If you have been reading this blog for a while you would remember how all along I have been insisting on the fact that for businesses to facilitate and adapt to that Social / Open Transformation technology is nothing more than just an enabler, it’s the icing on the cake, and how the key to become a successful Socially Integrated Enterprise there is nothing more than just acquiring a new set of behaviours, a new mindset, in short, a new core of good healthy habits to get things going on that journey. It may well be much easier saying it out loud than writing it down, but what is a habit though? Is that something that you inspire in yourself, and / or in others? Is that something that you aim to acquire by osmosis mimicking what other people may be doing already? Is it that inertia that keeps coming up without questioning the status quo of how certain things get done around the workplace? Well, may be not. A habit is, apparently, a reward. Over the course of the last few months I have become very interested in the whole concept of behavioural dynamics, about how we may be able to influence the behaviours of those around us, and the good old habits they may have accumulated over the course of the years, in order to think differently in terms of how they share their knowledge across and collaborate perhaps much more openly and transparently through social technologies versus whatever other traditional means. And all along it looks like I haven’t been the only one interested in that topic judging by the extensive amount of additional reading materials in terms of blog posts, articles, dissertations, reflections, infographics, and numerous, never ending, Top N Habits posts to perform or do XYZ, you name it. Plenty of extensive reading on the topic of habit formation, too, I can tell you. I would event bet you all may have your own favourite picks that you may have curated over the course of time in terms of what would be those desired good habits (Even for Community Managers!), or whether they are related to keeping up with healthy habits, or perhaps enjoy the odd pleasure of showing your gratitude. You may even want to break away from your email habits altogether (As my good friend, Oscar Berg brilliantly wrote recently at CMSWire) or from any other bad habit from that matter! The thing is that habit formation is hard. And yet, it’s of paramount importance, because habits are at the heart of our successes and our failures, apparently. So when thinking about that Social / Open Business Transformation I just couldn’t help thinking whether we have got it figured out how we can inspire those new habits in terms of how people connect, collaborate and share their knowledge across. Whether we can model new behaviours and new habits and, if so, how can we achieve such goal, because something tells me that it’s not going to be an easy one. You know, they keep saying how for a human being to acquire a new habit for a particular action, it needs to be repeated, at least, 31 times. I know, that’s a lot! Well, that’s what would take us to build a new habit into what we do on a regular basis. Interestingly enough, a couple of months back, I bumped into this superbly done short video clip (Under 3 minutes) from Epipheo that pretty much describes The Power of Habit from Charles Duhigg and which surely makes up for quite an interesting watch altogether. No, I haven’t read the book just yet, in case you are wondering, but I finally managed to buy it for my Kindle for my upcoming, and ever growing, summer reading. The video though clearly highlights what’s perhaps the main challenge we, social / open business evangelists, keep facing when helping fellow knowledge workers adapt to those new behaviours, those newly built habits, in terms of whether they are going to succeed in the long term or not. Here it is, so you can have a look and see what I mean:  Apparently, a habit is based on three components: a cue (the trigger), the routine (the behaviour itself) and, finally, the reward. I am sure, at this point in time, you may know exactly where I am heading, right? Well, may not. If you look into how most businesses have been facing the adoption / adaptation to Social Business as their new fabric, their new DNA in terms of how they get work done, you would notice how time and time again we do have the cue, we do have the routine in place as well for that matter (The hundreds, if not thousands, of use cases), but more often than not we seem to lack the reward. And I am not just thinking, perhaps, about tangible rewards, which is, I am certain, what most people would be thinking about out there. I am talking more about the long term reward of that habit, that is, of how we are transforming the way we work, interact, build relationships, while still keeping the focus on the business results. That, to me, seems to be missing from most of the various different deployments of Enterprise 2.0 to help further along with the overall Social Business strategy; to the point where it is no longer surprising the apparent high % of failed deployments of social networking platforms for business, if your vision and focus are on the behaviour and the mindset (which is where it should be, in the first place), as Gartner recently indicated. Somehow, it’s probably now a good time then to dive into the world of psychology, behavioural dynamics, and social sciences in general to understand how Social / Open Business has never been about technology, nor the business process themselves, but about the people, their mindset and their behaviours. In short, their day to day work habits they have accumulated over the course of time and the rewards in place to realise that long term vision of becoming a successful Socially Integrated Enterprise. Somehow, and like I have mentioned above, we seem to have the cue, the routine, but we better get our act together around the reward piece, because otherwise those new habits would not stick around for long, before people would move on to something else. And, once again, we would be going back to square one. Remember Knowledge Management? We shouldn’t have to go back. Instead, I do want to have my small piece of chocolate today, and you?

