It has been about a month and a half since the last blog post that I put over here to let folks know how things have been moving along in my new life as an independent freelancer, after having worked at IBM for the last 17 years. So I guess I am well overdue an update, don’t you think? Even more so when things have been a bit quiet over here in the last few weeks and for a pretty good reason, I suppose… That one of entering the path of self-discovery.  It’s unbelievable how time flies, specially, when you are having plenty of good fun. It’s been 3 months since I decided to quit IBM and, after the initial month of vacation that I took, things have been moving along at a faster pace by the day to the point where I’m starting to get the gist of what it is like being an independent thinker and trusted advisor on Social Business and Digital Transformation. It’s been an absolutely fantastic experience overall with plenty of new challenges and new things learned every single day and it’s probably going to be a bit of a challenge to write them all down over here in this post. So, I will just go ahead and focus on some of the highlights, which is probably what most of you would be interested in, anyway, right? Specially, if I have made it through, or not.  You may be wondering though why I mentioned the concept of self-discovery as an opportunity to describe what has been going on with me over the course of the last couple of months. To be frank, that’s probably the easiest way I can use to describe what I am currently going through in this period of transition. Because that’s how it is feeling at the moment. And not necessarily about who I am or what I do (Or would want to do), but more specifically about the how, the when, the with whom and the where I would want to. Essentially, a path of self-discovery to re-find my place in this (business) world.  It’s probably not as dramatic as it might sound (don’t worry, no need to panic!), some of you may well be thinking. And you are probably right. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. It’s a very much needed opportunity for myself to think and reflect about what I have been doing over the course of the last few years, figure out if that’s what I would want to continue doing in a completely different working environment and eventually get down to work.  A very good friend of mine once told me (right after I was moving on from my former employer) that when she moved on from her previous working experience, it took her a few months to readjust to the new reality. I know she is going to have a giggle or two when she goes and reads through this blog post where I am confirming that I, too, apparently, have been needing that time to refocus and align with the new me. And while I can sense how some of you may be thinking that must have been quite a difficult and exhaustive experience to go through (you know, going from one of the largest IT corporate environments out there into building your own business as a solopreneur) it’s an experience that I strongly recommend everyone to go through: the self-discovery phase, that is. More than anything else, because, in my case, it’s helped me question every single thing that I have been doing all along and try to figure out whether it’s something that I would want to continue doing or not. And, if so, how and for what purpose. Thus over the course of the last few weeks I have been working on a wide range of activities, some of them pretty random, just to help advance that self-discovery phase and see where I would end up. That’s why I thought it would be a good idea to share some of those activities over here as entry points that I will start going through soon enough in additional blog posts and I will explain why shortly. So, what have I been up to in the last few weeks? Well, in no particular order, here it is what I have been up to: Web site launch - Work continues to move on nicely, helping design and develop my own Web site (to go along next to this blog) where I will be listing the various different services that I am currently planning on offering, plus additional resources that may be of interest. It’s been taking me more time that I thought it would, but that’s something that, somehow, hasn’t bothered me just yet, because potential client prospects seem to still be able to find me without it, which I guess is not a bad sign, right? So, at the moment, I am currently looking into launching it, officially, during the course of the month of May (second half, most probably). Client work - I guess this is pretty much the new state of things, but I seem to spend a substantial amount of time, resources, energy and effort on constantly working on the pipeline of potential client prospects and business partnerships, to the point where it seems the second half of this year is going to be a lot busier than whatever I thought it would be, even to the point of challenging my own scalability. When taking to fellow colleagues from my networks, they all confirmed that’s pretty much the new state of things for us all, independent freelancers. So, at the moment, I am adjusting to the whole notion of seeing weeks pass by working on the pipeline and then see work accumulated from all of those weeks into a single week or two! How fun the network effect(s) will become, over time, on this one!  Change Agents Worldwide - Perhaps one of the best decisions I have ever made in recent years. Joining #CAWW, that is. Described as the Airbnb of consulting business, Change Agents Worldwide has become my new home relatively quickly. Because that’s exactly how it feels. My home. A special place where working around the edges is no longer an expectation, but a day to day reality. A special network of independent thinkers and visionaries who are constantly challenging, through working out loud and many other social practices, each other’s ideas, experiences, know-how and in-depth expertise around Social Business and Digital Transformation, amongst several other fields, to help define the future of work through positive, irreversible, unprecedented and inevitable change. Today’s reality. In short, true, diehard change agents with a single unified purpose: Changing the world of work. One human at a time. Who wouldn’t want to be part of such wonderfully talented and rather smart wirearchical cooperative, right?  Did I mention how we keep building on the pipeline? I tell you, I am now starting to understand fully the whole notion around living just for the pipeline (haha - just kidding!).  Back to the IBM ecosystem - This activity has been quite an interesting one, specially, as I keep talking to more and more people about my recent departure from IBM. Somehow, it seems like plenty of folks out there think that I basically moved on from IBM out of resentment, i.e. in bad terms, due to some kind of unfortunate set of events. Far from the truth, I am afraid. Like in every large corporation, and probably in any other kind of business, there are, of course, plenty of highs and lows and eventually one has to look a bit more objectively into the overall, larger picture, to figure out whether the experience has been worth while or not. Focusing on one good positive or negative experience is probably not going to cut it. At least, for me. And, to such extent, I can only be eternally grateful to IBM for some wonderful 17 years with plenty of pretty inspiring and mind-blowing experiences all around that have allowed me to travel internationally to multiple different countries, work in various different business units with plenty of amazingly talented and rather smart folks on topics that I have always been very passionate about and, specially, for being such a great champion on walking the talk around what it is like becoming a successful Socially Integrated Enterprise, where performance is not measured by how many hours you clock in the physical office, but by the outcomes and outputs you deliver, which, over 10 years ago, allowed me to discover Gran Canaria and live here ever since.  So it would be far too silly for myself to neglect that kind of legacy, don’t you think? After all, it’s the legacy I helped co-build over the years to make it my own, resulting in me owning my own work, so why ignore it? Why leave it behind for good when I can use it extensively to help other businesses accelerate their own digital transformation through embarking on that so-called social business journey? That’s why after a little while I decided to come back to the IBM ecosystem and have already started working my way through rebuilding plenty of the social networks I once had at The Greenhouse and SmartCloud for Social Business, but this time around as an independent (freelancer) trusted advisor. Thus if you ever wondered whether I was leaving behind all of that legacy, I guess this will answer it from now onwards. Fancy connecting over there as well?  Public Speaking - I will probably be writing a separate blog post on this particular activity alone, as I am thinking it’s the main one that seems to be confusing plenty of people out there, on whether it’s something that I still do, or not. I think, for now, perhaps I will just mention how I continue to travel for public speaking at various different conference events, although not as often as I used to when I was at IBM, and, contrary to what some folks have annotated about me now being stranded with no more frequent travelling, I always keep reminding those very same people to think about where I’m being stranded, if you know what I mean …  The Social Web - Oh, my dear social networks! Where would I go, or what would I do, without you, eh? 15 years on and you are now as irreplaceable as ever! You are me, I am you. One and the same entity: the network. Our network. Who would I reach out to connect and learn, to cooperate and collaborate, to share our collective knowledge and provoke those wonderfully delightful serendipitous knowledge discoveries that make "coming to work" every morning a real treat and a privilege?! Well, there have been some changes in here as well. After several months away from one of my favourite social networking tools (Ironic, right?), I have now come back to Google Plus and started posting in there as well. And it’s not that I wasn’t using G+ in the recent months. I surely was, but privately (Through certain circles, Direct Messaging and Hangouts). What I have done now is started to post again into the Public streams and the larger circles I have cultivated over time. Oh, and in case you are wondering why I have come back to it, I would share a couple of reasons why: this conversation or this other one, for instance (Hint: it’s never been a ghost town).  But perhaps you may be a bit more interested in this other activity around the Social Web, as I am hoping it will pick up plenty more steam over the course of time. Late last week, and after having had an active profile in LinkedIn for over 7 years, I have now decided to close the account and delete it (of which I got the confirmation this past Monday). Yes! Gone! Forever. At least, till LinkedIn starts treating its customers with respect by putting together terms of service that would be everything but what they are at the moment: draconian. This article by Heather Bussing explains quite nicely plenty of the reasons why I decided to have the account deleted. And while I am not sure whether I will be regretting such bold move over the course of time, for now, a week has almost passed by and I haven’t missed it a single bit. Why? Well, because most of my networks know where else they can go and find me. Funny enough, pretty much like I did with Facebook over 4 years ago. Have never looked back!   