Big companies feel the urge to give something back to the community. They support local and social activities with employee’s time and know-how. Oracle is no exception. Here are once again my contributions to our weekly SocialChat. You know the game. Read bottom up:

• Famous last words: Share your shit! — Evening Talk by Tor Nørretranders at reboot11 (video) \*
• If you mention your company name along the lines: even better! \*
• But since you get something back personally — trust, friends, reputation – it is worth every minute. \*
• If you want to support your community the effort is much higher. \*
• 1day/year doesn’t change anything. And I doubt that it is even effective due to the management overhead. \*
• Even better: Do good stuff and let others talk, blog and tweet about it. \*
• My mantra: Do good stuff and talk about it. Rephrased today as: Do good stuff and blog about it. \*
• What about organizing un-conferences? Think TED. Or http://raumschiffer.de/ \*
• I mean I do not even mow my own lawn. Why do it at the kindergarden next door? \*
• What about building and managing online communities? e.g. the UX Forum at Xing \*
• If I am running a local non-profit designers group, does it count as an Oracle supported volunteer project? http://uxhh.de \*
• …or align our individual forces and abilities on less but larger projects. \*
• If you want to make a difference you have to commit more time on the project, … \*
• …rather limited. It is important but the impact on the local community and the benefits for the company is low. \*
• I am really struggling with today’s topic. I see the value of individuals spending a number of days on scattered social projects as… \*
• Some of my OraTweets from the SocialChat #6 on “Giving back to the Community”… \*

Learning and meetings. How does this fit together? If you exclude status meetings, jour fixes and team meetings for a while then there is a chance. Read my contributions to a recent Oracle SocialChat on the subject.  I wonder what happens if I copy a stream of tweets here. Of course, it is still in reverse chronological order, and you have to read your way bottom up.

!yojne. elpmaxe rof tfel ot thgiR .esrow eb dluoc tI
saihttaM-

• Thanks you @aludding for facilitating the SocialChats. \*
• Here is another example of an icebreaker that I used recently http://www.slideshare.net/mprove/ixda-hh-kickoff \*
•  … and a very good & open discussion in the afternoon. no Powerpoint the entire day. \*
•  I’ve conducted a 1-day think tank. Opening video. mood maps, collecting ideas, clustering and sorting… \*
•  You have to utilize other components to set the stage right for brainstorming & collaborative learning sessions. \*
•  If you just use Powerpoint to prepare a meeting then you are already lost. \*
•  Presenting is not learning. Preparing a presentation is. Attending a presentation might be. \*
•  Powerpoint is a bad tool for learning. It is even a mediocre tool for presentations! \*
•  On the other hand workshops and attending good (interactive) presentations can stimulate learning and aha! moments. \*
•  Team meetings and status meetings are not suited for learning. \*
•  Next steps might be follow-up meetings and formal prose in wikis. \*
•  This is the first step after the meeting to really get something. This is the best and fastest way I know to keep the energy level up. \*
•  A very simple and yet effective way to capture the results of a meeting is to take photos and put them on a blog. http://bit.ly/axjhMT \*
•  3) moderate the meeting 4) collect the findings for later use. \*
•  but you have to use the tool ¨meeting¨ correctly. 1) set the expectactions right 2) have the right set and mix of people \*
•  … learn new facts and new point of views and get to something that was beyond your own abilities. \*
•  A meeting is also a tool for learning and eventually drawing conclusions. You meet with people, exchange ideas,… \*
•  (Ha, OraTweets can be 256 characters long! So I have to break them up fro Twitter) \*
•  I’ll share some of my OraTweets from the SocialChat #5 on Learning in Meetings… \*
•  The SocialChats are summarized and captured for later reference. \*
•  e.g. we had “Video conferencing – niche to have or needed?”, “How can we give back to the community?”, “How can we improve communication?” \*
•  Each Friday we have a one hour SocialChat in OraTweet. The topics are proposed and voted during the week. \*
•  Another idea to generate traffic and buzz for corporate microblogging are social gatherings. \*
•  Commenting on blogs creates OraTweets. \*
•  For instance status updates in OraTweet show up on your profile page in Connect (our internal Facebook) \*
•  One important factor for successful E20 microblogging is the integration with other social software. \*
•  Compared to Sweet at Sun http://blogs.sun.com/mprove/tags/sweet OraTweet is actually used. How comes? \*
•  We have a corporate microblogging system at Oracle called OraTweet http://oratweet.com/ \*