It’s been a little while since the last time that I had a chance to write another post over here in this blog, so I guess it’s now time for another experiment then. No, I know what you may be thinking, but I am not going to stop blogging nor give up on writing for that matter. I still feel it is one of the very few pleasures out there on the Social Web, and still rather relevant, apparently. If I could, I would spend the whole day blogging away like crazy the several hundreds of ideas and drafts I have got in my brain that are rather desperate to come out. There is just so much that I would want to share, talk about and throw out there on the Web that writer’s block has never been an issue for me in the last 10 years that I have been blogging. The issue is, as usual, time. As in where can I find the time to blog? Well, this is where that new experiment will kick in, because I’m just about to switch from where do I find the time to blog, on to, how can I make time to blog? At the end of the day, that’s what it is all about: choice. Lately, as you may well have duly noticed, work itself hasn’t given me much of a choice though in terms of my external social networking activities. As I am about to enter the 3rd month in the new job as Lead Social Business Enabler for IBM Connections, I am finding that I am spending more and more time in social networks behind the firewall than on the Social Web out there, resulting in me dropping off plenty of my external social activities in detriment of participating in internal conversations. Now, that may not necessarily be a bad thing, but it’s certainly starting to have an impact on my external presence that I am not too sure I would want to give up on it that soon yet. The challenge though is that after rather long, exhausting, but exciting work days, the last thing my brain wants to do is to spend time participating on more social networks. It just basically needs a break. And so do I. For Seth Godin showing up daily is not an issue though, as much as it appears to have been for me as of late, as he brilliantly wrote about on his 5,000th post anniversary article. But he mentioned something that I can certainly relate to myself on this brilliant quote he shared across on why blogging still is very much worth it: "[…] it’s learning to live with the fact that I can’t say everything I want in a single post, that the trade-off of reaching people easily is that you can also lose people easily. It’s a journey, for both of us, and I’m thrilled to be taking it with you" And it gets even better when he continues to explain why he still shows up every day to his blog: "For me, the privilege is sharing what I notice, without the pressure of having to nail it every time… I treasure the ability to say, "this might not work"" Well, perhaps that is my main issue, that every time I aim at pretty much nailing it and that’s probably the very same reason why more often than not, if I cannot make the time for blogging I just don’t. And I end up watching how days go by without those blog posts coming along. That’s why it may well be a good time to shake things off a bit and experiment. Play. See if I can shake off that perfectionist flavour when blogging away over here. Now, on the other hand, here I am smiling away reflecting on the fact that, at least, my Inbox is not broken The thing though is that there is always time to learn new tricks on blogging, no matter how long you may have been going at it. There is always an opportunity out there to learn how you can juggle with it, along with work, family and other commitments. It’s just a matter of establishing priorities and stick around with them, which is essentially what I will be playing with from here onwards. Like I have mentioned above, I have got no intention of giving up on blogging, or hanging out on external social networks, but I am certainly going to shift focus and intentions on how I would want to stick around with it all from here onwards, which is essentially when this new experiment will kick off. All along you may have noticed how blog posts over here have got a tendency to be on the long form, sort of mini-essays. So I am thinking that while not neglecting such opportunity of writing longer pieces I’m going to start playing around (again, as I have attempted to do it in the past a couple of times already …) with the opportunity of sharing shorter reflections on things that come across my mind, whether work related, or not. Pretty much a la Euan Semple, if you know what I mean I know you may be thinking that perhaps there is an opportunity to share those shorter thoughts on other social venues like Twitter, Google Plus, Tumblr and what not, but I am thinking that while those other options are out there, there is still a place for some of those reflections to happen over here, in this blog. Specially, for one particular use case, that one where I am thinking about sharing a thought or two across that I would want to come back to over time, something that it’s proved to be quite a challenge in multiple other social networking tools, due to poor quality search capabilities. Never mind the fact that this blog still is my home, whereas all others I am just passing by  and the door can be shut down any minute, any day, any time. At least, over here, the door will always be open. For you and for me. So … game on!

Tweet Jams. Perhaps some of the most exhilarating, intriguing, mind-blowing, inspiring, and fast pacing online events out there on the Social Web that typically happen in a rather short time span, with hundreds of tweets, from a handful of top-notch really good quality experts on a given topic sharing generously with everyone their insights, experiences, know-how, practical hints and tips and whatever else. End-result? An adrenaline rush of new ideas, trends of thought, connections and a massive number of serendipitous knowledge discoveries that can leave you with a wonderful aftertaste to confirm why the Social Web matters: hyper-connectedness of both ideas AND people. My favourite Tweet Jam event, and for a good while now, has always been the one that the smart and talented folks from CMSWire host on a monthly basis under #SocBizChat. One not to be missed, if you can, as you will be exposed to some of the most innovative first thinkers on this whole topic around Social / Open Business. Take, for instance, the one that was hosted for June 2013, earlier on last week, where the following hot topic was discussed and covered widely: What’s Next for the Social Enterprise? These Tweet Jams usually have got a bunch of questions proposed by the CMSWire folks themselves around a particular topic that a pool of experts then get to answer and provide their insights on over the course of that 60 minute timeframe. So, for instance, this month, here’s the list of questions that were proposed for the subject mentioned above: What 3 key elements define the social enterprise? Is it important to distinguish between internal social practices & external marketing or customer related social or are they one & the same? What are the key challenges still blocking adoption of social in the enterprise? What role does IT play in the social enterprise? Wide vs. Narrow focus — how should social tools be deployed and why? Do any elements of 20th century business work in the social enterprise and if so, which? What three words would you ban from the social enterprise conversation? What is your vision for the future of the social enterprise? From there onwards, that’s when the good fun starts, because over the course of just a few minutes you will start seeing dozens and dozens of live tweets going by covering those various different questions, along with multiple on-the-side conversations on the overall topic, reaching the state where at some point it’s almost impossible anymore to follow it all up! A real blast I can tell you that! There used to be a time where, in the past, I made use of TweetChat in order to keep up with the flows of conversations, but since it is not working any longer I recently switched over to the rather nifty and powerful tool called Twubs. And it does make a difference following it all up from the traditional desktop / mobile clients or even the Web interface. So I am sticking around with it for now as perhaps one of the best options out there. The really cool thing about these Tweet Jams though is not really the quality of the superb interactions that happen throughout such a short timeframe of 60 minutes, which would surely keep blowing away your mind time and time again. But it’s actually having folks, taking the time afterwards, curating the outcome of the Tweet Jam, sharing their favourite insights learned or discussed making up for a wonderful aftertaste of the event that can go on and on and on. Usually, folks make use of CoveritLive