So I'm Dutch and I'm in no way a native English speaker. I do ok, get myself understood and can even be relatively 'witty' in my Social Media responses. It has allowed me to interact and connect to numerous people around the world and it has even given me some new friends. Ok, yes, I know. How can you call them friends without ever meeting them?!? But with some of them they really do feel like friends.
And in about 48 hours I'm flying out to Lotusphere to actually meet them....
I can't wait! I look forward to really meeting these people but at the same time I'm a bit apprehensive too. Truth is that connecting over the internet really isn't the same as connecting in real life. Apart from the obvious facts that Social Media allows you to filter out the less attractive and boring elements of your personality it also helps eliminate language borders.
Again, as a non-native English speaker I think I do pretty well, but I do mess up.... regularly.... This has lead to several funny (and embarrassing) instances and confusions where I tried to express something which actually came out as something totally different.
My Dutch colleagues would now argue I don't just do that in English, bytheway...
Saving factor here though is that as Social Media is mostly a 'written' form of communication it has something of a grace period. Allowing you to at least
think for two seconds and read back that post, tweet or chat message (as
well as having a spelling control) before clicking the 'send' button. Believe me, I've become a regular speed-Googler over the last few months and have Urban Dictionary bookmarked as a favorite. Problem is though, these don't yet come as build in options for my mind and so I will have to do without my regular safety nets next week...
....So that's why, even with all my enthusiasm about going to Lotusphere I'm also still feeling a bit apprehensive about talking to all of you with whom I've been chatting, Tweeting and Facebooking. Not knowing, whether I will be able to actually have the same kind of spontaneous interaction without having Google & spell checker at my fingertips is daunting....It almost feels like sitting my high school exams again.
Luckily for me I'm also pretty sure most of you guys will forgive me for my little language-mishaps. And if I do 'confumble' my English and mess up I can only hope you guys will look through it and have a laugh with me about it. It's all in good spirit!
How to prevent the community manager from exploding
Fri, Apr 26th 2013 2:19p Femke Goedhart To all organizations who think they’ve got it all sorted out so nicely because they have a community manager MANAGE it all…
Calling them ‘manager’ doesn’t mean they can control everything their community does or say unless you actually:
give them managerial rights over their community members (which you can’t if the community is comprised of customers or external parties);
inform them of the things you are doing BEFORE you are doing them instead of just dropp [read] Keywords: community
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From describing to applying – user training taken seriously
Fri, Apr 12th 2013 10:17a Femke Goedhart It still is one of the most common mistakes made ever… Implementing new or updated software without providing user training as the reasoning is: “Oh, we don’t need to train our users. They have been using this (or similar) software for years, surely they know by now how to use it“.
Well, do they really? I’ve recently been involved in several adoption projects where we trained both new users as well as users who had been using collaboration tools for years on how com [read] Keywords: collaboration
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IBM Connections 4.5 and Connections Content Manager available
Fri, Mar 29th 2013 11:14a Femke Goedhart As announced the IBM Connections 4.5 release and the Connections Content Manager add-on were made available for download today through the appropriate channels. The following sites give information on features, links to relevant content and pricing:
blog by Luis Benitez with relevant video’s and links
Official IBM Connections 4.5 product page
Official IBM Connections 4.5 documentation wiki
Official CCM product page & pricing (US)
Enjoy! [read] Keywords: connections
ibm
ldd
lotus
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IBM Connections 4.5 and Connections Content Manager release dates announced
Tue, Mar 12th 2013 4:38a Femke Goedhart IBM outdid itself this time by announcing the release of IBM Connections 4.5 and the new Connections Content Manager for March 29th 2013. Only 2 months after first presenting it at IBM Connect.
On top of the great new features IBM Connections 4.5 offers, Connections Content Manager will additionally offer document management functionality like checkin-checkout, nested folders, versioning & draft control as well as integrated access security to organize and control content within the IBM Conn [read] Keywords: connections
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Harmon.ie – bringing SharePoint into IBM Notes
Mon, Mar 4th 2013 10:11a Femke Goedhart As Silverside has recently become a partner for harmon.ie I’ve been testing their harmon.ie plugin for IBM Notes. A plugin that allows organizations running SharePoint as well as IBM Notes to have access to their SharePoint content from within their mail environment. I must say I’m enthusiastic!
Originally developed to allow access from within Outlook it was also adapted to run in IBM Notes. Making it possible to seamlessly use most of the SharePoint features without having to leave the [read] Keywords: collaboration
ibm
lotus
notes
sametime
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Job interview with a twist
Thu, Feb 21st 2013 1:56a Femke Goedhart Usually I don’t really buy into these as it is of course a clever way of advertising a beer brand, but… I do love the premises of taking a process like the hiring process that is so standard, mandated and rigid that it has taken out any chance of really showing your true personality as a candidate and twisting it around completely to become something in which you can’t help but show something of yourself. But more then that, I love the idea of the voting. Making the hiring proc [read] Keywords:
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BLUG – speaking of social document management
Tue, Feb 12th 2013 5:12a Femke Goedhart Yet again Theo Heselmans and team have managed to do the impossible: get an absolutely fantastic line up together for the upcoming BLUG event in Leuven, Belgium on March 21-22.
I'm honered to say my session “Folksonomy versus Taxonomy, Social Document management in IBM Connections” about document management in general and the new integration of libraries in IBM Connections (CCM) in particular was accepted and I look forward to seeing so many from the IBM community in just over a [read] Keywords: connections
ibm
community
integration
twitter
Blackberry I hate you… or do I??
Mon, Feb 4th 2013 2:54p Femke Goedhart Yes, you read it correctly. For the last few years I’ve been loathing my Blackberry Bold. It’s clunky, slow loading, the apps don’t do what I want them to do (heck, they won’t even update without requiring a full reboot which takes at least 15min), installing apps is an absolute nightmare and most of all I hate it’s really unhandy position of the mute, hold and speaker buttons on the ‘phone’ screen.
Why you ask? Well because the ‘phone’ app i [read] Keywords: ibm
application
blackberry
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mobile
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