I'm Moving;-)

Hi my dear readers!

Smile, no need for panic;-) I will be very much present and I will carry on with my purpose, just under different "house number".

Please set your new RSS feed for following link
of my new home;-)



You will find there more pages, interactive content, information about project Next Generation Leaders of Slovakia
and much more.

Looking forward seeing you there!
cheers,
i.

P.S. Thanks my first blog ever for serving me so well, I will never delete you!;-)

Why no teachers have ever explained physics to me this way?

;-) Master piece book by Fritjof Capra - The Tao of Physics. Both rational and intuitive parts of your brain will feast, while reading this gift of maestro Capra to the world.I can only, bow and be silent to digest the content. I have a dream, that one day there will be a school where every subject will be interconnected with other subject, in order to provide students picture of wholeness and interrelatedness of everything around us. cheers, i.

Posted via email from Ivana Sendecka is sharing.

Love knows no limits

Thanks @ Lars Christian Schmith, for sharing this video on his Facebook profile.

I have nothing more to add, title says it all.

Enjoy!

Posted via web from Ivana Sendecka is sharing.

What is going on?

;-)

Many talents to be unleashed in Slovakia.

Look what are we cooking with the team from USA.

Slovakia watch out.

Planting Emerging Talents in Slovakia

View more presentations from Ivana Sendecka.</div></div>

 

Volunteers from Slovakia ready to give a helping hand and heart, give me a shout.

Cheers,

i.

Posted via web from Ivana Sendecka is sharing.

“Black belt” status for composing emails.

Hello Folks!

As promised, here is the follow up on the previous blog post about enjoyable emails.

Executing following 'moves' will bring smoothness to your communication:

Be personal and try to connect with the human being who will receive your email.

• For example: start with national greeting, ask about hobbies, give a praise about previously well done job etc.
  

Go straight to the point and avoid formal clichés, no one has got the time to read "yours sincerely","kindly find attached", "I am looking forward hearing from you"

• People as your colleagues, clients etc. know, that you are a polite person even when you will not write "best regards" at the end of the email, but only "ciao"!
  

When addressing tasks to be done to people, dedicate each of them 'separate' paragraph, so they will be motivated to carry on with work.

• Certainly forwarded emails with FYI note will not do the job!
  

Be original and don't be so serious, try to express
your sense of humor and creativity. Don't be afraid to be "out of the topic", and don't forget that there is also other life not only work one, even for top managers. After all, we are all the SAME, 72.8% of water, aren't we?;-)

• Adding interesting links, referring to conversation. Tip for the interesting book or article, pointing out nice restaurant to eat in, can also be a good 'personalization' to your email.
  

 

Dedicating few extra minutes to composing of the email, WILL save you hours of work! Especially when you require certain tasks to be completed. Be inspiring, suggest and share your thoughts.

• Motivated recipients of your neat and crispy email, where you have showed your interest in them as people, WILL do the miracles!
  

Happy practicing!

Let's be your emails outstanding and pleasure to read.

In the next post I will tell you about:

How well composed email can get you and appointment with top executive, who has never met you before.

Curious? Watch out then!

Have a super cool day!

Cheers,

i.

Do people enjoy reading YOUR emails?

What is the first action taken when people sit at their seats in the office? Not a difficult, guess, right? Everyone is checking their emails. In every corporate culture emails are main communication tool, once your email ID is created you 'exist'.

There are many articles and blogs with tips and tricks how to write an email in such a 'sexy' manner that people will read it, reply and most importantly act according it. Another advice is paying attention to revising the draft before pressing the 'send' button.

You might also be aware of the ORID technique, which is another framework for composing 'readable' email after covering Objective, Reflection, Interpretation and Decision into the body of the email. We all have heard about the rules for 'cc-ing', forwarding of the emails or order of the recipients, it all matters.

All of the above are tips and tools to help us. But having the knowledge without applying it and without putting it into action is the same as not knowing at all.