or rather Storify (Like my fellow colleague Colleen Burns) as the potential options that there may well be out there to curate those tweets further along and share along the Storify links. One of my favourites, from last week’s event, was the one put together by my good friend, Greg Lloyd, who did an absolutely phenomenal piece of work capturing the vast majority of those golden nuggets into this Storify that I can certainly recommend folks out there to sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee, or tea, or whatever your favourite beverage, and read through it to savour Greg’s brilliant curating skills. It will definitely be worth your time, I can guarantee you that! As you go through the curated tweets, you would notice how I, too, was one of the panelists participating in the event as well sharing my insights on What’s Next for the Social Enterprise and I thought that, to close off this blog post, I would go ahead and grab those tweets that I initially shared trying to answer each and everyone of the questions that were put together and that I referenced above as well. I know sharing those tweets over here would act a little bit like teasers, but I am sure they would give you an opportunity to decide if you would want to tune in for next month’s CMSWire Tweet Jam, which I can certainly recommend you attend AND participate virtually in an effort to keep improving the overall user experience for all of us by participating in it getting exposed to plenty more different and varied points of view that would help enrich the event to no end. So, without much further ado, here you have the embedded tweets I shared to answer each and everyone of those questions: Q1. Open (Transparent), Networked (Interconnected), Nimble (Agile) #SocBizChat — Luis Suarez (@elsua) June 20, 2013 Q2 They are not, should be kept separate, because *some* conversations still *need* to happen behind the firewall #brave #SocBizChat — Luis Suarez (@elsua) June 20, 2013 Q3 Inertia, (Top) Managers not wanting to let go, relinquish their power & control (information), not enough transformation #SocBizChat — Luis Suarez (@elsua) June 20, 2013 Q4 Enabler, always an enabler, never the gatekeeper. Just like technology; act as if it doesn’t exist, move on #SocBizChat — Luis Suarez (@elsua) June 20, 2013 Q5 Pilots have always worked best. Ability to fail fast, learn, re-iterate, fail again, learn, repeat, deploy widely. #SocBizChat — Luis Suarez (@elsua) June 20, 2013 Q6 - Seeing current financial econoclypse & crisis of values (integrity,honesty,empathy,caring) I don’t think so. Sorry #reboot #SocBizChat — Luis Suarez (@elsua) June 20, 2013 Q7 - Social, Drive, Adoption (In that order… being guilty as charged myself & why I moved to Open, Enable / Inspire, Adaptation) #SocBizChat — Luis Suarez (@elsua) June 20, 2013 Q8. Vision of the future: Hello and Welcome to Open Business! Get comfy, it’s here to stay! #SocBizChat — Luis Suarez (@elsua) June 20, 2013

If you would ask me what’s that single component I keep missing within the corporate world more and more by the day to help enhance both the innovation and open knowledge sharing processes, amongst several others, I would venture to state that single one missing component would be creativity. I am sure you would all agree with me that creativity on its own is perhaps one of the most precious things we have, as human beings, and which makes us all, each and everyone of us, for that matter, rather unique. Yes, indeed, we can all be creative on our own. Yet, if you look into the business world there is very little creativity going around apparently. Do you know why? It’s as if we were educated, and told, consistently, over the course of decades, to not think out of the box, to stick to the given rules, to follow that inertia of accepting the status quo that has dominated that business environment as it is today and eventually to just keep quiet, since you never know what’s going to happen and for that matter you surely don’t want to stand out too much. It’s just as if you were told to even stop thinking on your own, because you might even get creative and that could well be frown upon with the argument that, you know, you are not working hard enough anymore. You are being creative, therefore you become dispensable. Careful where you are going… Your boss, all of a sudden, sadly owns your own decision making process. And you get stuck. For a (long) while. Does it ring a bell? Over the course of the last few months I have been reading a good number of articles that, thankfully, are starting to question such status quo of neglecting creativity at work and we are seeing how there are more and more blog posts, articles, dissertations, inspiring presentations and what not that have helped us understand how Creativity (With a capital C) helps us accelerate, through both acts of playfulness and mindfulness, the process of how we share knowledge across and, more importantly, how we collaborate together in a much more effective manner by being capable of sharing ideas openly, build upon each other’s thoughts and eventually get work done in ways we would have never expected or assumed possible. Creativity is all about making the impossible today’s new reality, after all. To me, it is, basically, just an opportunity to feel empowered enough about how your own thinking process, as crazy and wild as it may well be, can help make a difference in today’s corporate world by helping address and fix some of the most burning business problems. Yet, when you look into it, creativity is still not embraced as something very much necessary within the corporate world and I suppose after watching a particular short video clip, I am now starting to understand why: for creativity to flourish in a working environment the less constraints we have (As in the less right answers we have), the much more effective that creative process will be. See? That’s where the problem comes up, because, in general, the corporate world always aims at putting together constraints and live by them. Regardless. And the larger the corporation, the much heavier the constraints.  But what would happen if that wouldn’t be the case? What would happen if, all of a sudden, businesses out there, in general, would tear down apart their own constraints and allow for knowledge workers to let creativity flow and thrive again? As usual, the answer is within our kids. Take a look into this particular short clip, that lasts for a bit over 2 minutes, and which explains, quite nicely, what I mean above with the kids always having the answer in terms of taking simplicity of a complex task into new levels:  Goodness! Is that it? Can it be, indeed, so simple? I mean, can creativity make such a huge difference by just getting rid of the constraints, of the right answers, of not giving people enough freedom and autonomy and just let people use their imagination to achieve optimal results? Well, that seems to be the case and I am glad that video consistently demonstrates it rather well.  It reminds me of an article though I put together over here as well, in this blog, about three years ago where I was also reflecting on the importance of creativity in the workplace but from a presentation that John Cleese, the one and only, I know!, did back then under the suggestive title of "The Source of Creativity", where he talked not so much about constraints, but about boundaries, which is perhaps a softer concept in principle that helps expand further on with that flexibility towards the creative process.  And this is just something really fascinating, because apparently those corporate driven constraints will eventually need to transform themselves into those human boundaries imposed by knowledge workers, who may have a better context for that creative activity anyway, resulting all in all in them establishing the rules, the guidelines and the modus operandi of what needs to be achieved, which also reminds me of this delightful blog post by Maria Popova quoting another two different video clips from John Cleese himself, once again, (Highly recommended going through both clips, by the way!) and with one killer quote that I think pretty much nails it in terms of how we can bring forward that whole creative process (And thinking) back into the workplace. To quote:  "This is the extraordinary thing about creativity: If just you keep your mind resting against the subject in a friendly but persistent way, sooner or later you will get a reward from your unconscious." Perhaps that’s what it is all about. That the corporate world, once and for all, stops resisting creativity and becomes a bit more gentle and friendly towards it, to then leave it down to knowledge workers themselves thrive on what they have already been doing since an early age: "a way of operating" from their unconscious.

