Over the last couple of days, and as I have been wrapping up things at work to start making my way to Orlando, Florida, in order to be able to attend next week’s IBM’s Lotusphere 2010 conference event, a few people have been asking me whether I would be having a speaking slot at the event itself as well; so today I thought I would take this opportunity and share with you folks what I will be doing myself during the course of next week (Apart from being one other regular attendee, that is). To start with, no, I won’t be speaking during the event.
My BlueIQ team and myself have submitted a couple of abstracts, as well as a BoFs session on Social Software Adoption in a large corporate environment as that one from IBM, and, unfortunately, none of them got approved 🙁 We know and understand how tough it is eventually to get a speaking slot on from what’s already a rather crowded and rigorous selection, so next year we are going to try harder and be back for more! Hopefully, by then the committee behind the approval of abstracts would be much more interested around the topic of Social Software Adoption in general (Hint: If you noticed, there isn’t a single session within the social software set of abstracts that made it through dedicated to the rather important subject of moving beyond the tools and their deployment and focusing on extracting value from a successful social software adoption strategy … Oh well … ;-))
Either way, we know and understand how tough it is to get on the agenda, so we are committed to try much harder next year and see if that time around we can make it. Ok, but that doesn’t mean that we would not be doing anything during the course of the event, right? Of course, not! Like I have been saying already for a few more days, my entire team is going to be there and we got a bunch of different unevents piled up that we hope folks interested in the subject of social software adoption would be willing to participate and share some more insights with us exchanging experiences, know how, lessons learned, good practices, etc. etc.
Thus we will eventually be hosting a couple of lunches under the heading "Adoption and Value", both on Tuesday and Wednesday from noon EDT to 1:30pm EDT. You may be wondering what kind of conversations we would be having with those present both my team and myself, right? Well, here is a short blurb that describes what we thought about:
"Learn how to conduct social software advocacy in the enterprise – a chat with IBM Software Group’s internal adoption team. Look in the lunchroom for balloons marking "BlueIQ" tables "
Now, you would remember how in the past I have been talking in this blog about the program I am part of and what my team does, right? BlueIQ, indeed! But you may be wondering what do we do exactly beyond helping accelerate the adoption rate of social software at IBM. Basically, some more specifics on what it is to drive the social software adoption inside IBM and for 500k employees.
Well, here is another short blurb that may help out a bit addressing those questions:
"Code-named "BlueIQ", this internal program coordinates the IBM Software Group adoption of social tools like Lotus Connections, Lotus Quickr, and Rational Asset Manager, as well as pilot work developed in IBM’s Technology Adoption Program and research labs. We provide both high-level value analysis as well as deep-dives on the technology; and we’re called on to provide training worldwide, engage with clients, and speak at conferences.
BlueIQ’s methodology for social software adoption combines task-focused education materials, jumpstarts, metrics, motivational activities, and enablement social tools with our most valuable asset: volunteers.
Over 900 BlueIQ Ambassadors voluntarily carry the message of “productivity through social software” to the furthest corners of the company. In exchange, they’re the first to learn about new technologies, receive specialized content to share with their clients and peers, and grow their careers through an internal network of like-minded experts.
Through reverse-mentoring, we also pair subject matter experts with executives in order to provide task-focused social software education tailored to their unique needs"
That’s just not too bad, eh? Finally, I have found a chance to share with everyone out there what it is that I do on a daily basis while at work in my role as a Knowledge Manager, CommunityBuilder and, specially, Social Computing Evangelist. That’s why we are really excited to move forward with these unevents so that folks who may be interested in these topics would have an opportunity to come along and exchange plenty of ideas and experiences with us in order to make it a mutual learning experience, which, I guess, is what matters the most. Always! I mean, the learning experience 🙂 heh
So, if you are a fellow IBMer who is interested in finding out what it is like helping accelerate such adoption of social tools, or if you are within Sales and would want to find out plenty more about how these social tools could help you, your customers and business partners, feel free to bring them along and let’s get the conversation going! Alternatively, if you are none of the groups mentioned above, BUT still with a keen interest in exchanging some more ideas on these topics, by all means, come on up, too, join us and let’s get the dialogue going!
In fact, that’s the whole point of having these kind of informal unlunches with the BlueIQ team I belong to; learn plenty more around the art of doing things right while helping your entire organisation, or business unit, adopt social software tools, so you would have an opportunity to show them how these social tools can be effectively business tools that would certainly help you, your team and your communities improve your / their day to day productivity.
Thus we hope to see you there! (Remember to re-read the text above on how you can find us on the huge lunch room and don’t be shy; come and say "Hi!" and share lunch with us for a few minutes. I promise we won’t bite … )
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