Collaborative learning, (I prefer collaborative as it seems more like an organization thing than social) basically informal learning, is the way to go today, and yet we seem to have so many questions coming up:How can we get it to work to really bring value to the organization and the customers?How can you ensure it is used the right way?How do you ensure authenticity of information that is critical to the organizations goals?All very valid questions to ask while we are still bordering on the implementation of the collaborative learning project, and trying to measure what value it would bring after implementation. It is possible to convince management that collaborative learning would work for the good of the organization, just like brainstorming and knowledge sharing sessions did in the traditional models. The advantage here is the time saved on those meetings, and converted into information accessible through the medium of Web 2.0 resources. These resources have proven outside the organization in triggering conversations and bringing in a lot of collaboration to fully define facets of a single idea. Let's take the example of collaborative/social learning so to say. We know the benefits by now:Helps establish virtual relationships and trigger good discussions that result in brainstorming on certain thoughts and ideas. Thus, helps in arriving at conclusions based on the thoughts expressed during the discussions.Helps one get a wider perspective on certain topics and allows them to read up all available resources before concluding on a topic.Generates a sense of satisfaction to have adequately researched on a topic, discussed it with people in the community, heard peoples experiences, and finally reached a consensus.I think all of the above are necessary activities we anyway need to do, in order to work effectively in an organization and bring value as individuals. So then whats missing and why are we apprehensive about implementing collaborative learning and measuring the outcomes? How is it different from the traditional ways of achieving the same goals?In my opinion, one of the main factors here is that all this happens virtually, in an uncontrolled environment, where anyone in the community can be the source of the information. How do I validate the information before using it for a task? Please help me out here.The solution??My goal is to suggest a solution about how you may ensure authenticity of the information. I think the idea here has to be locally dealt with by the management and implementation team of a collaborative learning solution. Their effort has to be in the direction of:At what level is the implementation of such a model feasible? It should ideally be at a business unit level where employees work on a set of related products or services.Devising a model that will work for the organization given the culture that exists. For example, we will use our existing blog, wiki and forums and integrate search into it. We will add more Web 2.0 tools as we go along.Define some high-level directives as to what they would like to see being discussed and in what forms. For example, encourage employees to share information in certain high level categories like, possible product implementation models, product architecture related topics, improving product performance, product usability, best practices, tips and tricks, troubleshooting, customer scenarios, other ideas, etc.Benefit or recognition they can provide to an individual who shares their knowledge or idea that eventually brings business benefit. For example, management should come up with some reward mechanism or tie the task of sharing knowledge as part of the individuals performance.If we do not take pains to evaluate how best we can implement such a model in our organization, we would be repeating the past when we thought that elearning was the best way to go, and later realized that it was ineffective mainly due to inadequate research and planning of the course design. We missed aspects of learner motivation and relevance, and created learning that was just an information dump. Let's not repeat this with collaborative learning if we want it to succeed and achieve greater heights.I'd love to hear what you all have to say about implementing collaborative learning at your workplaces.

If you look into the corporate world of today, I am sure you would be able to identify a whole bunch of rather cringing and devastating business problems that somehow we keep trying to solve, but fail miserably in the attempt. Issues like fraud, corruption, bribery, lack of morals and ethics, and what not, keep adding further up into providing perhaps one of the most dodgy business environments, with a rather profound econoclypse flavour, we ever had in recent history. Yet, somehow, I do feel there is another much more fundamental problem that we even haven’t come to terms with when thinking of the huge impact it’s going to have over the next 20 years. Indeed, yes, you are reading that right! 20 years, at a minimum! And to define that business problem I won’t have to do anything else than just mention three simple words: Ageing Working Population. I have always believed that, whenever we would want to end this financial crisis, we would eventually be done and dealt with in like no time. We just need to put our minds and hearts to work at it and it will be sorted out right away. In a heartbeat. Those business problems I have mentioned above somehow seem to be relatively easy to solve if the collective sets their own mind to it, too! It’s just probably a matter of time, intent and willingness to make it happen. However, the much more urging problem of an ageing population is something that would be rather tough to solve. At least, in the short term.  The thing is though that we are running late on the short term already. I read somewhere, for instance, that over the course of the next 19 to 20 years in a row, yes, 19 to 20 years!!, every second, a single US (knowledge) worker will reach the age of 60. And that’s just for the US, country where perhaps ageing is not as alarming as in other countries like Japan, Spain or Italy. The thing is that ageing is not really the problem. It never has. It never will be. It’s actually one of the many many things to treasure as you grow older with experience, know-how, and an extensive fountain of knowledge readily willing to be shared across as part of what some of us have been identifying all along as leaving a legacy. Your legacy to the world. The problem comes around when you don’t have anyone to transfer that knowledge to. And this is the main business problem that, right now, Europe, and, specially, Europe, is facing big time! And I suspect other geographies are not lagging behind too far. Right now, there are about 5 million youngsters, that is, young people under 25, without a job. In countries like Spain, as a rather dramatic example, the % of unemployment for the under 25 year olds is coming to 52%, which, eventually, is just unsustainable. So what can we do then to revert this tragedy? It’s well known how interconnected and complex the business world is nowadays, thus I am thinking how examples like this one are going to have a huge impact on the overall workplace of the future in the short, medium and long term. We are basically running out of time. And to such extent, I keep wondering whether technology, in this case, social technologies, could help us out solve this bleeding issue of renewing the corporate workforce over the course of time. Something tells me that technology will be playing a key, differentiating, paramount role. Here’s why… I felt totally inspired  when I bumped into this IBM YouTube video from the series of Solutions for a Smarter Planet - Solutions for an Aging Population. Disclaimer: Yes, you all know it already by now, I do work for IBM, but look at the beautiful and rather compelling story portrayed on the video about how technology can have a huge impact within our ageing population. The video clip is rather short, a bit over 4 minutes, and it tells the story of how Bolzano, Italy, has decided to think forward and help their elderly become even more autonomous and independent than ever, to keep enjoying their own lives to the fullest by putting technology to work for them:  Now, think in that context of what it could mean for that ageing population still at work, but already on the brink of retirement, to have the unique, unprecedented opportunity to engage with the younger generations through the use of social technologies to transfer some of their knowledge, because we all know it’s going to be impossible to transfer it all, so that the younger knowledge workers would have a good opportunity to become self-sufficient and self-serving, along with rather autonomous, with that knowledge shared. Right there is the baton being transferred from one generation to another. Work will continue. It will not longer stagnate and things will move on forward.  Yet, we are not doing it. At least, we are not doing it at a level that would be fast enough to react in time. Again, like I said, we are late into the game. Remember, there are 5 million youngsters under 25 currently unemployed in Europe. That’s some serious business issue that’s going to cost the corporate world millions of euros in terms of finding the right talent for the right job, but most importantly in helping prepare that talent for the job. If I were a CEO running a business that would pretty much depend on the knowledge and skills and expertise of my ageing knowledge workforce I would be extremely worried by now, if I didn’t have a plan already in place of how I’m going to be capturing the knowledge of those older generations to be able to transfer it to the younger ones. Yes, I will repeat it. If I don’t have a plan already by now, I’d be extremely worried, because I’d be coming late into the game.  