Life Without eMail - I know, and I fully realised, how I am very much long overdue an update on this activity. There are, indeed, lots of things that I would want to share with everyone, as I am pretty sure most of you folks out there would still be wondering whether I will be continuing further along with this movement now that I am an independent freelancer versus working in big corporate world, right? Specially, if I would want to test the waters and see if I would be able to pull it off while no longer working as a salaried knowledge worker, but being an independent advisor. Well, I won’t spoil the various surprises I have got piled up and that I am hoping to be able to share shortly with you folks, but, for now, suffice to say that Yes!, I am still doing it and here’s a mini-progress report of sorts: back in 2011, if you would still remember, I was getting an average of 16 emails per week. In 2013 that spiked higher up into 35 emails per week and nowadays, in 2014, I’m currently averaging about 7 emails per week. So I guess you can imagine what that progress report will indicate once I share it across, right? Yes, indeed, #lawwe is here to stay and for a good while! Going out and about - As part of that self-discovery phase I am finding out as well how ever since I left my previous job I am spending plenty more time outdoors. Probably as a result of that work life integration I have become such a huge fan of in the last few years. I still keep running every day for about an hour (this will be my 3rd consecutive year doing it) with Boira (our Belgian sheepdog) and it’s interesting to see how that running time has turned itself into my thinking and creative time as well, something I wasn’t expecting it to happen, but that now that it’s sinked in I’m appreciating it more and more by the day. Spending more time outdoors, going out and about, is probably the main reason as well why I have picked up again sharing photos through Instagram, Flickr and very soon, Google Plus, once again, more than anything else as an opportunity to capture certain life experiences that I may, or may not, be able to live through again over the course of time. Who knows… The interesting thing is that I’m enjoying capturing those moments, as they become part of my living memories. Something that I can then go back to, treasure and appreciate even so much more how lucky I truly am.  Becoming an early riser -  Almost nearly a year ago I tried it. I even blogged about it. And I failed miserably. Probably because my working schedule for the past 10 years shifted gears towards US timezones vs. Europe’s. But now it is no longer the case I am giving it a try again and see if I can become an early riser. Changing long term habits can be quite an interesting experience, specially, if you think it’s going to be a relatively easy exercise of re-adjustment, when then it may well not be the case. For now, it’s working really well though, perhaps because of the motivation and several benefits behind it all, like, for instance, seeing the huge amount of stuff one can get done in the early hours of the morning when everyone else is still sleeping away. I can tell you, if there is a time where you may want to change your habits and become an early riser again, spring, in full swing, is probably as good as it gets to make it happen.   Phew! That was a rather long update, wasn’t it? Way way longer than I thought it would be. I guess thas what happens when you disappear from the blogosphere for a little while and people keep asking how are things moving along and instead of repeating the very same story all over the place, you decide to keep writing till you run out of everything you would want to share across. Even then I still realise there are a few other activities I haven’t mentioned, nor talked about, just yet, but, for now, I think I will leave things here with one more clear premise: blog more often, shorter blog posts!  [I told you, long term habits are extremely difficult to change, but I think I just managed to come up with another one I’d want to break away from. Paraphrasing Blaise Pascal "I have only made this blog post longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter". So, let’s see how it goes …] Written by Luis Suarez Chief Emergineer, People Enabler and Charter Member of Change Agents Worldwide and a well seasoned Social / Open Business evangelist and 2.0 practitioner with over 15 years of experience on knowledge management, collaboration, learning, online communities and social networking for business; and has been living, since February 2008, a (work) life without email challenging the status quo of how knowledge workers collaborate and share their knowledge by promoting openness, transparency, trust, sustainable growth, engagement, connectedness and overall smart work. He can also be contacted over in Twitter at @elsua or Google Plus. 

Back in the day, when I was just getting started with my early days around social computing evangelism, I must confess that I used to think that people who didn’t have a social profile in all of the major social networking tools out there just didn’t get it. You know, you had to have a profile out there all over the place. Silly me. I guess it was my inner self trying to rebel against that good old notion of people saying one thing and doing something completely different. As in never walking the talk, something that I know still bothers me from all of the so-called social media "gurus" out there who tell you about all of the wonderful things around the Social Web to then be stuck themselves in their Inboxes for the rest of the day, processing email. It’s funny though how I keep getting irritated by all of those "gurus" who behave that way and yet I have become, over the course of the years, a whole lot more understanding of practitioners who somehow don’t see the need to be everywhere on social networking tools. I guess that’s what reaching a level of maturity is all about. Let people figure out what they would want to do. After all, it’s their choice.  Is that the main reason why I then went ahead and deleted my LinkedIn profile for good over a week ago? Was it my personal choice? Will I be telling everyone else to be doing the very same thing? Is it time to think smarter about how we make use of these social networking tools? Will I survive as an independent trusted advisor on Social Business & Digital Transformation without having an active LinkedIn profile? Lots of questions looking for an answer, I suppose, but, for now, what I do know is that deleting my LinkedIn identity was an educated and informed personal choice. And if I were given the chance of doing it again, I would. Without a single doubt.  Why? For a good number of reasons, but, essentially, to me, for perhaps the main one: it’s 2014 and it’s now perhaps a good time to put your actions behind your words. And make it count. To you, to me, and maybe to everyone else. In a previous article I pointed folks to a superb read by Heather Bussing under the rather provocative heading of "Why I Killed My LinkedIn Account". It’s an eye-opener. Perhaps one of the most important reads you will do this year around something that we may all have been taking for granted for far too long: our individual rights as customers for the services we decide to make use of and invest our time, energy and effort. You see? We are just not end-users anymore. We are just not the product, either, even if it is free. We are customers. Your customers. We make a very conscious decision to use one service over the other one, whether it’s free or not. It’s a choice that people go for LinkedIn vs. XING, Viadeo or Somewhere (or whatever else, for that matter, to name a few). And the least that LinkedIn, as well as other social networking tools, could very well do is to treat us all, as their customers, with something so powerful, engaging and, equally, inspiring as respect. But LinkedIn has forgotten about that as they keep positioning themselves on that mindset that they know way better than all of us, their customers. How? Well, mainly, through a rather draconian terms of service that, if anything, confirms how toxic some social networking tools can well be without most of us perhaps even knowing about it. Right from the beginning. I mean, after all, who reads the terms of service nowadays, right? Well, maybe we should! Starting the sooner, the better. And that’s exactly what Heather’s tremendously insightful article did for me, when I first read it. I eventually made the conscious exercise of reading it multiple times to digest something that I never thought I would be internalising this way: there is a great chance that 99% of the times that you may have used LinkedIn you may have violated their terms of service. Yes, that bad. And I am sure at this point in time you may be wondering why, right? Well, let’s have a look and revisit LinkedIn’s Don’ts that Heather mentions as well on her blog entry: "You cannot post any inaccurate information, You cannot invite people you don’t know to connect, You cannot use a content field to post information that doesn’t belong in that field- i.e. publish your real contact information anywhere on Linkedin, You cannot "duplicate, transmit, distribute, or display" any information found on Linkedin except your own content, You cannot use any information you see on Linkedin to provide any service that competes with Linkedin and Linkedin gets to decide what "competes" means." If that short list doesn’t act as an eye-opener for you in terms of how we, as customers, have consistently broken LinkedIn’s ToS then I don’t know what will. Well, yes, I know what will. Read the remaining of the article to see how LI is currently abusing your choice (and trust!) in making use of their service, even if you are a Pro customer. It won’t leave you indifferent, I can guarantee you that. After reading that piece it was a no-brainer for me to go ahead and delete my account in there. For good. And never look back, as I am pretty sure LI’s lawyers won’t be very keen on adjusting those ToS to treat their customers better. Otherwise they would have done it already. So why give in to their game? Yes, I know, I am fully aware and realise that this is a decision that may cost me some business (in terms of social presence -as my good friend Gautam Ghosh annotated rather accurately not so long ago, potential client prospects, future collaborative initiatives with other customers, etc. etc.), but then again I think I may have reached the point where one has got to back up their words with their actions, act accordingly, and stop behaving like plenty of those so-called social media gurus who preach one thing and then do rather the opposite. That’s not how an Open Business operates, I am afraid.  I wouldn’t want to treat my customers like LinkedIn’s treating theirs, that’s why it’s my informed personal choice to have deleted my profile in there and figure out how I can move on without it. I know it may well prove to be a challenge, but then again enough is enough. If you can’t treat your customers with respect and appreciation for making use of your service(s), then I don’t want to be your customer. It’s that simple. I’ll just move on elsewhere where I am valued and respected as such.    Written by Luis Suarez Chief Emergineer, People Enabler and Charter Member of Change Agents Worldwide and a well seasoned Social / Open Business evangelist and 2.0 practitioner with over 15 years of experience on knowledge management, collaboration, learning, online communities and social networking for business; and has been living, since February 2008, a (work) life without email challenging the status quo of how knowledge workers collaborate and share their knowledge by promoting openness, transparency, trust, sustainable growth, engagement, connectedness and overall smart work. He can also be contacted over in Twitter at @elsua or Google Plus. 

