders, having and providing less, as well as the members, with very little in return, the whole model broke down when people stopped relying on them to a great extent.  No, they didn’t disappear, they never disappeared; in fact, they have always been there, but what at some point were the core critical engine of interactions amongst knowledge workers soon turned out to be that essential resource that everyone could poach to no end till they would eventually drain them to die a painful death by refusing to nurture and feed back some of the most essential, key roles in those same communities; mainly, community leaders / builders / facilitators, core team, knowledge brokers, community managers, etc. etc.  You would have expected that with the emergence of better community tooling with social networking tools that things would have improved quite a bit and the reality is that they have made things a whole lot better. Key concepts like social capital skills, open knowledge sharing, collaboration, engagement, commitment, passion, trust, etc. etc. are stronger than ever before, but, unfortunately, so is the community leaders squeeze that Rachel talks about on that article, highlighting, once again, how businesses seem to have put very very few resources on helping facilitate effectively online communities hoping that everything will work out and that things would stick around. Yet another time. The thing is that they won’t. If not, judge for yourselves, to quote Rachel, on the list of pressures that community leaders are facing at the moment:  "To assess, reconcile and coordinate the ‘social’ approach across a wide range of enterprise functions To justify not just their progress but the ROI when many are still in a highly fluid and experimental state To train the entire organization on social media, internal social software, social business, social processes and workflows and community management To educate legal, HR and compliance groups about the dynamics and specifics of online social environments To understand and report back what is going on - from a conversational perspective - in the online environment To share their expertise both internally and externally with a wide variety of groups To hire a set of individuals that are hard to find and which their HR departments don’t really understand and then mentor and educate those groups quickly To coach executives individually To keep up with the ever changing technologies and analytics options To integrate internal social environments with closed communities with open communities and with public social channels and none-hosted communities in their markets To set up enterprise-wide governance processes and regularly coordinate efforts and approaches globally To help the entire organization see the opportunities that social approaches might bring to specific workflows and functions" And I am certain that’s just a pretty small list of those current pressures. I bet you folks out there would be able to share plenty more in the comments below about the ones you yourselves are currently facing at the moment (Feel free to share them across, if you feel they would contribute into raising some further awareness about them on this post). The reality is that businesses have been playing with fire for a long while, as Rachel quotes accurately with this trend of thought:  "[…] the limited investment in and strategic exposure of social and community teams is one of the biggest risks to progress in the social business and community space right now  - both in making progress and in keeping staff" Burnout comes up pretty high as perhaps one of the main reasons that could take the whole thing apart and disrupt it in such a way that it would be rather tough to recover from. And that’s just one of the potentially negative consequences. I am sure there are more. Yet, while I am putting together these thoughts, and as I keep thinking what may well be the potential solution, I can’t help to acknowledge that perhaps the very same ecosystem that we created in the first place around community leaders is the one that’s causing and creating such squeeze. If you think of community management as an outsourced activity away from the business and its core activities, which I would think most people would assume it is, right there you have got the main problem. With community management what we are basically telling businesses out loud, even at the age of the Social Web, is that they don’t have to worry about doing such piece of work themselves, i.e. maintaing, facilitating, nurturing online social interactions in communities, because someone else will do it for them and effectively enough that I can squeeze them to provide me with what I need as a business and don’t provide much in return, as a result of it. Now I do see the value of having community builders, facilitators, stewards, leaders and whatever other term that you would want to use in this context. I think they are critical to help a community succeed, pretty much like any other of the traditional community job roles themselves, but I’m starting to think that we shouldn’t have put too much preeminence and paramount importance in the exclusivity of their role, because right there we have given carte blanche to businesses to disengage, withdraw support, sponsorship, leadership and what not, thinking that those smart community managers would be able to pull it off themselves, when we know that they would have had a much better and easier job if the businesses would be involved in helping manage and facilitate those communities themselves.  So if in my previous blog post I questioned how CIOs should not take for granted social collaboration, because it’s not going to happen just like that, I would come to question as well how we are already passed the tipping point as a business to understand how helping your online communities, as well as your community managers, is going to be a critical core activity of your day to day business operations. And the easiest way of achieving that is realising that you, as a major driver of that business, company, organization, i.e. as an executive, with your business priorities, would need to take charge, come forward and become another community facilitator / builder, so that you could understand each and everyone of those pressures that Rachel mentioned above in order to help address and fix them accordingly, so that online community management activity is no longer seen as an outsourced activity, but more of an integrated, critical, business process of your day to day operations. The way it should be. The way it should have always been. Only then would we be capable of seeing the job role of community managers survive for the next decades to come. Failure to do that would eventually mean we are already starting to witness the slow, painful death of what it is like being a community manager. Squeezed to no end because their business just didn’t understand how communities operate, how they could help bring further along more business value and sustainable growth and eventually how they themselves, the businesses, didn’t understand right from the beginning that a successful online community management strategy begins with them being at the forefront supporting the efforts, in every which way, from those with a passion to transform the way we do work through networks and communities versus traditional top-down hierarchies. Welcome to the wonderful world of Wirearchy!