Are your emails read with interest? Do people like to see incoming mail from you in their inbox?

If you are not sure, do the following TEST: Send an email to your peer in the open space or in the office and watch whether his or her face will lighten up.

So? Have your email initiated sparks in the eyes of the recipient?

Have you ever asked yourself, what kind of email do you like to read? How do you want the recipient to feel and how he/she should react afterwards? What do you want to achieve by contacting the person? What message do you want to communicate?

I have done the TEST by asking few people who I was interacting via emails recently, this questions:

"How did you react when spotting email from Ivana in your inbox?

How did you respond? Was it somehow different from other emails?

If yes, why? Can you use describe it by any examples?"
 

Viera Stupavska:

 

Viera is the Head of the retail branches for Dexia Bank Slovakia and I have had the privilege to work with her for 10 and half months on the Cash management project within the Euro Change- over Program in the Dexia Bank

 

Robert Lences:

" I particularly remember one email – a summary of tasks before a project status meeting, which Ivana was leading. It was a pleasure to read, even while not being very short. What made it different from others was that there was a piece of personalized message for each recipient, all of that was positive and motivational. No unnecessary formal extras around the real content. And in the end, the email created the impression of being composed by a human for the people, with care and attention. All that gives a good reason to read and reply such emails before all the rest."

Robert Lences is the Managing Consultant in Capgemini Slovakia with expertise in Enterprise Architecture.

Smita Rai:

" I receive several emails in a day with request for information. But rarely do I register a sender's name. But I remember the first email from Ivana because it was not just another formal mail requesting for information, but an attempt to establish a connection. It was the 'Namaste', a way of addressing an individual in my country that made me find where this mail was coming from. And it pleased me to know that a colleague from Slovakia knew the greeting. I think in today's day of one line emails, we need to sometimes take a few minutes and draw that connection. After all, breaking walls in communication is important for successfully working with teams across the globe."

Smita Rai is the Knowledge Manager for Global Public Sector & Healthcare for Capgemini, residing in the Bangalore office. Her husband writes a
super cool blog on cocktails,worth to have a look at!

 

Do you want to know more about mastering email communication?

Watch out, the next post is coming soon.

Have a super cool summer day.

Cheers,
i.

True or just "made up" movie?

Hi Folks!

Thank you all for your super cool response on the latest post and “On cultures” slides. Today, I will go on and build on the cultural theme. Why?

Few hours ago, I have received interesting video, which made me think again.
Did you know? (Watch the video, please)



Do you still think, you know the world you live in?
Do you still think you can live comfort set of the learned habits?
Do you still think you don’t need to be aware of any other cultures, but yours?

Adopt – Adapt- Transform was one of the themes during the implementation of the huge outsource program of Capgemini.

I would boldly apply that theme into every part of our daily lives.

Cheers from believer in ONENESS and synchronicity;-)
i.

Understanding cultural differences or giving away forgotten gift - slide show;-)

Hello! Namaste! Ahoj! Marhaba!

Today, I have decided to share with you few slides, which have been stored in the folder of my desktop for almost 2 months. Originally I have made this document about Understanding cultural differences, to spread the awareness among colleagues in the business consulting world as my expression of care and importance to make our work environment effective and friendly, in case of any multicultural interactions.


I simply backed off, when,common reaction was:

“What for should if I know about it, I don’t work with Indians or Arabs?”



But, I have changed my mind, because:

“If posting that slide deck “On Cultures” will help one person to learn something new, it will be 100% more compared to zero audience, while document was stored in the PC, isn’t it?”

Super cool, then!

I am delighted to share with you my first uploaded presentation.
Here we go, gift for YOU!

On Cultures

View more documents from senda5.

I am looking forward to hear your thoughts, and please educate me, if any of the mentioned my -own - experience based observations can be interpreted in more precise way!

Have a super cool Friday
Cheers,
i.