A couple of days back, my good friend and fellow CAWW, Ayelet Baron put together a rather interesting, inspiring and very thought-provoking article over at The Huffington Post under the suggestive title "Sometimes, You Need to Fire Yourself? Don’t Wait to Be Picked", where she comes to reflect on, perhaps, one of the main expectations from knowledge workers in today’s workplace: being validated and waiting to be picked up. And from there onwards she goes on to muse about the reality of what next when that doesn’t happen. Interestingly enough it’s a story I can relate to,  specially, since I’m currently in transition myself trying to figure out the what next. Except that this time around I didn’t wait. I decided to shake off those golden handcuffs I put on myself back in the day and break free. Most people may not know this, but back in June 2005, while I was still an IBM Netherlands employee, I got laid off and after having received the well-known compensation package I decided that I wasn’t ready, just yet, to leave the company. At the time I felt I had a lot more to offer and work on still. 9 years later, 4 different Lines of Business, and multiple other projects certainly would testify that it wasn’t my time just yet. So was it then my time, beginning of 2014, when I decided to quit IBM and move on? Maybe. I don’t know. Yet. What I do know though is that it’s a decision that 3 months later, which is starting to look and feel like ages ago, I don’t regret a single bit. It wasn’t an overnight decision either. It’s been in my mind for about 2 years when I first started contemplating the thought of making a move and figure out what I would want to do next with my career. Somehow I felt The Call was near, so I may as well embrace it. As my good mate Rob Paterson wrote not long ago "Now the real adventure of your life begins".  You can imagine how shocked and surprised (in equal terms) my boss was when I communicated to him, while I was still enjoying my holidays back in January, that February 3rd would be my last working day at the company after 17 years of work in there. We had to talk, he said. Of course, we do, I responded back. And the week after we got together on the phone for a 2 hour long conversation where we got to spend some time to talk in-depth about the decision.  This time around I was not going to wait. See? Once you have been exposed to a layoff, even if you manage to escape it, you know that things will never be the same. The whole concept of company / employee loyalty changes and while the motivation and purpose to do a professional job may well be there, very much intact, because, after all, you were hired in the first place as a hard working professional, things are no longer going to be the same. So, while we were talking, he asked me why I made the decision of leaving IBM after everything I have (helped) build over the course of time. He just couldn’t grasp such crazy idea and I understand perfectly why he would think that, specially, in today’s turbulent times.  Well, as Ayelet mentioned on that article, referenced above, I had to start thinking about firing myself, which is eventually what I did, after two years of waiting for the right moment to do so. I told my manager than I had to be realistic and come to terms with the fact IBM would not allow me to retire after another 25 odd years of work I have got still as my working life. Now, I could have stayed at IBM for another 5 or 10 years. Sure. No problem. But I know that it wouldn’t last forever (till retirement, at least) and, unfortunately, I happen to live in a country where after you reach a certain age, being unemployed and finding a new job takes the whole concept of a chimera into a new level. Thus, eventually, the older you get without a job, the tougher it is to find a new one.  I am sure that scenario could hold plenty of truth for various other countries, no doubt, but, in my case, I figured that before I would be getting too old, and after 17 years of big, corporate multinational work life, it probably was a good time to make a move, while I am still relatively young. That’s why I quit IBM on my terms and decided to become an independent trusted advisor around one of my all time passions (Social Business and Digital Transformation) and give it a try for 2 or 3 years to see if I could make it work and sustain that financial and emotional independence.  If that didn’t work out, for whatever the reason, I would still be relatively young to look up for another career opportunity. Perhaps to even go back to big corporate world, although plenty of people have been advising me that once you become a freelancer and you get to experience freedom, there is no way back. I suppose then that’s why I started working my way towards that system of me and put together multiple plans where I could continue to "dream big and have a purposeful and meaningful life". Will I succeed? Who knows… What is success anyway? Waiting for another Call?  The reality is that while there is plenty of excitement about this new life as an independent freelancer, there is also a bit of uncertainty, about facing the unknown, at a very peculiar time where we may be going through the deepest, most profound financial econoclypse in our recent history. I guess that puts things into perspective as to what lies ahead and that I can summarise in a single sentence: I just don’t know. I’ll take it all as it comes.  I will make of it all a learning experience, why not, right? I am sure it’s going to be a rather interesting one. It’s the least I could do and see how things will pave out further along over the course of time on whether I’ll be sticking around with plan A, B or C. Plan B, if you remember from a previous blog entry, is essentially go back to basics: teaching (I am an English teacher, after all and I have always loved, and enjoyed very much, helping enable people to deliver their best at what they do -that’s what, to me, teaching and learning have been all about all along). Oh, and today’s snapshot, shared above, is a hint of Plan C, in case you are wondering… But somehow, I need to come down to earth again and be reminded of Ayelet’s wonderful piece of advice that keeps coming back ringing true more and more by the day:  "What I know today is that if I focus on why I am doing something and identify the core problem that needs to be addressed, I can go out and solve it. I can ask for help. I can connect with other smart people who choose to work with me to make a difference and get shit done." Thus, I guess I will just start there: get shit done.  #Onwards Written by Luis Suarez Chief Emergineer, People Enabler and Charter Member of Change Agents Worldwide and a well seasoned Social / Open Business evangelist and 2.0 practitioner with over 15 years of experience on knowledge management, collaboration, learning, online communities and social networking for business; and has been living, since February 2008, a (work) life without email challenging the status quo of how knowledge workers collaborate and share their knowledge by promoting openness, transparency, trust, sustainable growth, engagement, connectedness and overall smart work. He can also be contacted over in Twitter at @elsua or Google Plus. 

Wear Sunscreen is perhaps one of those extremely rare video clips with a rather strong, inspiring and incredibly humanising message one could bump into and that, throughout the course of the years, it gets better and better. Just like wine, it gets better as we age. I can’t hardly believe how that speech was put together in 1997 and how, 17 years later, it is still ringing much truer than ever before. To the point where, if you get to spend about seven minutes to watch through it, it will transport you to way back then and make you wonder what have you been up to in all of those years. Well, I am not too sure about you, but I have been looking up. One of the many reasons why I have been looking forward to writing again on this blog was the opportunity to pick up a theme I decided to introduce at the beginning of the year around the topic of Humanise and which time and time again I keep getting constant reminders about the need for helping me balance all of those extreme negatives happening out there with plenty of extreme positives, as often as I possibly can. It may well be my eternal optimist coming along, who knows. What I do know though is we live in a rather complex, hyperconnected, fast-paced, troubled world, with huge potential, but perhaps with plenty of things more messed up than what we, human beings, can possibly cope and deal with in both a coherent and cohesive manner. And, yet, here we are. Trying to make the most of out of it. And trying hard. I am not too sure whether we are succeeding in those efforts of sense making of the world around us, but I can certainly assure you we are trying, aren’t we? There seems to be this collective sense that keeps building up more and more over time about something needing to change. Wanting to change. We may not be sure, just yet, what would need to change, although I can imagine plenty of people out there surely have a hunch or two in terms of hinting what those changes may well be, not just from a business perspective, but perhaps also from a societal one. And they may be right.  That’s essentially what I was thinking about when I first bumped into this absolutely stunning video clip under the suggestive heading of "Look Up", put together by Gary Turk. To me, the perfect allegory that describes pretty much today’s world of over-sharing under the perverse FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and which could be the natural successor of Wear Sunscreen to show us there is another way. Yes, it is that good. To me, bridging almost on the verge of nailing down our meandering experience of our mere existence in today’s hyperconnected world, where we always appear to be glued to a mobile device, whatever that may well be, disconnecting and switching off from the rest of the physical world.  