Social technologies are pretty inexpensive nowadays, we all know that. Social technologies have helped us understand, as knowledge workers, we cannot longer work alone, in silos, disconnected from the rest of the world. Instead, we are now much more hyperconnected, engaged, collaborative and knowledge sharing prone than ever before. Younger generations don’t need to be told, educated, enabled and whatever else, on how to make use of all of these social networking tools. We all know they bleed them. Older generations are adjusting really fast! Think of it, the current largest population of new Facebook users, as an example, is people over 65! Ha! Who would have thought about that, right?  So we can see how the Social Web is impacting big time our societies, yet, in the business world it doesn’t seem to be happening at the same scale, which is a real shame, if you ask me, because, like I said, I believe we are already too late.  Are we? These working styles from both older and younger generations mixing together are just not rooted deeply enough in the business world just yet, and I am not too sure whether it’s due to the fact that there continue to be plenty of struggles around power and money, entitlement, prestige, reputation and merit (For all of the bad reasons!) or just a lack of democratising and humanising the corporate world as we know it. Either way, it’s not helping us advance fast enough to adjust that worrying trend of older knowledge workers on the brink of becoming pensioners.  Yet, the solution is just right there! Forget about the power and bullying struggles, forget about entitlement, forget about the oldest form of gamification in the workplace, the bonuses, forget about the old corporate business models operating in the 21st century still. We need to shake all of that off! And NOW!! We need to address what will remain as our biggest challenge event for the next 20 years, which, I am not sure what you would think, but I suspect it’s going to be requiring vast majority of our attention, effort and hard work just trying to retain a small % of that knowledge that’s just about to leave the workplace.  Yet, like I said above, the solution is just right there! Right at our fingertips. It’s just as if we have been blinded all along when we just need to turn around and look into one of the most powerful techniques ever invented by us humans in terms of knowledge transfer: storytelling. Indeed, storytelling that moves people. 2013 is the year of storytelling. Apparently. Actually, I have always felt that every year is the year of telling stories. It’s who we are and what and how we learn. No matter what. The amount of knowledge that we keep absorbing through sharing stories can’t probably be equalled by anything else. Yet, we don’t do much, or not enough for that matter!, at the workplace in this aspect, despite the huge amount of incredibly insightful writings available out there to set the stage of how powerful business storytelling could well be in helping you solve your biggest problem today and in 20 years time. Now, think of it, think of how both younger and older generations could make use of Social / Open Business and all of these social technologies to share their stories. Stories of how they have acquired and applied their own knowledge. Of how they have been bleeding these social tools all along since they were born. It’s all about convergence. And, yes, things are converging already, although perhaps not at a faster pace, because of lack of various different initiatives driven by the corporate world to try to adjust accordingly.  Here’s an example. How many of you folks, specially, in Europe, are aware of EURES? (In Spain, as another example, how many of you are somewhat aware of Eurojoves?). Take a minute or two to answer that question. It’s important. You will need to, because if you are not aware of it, right now you are missing what promises to be one of the most powerful, yet rather hidden, it seems, resources out there to start working your magic into capturing what, without any doubt, would be one of the most talented generations out there in the last few decades; incredibly eager and rather thirsty to absorb the knowledge, experience and know-how from your ageing working population through that wonderful and inspiring world of business storytelling through the extensive use of social technologies.  Wouldn’t that be quite something? That, instead of you trying to figure out where the young talent is nowadays in all of those social tools out there on the Social Web while you engage in useless talent wars, that you would instead head over to that giant pool of talent who has been waiting around for you to show up and proactively promote an opportunity to renew your own workforce, right with what you need, by just offering to become the social bridge between those generations? Isn’t that something that should have become a huge priority in the last 3 to 5 years? Again, are we too late? Did the train leave already? How is your business facing that ageing population issue over the course of the next 20 years … Got a plan? Not yet?  Ok, here are a couple of suggestions you can think about, not for too long though. Remember, we are running at full speed. Clock is already ticking… Social technologies + (business) story telling = an empowered, engaged knowledge workforce across generations and working styles.  A win-win situation for all, don’t you think? So WHY aren’t we doing it already then? What are we waiting for…? We have already lost some precious years we are not going to get back anymore. Let’s not waste more time, please. It’s time to ACT NOW! Don’t leave it for tomorrow as the knowledge AND the talent behind it may be gone for good, with no return, by tomorrow. 

If you have been reading this blog for a little while now, you would probably remember how concepts like Employee Engagement make me cringe a little bit. Specially, when it’s abused left and right by HR departments and corporations alike, in general, as that magic bullet that will help address and fix the number #1 business problem of today’s corporate world: employee disengagement. Or put together in simpler terms: people no longer owning or caring for their work. Don’t take me wrong, I do believe rather strongly in Employee Engagement. Seriously. I do. What I don’t believe much in is the current form of how businesses are thinking about engaging employees implying that they know better than them, that they can just throw it out there, put together some social technologies around it all and people would come and be re-engaged at work. Well, no, sorry. It doesn’t work that way. Employee engagement is a two-way street and unless both employees and employers are not willing to walk through both we won’t have it. Well, hello and welcome to the wonderful world of Arbejdsglaede! The first time that I ever heard about Arbejdsglaede was at the rather wonderful and delightful Meaning Conference in Brighton that took place late last year and which, the conference itself, still keeps bringing up lots of very fond memories, every time that I think about how much I learned during the couple of days I stayed there and also how much I savoured the wonderful conversations I had throughout the whole time. But, like I was saying, I learned about Arbejdsglaede from Alex Kjerulf, Chief Happiness Officer (Yes, I know, gotta love job titles like that one! I do!!), while he delivered perhaps one of the most inspiring presentations I had the privilege of attending live during the course of 2012 (And perhaps in a long while, too!).  Arbejdsglaede basically means a feeling of happiness you get at work, which, as he clearly indicates, is not the same as job satisfaction. It’s way deeper than that. It’s all about reflecting on what makes you happy at work, and, apparently, it’s just too basic things:  Results Relationships And bang! That’s when it really hit me. That’s when I realised that true employee engagement is all about that! Focusing and repurposing your efforts as a (knowledge) worker towards striking new meaning in providing exceedingly good and top performing results, while building meaningful, empathic and caring personal business relationships. Talking about striking for that rather strong sense of ownership and co-responsibility, of belonging, really. That’s what, to me, employee engagement is all about. It’s about finding that happiness at work that clearly gives you that little bit of extra energy to get up every day and look forward to a new exciting day where you are going to, hopefully, learn, collaborate, share openly more of your knowledge (Without asking for much in return) by interacting with your (social) network(s) understanding that "happy people do better work": "more productive, creative, helpful, better at service, focused on quality, better team-players, more open, more flexible, showing more empathy, selling more, more optimistic, motivated, engaged, energetic, with an ability to learn faster and eventually become better leaders".  Whoaaahhh! See what I meant with employee engagement? Now, imagine this, how many businesses out there have got those kinds of aspirations for their own employees by engaging them from the very beginning to help drive a new purpose, a new meaning for what they do at work? Something tells me that perhaps not too many. Or, at least, not enough! Why? Well, because we still have got that huge, problematic issue of 70% of our employee workforce being totally disengaged. Simple. I know, it even hurts deeply. Sad. Rather sad, really.  