The power of Social Media and Collaboration

I was asked last week about "social media" and work and I have been thinking about it a lot since then.

Twitter, blogging, chat groups and community message boards are definitely a very powerful tool, even more so in some of the more specialized fields like collaboration, voice, telepresence and UC. I am active in attending what user groups I can, but the online social communities really give me the feeling that I am not alone in this technology.

Some of the first user groups I ever attended were the Seattle chapter of the Avaya Users Group - it's one of the largest in the country so I was lucky to experience it. There is the natural chance to commiserate with people who handle the same stuff everyday, and the opportunity to learn form their experiences. But organizing these groups is difficult and takes a different type of leadership.

I make sure to attend the Skype Users Groups here - they are usually hosted by Microsoft and run by members and sponsored by companies and vendors with a keen interest in informing and engaging with their customers. I always learn good things - a few weeks ago we had a dive into Microsoft Teams (I came away impressed).

Social Media - that is Twitter, blogs, online communities, ongoing chats and the like - really fills that gap. It keeps me from feeling like I am the only one in the world working on this stuff. I get ideas from other, keep up to date with news, but more importantly I can put out my thoughts so they organize more easily. I'm not obsessive about my social activities and I probably overshare. If I occasionally sound like an idiot then hopefully someone calls me on it.  But really it has helped me grow and so I love it.

Please share your opinions and experiences! Has being social helped you? Where do you keep social?

I forgot about the lab (not really)

It's been a month since my last post.
It has been a really long month and not an easy one at that.

I took a nice little road trip down to Eugene, Or to see if the sun really can disappear.

It did.

It was glorious.

It was also a 13 hour drive home (normally only 5).

I went to see a bunch of ChiaPet Battle Fellows. Ok, the Terra Cotta Warriors Exhibit at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle doesn't really like for you to put sprouts on these guys. That is an assumption.

Late summer is always a busy time for people in Seattle. It is *our* vacation time because the weather is reliably awesome. It's hard to argue with August and September temperatures from 70-90 every single day and no rain :)

All that being said, I connected the O365 account to Cisco Spark, setup Single Sign On and played with it so I could learn a whole bunch. I documented things at work because Hurricanes happen, and learned that Cisco dCloud pretty much means your home lab only needs to be a couple of phones and a router. If anything at all.

I've also struggled and not been my normal positive happy self. Depression sucks. Partly from my job so if you're hiring; help...