Blogging – Full Meals and Spanish Tapas

As I have mentioned on yesterday’s blog post, I have just started my next round of business travelling that will be keeping me busy for the next few weeks. Summer is over, indeed, and it’s time to get back to work, as if we ever left it, right? Anyway, this week I will be going to both Nice and Amsterdam to participate at a couple of IBM driven events on the topics of Social Business and Adoption of Social Technologies. I’m currently en route to Brussels though, where I will be spending a few hours hanging out at the airport. Yes, I know the joys and glamour of travelling, in general. I guess, over time, you get used to it and you move on. This time around though, I have been thinking, and for a little while now, that I’ll be making a much more conscious effort of keeping up with blogging over here, since last time around I went through a rather extensive hiatus that took me quite a bit to recover from and it didn’t feel good. At all. So here’s my attempt at keeping things up and starting off right from the first day I’m away from my home office. Let’s see how far I can take the whole concept of moblogging.

If you have been following this blog for a little while now I am sure you may have noticed how my blogging style is usually that one of writing relatively lengthy articles where I usually start off with an idea, then I dive into a whole bunch of research, start connecting with a bunch of other ideas and links to other blog entries, articles, news items, etc., see what sense I can make into it all and hopefully conclude with the same idea and what I learned from the whole process, giving an opportunity to learn as well from everyone’s thoughts about it on the comments, which is perhaps my favourite process from business blogging overall, because that’s usually when I get to learn the most out of the whole process of self-reflection and thinking out loud associated with blogging.

Basically, an introduction of the idea, development of the same idea with links and interesting references to similar ideas, and share a conclusion as a result of it that will hopefully trigger some kind of reaction out there, anywhere, any which place, at any given time. Then, as time allows and conversation(s) develop, time to dive back and respond to comments people leave adding their additional input into the conversation. I have been trying to tame that process for my blog posts all along, specially, in the area of keeping them shorter, following great examples like those of Seth Godin and Euan Semple, two of my favourite bloggers and essential reads of the day, who always hit the nail right on the head with sharp, brief, but equally thought provoking bursts of pure genius. And yet, time and time again, I keep failing. 

See? Like now, for instance. Point well made already, I guess. Either way, at some point I used to worry about it, thinking that people would not be really much interested in reading those lengthy blog articles, but, apparently, plenty of you folks out there do enjoy the reads, and keep coming back for more, leaving some absolutely delightful feedback comments. So I learned to live with it, accept it, embrace such blogging style, and do my very best in keeping up with those book-like chapters, as a bunch of you have suggested to me for a while already. Perhaps one day those blog chapters will turn themselves into full books, who knows. Well, for now, I’m willing to start a new experiment though and see how it would work.

With the excuse of being mobile with all of this business travelling coming up and therefore having less time to create proper lengthier blog posts I have decided to give it another try at putting together shorter blog entries, on the go, where I will just point to something that I may have found rather interesting, worth while referencing and instead of just linking to a bunch of other related ideas and trends of thought I will just leave it at that pointing folks to that single idea that trigger that initial reaction. Then, whenever both time and work would allow, I plan to keep up putting together those longer articles hoping to still do a bit of that deep thinking that I think we all need to go through every now and then, instead of snacking around. I guess it’s just like with food. Some times we do enjoy and treasure having some lovely tapas and some other times we just rejoice at the prospect of a rather nice full meal with friends where the conversation is just as good as the company, never mind the food! 

That’s it! That’s what I will be doing from now onwards. Worth a try, I can imagine. Perhaps this longer blog post helped me develop an idea that I have been having at the back of my mind for a while now and that I thought would be worth while sharing it across: make the connection between business blogging and food (Yes, I know, I guess that’s what #foodies do all the time, that is, associate everything with food! hehe) and consider that some blog entries would be like some of the gorgeous Spanish tapas I am sure you have had the treat of enjoying them any which place, any time and then some other blog entries as full meals where magic comes along in the shape of that absolutely brilliant conversation with friends, usually accompanied with good wine, or a after drink or two.  

I am sure that at this point in time you may be thinking that I could well be doing that through social networking sites like my two favourite ones: Google Plus and Twitter. And you may be right, but then again I also thought that perhaps it may well not be such a good idea. Initially, because while I’m on the road, participating in a good number of events, I will be doing quite a bit of extensive live tweeting at @elsuacon and, secondly, for Google Plus it may well be a bit too much, since I have just gotten started with a new initiative in there that I’ll be blogging about next and which I think would help me diversify my interactions a bit. But more on that shortly … 

I think it was my good friend, and KM mentor, Dave Snowden, the one who once commented about when talking about social computing and social networking interactions, and probably like everything else in life, one shouldn’t be putting together all of one’s eggs in a single basket, just in case, and I am guessing that’s essentially what I will be doing at this point, and, hopefully, from here onwards: blogging, Google Plus, Twitter, Flickr, etc. etc. will help me have multiple baskets where I can place those eggs without thinking I’m kind of missing out or something. Somehow, for a mobile knowledge (Web) worker I guess it could well work.

However, I think folks would also need to understand that some times nothing may just happen, too! Work can get in the way, actually, it’ll always try to do so! Real life conversations, right where my favourite social networking activities keep taking place, will still have priority and just seeing the whole bunch of colleagues, friends, and people I have treasured over the course of time whom I will be meeting up over the next few week … Like I said, there may be some times where, for a day or two, I will go quiet. Fear not, I’ll be coming back. It’s just that at this point in time I probably need to strike some more for something that I have been feeling I have lost a bit of touch with, perhaps due to the summer vacation, in the realm of the Social Web: balance.

Hope you folks would help me strike a good one keeping things going with this new experiment of combining social networking interactions with some blogging full meals & Spanish tapas, while I’m on the road for the next couple of months, so that we can keep up with those conversations, whether short or longer ones! And if there is a chance that we will be able to meet up face to face I shall be looking forward to go for a drink or two along the way! Reach out on the usual places and let’s make it happen!

Thanks ever so much, as usual, for sticking around! It’s greatly appreciated! Let’s do it! 😀