Back in 2007, Alex put together a rather interesting and very much thought provoking blog post that I saw re-surfacing through my networks a few days back and that triggered me to eventually put together this blog entry. In Top 10 Signs You’re Unhappy at Work he listed what, back then, appeared to be some of the most profound signs as to why employees are not happy at work. Fast forward to 2013 and it looks like we are still seeing pretty much of the same… Allow me please to quote and list those 10 signs, while I would encourage you all to go and read the entire article. It’s just brilliant as well in how it entices you to do a little bit of a mental exercise and a test to question for yourself how happy you are at work after all… So, to quote them:  You procrastinate You spend Sunday night worrying about Monday morning You’re really competitive about salary and titles You don’t feel like helping co-workers Work days feel looooong You have no friends at work  You don’t care. About anything Small things bug you You’re suspicious of other people’s motives Physical symptoms Fascinating read that blog post, don’t you think? I bet that vast majority of us have experienced any of those signs at some point in our so-called careers, perhaps some of us are even suffering from any, or several of those, right now, in 2013, at the time where plenty of people keep claiming that in the Social Era employee engagement through social networking tools is going to rule the world and is going to help reenergise employees again. Well, not really. It won’t. It won’t until we get our mojo back and start embracing that culture of Arbejdsglaede. Because that’s what it is all about. It’s that two-way street I talked about earlier on and that I feel is going to be incredibly important over the course of time, if not already.  And how do we get to Arbejdsglaede, you may be wondering, right?, as the golden panacea of Employee Engagement? I have got my very own ideas on the topic, but, instead, I am going to leave it down to the master on the topic. Here’s the blog post that Alex put together where he talked a little bit about his keynote session. Then here is the link where you can download his presentation materials and, finally, here’s the link where you can spend 30 minutes (well worth it, by the way!!) watching the recording of the session where he gets to talk about some pretty compelling conclusions that I thought I would quote over here as well to see them in the wider context of re-engaging back the workforce:  Make arbejdsglaede your #1 career goal Be happy at work - not just satisfied Do something about it! And, finally, my favourite quote on what that two-way street concept for Employee Engagement would be all about not only in the Social Era, but also on the Open Business Era: Do or do not. There is no try! Who would have thought that Arbejdsglaede would be such a beautiful word and such a magical concept after all, in terms of re-engaging knowledge workers, doing things just right through social technologies, around openness, transparency, meritocracy, caring, empathy, trust and, above all, purpose and meaning. Well, try now to pronounce it and be ready to chuckle!

Today, March 17th 2013, is St. Patrick’s Day. So while the rest of the world has already embarked on a massive celebration (Happy St. Patrick’s Day, by the way!!), I am also celebrating something rather special, so I thought I would let folks out there know about it, since I keep getting asked time and time again. No, it’s *not* my birthday, as the Social Web keeps proclaiming to the world and beyond. Actually, I have lied on the Social InterWebs, because my birthday already took place a few weeks back. However, on the Web, and a few years ago already, I updated all of my social networking profiles to put an incorrect birth date, just because I didn’t feel the world needed to know that personal detail. Oh, not to worry, I am not too fussed about my age, 41 this year, but it’s the principle that with that accurate date and a couple of other details people could impersonate you and steal your identity. So I thought I would lie about it and instead pick up a date that still is rather special and dear to me: St. Patrick’s Day. Why is March 17th such an important date to yours truly?, you may be wondering, right? Well, mainly because 9 years ago, exactly today, I moved from The Netherlands to Gran Canaria, my home base, making it by now the second longest time that I have ever lived in a place, outside of my parents home. So, in a way, it is my home, don’t you think? That’s right! I wasn’t really sure whether I was going to be able to make it for that long, but I guess that once you settle in a place and you decide that’s going to be it, it kind of becomes a special place. One that is part of you, and you are part of it. And that, to me, is Gran Canaria.  I guess time flies pretty quickly when you are having fun, right? Because even though it looks like as if it was yesterday, with the odd blink here and there, it’s already been 9 years since I moved to the island. And I wouldn’t change a single one of those years. It does feel like a re-birth, for sure, since when it happened I was going through one of those life changing experiences that you know you are going to bump into at some point in your life that makes you question and wonder about the small things, i.e. you know, the things that matter. So, perhaps in a way, I am celebrating today my re-birthday after all. Who knows…  The thing is that life works in mysterious ways and does magical and wonderful things, because how ironic it is that today I’m celebrating that 9th year anniversary of having moved to Gran Canaria, in Utrecht, The Netherlands, where I am staying for a couple of days to participate and present at the Congres Intranet 2013 (#intra13 is the Twitter hash tag, if you would want to follow it up over the next couple of days…). Yes, I know, very ironic, isn’t it?  Anyway, it’s still a wonderful celebration and I just couldn’t help dropping by over here in this blog and, like every year, share a short note of appreciation for how much of an impact such a tiny island can have in a person, like myself and everyone else who may have lived or visited there. So perhaps I thought I would share over here a couple of snapshots that would give you a glimpse of why Gran Canaria has got a special place in my heart for over the last 9 years and still going strong …        And those pictures surely remind me of the warm weather that I am already missing while over here in Utrecht, where it’s rather cold [Brrr] despite spring being just around the corner! So I guess it will also help me as an incentive of what awaits me in a couple of weeks when I return back home. Yes, that’s right, Utrecht is not the only city I’m going to visit during this business trip. I’m going to be on a little bit of a European Tour that will take me in a couple of days to Paris (Where I will be attending and presenting at the Enterprise 2.0 Summit - Follow the hash tag #e20s on Twitter, if you would be interested), then from there onwards on to Leuven, Belgium, to present at BLUG (#blug) and over the coming weekend onto Prague, to present as well at the Heutagogy Conference event on March 27th.  Goodness! I told you, a little bit of a European Tour, wasn’t it? I am excited already and I haven’t started it just yet! Either way, like I said, in two weeks time I will be enjoying the lovely warm weather, the lovely people, the lovely food from the one island that decided to become my new home 9 years ago: Gran Canaria. Thus happy re-birthday to me! PS: As usual, if you are going to be around any of those cities while I’m on the road, throughout this business trip, and would want to meet up for a drink or a coffee, or even a quick "Hi!", feel free to reach out through the usual social spaces … I’m just about to end the self-inflicted Twitter and G+ silence, provoked by something I talked about a little while ago …

You may have noticed how over the course of the last few days, things have been a bit too quiet over here in this blog and for a good reason. Last week, IBM hosted the Client Experience Jam from March 12th to March 15th, to commemorate not only the 10th year anniversary of the first IBM Vales Jam, but also to help redefine those very same values that were established back then in 2003. It’s really unimaginable that 10 years ago the company that has always been flagged as archaic, hierarchical, over-structured, rather rigid and strict, complex, obsolete, and what not, a dinosaur, basically, gave such a unique opportunity to all of its employees to air our their voices on establishing the core values that would dictate how the company would operate in the 21st century. Well, 10 years later, it did it again, but this time around not only as an opportunity to redefine those very same values, but going even deeper with something so fundamental and so much en-vogue nowadays as the client experience. That is why over the course of last week you haven’t seen much of me out there on the Social Web and on this blog. My self-inflicted Twitter and Google Plus silence was supposed to end up last week as well, but didn’t. Right from the very beginning of the online event, I decided to focus all of my energy and free time in engaging in as many conversations as I could possibly do not only to share my own past experiences while doing client work in the hopes of adding further up into the conversations, but mostly because of the huge learning opportunity IBM Jams always give all of us in sharing experiences and plenty of know-how with fellow peers. Yes, I know, this time around, and contrary to other Jams in the past, IBM conducted this one for IBM employees only. And it was a massive success! It’s probably a bit too early to share some additional insights in terms of Jam statistics and metrics, but I can tell you that they have been stunning and rather mind-boggling. However, and as usual when talking about metrics, the important bit is not really so much the focus on the social analytics, but more in the quality of the conversations and most of them have been outstanding. One of them, in particular, started off by a fellow IBMer from IBM Taiwan has generated such amount of traffic, interactions, ratings