You see? When you grab your mobile phone 150 times per day, at a minimum, according to some recent research on Digital Trends, I guess we can now say we do have a bit of a problem, even though some folks may not agree with that statement, like, for instance, my good friend Euan Semple who tweeted just recently:    If we really need Look Up to tell us to get a life we are in more trouble than I thought… — Euan Semple (@euan) May 8, 2014 Or George Siemens on this other reflection on the same topic:  Watched the Look Up video: https://t.co/q1yjV0VAz2 Didn’t like it. Don’t tell me, with tech, that tech sucks. emotion manipulators — George Siemens (@gsiemens) May 5, 2014 Yes, I can sense the negative sentiment in George’s comments when he mentions "emotion manipulators", specially, when the video clip was socialised through technology itself. Oh, yes, I see the irony of it, too! But then again, where do you go to spread a message worth while sharing, when by the end of this year there would be 3.2 billion people on earth connected to the Internet? Wouldn’t you go to where your potential audience may well be or already is? Nearly 30 million views (at the point of writing this article) would probably confirm that … Yes, I can also see Euan’s commentary that we probably don’t need no stinking video clip to tell us to get a life more than we already know we all need. But then again, if you look into it, some times we, human beings, like to hear what we already know deep inside rings true and be told by outsiders that very same story we created ourselves in the first place. That’s how consultants, analysts and vendors typically operate today when interacting with customers, who are continuing to look for that outsider’s advice to help validate what they themselves, deep inside, know already.  At the end of the day Look Up is an allegory, a beautiful metaphor, reminding us every single second, of how things may well need to be in order for us to humanise our very own existence, once again. At least, that’s how I see it. It’s an alluring poem, if you would want to. An inspiring story that does have a message, one that may not be obvious at first, but that when looking into it closer it would help us realise the huge potential the Social Web has got nowadays for each and everyone of us: that is, how technology helps us become more human, not necessarily by making extensive use of it, but by considering it just an enabler of sorts to focus on what we should be focusing all along, whether at work, or in our personal lives: our relationships. I know Look Up is the kind of video clip that, throughout the course of many years to come, just like Wear Sunscreen has done for me over time, will act as a constant, gentle reminder, as a technology sticky-note of sorts, that there is a wonderful and rather beautiful world out there to enjoy and that technology’s role, if any, should be that one of helping augment the already existing real life experiences. Acting as a substitute will not work. It should not work. That’s perhaps the main reason why on the article around The Path of Self-Discovery, that I published just recently, I mentioned how now that I am an independent freelancer and seem to have plenty more free time for other things than just being hooked to devices here and there, I am spending plenty more time outdoors investing my time, energy and a good effort on nurturing those offline social networking activities: connecting AND relating to other people. Experience the world. Capture it with those precious moments in small chunks called photographs (Or video snippets, it won’t matter) to then share them into the virtual world as an opportunity to act as an aftertaste of what happened before. Enjoy your life to the fullest, because you never know how long it will last. So we may as well make the most out of it, don’t you think? Understanding that there is a great chance that technology will always be there, but we may not. After all, every day, we only have got 86.400$ in our bank, and that’s a finite resource:    Why waste time? Live inspired… Today and always!   Written by Luis Suarez Chief Emergineer, People Enabler and Charter Member of Change Agents Worldwide and a well seasoned Social / Open Business evangelist and 2.0 practitioner with over 15 years of experience on knowledge management, collaboration, learning, online communities and social networking for business; and has been living, since February 2008, a (work) life without email challenging the status quo of how knowledge workers collaborate and share their knowledge by promoting openness, transparency, trust, sustainable growth, engagement, connectedness and overall smart work. He can also be contacted over in Twitter at @elsua or Google Plus. 

Even though I am now an independent freelancer working as a trusted advisor to clients around Social Business and Digital Transformation, after 17 years of corporate life at IBM, there are still some things that I guess don’t change much, or, at least, not as fast as I would have hoped for. One of those areas is business travelling, that, although not happening as often as it used to be, it’s one of those activities where I still see plenty of room for improvement, specially, when trying to combine being on the road and still keep up with my digital activities. You would think after all of these years, and several hundreds of business trips, I would get the hang out of it already, but, alas, it doesn’t seem to be the case. At least, not yet. It’s just like I disappear into thin air, except perhaps for Twitter, for a good few days and, before I realise and try to make an effort about coming back into the Social Web, I am then back home from travelling, and we are back in business. Goodness! Will I ever be capable of reconciling business travelling and digital interactions? Probably not, and here is why. Relentless networking. A rather short and straight to the point description as to why I would never be capable of reconciling my online social interactions with the offline world, while I am on the move. Never mind that as soon as I leave the country, my mobile phone turns itself into a brick. A rather expensive brick. Somehow my motivation then to remain connected just disappears, since I can’t come to terms with the fact of paying hugely expensive roaming charges for something that it is starting to feel more of a right, yes, the Right to a Decent Internet Access, even for road warriors like myself, when we are away from our traditional work locations.  Twitter is perhaps an exception to all of this. Its mobile immediacy and ever growing global reach, along with the very little consumption of data while on the road, allows me to still keep an eye on all things digital. But it’s rather interesting to see how I essentially morph, on purpose, how I use this social networking tool whether I am working at my home office or while on the road. At home, it’s my preferred and most energising, inspiring, serendipity-prone, personal learning network. When I travel it’s my main method of how I connect and reach out to people in my network(s). And that’s where the relentless networking I mentioned above kicks in. I guess, all along, my main focus, when I am embarking on a business trip, is to essentially put an emphasis on connecting with people and reach out, whether they are part of my network(s), or not, through face to face conversations. Late last year I went through the Strengths Finder assessment (More about this one item coming up shortly as a new blog entry, by the way) and I "discovered" how the number #1 top strength from yours truly is that one of Connectedness. It didn’t surprise me. Perhaps it confirmed my ever growing inner urge to connect with others through face to face interactions, when I am in the road, sensing I may not have the chance to meet up with those people in the near / short term. So better make the most out of it while we are enjoying the now. The present. And then continue to make use of digital technologies, when back at the home office, to help enhance those already existing personal business relationships.  I suppose that’s how I roll and I venture to state that pretty much describes what I have been involved with last week, when I travelled for a good few days to Brussels to do a workshop and a remote presentation for two different events (I will be blogging shortly on a different entry about this as well). And then I decided to spend the rest of the time meeting up good old friends, or new ones, who may be around and who would be able to meet up for a drink, or a meal, or both. Understanding that, you know, your online social interactions will always be there. However, the connecting with others in the now is just a split moment in our life times. You need to be at the right place and at the right moment with a specific purpose, that one of letting serendipity do its magic. And from there onwards go with the flow and enjoy it. That’s something that I have learned, of all of unexpected places, and I am sure it may well be a bit of a shock for most of you, specially, if you won’t have one, but from my dog, a Belgian sheepdog: Boira, who happens to understand and embrace the now pretty well. To him everything happens in the moment, so you may as well be ready to enjoy it and make the most out of it, because thinking about the past or wondering about the future just doesn’t fit, or as Bil Keane would say: "Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present".  That’s probably the main reason as to why after all of these years, perhaps it’s now a good time for me to stop, once and for all, trying to find a balance between offline and online interactions while I am travelling and focus perhaps on the now, i.e. on what I can do right there, right then, at that very moment, when connecting and reaching out with other people face to face, understanding that online digital interactions, after all, can wait, while the ubiquitousness of the present moment, right when serendipity is just about to strike, can’t. And that’s when it hit me last week, while in Brussels, because, in between events, I only had a single thought in mind: network, network and network again. Relentlessly. Non-stop. You know how it goes. You are your network, your network is you. It’s what you build and nurture over the course of time. It takes an awful lot of energy, effort and intent. But it’s just totally worth it. And sometimes it’s good to have a reminder to Look Up, to pause and reflect from all of the hectic digital interactions, and let the world slow down for a bit having some bloody good conversations, as my good friend Euan Semple would say. Well, that’s just what happened last week while enjoying one of my favourite cities in Europe, Brussels. And, now that I am at my home office again, it’s time to go back to all things digital to keep cultivating those already existing interactions and newly built (offline) relationships.  Till the next business trip …    Written by Luis Suarez Chief Emergineer, People Enabler and Charter Member of Change Agents Worldwide and a well seasoned Social / Open Business evangelist and 2.0 practitioner with over 15 years of experience on knowledge management, collaboration, learning, online communities and social networking for business; and has been living, since February 2008, a (work) life without email challenging the status quo of how knowledge workers collaborate and share their knowledge by promoting openness, transparency, trust, sustainable growth, engagement, connectedness and overall smart work. He can also be contacted over in Twitter at @elsua or Google Plus. 

