Why Forums are just so cool!

This model was given to me by my best mate in the whole wide World:

It's a model of the German World War II Uboat, the U260, which was scuttled off the Southern Coast of Ireland by her crew in March 1945, I have actually dived the wreck, brilliant dive at 45 meters.

Beyond being a cool gift from my buddy, This model is physical proof how Forums in the Social Media Space help us achieve our goals, with even better results than we expected. Jason, my buddy who built this model , took the time to explore modeling Forums and Uboat forums before he got started and the link below outlines the entire build process he went through with some great advice and help form fellow members of the Forum.
U260 Finished build

Jason put some big efforts in to making it an authentic representation of the type VII C the ship was, including what the ship would have looked like in port, before her fateful journey and demise off the Irish Coast.

It's a cool model, and I love that it's whole creative process is within an online Forum. It makes me smile every time I  look at in it's case on the mantelpiece. :)






WIP U-260 Finished Ship Chat

My First post in my new Blog

Well my topic for blogging today is my decision to start a blog. Perhaps not very interesting to most but a nervous venture for me. Some reading may be familiar with my tweets via  MabroIRL .
That tends to be ranting at Irish economical and political woes,Cloud computing, and Project Management thrown in too.

So why am I blogging? Well in short because i feel I have to, I have been growing my knowledge and participation in the Social Media Space and I thought it was high time I put myself out there in detail. Not for attention per se, I do want to be heard, but I also want to listen. In order to do that I have learned that "participation is the price of admission". Not my own phrase (I picked it up from a guy called Tyler Welch, from Ant's Eye View).

In my employed capacity I am Senior Program Manager & Community Manager for the EMC Community Network (ECN) Support Forums . I have been in this capacity since late 2009. Since taking up this mantle I have thrown myself into the deep end of Social Media. Mostly in the beginning on EMC|ONE, EMC's internal online network for employees. But as a Community Manager I quickly engaged with our Customers, employees and Partners in the ECN Support Forums. What an experience that has been. Our Support Forums Community, is a vibrant one. Sure they talk about issues, problems and technology regarding EMC's products. But the traffic in there is astounding and the Community is just that, a community of people. Beyond the tech side of it, it's a great place to interact with like minded peers. 

Throughout this experience I have quickly learned that Social Media is to be ignored at your peril. In fact I can't live without it. Whether it's following breaking news, or even Ireland's recent general election campaign, or organizing to meet up with a friend, I use Social Media. email and phone are slowly becoming quaint. I do realize that Social Media is just a communication channel, it's a new revolution in communication but in the end, communication is what it fundamentally is (but in a very cool way).

My intent in this blog space is to highlight my experiences with Social Media as it continues to grow, be it within EMC (which of course it will) or things I am thinking about trying to do within my own local community in Bantry, where I reside. I hope it will be of use or interest to some who happen along here.

I promise to to get better at blogging, to learn more about blogging best practices and etiquette.
Signing off I feel obliged to  to shout out a thanks to the following people for their mentoring and encouragement of me to engage in the Social Media journey. They are, in no particular order, Julie Gibson, Gina Minks, Erich Zirnhelt, Luigi Dankos, Len Devanna & Jim Mullins.

If you think I am a terrible blogger, then blame those people listed above for encouraging me to get into it. :)

Ciao for now.