and conversations that it was a little bit of a mini-jam on its own! Main subject covered? Something as exciting, as complex and as tough as changing our core values that have been guiding IBM over the course of the last few decades. Talking about bold moves, about a meaningful impact, about an open dialogue with a purpose to make a difference! Absolutely brilliant! Something that, still today, a few days after it finished, gives me chills and makes me proud of working for the company I have been working for over the last 16 years. No, don’t worry, this is not going to be one of those cheesy kool-aid blog posts where I praise the good things about what my company does for a living. Those of you who know me too well know that’s never being my kind of thing and I won’t start it now. We also have got things that don’t work. Everyone does. That’s what makes coming to work exciting and energising every day, that we are presented with an opportunity to change those and keep improving experiences over the course of time. What I wanted to talk about today on this blog post though is about something that goes very much along those lines. It’s about the open dialogue. If you have been reading this blog for a little while now, you would know how at the beginning of the year I put together a blog post where I was talking about something that, three months later, I am now even more convinced than what I was back then to carry on with it. Regardless. And that is that shift away from Social Business into Open Business. Plenty of people would venture to confirm that my employer, IBM, is a successfully Socially Integrated Enterprise, and they might be right. I think we still have got plenty of room for improvement and a fascinating journey to complete, but we are getting there. But at the same time, and this is what really excites me, IBM is also making the move, a huge one, by the way!, into becoming an Open Business. How? Well, with small steps, but building further along from there. Slow, steady, but with a firm attitude that there is no way back, and that’s what excites me big time. Why? More than anything else because of things like the Client Experience Jam we just experienced in the last few days. Yes, I know some of you are going to say how open can a large firm be, when one of the most massive online events ever held by the company has only been available for internal employees and not for everyone else (customers, business partners, analysts, competitors and other industry thought leaders). Well, becoming more open needs to start somewhere and when you are not too comfortable, just like when Social Business first came about, it’s better start where you feel you could make up for a big impact: start by opening up internal conversations, get people comfortable interacting with one another, without not necessarily knowing each other, so that they get the gist of it, before they can move on. And then when things will be all right, that’s when you would already venture into the rest of the world. And that’s just what we have been experiencing with that Client Experience Jam. That is, opening up from the inside out one step at a time! No need to rush. We are here for the long run. Always have been, even with Social Business. It’s been quite an exhilarating and exciting experience. The Jam, that is. One that I am hoping to be able to talk about over the course of time, once we start seeing some of the various different insights and outcomes that came out of the event itself. The biggest challenge starts now though, that is, gathering all of that data, analyse it, make some sense out of it, come up with some pretty defining initiatives and continue helping the firm evolve accordingly based on that employee open feedback and direct dialogue. Yes, indeed, that is the most exciting phase of the Jam, more than anything else because there is nothing more important and critical towards employee engagement that once you collect, out there in the open, plenty of input from your knowledge workforce on what works AND what doesn’t work, the least you can do as a business is come back with ideas and initiatives you plan to put together as a result of the online event to address plenty of the issues at play. Now, that is employee engagement, when you not only embark on a massive online exercise of active learning, but at the same time of active doing. On the Jam itself, in one of those moments of inspiration that you know come up every now and then I quoted that transformation as "Doing Is Believing!" and I am now more convinced than ever that is all what it is all about: not only learn by doing, but do what you believe in, i.e. in those ideas you keep throwing out there on the table for others to make them better, to work with you, to collaborative, to eventually co-create something better, something that would have such a significant impact that will change the industry for good! Now, will my company be capable of doing that? Well, we will have to wait and see. Like I said, Phase II of the event just launched and over the course of the next few weeks I will be sharing some additional insights over how far have we moved further on with plenty of the ideas that flourished during the course of the event. For now I guess you may be wondering what were some of the various different ideas that I put together around that Client Experience Jam event that took place last week, right? Well, in an exercise of openness and transparency from my side, I thought perhaps about putting the titles of those ideas over here with a brief note of what was discussed from the thousands of interactions I got throughout the whole event. Yes, thousands!, so it’s going to be a bit challenging, but I can give it a try. So here we go: Exceeding Client’s Expectation by Going the Extra Mile (23 Ratings - 28 Replies) Talking about going the extra mile to delight clients, to ensure everyone understands there is a shift towards becoming more customer centric than vendor centric.  Investing Your Time in Business Schools (32 Ratings - 66 Replies) Reflecting on one of my favourite activities that I get to carry out, which is essentially be immersed into the trends of thought of the next generation of the workplace: the younger ones.  Leaving a Legacy Behind … PhD Students (60 Ratings - 56 Replies) A bit of a follow-up from the one above, but this one with a direct impact on helping college students work through their PhD thesis understanding there is always a "Yes!" for an answer, because, you never know, they may as well become your manager tomorrow!  Work Smarter, Not Necessarily Harder (53 Ratings - 48 Replies) Where we explored how social networking tools and having the right IT infrastructure can surely have a huge impact in terms of adoption, enablement, collaboration and knowledge sharing.   Great Managers Lead, They Don’t Manage (502 Ratings - 1075 Replies) Tremendously powerful conversation on redefining Management and Leadership for the 21st century, and along the lines of Servant Leadership, that I talked about not long ago on this other blog post.  Is IBM Ready to Become an Open Business? (42 Ratings - 125 Replies) Yes, see? I told you! The intent is there. The small steps have already been taken on moving further along into Openness and Transparency. I am hoping to develop further along on this one as we move forward in time, but judging from the interactions I had in this thread alone, yes, openness will become more the rule, than an exception. It may take time, but it will eventually get there!  Believing in Your Ideas: Life Without eMail (863 Ratings - 867 Replies) And, finally, of course, I just couldn’t help thinking about bringing up the one idea that has changed my life for the last 5 years (Yes!! 5 years! We just crossed the 5th anniversary and very soon I will be sharing a much long overdue blog entry on the topic with some surprises coming along! Stay tuned!). Of course "A World Without eMail" did have a rather significant impact, which at some point it brought a good big smile into my face when I realise that, finally, 5 years later, the world, my world, is at long last, catching up! As an example, the deck I put together some time last year on this topic, and which I am hoping to share it out there, outside of the firewall, pretty soon, once I go through a final update and a bit of sanitation, has been downloaded over 3,000 times! Just internally. Double yay, I know!   Like I said, those were my own ideas that I submitted into the event. Remember, it was an internal, IBM employees only, event, so those links would work for those fellow IBMers who would still want to go through the conversations, since the Jam is now open again in read only mode, but there have been thousands and thousands of other ideas submitted by fellow IBM colleagues. This is just a glimpse of what actually happened. A couple of other words to describe it? Massive and overwhelming, and equally exciting! At this point in time, I just wanted to reflect on the fact that those companies that may not be that open to listening to their employees sharing rather candid, honest and authentic feedback, even behind the company’s firewall, don’t know what they are missing in venturing to transform their own organisation and make it a better place. I have got no doubts whatsoever that the Client Experience Jam IBM hosted last week will have such kind of impact. Even more, I would venture to state that those who actively participated in the event would no longer be the same. I know I won’t. For once, I am incredibly excited to be given a huge unique opportunity to not only have a voice, an opinion, a perspective, but to do it in a venue where open, honest, transparent and direct dialogue has been not only encouraged but very much practiced throughout the whole of last week! Now, when was the last time your company opened up to such brutal method of living an Open Business?