Language matters. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself about how important it is to build a narrative you would feel rather comfortable with when interacting with other people, whether your peers, your customers, your business partners, even your competitors. It’s something that has been in my mind over the course of time in terms of how we get work done more effectively through these digital technologies. You see? I cringe a little bit every time that someone mentions the word "drive" (Specially, when you are not in a car!), or "adoption" or the combination of both: driving the adoption (of Social Business). So whenever someone invites me to help inspire a new narrative within their organisation(s), as they embark themselves on the so-called Social Business and Digital Transformation journeys, it’s an opportunity that I just don’t let go that easily. Why? Well, because having a good, representative narrative on what matters to you and your business is no longer down to some fancy words, but more down to actions. Essentially, walking the talk, leading by example. That’s why when the European Commission invited me last week to go to Brussels, and spend a couple of hours with a representative group of middle managers, to help them understand the role they would need to play, when embracing digital technologies, adjusting accordingly their management and leadership capabilities to the new reality, I just took the opportunity to demonstrate how important having the right narrative would well be for their own efforts to become a Socially Integrated Enterprise. Regardless of the organisation or the management layer. So, instead of driving the adoption of middle managers from the European Commission, we talked about business purposes and how social technologies could act as a rather valuable and unprecedented enabler towards achieving a certain number of goals. We talked about the need to move away from adoption and into adaptation, understanding that they are the group that, beyond early adapters, everyone else is looking up to when embracing these emerging social tools while at work.  You see? While most people out there would consider that middle managers are the main hurdle or obstacle towards the successful adaptation of businesses to this new way of hyperconnected, networked, smarter work, through social networks, here I am thinking, instead, they are your best ally beyond the first and second wave of "early adapters". Most people may not realise about this, but middle managers are the social bridges within organisations. They are well connected to people down the trenches, while, at the same time, they keep close ties with those on the top. They essentially talk to both groups. They understand the needs and wants from both groups. They know, very well, how to get the most out of each of them, and if they have traditionally been perceived as rather static, hierarchical and overall disengaged, is because they have always been perceived as the main problem, when they are eventually the solution. Middle managers are that specific group of practitioners, because, yes, they are also practitioners, just like you and me, that have been caught right in between this digital revolution of social technologies just as disengaged as everyone else. So when looking into a business purpose or problem to tackle with the emergence of Social Business employee disengagement is just as good for them as for everyone else. Remember, currently 87% of today’s knowledge workforce, according to Gallup’s recent research, is disengaged at work. So if you have got a group of 100 middle managers, that means that about 13% of them are the ones executing on the work they have, because they feel motivated enough to make it happen. The rest will just continue to struggle along generating perhaps even more disengagement amongst the rest of the workforce. And that is the main business problem we are currently facing and why we need to keep inspiring a next generation of leaders, not just senior or executive leaders, for that matter, who are willing to change their own narrative and understand that effective leadership in this so-called Social Era is not about empowering people around you, it’s about enabling those around you. It’s about helping them understand how, as a leader, you will be offering your own help and support to provoke that transformation. How the time for command and control, or micro-managing your employees is a thing of the past. How to become an effective leader you would need to acquire a new set of skills and capabilities that would help you transform yourself from being just another middle manager doing their (disengaged) work into the new kind of Open Leadership that’s very much needed to help re-engage a knowledge workforce that right now is on the brink of collapsing on its own.  That’s why words no longer mean anything on their own. That’s why actions do mean everything. That’s why leading by example, walking the talk, exhibiting those new leadership capabilities and competencies would help you, as a (middle / senior) leader, understand the new dynamic of what it is like thriving in social networks, being part of the pack, one of the nodes, one that can act as the main catalyst to connect the dots across the organisation understanding that the days for the good old strict and rigid hierarchy are well numbered and how it is time to transition into a hybrid approach of combining both hierarchy and wirearchy to then eventually transition into a wirearchy inspired organisation.  A lot has been written in the past about the critical role that middle managers play when embarking on the Social Business Transformation journey. However, they also have got business problems of their own that they would need to solve first, as my good friend, and fellow CAWW member, Simon Terry quoted just recently: "Middle managers like to complain about being squeezed by pressures from above and below. Their organisations love to blame them for all the ills in the place". Perhaps it’s now a good time to understand that we should probably stop blaming them for everything that has gone wrong in an organisation and, instead, help enable them to understand their new critical role in the leadership ladder to become the social bridges to effectively make change happen.  How? Well, probably by exhibiting, through actions, not words anymore alone, a new kind of leadership capabilities, associated with the whole notion around both Social Business and Open Business under a new, rather specific, framework: Open Leadership. To that extent, a little while ago, I put together a presentation at Haiku Deck where I captured my interpretation of what those new leadership traits would be like putting them in context about the main business purpose behind them when embracing the emergence of social technologies at the workplace: eventually, re-engage the knowledge workforce. Yes, to me, still, and by far, our number one business problem in today’s business world, whatever the industry, whatever the sector, no matter what organisation. Can you imagine the huge potential of transforming our work environment from having just barely a bit over 10% of the employee population doing all the hard work, where we are just about to enter the stage of mere survival, to eventually have a much much higher level of purposeful participation and overall engagement? I know how plenty of folks have been talking all along about social networking’s capabilities to democratise the workplace. To me, it goes well beyond that. It’s about that unique opportunity to democratise how we work, how we connect, collaborate and share our knowledge more effectively, so that we can get work done without all the unnecessary stress and ill-behaviours we are currently exhibiting that are managing, little by little, to destroy everything that we have been building up over the course of decades, and, to such extent, that’s the main reason why middle managers are the main enablers of that transformation journey.    From Adaptation into Engagement. From being blamed from all sides for everything that goes wrong, to become the catalyst enablers helping transform not only the way we all work, but also, essentially, the corporate cultures we breathe in day in day out. After all, they always had the authority to act. Now they just need to show what Open Leadership truly means in the connected workplace and demonstrate it accordingly, not only by their words alone, but also by their own actions, too!    Written by Luis Suarez Chief Emergineer, People Enabler and Charter Member of Change Agents Worldwide and a well seasoned Social / Open Business evangelist and 2.0 practitioner with over 15 years of experience on knowledge management, collaboration, learning, online communities and social networking for business; and has been living, since February 2008, a (work) life without email challenging the status quo of how knowledge workers collaborate and share their knowledge by promoting openness, transparency, trust, sustainable growth, engagement, connectedness and overall smart work. He can also be contacted over in Twitter at @elsua or Google Plus. 

If you have been reading this blog for a little while now, you would notice how there is a certain topic that keeps coming back time and time again, as one of my main key focus areas I have always felt would help advance our overall efforts of pushing the boundaries of our various different social business transformation journeys: the overall client experience. And I am not talking about the traditional concept behind a customer. To me, everyone is a client in some form or shape: your very own colleagues, your managers, your executives, etc. are also even your clients. You keep serving them for whatever purpose through your specific cooperation and collaboration efforts. They are also the very same ones that keep you employed for many years to come, just like any other customer would do. Are you paying attention to them as well just as much? While I was at IBM, working during those 17 years in multiple internal projects within 6 different business units, one comes to realise that even though you are working on the blue dollars (vs. the green dollars), there is always something you can do to focus on that client experience: delighting your clients. That is, help them achieve their goals and objectives, address and fix their potential business problems, and eventually help enable them to excel at what they are already rather good at. It’s an interesting, and a rather fascinating experience altogether, because, amongst several other things, it always manages to keep you sharp, in your toes, about the client value you can provide, even to your peers. To the point where, to me, it became my new KPI over the course of time in terms of how I would value and measure the success of my own work across organisation(s). How delighted are your customers with your own work over the course of time is probably as good as it gets, whether internal or external, in terms of proving and demonstrating your value and overall contributions, so when the smart folks at CMSWire invited me to write an article around the whole topic behind "The Search for ROI in Social Business" I just couldn’t help writing about the need, for me (Perhaps for you, too), to create that new KPI that would help me successfully identify whether I am on the right track, or not, in providing value to the customers I interact with, specially, now even more so that I am an independent trusted advisor and have shifted focus from internal into external work.  