On Trust

Today‘s post was inspired by Capgemini colleagues in the Yammerland, about trust and being trustworthy. So, I could not resist and I have asked, I mean Tweeted the following question:

"How will someone gain trust? When do you start to trust someone?"

Twitter fellows, had to shrink their replies into 140 characters.
@Fifigyuri:
The act of helping either me or anyone increases trust. Helping, acts of altruism make trusting.

@MichaelVrijhoef
1st Tweet: When they are right in their aired opinions MOST of the times and admit when they were not.
2nd Tweet: When they say what they do and do what they have said.

Facebook buddies, Lars from Denmark and Gabika my ex-classmate from University have exchanged interesting thoughts as well, captured below.

Lars Christian Schmith
Trust can only be a question of knowing who you are in depth. An old saying: "that one who knows him/ herself knows the universe itself." Awakening paves the way to trust and talking about relationships between individuals communication is inevitable in the process....

Gabriela Rendekova
Very true what Lars said however how many people can even trust themselves? Trust carries a bit of naivity but one could go crazy not sharing. The answer is: Trust only a bit and be vigilant. In general, trust comes when somebody repeatedly proved to be relied on.

Lars Christian Schmith
Yes, you got a point Gabriela! If one cannot trust himself how can he trust others? The key is awakening and until you are not quite awake you are asleep and will be misguided as a part of your learning-process.


Folks, thank you for sharing your insights with me and now with the rest of the world as well!

It is amazing how much one can learn, just by asking a question on Twitter/Facebook. Super cool!
Another great lesson!


So, let's learn and grow together!

Cheers,
i.

On the Outliers and special P.S., for Malcolm Gladwell

Hello world!
Today I will share with you my take away from Malcolm’s Gladwell recent book, Outliers. Typing my thoughts into MS Office word document, while listening to the song “Let it be” through iTunes. YES, The Beatles, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates - all of them legends “outliers” in their fields.

How did they make it?


Official abstract from the Malcolm’s book states following:

o The people who become really good at something put in 10,000 hours of practice.
o Genius alone is not enough. You must pair it with practical intelligence.
o Intelligence is a threshold: You need to be sufficiently smart to succeed.
o Family background shapes practical intelligence and strongly influences success.
o Your regional, cultural and ethnic backgrounds affect how you respond to conflict and crisis, and how you communicate.This impact continues long after you have moved away from such roots.
o If you identify the cultural factors that govern success in a particular area, you can teach them to more people.

Selection of my notes:

Brilliant imaginative work to win Nobel prize requires creativity. High IQ ain’t enough. Beyond threshold without imagination we won’t succeed. Practical intelligence is essential.

Robert Sternberg defines practical inteligence as: ”Knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it and knowing how to say it for maximum effect.”


There are 2 ways how people raise their children:
o Heavily involved in the free time activities of their kids
o Separating adult life from children’s life – “accomplishment of natural growth”

Success is function of persistence and willingness to work hard for 22minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after 30 seconds.

Success is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky – but all critical to making them who they are.

Outliers are those who has been given opportunities and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.


Happy seizing Folks!

Live your own success story with every breath you take.

P.S.: Malcolm, please assure correction on the page 26,....”Czechoslovakian soccer team of the year 2007”…
Czechoslovakia doesn’t exist since 1st Jan 1993, when 2 independent countries Slovakia and Czech republic were established. Thanks in advance, for all readers.

Cheers from sunny Slovakia.
Life IS super cool!
;)

Focus on WOW, Don’t worry about HOW!

Hello World!

The month of Gemini’s has just kicked off with awesome conversation via Skype with my friend Michael. Follow him on Twitter, he is truly amazing soul: Follow Michael on Twitter

Few words has taken our chat into different level of depth.
WOW vs. HOW.

Realizing what makes you feel WOW, is the first step to get into “content-ness” state of being.