If you would remember, a few months back, I put together this blog post on "Why Do I Share My Knowledge?", where I reflected on the main reasons as to why I’m so keen myself on sharing my knowledge across out there openly and in a more or less transparent manner. I guess that’s what Open Business is all about. Whether for Learning, Helping Others, or Leaving a Legacy Behind. The interesting thing though is that perhaps the main reason why I have been sharing more of my knowledge over the course of the years, is because, deep inside, I am still a child. We all are, after all. It’s just that for a good number of decades we may have neglected our childish nature of sharing for the sake of sharing. And that’s perhaps what has gotten us into trouble in the first place. Again, when was the last time that you behave like a kid when shared something?  I know it may all sound a bit too cryptic and eclectic when talking about those references around childhood, but I just couldn’t help thinking about dropping by over here today to share what’s perhaps one of the most inspiring video clips you will be watching this year and I would strongly encourage everyone to go out there and spend nearly two minutes to go through it to see what I mean.  As you may recall I’m currently on the road, in Prague, to be more precise, on the last leg of this business trip, having a wonderful time visiting the city and doing plenty of good work around Social / Open Business and "A World Without eMail". Yet, in between here and there I am still having a bit of time to catch up with what’s happening in my various different social networks, and then serendipity does its magic, once again, and hits me badly! In a wonderful way…  Lately, my good friend Chris Brogan, has been doing some phenomenal sharing of great, relevant and insightful content over at Google Plus on how these digital tools are helping transform not only our businesses, but also our personal lives. One of those posts though is special, actually, rather special. It contains a link to that short YouTube video clip that I mentioned above and that I’m sure it’s going to give you shivers through your spine as you get to watch it. Why? Well, essentially, because it will remind you of what we were like when we were kids… And why a good number of us are still kids today. Instead of me telling you what I mean with all of that, I am going to stop here for a minute and encourage you all to watch the video and judge for yourselves… Whoah! There you have it! Right there! What do you say to that? I bet very few comments can be added other than acknowledging that perhaps we have gone all the way wrong in our perceptions and expectations around the whole concept of Sharing. That Sharing Experiment is a whole proof we can do better at the workplace when sharing our knowledge across. And I know what you may be thinking … Those kids are already a bit too old and they probably have been taught, and educated, by their parents what sharing is all about without asking anything in return. And probably you are right!  But then again, where does that live us, adult knowledge workers, in terms, specially, of how we collaborate and share our knowledge in the workplace? Where did we go wrong with our childhood education and learning, or even our very own human nature as kids, where we seemed to have acquired the right skills yet, when entering the corporate world, we looked like we have left that behind and instead keep protecting and hoarding our knowledge, fighting with one another, still strongly believing that "Knowledge is power". Really? Well, I hope not! Look at what this bunch of kids are showing us above, on the video clip. Essentially, that human beings are social animals who share unconditionally with fellow humans what we know, what we treasure, what we are truly passionate about, what we care for, i.e. the well being of fellow humans, without asking for anything in return…  Thus as I keep reflecting on everything that I have learned on this long business trip, attending and presenting at multiple conference events, talking and interacting with customers, and learning from other thought leaders, and that I will be blogging about it shortly as well, I know, for sure, that for me to succeed in the large corporate environment there is a single thing that I would need to keep getting very good at, and which it looks a lot easier than what most people may well think about: Let the child inside me come out and show the way on what sharing is all about…  I am hoping that you would do the very same thing. After all, there is nothing to lose, but a lot to win altogether, don’t you think? 

Now that I am, once again, back home, after another round of business trips, I just couldn’t help reflecting on the fact that, lately, over the course of the last few months, perhaps couple of years, we seem to be going from extreme negatives to extreme positives and back. Somehow it’s starting to feel like being on a non-stop roller-coaster, and although I quite enjoy those rides, I am not too sure it’s something I would want to do on a permanent basis. Specially, getting exposed to extreme negatives. They can be just so much energy draining altogether, it’s probably not even worth it focusing too much on them. Yes, I know, I, too, have been missing the Inspiring Video of the Week series of posts over here in this blog, so I’m hoping to bring them back, once again, and perhaps with such enticing and rather optimistic message as The Future Is Ours.  No, don’t worry, nothing serious about my own persona or those around me for that matter. I am all right. In fact, I’m doing really well, specially, on the final week before I will be sharing some further details on that previous blog post where I talked about Who Moved My Cheese? and where to next. It’s just that the whole world has gone really weird and for no apparent reason. And that’s where the extreme negatives keep flourishing all over the place, distracting us all from what we should really be focusing on at this point in time: make the world a better place. Not for you, not for me, not for any of us, but for our future generations to come… That’s why, when I bumped into The Future Is Ours (A beautifully inspiring and thought-provoking short video clip of a bit over two minutes), I just couldn’t help thinking that it wouldn’t hurt us to have some sort of reminders, every now and then, that allow us to keep that focus intact on what our purpose and potential meaning truly are, never mind those distractions that we seem to keep bumping into more often than not.  Thus I thought that since I am now back from my last round of business trips and in order to get things going again with my blogging mojo, it would be a perfect opportunity to kick things off with a blog entry on the Inspiring Video of the Week and this time around, since it’s been a while, to actually share a bonus one as well! And I think I may have just bumped into the right, quality materials for today.  Michael Marantz quotes: "Imagine the future as a movie, consider this a trailer to that movie" as an introduction to this short video clip. I know most people out there reading this entry would probably say that it’s far too optimistic and perhaps utopian, but then again, I learned, a long while ago, to come back with why not? What’s stopping us from reaching out our highest potential, that is, "pushing humanity forward"? Probably nothing else than just us. So why not go ahead and do it? How? Well, here’s some inspiration to get in the mood:  The Future is Ours from Michael Marantz on Vimeo. Yes, I know, I need that, too! Well, here’s the bonus track. When you are done watching through that video clip take a look into this other one, of just under two minutes, on "Social Media Changes Everything", which is just as powerful as the previous one, more than anything else, because it shows and demonstrates what has been crippling us all in the past and that we are finally breaking loose from it with the emergence of social technologies: "Knowledge / Information is power" is now shifting into "Information now finds its own flow":   And if we are talking about the Social Web as a Flow, as my good friend Stowe Boyd would say, we are just getting started… See? That’s why every now and then I keep longing for inspirational video clips like the two I shared above, so I can get over from the extreme negatives, even if is it hard for a short while and continue to work really hard for those extreme positives that make everything worth while. Yes, I know, I could probably summarise it with these two different sentences spread around on the first video clip: "Let yourself be overwhelmed… Never stop dreaming" Why not?