That invitation from CMSWire to write that article has also helped me frame something that has been in my mind for a long while, whenever I embark on the conversations of how do you measure the value of your own Social Business initiatives, and whether it’s time to go deeper, moving further beyond the overall low hanging fruit of just measuring the usage of social technologies. To me, we are witnessing the unique opportunity of not only going more in-depth into the overall value proposition of Social Business, but perhaps re-define a new KPI around the client experience which, more and more, gets defined itself by the overall employee experience. In case folks may have missed that article over at CMSWire, I have now taken the liberty of also reproducing it here below, so you can all have a look and comment on whether there is a need to go deeper and reframe altogether new KPIs to help evaluate more effectively the overall customer value propositions around the Social Business Transformation journey or whether we should just stick around, with the easy part, i.e. with the low hanging fruit. Something tells me we shouldn’t, but I would let you be the judge of that sentiment while going through the article itself…  How the Client Experience Defines the New ROI of Social Business "I remember when things were just getting started with Enterprise 2.0, then Social Business, how we were all trying to prove the business value of social technologies and even our very existence as 2.0 practitioners in the workplace. Do you remember how tough it was to justify yours to senior management? How things have changed since then …. Fast forward to 2014, and while the conversation around measuring the business value of Social Business persists and is perhaps more relevant, the focus and intent of the questions have shifted. There is no longer a need to justify it, but rather an opportunity to evaluate the maturity of different initiatives as you progress on the Social Business journey. No one can deny the impact of social technologies at the workplace anymore — and that’s a good thing. We have *finally* moved on. Beware the Low Hanging Fruit The dialogue has evolved, although we may at times still have the impression we are running a circus, as Carrie Young brilliantly indicated in "Social ROI = Return On Insanity" This happens when we stop thinking outside of the box and the inertia kicks in that’s so pernicious in the business world: only measuring the low hanging fruit. This is far too easy. Measuring the usage of social technologies at the workplace is far easier than the significant impact on the overall business outcomes. This is where the real challenge currently lies. I have advised clients all along that to measure the business value of your social business initiatives you should aim higher than the low hanging fruit for your critical business KPIs. The ones you have cared about throughout the years, perhaps decades. These provide the opportunity to truly change your business through the digital transformation. There is also an opportunity to rethink how we approach these KPIs. In the Social Era it remains a challenge to measure emerging 21st century business models with a 20th century mentality. And that is where the circus begins… There may be a better way. Let’s explore it. A New KPI The main business goal of most companies is no longer to just profit per se (although still a major driver), but essentially "to delight their customers," as Steve Denning would say. Each of us can remember very well when the last time was that we had a delightful experience as a customer, and more importantly, when we didn’t. I bet our first reaction was: "Wow! What a delightful client experience. I wish I could repeat it again!" And that’s essentially what we want for our customers — to improve their overall client experience. But in order to do that we need to aim at improving the employee experience as well, and that’s when problems arise. Very few people would deny that the client experience is defined by the employee experience. Happy employees = happy customers. It’s good for the business. Unfortunately, employees are not very happy. Recent reports from Gallup claim that only 13 percent of employees are engaged at work worldwide. Yes, let me pause there — only 13 percent. That essentially means that your business is being run by only a slightly over 10 percent of your employee workforce. If that’s not a worrying sign, I don’t know what is. How can we possibly define the client experience as delightful if employees aren’t there in the first place? Want to find a new business KPI that matches today’s No. 1 business problem? Look no further: employee engagement (commitment, involvement, compromise — whichever moniker du jour you favour). I strongly believe (and always have) that Social Business can reignite a disengaged workforce, while also helping reengage vendors and clients. The apathy is permeating beyond your employees to your customers and business partners. We need to do better. We need to do MUCH better. It’s a challenge to strike a renewed sense of purpose, meaning and more effective way of getting work done when employees lack a strong sense of belonging, of feeling appreciated, trusted, respected and valued. When you enable your employees to think and act differently through emerging social technologies — giving them autonomy, flexibility, responsibility and, above all, ownership of the work they do — you start to realize you’ve entered a different league when measuring the business value of Social Business. Measuring the usage of social tools is helpful for clarity and awareness, but don’t stop there. Go deeper. Work with your knowledge workforce to co-create new KPIs based on their employee experiences. Chances are high they know better than you whether they are doing the right job with clients based on their interactions with them — out in the open, working more publicly and transparently, working out loud. Success will be their new reality when they reengage to delight their clients. Showing the Way to the 21st Century One of the many worthwhile examples that demonstrates how this can be done is TELUS, a national telecommunications company based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Dan Pontefract, Chief Envisioner at TELUS, confirmed its employee engagement rates increased from 53 percent to 83 percent and that it correlated this to an improvement in business outcomes — a.k.a. revenue. I know what you’re thinking — wow! From 53 percent to 83 percent through applying and embracing social technologies and a new kind of leadership, Open Leadership. That’s just one example of many of how we can aim higher to strike a balanced, measurable set of outcomes to prove the ROI of Social Business. We need to stop paying for the circus and get down to action. The *real* action. So, who wants to jump the shark and move into the 21st century to become a successful Socially Integrated Enterprise? This is your new ROI: start by improving the client experience through the employee experience. The rest is just a distraction and one that should be avoided. At all costs."   Written by Luis Suarez Chief Emergineer, People Enabler and Charter Member of Change Agents Worldwide and a well seasoned Social / Open Business evangelist and 2.0 practitioner with over 15 years of experience on knowledge management, collaboration, learning, online communities and social networking for business; and has been living, since February 2008, a (work) life without email challenging the status quo of how knowledge workers collaborate and share their knowledge by promoting openness, transparency, trust, sustainable growth, engagement, connectedness and overall smart work. He can also be contacted over in Twitter at @elsua or Google Plus. 

I can hardly believe it’s been almost 3 months now since I became independent and, yet, it feels like it’s been like that for ages. Somehow I’m starting to feel like the transition period is coming to an end or, perhaps, even, it never started in the first place. Things have been moving along so fast that there hasn’t been a dull moment whatsoever. The learning experience has been par to none. The massive, and rather drastic, change from having worked for the last 17 years in one of the largest IT corporations out there (IBM) to running your own business, on your own, can be quite something. All along, I knew the uncertainty would be here to stay with me for a good while, yet, the excitement keeps trumping that very same uncertainty, specially, when all of the current work around constantly building the pipeline for new work is starting to pay off as well. But if there is anything that I have been grateful about all along, since I made the move, was joining a very special group of rather talented and very smart folks who have made it worth while for me, all along, coming to work every morning: Change Agents Worldwide. Why? Well, because we may be on the brink of witnessing our collective ninth day. And we need to be ready. Are you? Yes, that’s right. I thought, in today’s blog entry, I would take the chance to share with you folks one, of the many!, reasons as to why, a few months back, I decided to go and join Change Agents Worldwide as a Solo Change Agent. It’s all about our common vision of humanising work, of living through, day in day out in our daily work routines, how we feel the future of work would be like, except that instead of waiting for 3 to 5 years to see it coming along, we all, collectively, gathered around to make it happen today as we continue to build an uncompany. Essentially, it’s been about having us explore, first hand, what it would be like what we preach and talk about with much passion and dedication. In a way, we feel we are tasting our very own waters to perhaps show and demonstrate everyone, starting with ourselves!, that it is possible to define the future of work today, after all, making it more human, networked, hyperconnected, smarter, collaborative, open, transparent, engaged. That it is something that begins with each and everyone of us, knowledge (Web) workers and change agents. And that it is a journey we all decided to begin as a group effort where we may not know exactly what the final destination may well be, but we all feel that what really matters is not necessarily that very same final destination, but the journey itself. That’s what my good friend, and fellow Change Agent, Kevin Jones, did recently when he put together this incredibly inspiring and thought provoking video clip (that lasts for a little bit over 3 minutes) under the rather suggestive heading "Humanise Work: The Ninth Day", where he comes to reflect, and pretty accurately, too!, on the current poor (literally) state of things within the corporate world and the realisation of what the future of work should be like, and, exactly, relating, pretty well, what motivates and inspires us, Change Agents, to come to work for every day. Take a look into the embedded video clip below and see what you think. Is that the kind of world we would want to live in, the industrial world, that is, or is it time to put a stand on things, think AND do different:   So why am I posting about this today, you may be wondering, right? Well, it’s as a result of a good number of conversations I have been having with people, mostly face to face, when they bring up an issue I am pretty sure vast majority of independent freelancers / consultants / advisors / coaches / facilitators, etc. etc. may bump into, if not already, when they start to potentially do client work and the killer question comes up: How are you planning to scale? It’s a question that doesn’t have a straight forward answer. Or maybe it does. Context and the ever growing complexity of work would probably matter now more than ever. Things are changing quite a bit. Disruption is happening all over the place at a more rampant pace that perhaps anyone out there could have had anticipated all along. Yet, the reality is that question on scalability will have to find a pretty good answer, and very soon, as we are progressing and moving forward, relentlessly and with no turning point, to that so-called Freelance Economy. Like any economy out there though, specially, nowadays, we all know there will be a number of different issues and problems coming up over the course of time that would put the Freelance Economy to the test, yet, the potential and the opportunity for redefining the whole concept behind meaningful and purposeful work are very real and are here to stay. Never mind re-introducing a whole bunch of concepts that looked like we may have forgotten them over the course of last few decades, but that Kevin graciously reminded us all about on the second part of the video clip shared above. Thus, again, how are we going to scale in today’s ever growing Freelance Economy then, you may be wondering, and escape that tumultuous uncertainty everyone keeps talking about? Easy. Through our networks. In my own personal case, through Change Agents Worldwide. My primary, core network to get work done in an open, collaborative and transparent manner through a common set of core values we all believe in and share dearly. We know and understand fully we can then scale even further beyond, any which way, through our very own extended networks across the world, co-building, nurturing and cultivating a whole bunch of various different partnerships, as my good friend, and fellow Change Agent, Rob Paterson, blogged about beautifully a little while ago when he explained why he joined CAWW as well. And best part of it all? It is that for all of us, fellow Change Agents, it’s a continuous learning experience, where we have embraced and live through, day in day out, that good old mantra Harold Jarche blogged about a while ago on "Work is learning, learning is the work". But you know what is an even better part of this whole new experience and exploration of what the future of work could look like? That you, too, could come along, today, and join us, hire us, play with us, or even start a new adventure with us and eventually help us help you humanise the way we work. The Ninth Day is coming … Are you ready for it?   Written by Luis Suarez Chief Emergineer, People Enabler and Charter Member of Change Agents Worldwide and a well seasoned Social / Open Business evangelist and 2.0 practitioner with over 15 years of experience on knowledge management, collaboration, learning, online communities and social networking for business; and has been living, since February 2008, a (work) life without email challenging the status quo of how knowledge workers collaborate and share their knowledge by promoting openness, transparency, trust, sustainable growth, engagement, connectedness and overall smart work. He can also be contacted over in Twitter at @elsua or Google Plus.    [Oh, before I let you all go, and if you can, come and join us on May 29th at noon EDT on a webinar that fellow Change Agents Joachim Stroh, Simon Terry and Kevin Jones will be hosting around this very exciting topic: "Creating a Vibrant Social Network Employees Will Love". Check out this link for more information and registration details and we certainly look forward to seeing you all there!]