I am not too sure what happened yesterday, but it looks like the previous blog post I wrote over here on Mastering the Art of Creativity in the Workplace dragged some massive traffic all around and for that I am very grateful. So thanks much to all of those folks who visited the blog and checked out that article. Well, today, I guess I am back for more! If on that article I talked about creativity and how it is being affected by both constraints and boundaries, I thought today it’s probably a good time to talk briefly about the impact of time in the whole creative process. Specially, in an environment where more often than not one could surely benefit from the Joy of Pause and Reflect. Some time ago I bumped into an article that included a reference to a short video clip where it was indicated how we, human beings, seem to become more effective at the creative process when we have got the constraint(s) of time. Essentially, meaning that we would use all of our creativity spark much more effectively when we are constrained by time than when we are not. I wish I could find the reference to that article again with the short video, but alas my memory is not playing nice with me at the moment and can’t locate it anymore. Perhaps folks reading this post may well know which one I am referring to and add the link to it in the comments. Thanks in advance, if you manage to locate it. [Appreciated] The thing is that while that may hold true and rather accurate, I am also starting to think what would happen otherwise? I mean, what would happen if we wouldn’t have that time constraint in terms of how our creativity processes would work out eventually, after all. What would happen if in a business world where things seem to pass by at lightning speed, and without much of an opportunity for a breather, we would eventually take time out to pause and reflect, to let our creativity juices do their magic and serve us to address that pending business need or solve that business problem that seems to be escaping us time and time again, because we just can’t focus well enough with all that’s going on around us?  Well, it seems like kids, once again, have the answer for all of us. Right there, in front of our eyes and at our fingertips, as usual. While I was putting together the previous article doing some additional research on Mastering the Art of Creativity in the Workplace I bumped into this particular short YouTube video, that lasts a bit over 2 minutes, titled Creativity Requires TIME, that explains the potential issues behind time constraints when engaging through a creative process, whatever that may well be. The video describes one relatively easy exercise that needs to be carried by a bunch of kids over a short period of time (10 seconds) and that very same exercise over a longer period of time (10 minutes).  In terms of achieving the goal, that is, completing that particular task, the kids succeed through both rather nicely, but if you pay close attention you will notice how the magic happens when that time constraint seems to be longer, substantially longer, to the point that it allows creativity to take place in full force allowing all of the students to utilise their imagination, smarts and ability to create something beautiful in ways perhaps none of us would have envisioned in the first place:  I know you folks may be wondering what does this blog post got to do with Social / Open Business and Adoption / Adaptation, right? Well, it’s got do very little, or a lot! If you think about how most businesses are approaching the adaptation of social software in a business context, you would notice how time constraints are rather common, to the point of becoming the norm. For most businesses, and social enablement teams, adaptation doesn’t have much time. It needs to happen yesterday, by everyone, and for everyone, in all contexts, at all costs, with no restrictions and never mind whatever the waves of adapters. If it doesn’t happen within the first few weeks, it’s a failure, and like all failures, it’s bound to be ignored, neglected and never to be looked at again.  The reality is that adaptation takes time, usually an average of 6 to 12 months, before you can start seeing the very first results in terms of how knowledge workers may have adapted to a new set of behaviours and habits, while embracing a new mindset altogether of becoming a bit more open and transparent on how they work using social technologies. Yet, time and time again the business world, in general, already begins to demand results within the first month, of in the first week or two, if too pushy. In reality, what they are doing, without not realising much about it, is that they are shooting themselves on the foot, because that adaptation is not going to take place in such a short period of time and the sheer frustration that would come up as a result of it, from both the business (for not seeing results sooner) and the practitioners themselves (For being pushed back and forth, left and right, non stop), pretty much kills that adaptation effort in a split moment, just like we saw the creativity process being trumped down on that video clip with the restrictive time constraint put in place.  Thus next time that people may push you around during the first few weeks of getting started into delivering results for your adaptation efforts of Open Business within your company, I would strongly encourage you all to show them this video clip that although dealing with the whole concept of creativity, I would venture to state that it would also be applicable to Open Business Adaptation, more than anything else, because, as with all knowledge work, Open Business Adaptation is, pretty much, a creative process. And, as such, it would need time to both produce and deliver best, optimal results.

