No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don’t want to die to get there.

And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.

And that is as it should be. Because death is very likely the single best invention of life.

It’s life’s change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new.

[…]

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.  Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other  people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out  your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know  what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Photo Credit: Ironclad HMS Warrior engine crankshaft by Elsie esq.

Friend and colleague @NigelBarron earlier today passed me this post from Don Tapscott of Macrowikinomics fame: Davos: New Realities and Managing New Global Risks – Don Tapscott, which contains this inspirational line:

the industrial age is finally coming to an end and to achieve economic development and social justice we need to rebuild civilization around a new set of norms and values.

This hit right home. We are living in uncertain, yet exciting times, much like our predecessors did, during what we now term the industrial revolution.

Whether we call it Enterprise 2.0, social collaboration, or social business is pretty irrelevant, but for those of us working in this space in the enterprise, I truly believe this is what we’re really about. This is what we’re doing with our companies. We are helping them recognise the end of one age, and helping them adapt and move into another.

I think it’s important we don’t lose sight of this bigger picture, the scale and importance of this, as we deal with the realities of the day to day.

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PS: Don, I have a copy of Macrowikinomics which I am desperately trying to find the time to read, I’ll get there, please bear with me!

Photo Credit: Tapping a Pencil by Rennett Stowe

First of all, a belated “Happy New Year” to you all!

I’m not a big maker of New Year’s resolutions, never have been. Not that I haven’t made resolutions, or attempted to make a personal commitment or an effort to change something, just that I tend not to see the New Year as an excuse for doing it.

That said, there are however a couple of things at the front of my mind which I guess could be considered New Year’s resolutions:

Procrastination – OUT

“Work out loud” – IN

So what do I mean with these?

Following the Christmas break, and a chance to relax, take stock and reflect on the year gone by, one thing I felt personally was that my online “energy levels” had dropped, or were rather being consumed by other things. To be honest, this was leading to a level of frustration. I seemed to be finding myself slipping into a rut of procrastination around things which previously had simply flowed.

So resolution #1, out with procrastination, it’s a horrid word anyway!

I then asked myself whether this frustration was coming from what I was perceiving to be a lack of “presence” or participation?

Which brings us nicely to resolution #2. “Working out loud” is a phrase I’ve heard often and even used on occasion in conversation around Enterprise 2.0 and social collaboration. For me it amounts to one heavy-hitting use case for C3, and sums up nicely my thoughts when discussing the evils of email for example. It is more of an attitude or behavioural approach to our work, rather than a specific action or technique, and revolves around a proactive commitment to doing as much of our work as possible out in the open. I should probably also state for the record that I’m not going to pretend we can all “work out loud” to the same extent. Neither is it realistic to expect everything we do be out in the open, there are times when things need to be kept private or be done offline. In fact, I believe an important aspect of “working out loud” involves an awareness and understanding of the intended and appropriate audience for our work.

I hope to go into more detail on this in future posts. Today’s is meant to simply serve as a reminder to myself to do more where I can in this area, and hopefully help me keep resolution #1!

What do you think, worthy New Year’s resolutions? What about yours?

How do you sell collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, wikis and the rest in the face of that reasoning!!?

These are the slides that Charlie and I used to introduce our discussion at the Enterprise 2.0 Summit in Frankfurt, Nov 11-12 2009.

We had a lot of visual backup slides that we’ll keep back for now, more to come!

C3: Connect | Communicate | Collaborate

Since early this year I have had the privilege to be part of the team that has brought E2.0 to CSC, in the shape of “C3: Connect | Communicate | Collaborate”. Launched as a pilot back in May, we saw 20,000 employees – 22% of the organisation – sign up in the first 12 weeks. It has continued to see fantastic adoption, and is now moving into a production state.

C3 has consumed me over the last 6 months! It has been both an exhausting and extremely rewarding experience. We are on an interesting journey, and I hope to be able to share some insights going forward.

Now it’s time for breakfast though, before I head over to the #e20s where I’ll be co-presenting the CSCC3 case study with partner in crime Charlie Hope.