One of the themes around both Social and Open Business I have grown rather fond of over the course of the last 2 to 3 years is that one of Working Out Loud (Other related topics would be as well narrating your work or observable work, a.k.a. #owork). From the moment that fellow Change Agent Bryce Williams coined the term, nearly 4 years ago, to today, a lot has happened, but, surprisingly enough, the interest around this very same subject continues to raise the stakes that perhaps the realisation of becoming a successful Socially Integrated Enterprise is no longer just around how social you may well be, whether internal or external, with your peers, your customers, business partners or, even, your competitors, but maybe about how comfortable you may well feel when showing your work, out in the open, in a rather transparent manner, for others (even total strangers) to benefit from. What do you think? Are you ready to start working out loud as well?  I can imagine how throwing yourself out there into the unknown, hoping for the best, may well be a bit of a challenge in itself. I mean, if you look into it, within the corporate world, all along, we have always defaulted to work in private, close silos with team colleagues whom we knew rather well, or even just our very own selves, as we have kept protecting and hoarding our own knowledge thinking that would make us all become indispensable to the business. Remember the good old mantra of "Knowledge is power"? Well, it may well have its days numbered…  I know plenty of you folks out there would tell me that knowledge is power is still very much alive and kicking and, in fact, it pretty much rules everywhere, even in our social, digital activities, specially, when we just keep talking, referencing and sharing other people’s content and work items vs. our very own. Mainly, because we just don’t feel comfortable and open enough to think AND act different; to shift and change our very own behaviours and mindset; to show how vulnerable and limited we all are, after all, as we move on and transition into "Knowledge SHARED is power". Yet, let me tell you, based on first hand experience, there is a lot to gain. And we are no longer alone. Not anymore. By far. Yes! It’s time to open up! Like I said, over the course of the last couple of years plenty of people have been thinking and talking openly about the whole concept behind Working Out Loud. It’s become a mantra as well, for a long while now, for my fellow peers and myself at Change Agents Worldwide with folks like John Stepper, Susan Scrupski, Jonathan Anthony, Jane McConnell, Catherine Shinners, Simon Terry, Dennis Pearce, Christoph Schmaltz, Patti Anklam, Harold Jarche, Jon Husband, Eric Ziegler or Ian Thorpe talking about it extensively and, much more importantly, walking the talk in showcasing how it could work not just for organisations but for knowledge (Web) workers, in general, even when doing client work. Oh, yes! We are not alone in this. Far from it. Plenty of other folks (to name a few), like Matthew Partovi, Dion Hinchcliffe, Rogier Noort, John Wenger, Marshall Kirkpatrick, John Hagel, Euan Semple, Stowe Boyd, Stephen Danelutti, Greg Lloyd, Sacha Chua, David Burkus, Maria Popova (Reflecting on Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work), Hugh MacLeod, Janet Choi, Sunder Ramachandran, Jessica Grose, Moyra Mackie, Louise McGregor, Laurie Webster, Rick Ladd, John Buonora, Jane Bozarth, Michael Sampson, CV Harquail, Inge Ignatia de Waard, Lloyd Davis, Bernie Mitchell, Nick Milton, Sarah Lay, Ewen Le Borgne, Mike Taylor, Russell Pearson, have been talking and writing about Working Out Loud for some time now, demonstrating how it’s not as scary as it may look like. Quite the opposite. They have been sharing plenty of first hand experiences and insights on what it’s meant for them all along and, if anything, it’s been pretty inspiring overall seeing how this topic is picking up more and more steam by the minute by everyone else. Even organisations are jumping into it. Examples like Grundfos (Read as well Thomas Asger Hansen’s take on it), Deutsche Bank, National Fluid Power Association, Lowe’s, etc. etc. have been embracing this mantra as well of #workingoutloud (#WOL). Even some vendors like Salesforce, IBM or Podio have been advocating for it, too! You would probably say that, at this point in time, it’s an unstoppable movement towards opening up organisations, business processes and technology while inspiring, throughout the knowledge workforce, new, innovative ways of thinking different while doing business. But what is Working Out Loud exactly, you may be wondering, right? Well, instead of me detailing a short explanation of what it would be like I thought I would point you to a short video clip of about 3 minutes, put together by my colleagues at Change Agents Worldwide, for Salesforce’s Chatter, that pretty much explains what it is and how you, too, could embark on it without too much effort or disruption from your already existing day to day work routines. Have a look and see what you think:    So, after watching that short video clip you now may be wondering why am I putting together this blog entry in the first place, right? Well, after having embraced Working Out Loud for a good number of years while I was at IBM, as both a Social Business Evangelist and Lead Social Business Enabler, more than anything else as an opportunity to show and demonstrate how it would work through pure hands-on, walking the talk, and leading by example, I thought it’s now a good time for me to pick it up again, even as an independent trusted advisor, and show what it would look like out there in the Social Web. The interesting thing is that this is not the first time that I do it. I have done it in the past through Twitter multiple times, and even through Google Plus itself as well, as I have blogged about it a couple of years ago over here. That’s essentially how #elsuasworkbook was born in the first place and while I am just about to get things started with client work around Social Business and Digital Transformation and things are beginning to settle down a bit with my new life of being an independent I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to show everyone in my networks (and anyone else who may be interested for that matter) about what it is like Working Out Loud for yours truly.  It’s bound to be an interesting experiment, since I know I will be trying hard to be as open and transparent as I possibly can, through my Google Plus profile, to describe the kind of work that I am currently involved with at the moment. Oh, don’t worry, radical transparency is a bit too far away for me at the moment, specially, while I am trying to taste the waters of a new working life, but over time, as I, too, myself get comfortable with the uncertain, the level of transparency will keep increasing more and more by the day.  After all, if you would remember, transparency is one of the 10 Principles of Open Business and, to me, one of the key mantras I decided to adapt to over the course of time in my transition journey away from Social Business into Open Business. From not only talking about social, but also doing / living social AND Open. Thus, if you would want to find out some more how things will work out for me from here onwards, check out my Google Plus Profile or just keep an eye on #elsuasworkbook every now and then to get a glimpse of what’s happening. Oh, and if you decide to jump in as well, let the world know (me, included, please!) about how and where we can find you, working out loud. For now, I will leave you all with a couple of rather inspiring quotes on the topic, as well as the prospect of enjoying the lovely weekend ahead of us. Mine is just about to get started now!  Have a good one everyone!   Work out loud? "If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud." - Emile Zola. — Felix Escribano (@felmundo) March 9, 2014 "Working Out Loud" is where knowledge, trust, credibility and a focus on results come together to party and get things done .. @chagww — Jon Husband (@jonhusband) March 31, 2014   Written by Luis Suarez Chief Emergineer, People Enabler and Charter Member of Change Agents Worldwide and a well seasoned Social / Open Business evangelist and 2.0 practitioner with over 15 years of experience on knowledge management, collaboration, learning, online communities and social networking for business; and has been living, since February 2008, a (work) life without email challenging the status quo of how knowledge workers collaborate and share their knowledge by promoting openness, transparency, trust, sustainable growth, engagement, connectedness and overall smart work. He can also be contacted over in Twitter at @elsua or Google Plus. 