This is it! The moment of truth! The wait is over. The long hiatus of silence is now a thing of the past. The soul-searching period is finished and dealt with. It is, at long last, official and I am now ready to announce it to the world! As you may remember from a previous blog post, I mentioned how late last year someone decided to move my cheese and how that turned around into becoming a very good opportunity for me to make the move into the next big thing. It’s been a rather interesting and exhilarating experience how an extreme negative of a 20 minute long conversation can be turned around into an extreme positive with another 20 minute long one. Both of those having taken place within a couple of weeks in between. Both extremes are always disruptive enough to make you question your entire career and what you would want to do with your work / personal life next. Yes, I know you all know what I mean… that kind of change. The truly mind-blowing one. The one that, once you strike it, you know there is no turning point. No way back at all anymore. It’s just there to stay and become part of you and you become part of it. For better or for worse. Well, I have just gone through one of those. I know that some of you folks may be wondering about what happened back in January about who moved my cheese and why was I so relatively quiet on social networks for a good few weeks, right? There was a reason for it, after all. A reason for which I am still trying to come to terms with and that I will be blogging about in its due time, whenever I feel I am ready to share it across. In short, it’s the one that provoked the extended period of silence on the Social Web and which concluded with me deciding to *not* stand till, do nothing and wait for the pay-check at the end of the month and succumb to everything that I have never believed in, in the first place. I am not that kind of person. Don’t think I ever will be. So sorry if you thought I was, but I am afraid I am not. I eventually decided to find my new cheese in an attempt to move further on in my professional career. Yes, I know what you are thinking, there is a whole lot more than I could probably talk about around what eventually happened, but I am starting to think that it’s probably no longer even worth it. In fact, it may have happened because of a good reason: my time was well overdue and it was just the perfect chance for me to move on. And serendipity, as you all know, works in various mysterious and magic ways, so after having looked both inside and outside of the firewall, I am now pleased to announce I have got a new job. Indeed, still at IBM (My current employer for the last 16 years… and counting…), and already fully immersed in it for the last couple of weeks, which is also why it’s taking me a bit of time to blog about it, as I first needed to adjust the massive learning curve, but still doing what I love doing: keep challenging the status quo of how certain things work in the business world in an effort to become much more open, transparent and sustainable. Indeed, an openly Socially Integrated Enterprise. That is right, like I said above, a couple of weeks ago, my new reporting manager, Barb Mathers (IBM Director of Workplace and Collaboration Solutions), announced, of course, in no other way than through our internal social networking platform, IBM Connections, the following exciting piece of news: "BIG NEWS! I am thrilled to announce that Luis Suarez is joining my team as Lead Social Business Enabler for w3 and www Connections. Luis will be driving the successful adoption of Connections across IBM, in support of our Workplace of the Future goals of transforming the way employees work in a globally integrated enterprise. Luis will be an excellent champion for the CIO office as he helps to communicate our direction of becoming a truly social business and what it takes to get there. Welcome aboard, Luis!!!" [Emphasis mine} A dream job, without any doubt!, another one, that just came true. I could probably say that back in the day, when I was first getting involved with social networking tools, back in 2001, I knew, deep inside, that, at some point in time, I would be ending up doing this kind of job. And 12 years later that dream came true. Yes, I know, probably a bit too long, perhaps, right? Well, I guess that's what patience, resilience and perseverance can do for you (Along with having plenty of good fun along the way doing a bunch of other interesting projects and initiatives as well and working with an amazing group of talented and rather smart fellow colleagues, too!). They keep saying that those who are patient enough to wait for it will eventually end up achieving it and I guess that is what just happened two weeks ago! I am incredibly excited and truly honoured to be filling in this new position. Thrilled that I will have an opportunity to continue doing what I love doing, i.e. exploring that whole brave new world of Open Business in the context of helping my employer become a Socially Integrated Enterprise. I realise that, for most people out there, it would probably mean the very same thing I have been doing all along in the last 6 years, but there are a few differences... As a starting point, I will no longer be working within the IBM Software Group as a Social Business Evangelist for fellow senior technical leaders and subject matter experts, which is the work I have been doing now for a bit over a year. Instead, I will be joining the Global IBM CIO Organisation as Lead Social Business Enabler for w3 and www Connections, our Enterprise Social Software platform (Internal and external), with the main goal, vision and mission of continuing to help facilitate the adoption / adaption of IBM and fellow colleagues in our journey to become a successful social / open business. Yes, indeed, I will be doing lots and lots more work on enablement, adoption, education, facilitation, adaptation, consultancy, and so forth around accelerating our very own social / open business transformation. As most of you know already, IBM is one of the many Enterprise Social Software vendors out there, perhaps one of the most competitive ones, too (I will leave that to you to decide…), but, at the same time, long time ago, we decided that, instead of blocking the use of these social technologies, and in order to help improve the way we collaborate and share our knowledge, both inside and outside of the firewall, we were going to, instead, drink our own champagne and become a showcase of that social business transformation a good number of other firms have embarked on already over the course of the last few years. And that is the journey that we started back in 2001 and that since 2005 it's gone through a good number of tipping points, some of which I have already blogged about in the past. Well, I guess this will be the next one, at least, for yours truly, because that announcement that Barb mentioned above already is the most popular microblog post shared internally already from the very beginning, which has me even more excited and incredibly humbled, because, in a way, it's confirming it was the right move when I started conversations about it a couple of months back. And even more so from the perspective that my new management line knew that, when they were hiring me, they weren't just hiring Luis Suarez (That weird, strange guy who lives in Gran Canaria, and who doesn't use corporate email to do his work any longer, that social business evangelist who works leading by example on what social / open is all about) but my entire global network, both internal and external! That's how this new hyperconnected, networked business world works nowadays ... But what I do feel really excited about is that my new management line also walks the talk, they do lead by example in this brave new social / open business world. They do live one of my favourite mantras as of late, that is, "Doing is believing!", so when I was first offered the job I just didn't have to think much to accept it, right on the spot, on February 12th, in New York City, at a Starbucks coffee shop, near the IBM building in 590 Madison. [Yes, I don't know why, but NYC does manage to have a special place in my heart over the course of the years. It already did back in 2008 when I first announced there publicly to the world I was starting the movement of Thinking Outside the Inbox. And it still has it 5 years later when I landed in this dream job!] I am sure over the course of time I will be introducing you to them all, my management line, that is, so that you all get to start knowing who I will be working with. It’s going to be quite good fun, I can guarantee you that! I know that at this point in time you may be wondering about what my job role and responsibilities would be like and everything, right? Not to worry, I will be sharing all those in an upcoming blog post, but perhaps for one I will detail the main task / activity I will be working on from here onwards: Help facilicate and accelerate the adoption / adaptation of Social Business at IBM (Both internally and externally) through our strategic enterprise social software solution, IBM Connections. Like I said, more to come in an upcoming blog post, but that’s it for now! That is the reason why I have been relatively quiet in the last couple of months while I was adjusting to this brave new adventure I have been so much looking forward to. Yes, your suspicions were absolutely right, too! There is a whole lot more than I could tell and share over here and that’s my intention as well over the course of the next few months when I will be blogging about the very same themes I have been blogging all along over the course of the last 8 years around Social / Open Business, Collaboration, Knowledge Sharing, Online Communities and Learning, but at the same time I also feel this blog will turn itself into an open and transparent window as to what it is like being in the role that I am, narrating my work, working out loud, by sharing how that fascinating journey moves along, i.e. the challenges, the opportunities, the really cool things, the not so cool ones, what I learn along the way and whatever else that comes up in my mind… I guess this blog will turn itself into what the original concept of blogging was all about: a (my) personal Social Web journal… For now, time for me to move on and delighted to come back again, in full force, to the Social Web and really looking forward to keep up with the conversations and additional dialogue around Social / Open Business with all of you folks now that I am back in business with just one final token of sincere appreciation and gratitude for sticking around this long and for your patience and genuine interest (Yes, you all know who you are!) and for making it possible for me to bring into reality my next dream job: keep leading the Open Business (r)Evolution. Thanks ever so much and let’s do it! Let the good fun continue! Bring it on!