You gotta love Twitter and those wonderfully inspiring serendipitous knowledge discoveries that it helps you bump into, time and time again, because most of the times they surely help you make up for whatever the tough situation(s) you may be going through. And bring you back on track, of course, to what your focus area(s) may well have been all along. Well, I have just had one of those the last couple of weeks (Which I am hoping to be able to blog out it at some point, since it’s still burning inside my brain like hell), but since we are just about to wrap it up for another week at work and move into the weekend, I couldn’t help blogging about that delightful serendipitous moment I experienced earlier on this week, because it surely has been quite an interesting learning experience and a superb reminder, perhaps even to us all: never, ever, lose track of your purpose, and your focus, on what drives your passion(s).  It’s not even worth the effort, nor the energy, being sidetracked, just because it may well all seem more enticing altogether. It won’t. It never will. That’s why I am really glad that a few days back, my good friend, and fellow IBM colleague, Ben Martin, introduced me to Bernie Mitchell, who along with Andy Bargery, they run the absolutely delightful London Bloggers podcasting series. Bernie invited me to participate in the recording of an episode around blogging, after having read a recent article I wrote on the topic under the title "Why Blogging Still Matters".  Of course, I couldn’t reject such a generous and enticing offer and earlier on this week, the three of us, Bernie, Andy and myself got together to record "LBM Audible #9: Luis Suarez from IBM on Blogging and Corporate Hippies" and while the main topic was around the purpose of blogging and why it still makes plenty of sense as perhaps one of the most powerful tools out there to help enhance your own personal brand and digital footprint out there in today’s Social Web, mostly dominated by social networking tools, we eventually ended up talking about pretty much everything around Social / Open Business.  It was a rather enjoyable, gratifying and delicious podcast recording, more than anything else, because, while we were going through a rather fast pace and jolly dialogue, it helped me realise how much off track I have gotten from my core beliefs around Open Business over the course of the last few months. It felt like my own reckoning that I may have been losing, slowly, but steadily, my hippie 2.0 mojo, and that, somehow, I needed to get it back at some point. Well, that some point is exactly that podcasting episode I did with both Bernie and Andy, because they helped me recover from the back of my mind a good number of ideas I have been rather passionate about over time and that, for one reason or another, they went into hiding, because of other things. So, what did we talk about then on that podcast, you may be wondering, right? What were some of the themes that helped me get back on track on keep on pushing for Open Business with that rather well known, by now, flair of being the outlier, the corporate rebel, the outrageous heretic and free radical optimist, and, essentially, that hippie 2.0 practitioner. Well, like I said, we talked about lots of various different subjects, but here are some keywords that hopefully will help describe what we discussed and talked about as a brief teaser for the longer piece, in case you may be interested in listening in: Open Business, Adaptation, #lawwe, business blogging as your personal / digital footprint, being bold, fear and reluctance, trust, relinquishing control, leaving a legacy (i.e. a digital footprint), executive (lame) excuses on doing both social and open, ghost writing, authenticity, honesty, best practices don’t exist for knowledge work, blogging101, employee engagement, sustainable growth, evolution vs. [r]evolution of social, servant leadership, managers vs. leaders, hierarchy vs. wirearchy … phew! A lot of topics, indeed, but above them all, we talked extensively about passion for what you do and for what you have always believed in! The podcasting episode lasts for a bit over 30 minutes and you can listen to the podcast here, if you would be interested in tuning in further:  Hope you folks enjoy it just as much as I did going through that interview with both Bernie and Andy, and from here onwards I just want to take the opportunity to thank them both sincerely for having me in the show and for allowing me to participate on one of the most fun interviews / podcasts I have participated in that I can remember.  More than anything else, because it’s helped me realise how I need to re-focus on doing what I know best: change the business world, one step at a time, continuing to challenge the status quo of how certain things happen in order to let that passion do the magic of realising what a Socially Integrated Enterprise is all about in a world dominated by Open Business.  WOW! What a journey, indeed! 

One of the things that I am continuing to find rather fascinating and intriguing altogether is how, time and time again, even now in 2013, I still keep bumping, every so often, into various different people who keep questioning the validity and (business) value of checking vanity pages, as they usually call them, when referring to social networking profiles from knowledge workers / practitioners. To them, social networking is just a complete waste of time. A passing fad. A wonderful opportunity to goof off at work and get away with it. It’s that activity you would do whenever you would have some free, idle time in between workflows. And that’s about it. And since they are all incredibly busy and hectic processing 4 to 5 hours of email they just can’t seem to go beyond their own eyes. In reality, little do they know that, after all, whether we like it or not, that knowledge is hyperconnected and that everything around us is a network, a giant network, that’s been with us for millions of years interconnected through one of the most amazing networks of species: Bacteria. Excuse me? What did you just write above, you said? Bacteria? Did I just read right that we, networks of species, are connected by bacteria with one another throughout our very own history, from way back at the beginning of time? Yes, indeed, I wrote that. Apparently, it’s been documented and confirmed how 90% of our bodies are made of bacteria, just like pretty much any other creature in this world. The remarkable thing from that discovery is not necessarily the realisation that we, human beings, at the top of chain of the so-called evolution, are just made up of bacteria. The amazing thing is that all of that bacteria is interconnected and therefore we are all connected. No matter what. Whether we like it or not, that’s who we are and it’s a fascinating journey to realise how the new specialisation of today’s complex world seems to be that we need to know a little bit of everything in order to make sense of the environment, the context and the connections we are surrounded by.   Goodness! Truly mind-blowing, don’t you think? Well, those are some of the main conclusions, amongst many others, that you would be able to get exposed to, if you decide to spend about 11 minutes watching the absolutely stunning and rather inspiring RSA Animate video clip on The Power of Networks by Manuel Lima. It is definitely a must-watch video, not only from the perspective of getting a glimpse of the hyperconnected, networked, complex world we live in, but also from the point of view of trying to help us understand our (distant) past, to live and experience the present in order to understand the future (we are heading to).  It’s one of those video clips that would not leave you indifferent. Quite the opposite. Lately, it’s one of my favourite weapons, whenever I bump into those skeptics, those critics or those laggards who keep saying that (social) networks are just a complete waste of time, resources, energy and attention. You see? They have got work to do. And yet they are missing a brave new world out there that social technologies are, finally, helping unleash some of its true potential in helping us understand how network thinking goes well beyond a business context. It’s what we are, it’s who we are, what we will become and what we have been all along:  A complex network of interactions, relationships, contexts, systems and what not that we need to start learning how to manage them to make some sense out of it as we progress further into that Open Business world where we are, finally, starting to come to terms with what my good friend Esko Kilpi brilliantly wrote about at "Social Business and Complexity" not long ago and which I am going to take the liberty of quoting over here as well:  "We are the result of our interaction. We are our relations" To then finish off with a short note on the impact of social technologies in today’s complex, more interconnected world than ever:  "The new social technologies have the potential to influence connectivity and interaction as much as the sciences of complexity are going to influence our thinking. The task today is to understand what both social business and complexity mean. The next management paradigm is going to be based on those two, at the same time" Oh, boy, I just can’t wait for that one to unleash and disrupt for good, and rather massively, the way we have been doing business for decades. And you? 