Let me illustrate those mysterious "the how" and "the wow":

Imagine, that you are passionate ice hockey player. OK?
When you focus on the super cool feeling of WOW within you, which you are experiencing when being on the ice rink, you simply don’t think about HOW to do skating, do you? It is simply going “automatically”, isn’t it? You are not worried about how to step on the skates- the HOW, you are just enjoying playing the game– the WOW.

Drop your eye on the last sentence from the selected handwritten note, where I have captured striking thoughts of our conversation.



THERE IS ONLY NOW, TOMMORROW EXISTS ONLY IN OUR MINDS> the only TRUE MOMENT IS NOW!

Guys, I am encouraging you to focus on the WOW, right NOW. Instead of searching for the answers on the HOW!

Enjoy the ride!
Life IS super cool.

cheers,
i.

Trends of the 21st century collectively summarized through Web 2.0

Hello World! I have started this week, with following Tweet, which hit my blog, updated Facebook and Yammer status within seconds.

“IvanaSuperCool is asking you folks:"How would you summarize five, the most important trends of 21st century, which are shaping our lives and business?" #yam

Instant reply from my network members, stroke me within minutes since question was asked. What a feeling…WOW! I am so grateful to have you “around” folks! Gifts of your presence in my life are priceless and the least what I can do is to share your precious insights with the world.

Collaboratively we have identified following trends:

•Democratization of the Internet use has changed our lives. (Rik van der Schalie via Yammer recommended to read The Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen)

•First digital age generation has grown up (I am recommending to read Grown up digital by Don Tapscott)

•War on talent to maintain highly capable individuals within companies is priority.

•“Expiration date” on obtained knowledge is shorter and shorter.

•Interactivity is skipping hierarchy within organizations and erasing any geographical distances.

•Natural resources of oil are drying up.

Jon Hampson, shared again via Yammer:
International Energy Agency chief economist Fatih Birol's opinion: "We are expecting that in three, four years' time the production of conventional oil will come to a plateau.”

•“Technie” point of view was covered by another Capgemini YammDude^TM Chris Kernaghan

o Cloud computing - But only if the reality can match the hype
o Virtualisation - For internal flexibility. VPNs - To free up workers from geographical constraints.
o Smart Mobile Computing - To enable better communication through more means.

Cherry on the cake was contribution to the topic by Emmanuel Gobillot.
Emmanuel Gobillot
Author, leader, speaker and great inspiration for me, when he has added his insight in marvelously creative way via Tweet:

@egobillot: 4 trends Demographic, Expertise, Attention and Democratic (initials spell DEAD if we don’t change the way we do business).

So, let us all be fully ALIVE while being aware of DEAD!

As @ MichaelVrijhoef has said: "Changing the way we THINK really results in changes in our lives..."

Thank you folks for being present in life.
Bowing and staying grateful.

Life is super cool!

Yammer “Lingo” for Capgemini citizens

Conversations and interactions on Yammer are becoming essential and frequently used tool for many of us during work hours. As of now, Capgemini has 1785 members in the Yammer forum, so revolutionary number 1789 from the French history, is getting closer and closer.

In order to prevent “violence” in the Yammer community, it is asking to bring enlightenment structure in the language we use.

Based on citizenship principles, voice of the crowd has been heard out. Following are the suggestions, which have been briefly discussed within previous blog post comments and within Yammer forum by its proud citizens.

Definition and unification of the Yammer language will ease the process of integration for newly joined colleagues and will enable the rest of us to lead by example in our free highly energized community.

Following is proposed language for citizens of Capgemini, when referring to Yammer activities:

Yammer Lingo^TM = Yammer Language
Yammerland^TM = Yammer’s Capgemini forum
Yamm^TM = Post on the Yammer (as Tweet on Twitter)
RY^TM = Re-Yamm (as RT retweet on Twitter)
YammDude^TM = Gentleman user
Yammerette^TM = Lady user
YammUp^TM = Face-to-Face meeting
Shut the Yamm up!^TM = Silence please!