A bit early to speak of this, but I do have some tentative plans. The map below is indicative of my planned Summer 2012 trail. Now obviously, I can't do this by myself and I'll perhaps hold on for sometime to find people who want to join in. For now my plans are to do the first three destinations over weekends preceding the actual trail - so hopefully those should be easy ones for folks to join me on. More about this in a few months.View Big Cat Trail 2012 in a larger map© Sumeet Moghe

In the past we have talked a couple of times about the undeniable impact that social networking (for business) is having in traditional management and thought leadership by helping reshape and redefine some of their various long time existing conceptions . There have been, indeed, a few great articles out there that not only have they assessed the importance and relevance of social technologies to help define the next generation of management, leadership and employee engagement, but they have also ventured to state, and rather accurately, how traditional management would need to keep moving on with its own social transformation, if it would want to survive over the course of time. Long gone are the days of command and control. Long gone are the days of micro-management, of managing by fear, power, bullying or mediocrity, or, just simply, by believing that the mantra "I am the boss; do what I say … or else!" would still work in today’s current business environment. But if that’s the case I am sure at this point in time you folks would be probably wondering what’s the new role of leadership then in the world of Social Business? Can we define it nowadays in some sort of form or shape? Or will we have to create a new one altogether? Well, we may not. Once again, we may not need to go ahead and reinvent the wheel, since we may have had it all along over the last few hundred years and we never noticed… Welcome to the Era of Servant Leadership!  Indeed, Servant Leadership is  "[…] a management philosophy which implies a comprehensive view of the quality of people, work and community spirit. It requires a spiritual understanding of identity, mission, vision and environment. A servant leader is someone who is servant first, who has responsibility to be in the world, and so he contributes to the well-being of people and community. A servant leader looks to the needs of the people and asks himself how he can help them to solve problems and promote personal development. He places his main focus on people, because only content and motivated people are able to reach their targets and to fulfill the set expectations" (Quoted from Wikipedia’s reference article on the topic) and while catching up last week with my good friend, the always insightful and equally thought provoking, Stowe Boyd I just couldn’t help thinking about how we may not need to redefine much what was already hinted hundreds of years ago about servant leaders, but perhaps just fine tune a little bit more the work carried out eventually by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970 on this very same topic, as a way to help define what will be demanded of, a few decades later, Leaders 2.0 in the knowledge economy of the 21st century where social technologies have finally introduced wirearchy in the corporate world for it to stay, moving right along, with traditional hierarchy.  And in that context I just couldn’t help thinking about this superb article at Inc.com under the suggestive heading "8 Core Beliefs of Extraordinary Bosses" by Geoffrey James that has been making the rounds on various social networks out there and which clearly portraits the kind of shift that traditional management needs to make in order to help prepare the leaders of tomorrow, if not today altogether already. No, I am not going to spoil the fun and try to reproduce Geoffrey’s article with plenty of quotes here and there. On the contrary, I would like to encourage you all to have a look into that truly inspirational dissertation and be prepared to be wowed big time! As a teaser, here you have got the 8 Core Beliefs Geoffrey talks about, just to get you going:  "Business is an ecosystem, not a battlefield A company is a community, not a machine Management is service, not control My employees are my peers, not my children Motivation comes from vision, not from fear Change equals growth, not pain Technology offers empowerment, not automation Work should be fun, not mere toil" Pretty powerful stuff, don’t you think? I am sure you would all agree with that assertion, but there is more, there is always more eventually!, because, just as I was putting together this article I bumped into a rather evoking image on Google Plus that can certainly help folks differentiate between traditional management, the boss, and this new kind of management, the leader:  And as I kept reflecting on that transition from bosses to leaders as the one that is going to shape up management as we know it within the business world, and all of that thanks to social networking, amongst several other timely happenings, I just couldn’t help remembering, quite fondly, the absolutely stunning blog post that Kathy Sierra (Gosh, how much do I miss her mind-boggling blog posts!) shared over 6 years ago!! under the title "Manager 2.0" with this brilliant image that would surely resonate quite a bit with that of servant leadership: I would happily recommend you all to go through Kathy’s article to realise how close Social Business has been all along, even right from the start!, on helping shape up the way we understand and embrace both management and leadership 2.0 nowadays, 6 years later, into something that perhaps we have been having all along, but that we just didn’t know it, or maybe that we have neglected and ignored for far too long. The reality is that if someone would be asking me to define the new role of leadership in today’s interconnected, instrumented, intelligent, engaged, smarter, trustworthy and transparent social business world the one single key concept that would keep coming up, in a recurring way, time and time again, would be what’s been there all along with us throughout history: Servant Leadership.  And here is probably the toughest question of them all that will keep coming up repeatedly, now more than ever, and that we all need to try and find an answer for: in todays social business world are your / our current leaders servant leaders? And if they aren’t, what can we do to help prepare them?