After having just returned from another business trip to the US (Westford, MA, this time around, to participate on a client workshop on Social Business and Knowledge Management to figure out whether they could blend and become one and the same, but more on that one later on…), I guess it’s probably a good time now to share another blog post over here on that progress report around Life Without eMail, specially, after my last article on the topic, where I was mentioning what it was like going back to basics through that massive hard reset I experienced earlier on this year. I am sure plenty of folks are wondering where I am with it today and whether I am back on track, or not, right? Well, yes, I surely am! In fact, today’s entry will be about a Newcomer Challenging for King eMail’s Crown.  If you would remember, about a month ago, I put together the last progress report to date where I was indicating how for the first 20 weeks of year 6 of Life Without eMail I was noticing a rather steep increase in the incoming number of emails received. Nothing to do much with the fact I moved on to another job (Although it contributed as well somewhat!), but, essentially, that intriguing trend of how both my social networking activities, as well as my incoming email, grew up further along hand in hand highlighting perhaps another interesting trend I have noticed as of late: over-sharing of information and knowledge all over the place, just for the sake of making yourself visible and ensure everyone knows you are out there, working really hard, whether on social spaces or in email, so that people would not jump into the wrong conclusions of you slacking off while at work. I guess tough times and work pressures are kicking in stronger and harder than I ever thought they would.  And while email seems to be Crushing Twitter, Facebook for Selling Stuff Online (Very worth while reading Wired article, by the way, on the power of email in terms of its successful conversion rates vs. what social networking tools out there are doing), we should not forget though how emailing gives us all a false sense of progress. And if there is anything that I have learned during the course of the last few weeks from year 6 of having ditched corporate email is that realisation that I am now more convinced than ever about the paramount role that social networking tools will play in a business context in terms of how we share our knowledge and collaborate helping accelerate both our innovation efforts and our decision making processes, to the point where email still is a massive disruptor of that free flow of knowledge and information across the board. And it shouldn’t be.  Indeed, email fosters closed, private, secretive interactions amongst a few people, what I have been flagging all along as sharing your knowledge across on a need to know basis vs. what social networking tools do, which is promote that wonderfully inspiring mantra of default to open. It’s been rather interesting to note as well how email is pretty much used nowadays as a way of managing your employees and your knowledge workflows vs. perhaps walking along the virtual aisles of social networks to find out what your team members are doing in terms of opening up the conversations, narrating their work or working out loud. And all of that without having to even ask a single question once. Somehow the latter approach sounds so much more of an effective use of our time than the selfish, egotistical use of email just to fit our own individual purpose(s). So while that transformation keeps taking place I am sure you may be wondering what has happened in the last 4 weeks since the last progress report I shared over here, right? Well, like I hinted above, at the beginning of this article, things are slowly, but steadily, coming back on track. As you can see from the attached snapshot, after the massive peak of email activity for Week 20, with the highest amount of incoming emails for a single week that I can remember in years!, there has been a steady decrease on the amount of emails received for the following four weeks, which I can think can only be, but some really good news. For a moment, I thought all of that hard work of over the course of the last 6 years around Life Without eMail was just gone! Well, not really. We were just having a break, apparently…   As you can see, the average amount of incoming emails is still sitting on 31.2 per week, which is pretty much the very same volume of incoming email that I was receiving back in 2009, but the good news is that over the last four weeks you will see a decrease on the total amount of emails received, and that is a good sign that things are going back to normal, the new normal: a Life Without eMail. Yes, this year it may well have been a bit of a bumpy road, but that’s a good thing, because, amongst several other things, it’s allowed me to revisit, review and reposition the whole movement since I started it, and, if anything, I have also learned that I may have gone back to levels of email activity as I had them in 2009, but I have got plenty of years of first hand experiences of how to turn it back on the right track, once again, by living social, by living Open. And I know I am not just ready yet to let things go away like that forgetting everything we have done in the recent past. There is still a good fight out there to go for. One where we transition from closed systems of record into open systems of engagement. One where we continue walking the talk, leading by example on what really matters: a much more purposeful, meaningful work where openness and transparency through social networking tools help us all become more effective and eventually more productive at what we do, i.e. get our work done collectively as teams, networks and communities. And that can only be a good thing for businesses that want to promote sustainable growth as their primal reason for survival in today’s Knowledge Economy. After all, when was the last time that you could do your job without the help or support from your (extended) team(s)? And talking about that Openness and Transparency, I just couldn’t help closing off this progress report post sharing across a recent article I had the privilege, and true honour, of writing it for The Times where I basically shared some additional insights in terms of how king email’s crown is getting more and more challenged by the day by a certain newcomer that’s transforming the way we work: social networking for business. Indeed, over at The Social Business report, pages 12 and 13, you would be able to read "Newcomer Challenging for King Email’s Crown" where I mentioned the larger impact all of these social technologies are having around how we get work done in a business environment nowadays: "Social sharing, when occurring in the workplace, is becoming more focused, purposeful and is making a meaningful contribution to productivity. […]  Knowledge workers are more comfortable with sharing work-related items in the open, but they are also encouraging transparent working. There is an understanding that the more business-related information available out there for practitioners to benefit from, the better the decision-making. It is increasing the ability to share responsibility and accountability" Yes, I know, I just couldn’t help teasing you all with a couple of paragraphs from that article, so that, if you would be interested, you could have a look and read on, specially, if you are keen on finding out plenty more how that openness and transparency are challenging the traditional role of management, decision making, knowledge sharing and, eventually, executing work. Resulting, all in all, in helping us address what I still think is the number #1 business problem of today’s corporate world: employee engagement.  Because, after all:  "Socially integrated enterprises have been empowering happy employees to create delighted customers, all through the clever use of digital tools. Social technologies have just become the new overlord. It’s about time." [Oh, and before I forget, here's a friendly reminder, in case you may want to find out further more, to come and join us at the Life Without eMail Google Plus Community where a bunch of us (Including the coiner of the well known mantra I have been reusing for years > "eMail is where knowledge goes to die") have been having some rather interesting, refreshing and thought provoking conversations of how social technologies are reshaping the workplace by helping email repurpose itself into better things…]