My goodness! Can you believe it’s now a bit over 5 months since I left IBM and moved on to my next adventure as a trusted advisor around Social Business and Digital Transformation? Yes, I know, me neither! It’s just gone so fast it’s been a bit of a challenge keeping up with the pace into this whole new life of being an independent freelancer. Pretty much like when I posted the last blog entry over here in this blog a couple of weeks ago, before I disappeared into a business trip to Barcelona, followed by a long weekend break in the same city, to then come back and embark on my next business trip to Zaragoza. Phew! And yet, while the journey has been incredibly good fun all along, never mind the massive learning experience, here I am preparing, non-stop, for the next business trip just around the corner: Social Connections VI. June 16th - 17th, 2014. Prague. Yes, I know, that Prague. It’s been a pretty wild ride, all along, since I left my former employer, but it’s been even more interesting participating in a good number of different conversations with former colleagues to get exposed to different perceptions and understandings while trying to figure out where to next from there. Indeed, over the course of the last few weeks I have been taking the time to converse with plenty of former colleagues to catch up with one another on what we have been doing and what we are currently working on and it’s been a bit of a surprise how, somewhere, someplace, there seems to have been this rumour that when I left the company I left in pretty bad terms, with resentment, and without a single intention of getting back in touch with any entry point into the IBM ecosystem. Never mind its extensive network(s).  Very sad and untrue. I am not too sure where or why that rumour started in the first place and, frankly, I am not even interested in finding out more about it. But those folks out there who know me very well, or who have been working with me for the last 17 years, or any period in between, would probably confirm how, like with any other major corporation, there are always highs and lows, of course (no-one can, nor should, deny them), but, overall, my working experience at IBM has been, if anything, a true privilege. From day one.  Not every day do you get to work in multiple dream jobs at the same firm, while living in paradise island, with your HR manager physically located in another continent different than yours and with your project manager working in one other (different) continent altogether. And all of that with a pretty good salary, lots of prestige and reputation going the extra mile big time and for a long while, and working with some of the most talented and wonderful people around the globe. If anything, like I said, it’s been a privilege. An honour to have stuck around for that long doing some pretty amazing things realising that, at some point in time, it was a good time to look for a change, to make yourself redundant, and start your new adventure. Whatever that may well be…    Great things never came from comfort zones. — Anna Lee (@annaleenyc) June 9, 2014 Well, that’s essentially what I have been doing myself throughout this time, but, all in all, I also realised, way back after I made the initial decision to depart ways from my former employer, that I would not be going too far away and, instead, I would be hanging around the IBM ecosystem (From the outside, that is) helping facilitate potential clients beginning their own Social Business & Digital Transformation journeys. And while I have been doing some work along those lines already (more on that coming up soon!), there is a special event in my mind that’s going to provide me with an opportunity to explore and experiment further how I can put to good use all of those 17 years of experiences and know-how at a large corporate environment like IBM’s. If I managed to make myself redundant, because I considered that my job in the company was done, it’s time now for me to move on into the next challenge: help clients now, who may have purchased an ESN solution like IBM Connections, adapt to the new reality of the Connected Enterprise. That’s why I am pretty excited to share over here in this blog additional details about my upcoming business trip to Prague (From June 15th till the 20th) to participate at the upcoming Social Connections VI event. A conference event organised by Social Business practitioners for Social Business practitioners, where it looks like this year is going to be more massive than ever with over 225 participants from across the world. Both the agenda and the speakers line-up are pretty impressive altogether. The venue one of the most stunning places I have yet to visit and speak at. And Prague. In spring time and about to enter the lovely summer. Doubt it can get better than that, don’t you think? That means we are just one week short for the event itself to kick off and I guess it’s now a good time for me to share with you all what I will be up to while I am there. I will be attending the entire conference, of course, so there will be plenty of live tweeting (and some blogging), but I have also been invited to speak at a couple of different sessions. To name:  Pardon the Interruption (Fast-paced Social Business panel discussion) The Future of Work - Towards the Networked Enterprise (Closing keynote of the event) You can have a look into the links shared above for more details on each of the different sessions, and why I am so excited about the opportunity to participate as a speaker on a couple of the topics I am truly passionate about from over the course of the years. From the fast-paced panel discussion where you never have enough time to elaborate a thought or two around Social Business, so being sharp and straight to the point in your answers is an additional bonus, to venturing into exploring what the future of work may well be like for Socially Integrated Enterprises.  But that’s not all of it. The good fun continues on Wednesday, June 18th, as well, where I will have the pleasure of hosting a one day masterclass around Social Business Adoption & Enablement under the heading "From Adoption to Adaptation, from Enablement into Engagement". And for this one full day workshop I am truly ecstatic about the prospect of packaging up and delivering accordingly 15 years of experiences, know-how, hints & tips, good practices, use cases, community building techniques, lessons learned, show stoppers, inhibitors, benefits, and overall mindshare of what it is like embarking on that so-called Social Business & Digital Transformation journeys.  In case you may not have seen it just yet, here’s the description of the workshop quoted below:  "What if instead of "driving" adoption within your organisation, you could inspire and facilitate adaptation instead? What if you would have the means to re-define a new way of working with your fellow colleagues and peers through that very same adaptation to become a successful Socially Integrated Enterprise? What if that methodology, good practices, extensive expertise and know-how would all be at your fingertips, so you could apply it right away? What if you knew the nuts and bolts of getting your management and senior leadership teams all involved right from the start to help facilitate the final social business transformation you have always been looking for? Are you ready? Come and join us on this one day masterclass to find out and learn how you can get the most out of your IBM Connections deployment to begin, or continue, that transformation journey into becoming a successful Social Business. Agenda: 09:00 - Welcome and Overview09:10 - IBM Connections and the Connected Enterprise10:00 - Use Case #1: From hierarchy to wirearchy (IBM Connections Profiles)11:00 - Morning Break11:30 - Use Case #2: From document centric to people centric (IBM Connections Files)12:30 - Lunch13:30 - Use Case #3: task centric computing (Getting Work Done through IBM Connections Activities)14:30 - Use Case #4: Networks as the new production line (IBM Connections Communities)15:30 - Afternoon Break16:00 - Use Case #5: A Day in the Life … Making sense of it all in the new way of working16:30 - Closing discussion17:00 - Workshop ends at 17:00 Whether you are just getting started with your Social Business Adaptation Journey, or whether you are already a very well seasoned 2.0 knowledge worker, this workshop will provide you an opportunity to learn with other fellow practitioners through plenty of practical, hands-on advice, good practices, lots of hints and tips and, most importantly, all of the necessary knowledge resources available to date. It will help you as well to even break free from the email yoke: Outside of the Inbox " As you can see, it’s going to be a pretty packed up and intense one full day workshop, but, at the same time, it’s going to help me understand whether it’s something that I can then port over to other cities, other venues, other events, even online!, and make it one of the various work streams I’m currently working on as an independent freelancer. It’s bound to be very interactive and overall very engaging, since I’m hoping to collect plenty of feedback from participants to keep improving the overall user experience for future instances.  The good news is that if you are around those dates there is still time for you to sign up and join us. But if you can’t make it to Prague in just one week from now, don’t worry. Submit your city in the comments to this blog post and, who knows, before you know it, we may be able to host it around your neck of the woods. After all, it’s just such a small world, eh? And, while I am busy working on the last minute preparations I can guarantee you that the overall masterclass will become available online as a virtual, interactive, workshop some time soon, too! See? This week is #WOLWeek (Working Out Loud Week). And my good friends Jonathan Anthony, Austen Hunter and Simon Terry, along with a whole bunch of people and the rest of the folks at Change Agents Worldwide (@chagww), have already kicked things off with numerous blog posts, tweets, plus sings, etc. etc. so I guess I have already started with my own share of working out loud practices by letting you all know folks what I will be spending my time on, and a large chunk of it, for sure, for the rest of the week: Social Connections VI and the Masterclass "From Adoption to Adaptation, from Enablement into Engagement".  Hope you will have a chance to join us, whether at Social Connections VI, or the Masterclass I will be hosting on June 18th in Prague following the #soccnx event itself, or, eventually participating further along into #WOLWeek. All in all, it’s bound to be good couple of weeks of fun, learning, knowledge sharing, and, why not, visiting one of the most beautiful cities in the world. At least, you shouldn’t miss on that, right?     PS. Ohhh, and before I forget remember that, as I mentioned on my last blog entry over here, all of my #WOL (Working Out Loud) activities will also happen over in my Google Plus profile from here onwards …    Written by Luis Suarez Chief Emergineer, People Enabler and Charter Member of Change Agents Worldwide and a well seasoned Social / Open Business evangelist and 2.0 practitioner with over 15 years of experience on knowledge management, collaboration, learning, online communities and social networking for business; and has been living, since February 2008, a (work) life without email challenging the status quo of how knowledge workers collaborate and share their knowledge by promoting openness, transparency, trust, sustainable growth, engagement, connectedness and overall smart work. He can also be contacted over in Twitter at @elsua or Google Plus.