Now that the word is out there, and since I have been in the new job for a couple of weeks already, I guess it’s a good time to reflect on what does the Lead Social Business Enabler for IBM’s w3 and www Connections do on a daily basis in terms of my job role and responsibilities. As a starting point, the novelty effect has been huge altogether, because in these first two weeks I have been in the IBM CIO Organisation there has been a growing trend that I am finding it quite fascinating, and rather intriguing, and, perhaps, somewhat rewarding, although totally unexpected: everyone seems to want to have a piece of me now, or, better said, everyone wants to grab my attention for one activity or another, whether it’s related to my day to day job, or not. Something that, funny enough, did not happen in the past, even though I have always been rather visible all along. Looks like the new job may have triggered a new, fresh interest in Social / Open Business for fellow colleagues, specially, when they are no longer pondering about the Why or the What but diving right into the How. And that is a good thing, that’s one of the many reasons why I got hired into this position in the first place: help Social / Open become the new fabric of how fellow knowledge workers get work done by becoming part of their collaboration DNA. But I am sure at this point in time you are probably wondering about what does that mean exactly, right? Well, this is the blog post that will try to detail somewhat what my job role and responsibilities are in the new gig. It’d be the first time that I share publicly (Even outside of the firewall) what I will be measured upon in terms of my overall performance at the end of the year, what we call at IBM our Personal Business Commitment, but in that exercise of openness and transparency I am hoping it will help folks out there get a bit of clarity in terms of where my main focus areas will be. Over the course of time I am hoping to be able to share plenty more about each and everyone of those responsibilities and how they are working out over the course of the time. And perhaps expand even further on the wider implications of some of those tasks.  So, for now, perhaps an initial introduction that I am sure would be good enough to help everyone understand what I will be involved with in the next few months (years), more than anything else because last week Friday I was doing an internal keynote talking about Social Business and Adoption in Madrid and the host didn’t know exactly how to present or introduce me (jokingly). Understandably so, since hardly anyone knows what I will be doing from here onwards. Thus I thought to help out with that clarity I would go ahead and share it over here. That way I can reference it much easier over the course of time, while at the same time it will help serve me as a good reminder for myself of what my main focus areas should be like, instead of jumping from initiative to initiative that may be, or may be not, related to my core tasks. So, without much further ado, here you have got the tasks and activities I will be heavily involved with in the new job:  Overall Global Social Adoption & Enablement Lead: essentially, meaning that I’ll be leading the overall effort to transform the way employees work using social software as the core part of their work. Drive enablement to increase successful adoption, leveraging the models established in the past by both BlueIQ and CommunityBuilders: meaning, basically, not to reinvent the wheel and leverage the huge mindset that both of those efforts, i.e. community driven social adoption initiatives through BlueIQ Ambassadors and CommunityBuilders have done over the course of the last 6 years and which, as of late, were a bit dormant. Time to wake them up and get down to work! Support the specific goals of driving social adoption through the Innovation & Values Team 9 project of Expertise Locator and Client Collaboration Hub: where finding experts in an organisation of over 450k employees along with collaborating more effectively with customers and business partners outside the firewall have become two of the major use cases to help Social / Open Business blend with the day to day business operations, getting one step closer towards considering social networking just that: netWORKING. Expand Outside CIO Interaction & Engagement: with a couple of efforts that I am truly excited about myself, because both of them do help out accomplish a common vision: build on the ecosystem around Social Business. To name:  - Create and consolidate a Social Board of Advisors to help improve the feedback mechanism for our very own Enterprise Social Software Solutions. - Establish an open source Connections social community for sharing extensions and customisations to Connections itself resulting in having the best of both worlds coming together: 2.0 practitioners and developers being part of the same ecosystem. And, finally, evangelise our use of Social / Open both inside and outside of IBM, through client briefings, internal / external meetings, public speaking events, and various other social networking activities out there on the Social Web. I know, this is the one task that most of you out there would be familiar with all along, since I have been doing that for a few years now. Perhaps the twist though is that over the course of time I’m planning on writing about the usual themes I have written over here all along, but also share additional insights on how this new job role moves along in terms of what I learn, what I am working on, the challenges, the opportunities, the lessons learned, the mindset, the overall mission of showcasing IBM’s own journey into becoming a Socially Integrated Enterprise. That’s why, after the short hiatus I went through in the last couple of weeks, I am back now with my Big Three hoping to dive back into the Social Web to keep the conversations and the dialogue going…  And that’s it! Those are essentially the main tasks and activities that I will be working on over the course of the next few months. Yes, I am excited, as you can imagine. Very much so! More than anything else, because of what I wrote down in a previous blog post in terms of why I took this job a few weeks back: "keep challenging the status quo of how certain things work in the business world in an effort to become much more open, transparent and sustainable. Indeed, an openly Socially Integrated Enterprise."  There have been a whole bunch of other interesting and rather intriguing things that I have noticed as well in the last two weeks that I will be talking about and reflecting on over here, like the massive hard reset / reboot I have gone through with living "A World Without eMail", taking me back to February 2008, but then again that would be another story for an upcoming blog post… 

A couple of years back, Giovanni Rodriguez put together a guest blog post over a ReadWriteWeb on the topic of Enterprise 2.0 Adoption: Does It Have To Be So Hard? and it’s rather interesting to see how almost three years later the challenge seems to be there still, alive and kicking: Social / Open Business Adoption is hard. Well, it should well be. If not, what is the point? What’s the challenge? Where is your vision? Where is the business value? What are your goals? Think of it, if social / open business adoption would have been really easy most of us would have gotten pretty much bored right from the start and would have moved elsewhere already. Whether we like it or not, we, social / open business evangelists live on the laggards, the critics, the skeptics. They are the ones who keep feeding us with their negativity, who make us stronger by putting up a good fight, the ones who makes us think whether what we do is worth while or not. In short, they are the ones who will make your adoption efforts a real success or just another IT project failure. So what can we do to channel through all of that extra energy they have? Should we ignore them? Should we help them? Should we focus elsewhere? Social Business Adoption, if anything, needs to be inclusive, at least, make it a personal choice for people to dive into, or not, and help them make up their own mind. Earlier on this year, at the Enterprise 2.0 Summit event in Paris, there were plenty of reservations from both social business evangelists and practitioners, in general, about the whole aspect around adoption of social technologies. Apparently, plenty of people have got issues with key concepts like drive, adoption or even social for that matter, amongst several others. And while being asked about it, I mentioned how if people have got issues with words like adoption, we may as well end up raising up the game and instead perhaps switch to what is really all about: Adaptation. My good friend, the always rather insightful and smart Ana Silva, captured this shift rather nicely at her #e20s highlights blog post. Worth while a read for sure. That you have got issues with Social then switch over to Open (Business). That you don’t feel comfortable with Drive then go back to basics of what online interactions have been all about over the last couple of decades: (online) facilitation. And so forth. The idea in here is that by building further up on your adoption strategies the only thing you are doing is making yourself stronger by the day in your arguments and counter-arguments, so that when the time comes you can face the laggards, the critics and the skeptics and have a good chance of helping inspire and model new behaviours, a new mindset, even for them.  