Thoughts on how to enrich and improve our new born Yammer dictionary is more than needed.

Have a SUPER COOL weekend!

P.S.: “Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood!”

Why “YES” for Yammer?

Two days ago, I have conducted my first coaching gig and one of the lessons which I have learned is, that people love to hear real examples and stories from the life.

After one and half month spent in the super cool community of Capgemini on www.yammer.com, I cannot imagine any working day without being logged into Yammer.

Here is why:

1. Interactions with top CXOs of the group are on daily basis. Thanks to Yammer any “level” boundaries have been erased. Only thing which matters is the will to freely share content you carry in your head, contributing to discussions and to helping each other. Truly high spirit and energy are in our fortune. (*FREEDOM*)

2. Desktop application will feed you with posts of the followed people and with blink of an eye you can get involved into experts conversations. Before unknown topics to me, like Cloud computing or Agile are known thanks to Yammer. We are never done with learning and the fact, that everyone can teach you something new is demonstrated on Yammer in every Yamm.(*MODESTY*)

3. Sharing rocks! Various groups are attracting likeminded people. Group about Delicious bookmarking, will enable you to see what other people find worth to bookmark. Amazing source of information, if you will spare few minutes to join the group and add Capgemini-ers to your Delicious network. Amazing food for the hungry, eager to learn soul. (*TEAM SPIRIT*)

4. Not only knowledge sharing, but also building super cool RELATIONSHIPS is enabled via Yammer. Extending network to Facebook friendships or following on Twitter is very precious sign of trust. (*TRUST*)

5. Getting replies on emails instantly when referring to Yammer. Last week my colleague seeking for information for proposal, asked me, “How come, you have got email from the person so fast? I was trying to contact him for few days already and didn’t get any response yet?” Well, that is the magic of Yammer and relationships. (*HONESTY*)

6. Highlighting existence of the local office within 90,000 plus employees group is valuable addition, which Yammer provides to its users. I bet, that if you will inquire on the Yammer about Capgemini Slovakia, they will know, who is ambassador, some of them will be even able to greet ‘Good morning’ in Slovak language. Again, thanks to being part of the Yammer community. (*BOLDNESS*)

7. And you know what? It is great FUN, while getting better. (*FUN*)

The above listed, value adding items are very brief summary why Yammer is great tool for company’s worldwide boundary free cooperation.

Moreover, all is aligned with Capgemini’s Seven Core Values: Honesty, Boldness, Trust, Freedom, Team Spirit, Modesty and Fun.
(Believe me, this was coincidence, the way content of the blog has fit with it. It was not my intention, but it worked out amazingly!)

Stay hungry, stay foolish, join Yammer.

Life is SUPER COOL!

Journey from Knowledge Management to Knowledge Sharing

Why did attempts of knowledge management failed over the last several years? Why is it going to be different this time?

Knowledge management is not about storing documents in the right place, but having people sharing their knowledge. Knowledge is the glue that holds our virtual universe together.
We need to shift our attention to the creators of existing content, then and now, it has always been: PEOPLE.

During last century the main innovation focus was on electrification. Environment pressures and reality of 21st century brought in, as the essence of economic growth – knowledge and its management.

Knowledgification powers radical innovation in 21st century.

Successful implementation of effective knowledge management (KM) is about enabling the culture of innovation within the company. What used to be true in the past, doesn’t work effectively now. Web 1.0 based search engines are no more attractive in comparison with interactive web 2.0 platforms. World Wide Web is flooded with data, which are not linked. How do we get data linked? How to extract information we need for work? How to avoid knowledge mismanagement?
Emerging phenomenon of social networking platforms within lives of people and companies, their partners or customers cannot be overlooked.

Social computing enables more effective people interaction.