For a good couple of years I have been a huge fan, and big advocate, of what I think is one of the most empowering and refreshing social networking tools out there: Google Plus. Yes, I know I may have well been one of the very few, but all along I have always felt that in terms of features, capabilities, blending of online and offline interactions and, above all, the deeper level of engagement in conversations is what made G+ special. Very special. Till a couple of days ago, where I discovered, by pure chance, which is how these things happen usually, I suppose, how it has been hiding away the best part of that social networking tool: the conversations themselves. Remember the filter bubble? From the very beginning, I read in one of the review blog posts around Google Plus how the Home Stream (All) doesn’t really display all of the various different posts that your networks get to share. It only displays a fraction that the system itself identifies based on whatever the algorithm. Now, I can imagine how plenty of people may not feel very comfortable with the fire hose of updates coming through, so they may actually appreciate, quite a bit, having Google figuring it all out how it would work for most people. Alas, not for me. I would want to see every single post that comes my way, so I can then decide whether I would want to read it or not. I have always felt that’s the ultimate choice from social networkers in terms of defining the amount of signal / noise they would get exposed to without having that social networking tool calculating automatically what may matter to you or not. I am sorry, but it just doesn’t work that way. So a few months back I started relying more and more on Google Plus Circles to the point where I became rather dependent on them. I created a bunch of them, that I check on a rather regular basis, but there are four of them that I consider critical food for my brain. You know, the One50, Two50,  and TheRest and a new one I created which is a combination of all three of those coming up to nearly 500 people in total, which is what I am checking out nowadays the most as my new timeline. Essentially, the one circle of those folks who I would want to receive whatever updates they share.  Thus a little while ago I decided to try out an experiment, which was, essentially, keeping an open tab in Chrome throughout the day for Google Plus and, in particular, for that specific G+ Circle (That I called Everyone), and which would allow me to jump in every now and then and check what people may be saying, talking about or sharing across. You know, in between work tasks, coffee breaks, those spare idle moments in between meetings and so forth. The idea was to be able to catch up with everything that may have been shared across with an opportunity to do it at my own pace, and without any restrictions. However, over the course of time, I started noticing how after a short period of time, without checking things out, the lovely blue box would show up indicating the number of new posts that I had catch up with since I last refreshed, and I started to notice how if I would have, say, 74 new posts, when clicking on refresh it would just display (I counted them!) about 36, which means that half of the content is gone. Just like that! WOW!!!  And here I was thinking that G+ algorithm was only in place for the Home Stream (All) page. Well, apparently, not. I have actually raised this very same issue on my Plus Profile, on this post, where I talked about it more extensively, and a bunch of other folks have been very helpful sharing their insights, including reference blog entries like this one on that very same topic with the flair that it’s working as designed. Well, no, it’s not. At least, it is not my design.  See? If I create a new Circle in Google Plus because there is a list of contacts / networks that I would want to keep up with and get exposed to everything they share in G+ that’s what I expect the circle to handle graciously, not just show to me what it thinks is better for me. Never mind how much data you have about me. No, sorry, systems should not be making that choice for people. At least, people should be given the opportunity to opt-in or opt-out of that model, which in this case it’s just not happening. And I am finding that incredibly frustrating and perhaps somewhat disturbing as well for that matter. Why? Mainly, of course, because of that filter bubble. I would want to be the person in charge of what I get exposed to, how I would want to get exposed to, and, most importantly, how I would want to consume that content shared across. And let it be down to me to decide if I would want to mitigate, or not, the fire hose effect of content I get exposed to. It should be my decision, not the system’s. That’s actually one of the reasons why I have never been a fan of Facebook, Twitter and various other social networking tools that do pretty much the same thing: putting constraints in place by the system, within the streams, thinking it knows better than their end-users. Well, maybe not.  Yes, I realise that I am perhaps making a big fuss out of anything. I mean, I am sure that you folks would be able to identify a whole bunch of various different areas of improvement for Google Plus in terms of missing features and capabilities, but, to me, it’s all down to this: can I use it for work? Yes, I know I can use it for personal use, which I have already for a long while, just like any other social networking tool, but, to me, Google Plus was special, because I could also use it for work. Or, at least, that’s what I thought, because, after finding out about that behaviour, I am just not sure anymore. I mean, think of this very same scenario happening with work email… Yes, that’s exactly what I meant. There is no way that you just can’t miss work related emails, specially, from a customer, or business partner, or from an urgent request from your boss or your fellow colleagues, only to find out the system thought about dropping it out, because it was not that important. Goodness! That would never happen with email. Period. It’s out of the question, even. So why should social networking tools be different? Why can’t we have that opt-in / opt-out option where we, the end-users, the social networkers, get to decide how we would want to process, consume and digest those streams? That’s a fair request, don’t you think?  So what’s going to happen next then, you may be wondering, right? Well, for now, and while I am awaiting for an official answer from Google Plus Help and some other folks, G+ has dropped out to the same level of attention, engagement, involvement and relevancy as plenty of other social networking tools, because no matter how hard you would try it looks like with Google Plus, just like with plenty of others, you will always  be missing stuff and, to be frank, if that’s going to happen, I rather prefer to focus my attention elsewhere. It’s not even worth the effort anymore. Does that mean I will be ditching Google Plus for good? No, not yet. Like I said, I like it quite a bit. I am not going to give up on it that easy or that soon, even though I fully realise I will never get an answer from the Help & Support team(s), which is also another one of those issues with all of these public social networking tools on the Open Web. I will continue to make use of it. It’s just that instead of spending a substantial amount of time in it every day, the level of attention has dropped quite a bit, to the point where it no longer has the priority on my external social networking activities as it used to have. That focus is now gone.  And that’s a pity. I know and I fully realise about that. But I guess that’s what happens when you, Google Plus, in this case, make the assumption you can own the filter bubble of those who have given you the mere existence of your own being, ignoring their voices and opinions, thinking you know better than them. Perhaps you don’t, perhaps you shouldn’t have. Perhaps you need to address the issue before I will be coming back. Why? Well, because, amongst several other things, I still want to own the filter bubble. My filter bubble. Thank you very much. 