I have been doing work as a social computing evangelist for over 12 years and if there is anything that I have learned over the course of that time is that adoption / adaptation is a rather tough sell. It’s hard work. It’s lots of hard work. It’s actually pretty tough breaking up people’s habits, specially, the bad ones, because they are the ones that are most ingrained into how people get their day to day work done. No-one said that enticing those new behaviours into openness, publicly and transparency through social technologies would be a piece of cake. Yet, it’s the most rewarding of activities you can embark on as a social business evangelist, more than anything else because for as long as there is resistance / reluctance about it all, you will still have a job to do.  That’s essentially the role of the social / open business evangelist, that is, to make ourselves redundant and make our job roles obsolete, so that by the time that happens we would be ready to make the move into the next thing, whatever that may well be, while businesses become truly socially integrated enterprises. That’s why I have always felt that my mission is to make myself redundant. All along. To work my way into helping my fellow colleagues understand what social / open business is all about. To help them adapt to a new way of doing business, where open knowledge sharing and collaboration become the norm and where practitioners, instead of hoarding and protecting their knowledge, working in their own little silos, fighting with one another, they would eventually be caring and helping each other in a truly open and collaborative manner, where instead of stabbing each other to see who will get their bonuses, they would showcase, instead, enough empathy to care not only for themselves, but also for those around them: their networks. And, as you can imagine, it’s not easy. It was never meant to be easy. Like I said, it’s actually quite tough, but, goodness, is it worth while all along? It surely is! It’s what would allow each and everyone of us, social / open evangelists, to grow in our skills, our experiences, our know-how, our collective intelligence and knowledge shared. See? We thrive on that negativity. We get bigger and bigger every time we get exposed to their negativity and reluctance to open up. We keep developing a whole bunch of various different strategies that, eventually, would help tame down every single one of your negative responses, to the point where you eventually might run out of steam yourself. Like I said, we truly thrive on that negativity.  The thing is that things weren’t always like that. I remember the time when, back in the day, there was lots of excitement about Social Business. Yes, I am talking about those first, second or third waves of early adopters who understand what a game changing Social Business is all about. I have seen it with plenty of the customers I get to talk to, as well as my fellow colleagues. It’s what a bunch of us have been calling the Post One Year Challenge. Essentially, the initial enthusiasm in terms of adoption would last you probably for about a year or 18 months before the good fun starts. Yes, indeed, before the laggards, the critics and the skeptics start noticing they are the only ones left on their own little boats.  And that’s just the time when we need to be the strongest. When we need to be the most resilient, perseverant, perhaps somewhat stubborn, and fully committed, of social / open evangelists out there than ever before, so that we can prepare a good number of arguments and counter-arguments to face those critics. Constructive criticism, dissent and critical thinking (Worth while reading this superb blog post by one of my favourite thinkers at the moment, Anne Marie McEwan) are essential traits to a healthy corporate environment where you can keep challenging the status quo of how certain things have been running, where you are always looking for room for improvement on how you work and interact with others. In short, where you engage in really passionate conversations that help you question everything you have done in the past. That’s both your growing and learning paths. That’s all along what will keep you going for years to no end!  And that’s essentially what I have been experiencing over the course of the last couple of weeks in the new job that I have moved into within the IBM CIO Organisation. During that time I have been exposed to plenty of fellow colleagues, laggards, critics and skeptics mainly, who know plenty of what we have been doing over the course of the last decade in terms of accelerating our own pace into becoming a socially integrated enterprise, but they still haven’t jumped into the bandwagon, because they feel there isn’t anything in it for them, never mind how little they have tried it all out in the first place. The interesting thing from these occurrences and conversations is that over the course of that time I have grown bigger, much bigger, in terms of building my own strategies around social / open business adaptation, to the point where in the last couple of days I have been involved in some rather extensive discussions on the topic at hand and I am still feeling like I am just getting started. Like I mentioned above, I realised a while ago, perhaps a couple of years back, how I keep feeding myself from people’s negativity and aversion towards embracing Open Business. The more reluctance I get exposed to, the bigger I get and I am finding it really fascinating how that growth has accelerated tremendously in the last two weeks. Knowledge and experiences around living social that I thought I didn’t have anymore are coming back in full force and with first hands-on experience, walking the talk, that I can relate across using one of the most powerful means of transferring knowledge: telling stories.  Plenty of people keep asking me and wondering where do I get the energy from, the enthusiasm and the passion for it all, to keep pushing and challenging folks back in a healthy, constructive, but perhaps provocative manner altogether and I keep telling everyone that, to me, it’s something you build over the course of the years through three basic key traits: resilience, perseverance, and, above all, patience. Lots of patience that will always try to help you understand the other side, their point of view, their business pain points, their productivity black holes, and what not, so that you can eventually come back in full force with plenty of ideas, stories, experiences, know-how AND your networks to help amplify the conversation and help them overcome each and everyone of their issues. After 12 years of doing that I’m sure you may all be wondering whether I am getting tired of it all and start thinking about moving on, or not. Well, the reality is that I feel I am just only now getting started with it. Time and time again I have been working with a whole bunch of really smart, insightful and rather talented group of evangelists, but right now, in this new job, I feel we have all just been giving a new mission: keep feeding on that negative feedback shared across by those who can’t, nor won’t, adapt to a new way of working, and try to turn it all into something positive. Something they can relate to, something they can touch, feel and experience themselves. Something that has now become one of my core activities as a Lead Social Business Enabler: help provoke their own heartfelt business transformation. Not mine, but theirs. Game ON!