Connecting people is the most efficient way, how to get hold of needed materials, documents, deliverables or lessons learned. Interactivity and contribution within existing KM platforms is lower than desired when designing it. Response time for inquiries is too long compared to interactions through “out of the office” web 2.0 applications. This might cause barrier and frustration among KM users. How to get people involved in KM? What would be attractive for them to contribute to KM databases actively?


Below, you can find brief list of web 2.0 based tools and available technologies:

• Mash ups
• Social bookmarks
• Social tagging
• Blogs and Microblogs
• Social networks
• Wikis
• RSS
• Virtual world


Knowledge is in the network. (P. Senge)

Above statement is also supported by, Metcalf’s law of exponentially increasing the value of your knowledge network, by increasing its volume – can be achieved” Social computing allow people connect and share knowledge - naturally. As knowledge flows more freely and in a variety of ways (blogs, wikis, microblogs, etc), the company's soil becomes more fertile for innovative ideas to take place. Employees will have space to unfold their talents and know-how, share it with the networks and increased numbers of colleagues, which have been out of their reach before (geographical, hierarchical etc.)

Social computing captures the knowledge that is shared informally via conversations and people interactions.

Instead of exerting even more efforts to formally document the knowledge, store files and documents, let’s realize strength of knowledge management via integration social networking applications and its tools into it. Spreading the word and ideas can be achieved with surprisingly fast pace.
Potential of KM can be enhanced and fully realized through social computing.
The social computing component layered into that KM framework, even basic things like user forums with space for comments, ratings, cloud tags, Yammer feeds, and wiki-like editing capabilities is able to take huge knowledge base.

This kind of integration of social computing into KM framework, business processes and workflow will have also impact on:
• Content quality of data, whereas the level of detail will be improved significantly by linking available sources of existing data
• KM users will be involved completely when giving them a stake and space for identification of their value added in the final product

Existing myths about social networking within company are source of resistance and doubts about its value adding role towards competitiveness of their business.
Perception on web 2.0 tools can be illustrated by: Old an ancient story about the group of blind men who touched different parts of elephant to learn what it was like. Based on part they touched, each man had a different perspective. “It’s a rope!” - one man said touching the tail. “It is a tree!” - other said by touching the foot of the animal.
Fast forwarding the story to year 2009, different people have a different understanding of web 2.0 beast. Social networking might be associated with Facebook, publishing with Blogs, collaboration with Wikis.

What keeps social media ambassadors to challenge present KM and promote professional networking as essential part of daily work and learning process?

Social media platforms are providing functions with unlimited reach across whole organization.

Social computing components within company enables employees to:
• Create authentic identity via freedom to personalize their profile via picture, nickname, areas of interest, languages spoken etc.
• Have excitement and fun on the workplace, when collaborating with globally dispersed teams.
• Unique space for newly joined colleagues for introduction and the way to integrate smoothly into company.
• Erase hierarchical stereotypes and barriers, when able to interact and reach every colleague at any level within organization. (involvement of executives and leading by example is essential)
• “Eyes on” feeds is great mean to learn more about many unknown subjects when reading feeds, conversations and interactions between experts.
• Making 1 plus 1 far more than 2 – shared knowledge from share minds can generate unexpected synergy effects.

Knowledge management and social media are not mutually exclusive. Social media will not replace KM.

Bringing together Web 2.0 applications and KM into day to day life of company, has to be done hand in hand with proper business process designing, in order to ensure accuracy where error rates must be extremely low. There is still requirement for technical documentation, and a logically-organized framework for presenting that information are necessary and appropriate.
As the story comes to and end, we are crossing finish line at the same place where we have started: PEOPLE are the voice to be listened to.
Final desing of KM platform and its functionalities must serve the best and has to be aligned according requirements of KM users, in order to achieve so often missed target: effectively functioning knowledge management.

Question arises in my mind: KM or KS?
Knowledge sharing (KS) is everywhere. I think KM is largely dead.