I can’t remember when was the last time that I updated my Curriculum Vitae. Actually, that’s not accurate. Of course, I do. It was around beginning of 2009 and it surely sounds like ages ago! Either way, I can’t help going through a giggle or two every time folks ask me why don’t I update my resume more often, at least, for the sake of keeping it up to date. I keep responding back that I actually do update it on a regular basis. It’s just that for me the concept of CV has got a completely different meaning than to them. I mean, to them, it’s all about having an A4 page, stored somewhere in a static location, perhaps your own computing device, telling everyone how wonderful and skilful you are for whatever the job you may be applying to. To me, my CV though is nowadays pretty much my own online presence out there on the Social Web, where you constantly need to prove your skills, talent and expertise, so that eventually people can find you and corroborate whether you are fake or not, and whether your merit and online reputation clearly represent not only who you are, but also what you do: essentially, your own digital footprint, or, … personal brand. That is one of the many reasons why I have truly enjoyed the Forbes article Dorie Clark put together, just recently, under the rather suggestive heading of "Reputation 3.0: The Internet Is Your Resume", where she gets to explain how more and more recruiters and employers are starting to flock to the Social Web in order to find new talent and if that expertise cannot be found there, it seems you no longer exist, quoting Debra Feldman with the following paragraph:  "If the search inquiry doesn’t find you, there’s a void like you don’t exist. Your credibility suffers. You’ll never know that you were eliminated [from consideration for a position], or what chances you’ve missed…Anonymity and mistaken identity are the biggest threats to your reputation" Very powerful words, indeed. In fact, perhaps a bit too scary that your career, from here onwards, may well depend on the fact of not only whether you have a digital footprint out there on the Internet, but also whether you may have left a mark, a legacy, on that very same Social Web.  I guess that’s one of the reasons why all along, and over the course of the years, every now and then I keep googling my own name, which I am sure you would know by now how much of a popular name that is, at least, in the hispanic world, in order to figure out what people are talking about around my online presence, my skills, my experience and expertise and essentially my digital footprint. Yes, I know most of you folks out there would be associating that activity towards doing some social ego searches just to see what people are talking about you, but the thing is that it’s one of those rather refreshing and mind-blowing activities I keep telling people to actually do in order to find out how others perceive you out there on the Social Web. You never know what you are going to learn about yourself from how others perceive you online… So while you "consider your Internet search results "a perpetual resume - a dynamic record of achievements, affiliations and ideas"", I am sure you may be thinking about how can you keep feeding the beast, that is, the Internet itself, in order to make it easier for you to be found out there. After all, that’s all part of looking after your brand and while I have seen plenty of people thinking about using social networking tools to help amplify that digital footprint, I keep saying the most elaborate, powerful and relevant tool to help you manage that online reputation is probably your own blog. In the past I have mentioned how Google Search is probably your best friend out there, too, how it’s your new business card and pretty much one of the best options out there to help you understand your visibility in the context of how people find you, which social networking tools you hang out at, what blogging platform do you use, etc. with the ultimate premise, perhaps, of providing the most powerful business reason to invest in the Social Web today, as a knowledge worker:  ""No longer can you plan on internal promotions for career progress. You must manage your own path and that’s best done through connections. Virtual ties can be as influential as in person relationships […]" Indeed, in today’s more complex, disruptive and uncertain business environment than ever, it’s something you cannot afford not having anymore. You can’t even ignore it. People would keep talking about you, your product, or your brand, anyway, for a good while, resulting in that urgency of having to come up with an strategy that would work for you to help you ramp up efforts and get things going. And that you is no longer the corporate brand. That you is just the individual you, craving for that attention and exclusivity when in reality social networks work in much different ways, because, after all,  "It’s better to have a strong network before you need their help".  And that’s the main reason why I keep telling folks how if they would still need to come up with a business reason as to why they would need to justify their Social / Open Business involvement and participation, let it be just this simple one: looking after your digital brand (One of my favourite online resources on the topic, by the way, put together by the one and only, Chris Brogan). Not necessarily because you may not need it now, but more specifically for when you really need it. Networks need to get ready. They need to know who you are, what you do and what you are good at, so that when you may need that help, they can highlight that sweet spot they can help out with and engage right away.  On that Forbes article, Dorie takes the liberty of sharing across some of Debra Feldman’s tips on how to build a strong social presence, so that your own online CV looks healthier, stronger and more relevant than ever. So I thought I would also take the same liberty and quote those helpful tips as well, not only for folks out there to savour, digest and start thinking about them, but also for myself as I continue to work on that digital footprint, because, you know, it’s never good enough, right? Thus here they are:  "Positioning: differentiate yourself from the competition Distinguish yourself as a trustworthy expert within a niche market(s) Identify the target markets or employers you’d like to focus on Describe the unique contribution you can make in each target area Prepare and publish examples demonstrating your expertise across all media channels Direct your social and in-person networking towards attracting decision makers Evaluate your current online persona and compare it to how you’d ideally like to be perceived Establish social networking accounts, create profiles, and start participating Prioritize your social networking activities to generate the best ROI for your career goals Set up mechanisms to regularly monitor your reputation and address any negative or incorrect information" The key message though when thinking about your online digital footprint and reputation, remember, your new CV, is not to think of personal branding as an external self-promotion campaign, but as an overall leadership trait. It’s not just that. It’s a whole lot more as well we need to start realising about, just as much. It’s essentially around that ability to recognise, and fully embrace, the fact that personal branding also happens on the inside, I mean, within the firewall, in each and every organisation, that’s where it all starts, because, after all, it does bring you one key aspect that we surely need more and more in today’s tougher than ever corporate environment: job satisfaction. And that’s essentially why your personal brand matters, whether internally or externally, because whether you like it or not, if there isn’t job satisfaction coming along with what you do, there isn’t probably anything left out there. Yes, I know, there is always the money, but is it the only motivator that keeps you going in today’s Social / Open Business world?  Probably not. Perhaps, what you may just need is some Arbejdsglæde…