My daughter got pregnant and I found my lifetime vocation

I have to apologize to everyone that has recently requested to connect with me because I have a backlog and I am holding acceptance for a moment. Let me explain why in 3 minutes below.

My LinkedIn values

I want to be able to treat each and every one of my +3.700 LinkedIn connections as they deserve to be treated, as human connections. In spite of the cyberspace being this cold place where you normally are, on your own, reading and watching this social feed, I force myself to remember that behind every post, behind every request to connect there is a human being that wants to reach me and that's going to be a part of my existence.

• As a result, I always welcome a new connection with an article - The Taste of Lemon - that summarises my LinkedIn experience and how I see myself to contribute to you, the person that I am connected with. This is also where I explain that my use of LinkedIn is quite naive, I am always puzzled why certain posts get +1000 views and others around 200 or below. I compare posting and blogging to playing a tune, that must be sufficiently entertaining to someone else to deserve a "like" and this in turns triggers more "views".
• I always respond to every connection that reaches me for something. A few reach me trying to sell me stuff, in as much as I might be perceived to try to sell my stuff to others, when I reach them. But in any case, I always respond.
• I always say congrats whenever someone in my network finds another job.
• Of course, I also make sure that I personally write a birthday celebration message to every one I am connected with. Because that person is a real human being, with a real life worth celebrating.

I have discovered, in the course of the years, that some people do not bother to respond to my successive birthday messages so I decided to remove them from my connections.

I have a more lenient criteria for all the connections whom I write for any other reason and do not respond. I know that not everyone uses LinkedIn on a daily basis, like I do. For instances, I have a friend, a CEO in a large company, that just showed me +200 pending requests to connect, and said to me "I do not even bother to respond anymore, it's too much information overload." This is quite understandable, so I am not worried when writing a message and not getting a response back. Sometimes I receive responses after a few weeks time, and even months. To be honest, I have also discovered messages unattended in my mailbox for several weeks. I never blame or judge the lack of response as lack of interest, although I try not to replicate that pattern and always respond.

• I stopped connecting strangers just for the sake of growing my network and social influence on LinkedIn. The very few new connection requests that I have made all have a personalized reason for inviting them to connect. However, if after a few months I do not have a response, I withdraw the invitation because it will no longer makes sense.

In summary, I realise the value of social networking is both in the 'social' and the 'network' and, for this reason, I have created a set of values to guide my LinkedIn behaviour. I want to consider each new connection as an esteemed friendly colleague that I want to treat with utmost human respect.

As soon as I prune my 'ghost connections' I will be able to accept the new pending ones and I will be fully available to connect and engage with all of them, within the guidance of these values.

My lifetime vocation

Out of my past professional lives, I have collected a number of connections and followers from a range of industries - which are identified below as 'circles'. I am not surprised that some will stop following me as a collaboration architect, my new vocation. If you are reading this, it might be your case as well and let me explain why in the next 3 minutes below.

Yes, it's true, my daughter is pregnant and I am expecting to become a grandfather soon. This is an exciting time in our family and as my daughter started consciously to prepare to become a mother, I also realised I had to prepare to a new role in my life, as I will soon be perceived to have passed a threshold mark in our society.

Instrumental, was a talk of the founder of Alibaba - Jack Ma - that circulates on LinkedIn. He told me, as I reach the age to become a grandfather, I have now a societal duty to pass along the learning I have accumulated to others. As a result, I have stopped exercising my previous professions as a CEO and business manager and I embraced this lifetime vocation to become a collaboration architect.

Let me briefly explain what I mean by a 'vocation' which in the dictionary is described as 'a strong feeling of suitability for a particular career or occupation.' It is definitely not 'a job' that you can do as a part-time while you are studying or when retired. It is also not 'a profession' which is something you do for a living with more or less enthusiasm, according to the ups and downs of the organizational context where you exercise it. Finding 'a vocation' is something beyond the exercise of a profession because it requires a cause to be pursued regardless of the economic value you can be delivering to someone else's organization or the society as a whole.

What's the cause a collaboration architect advocates? It's the natural evolution of being 'a group facilitator'. Embracing this vocation means that you have a deep-rooted belief in the values of participation that are also embraced by all those practicing 'group facilitation'. It also means that you must be comfortable with exercising this profession or hiring someone close to do it for you, including a number of different jobs it subsumes, like hosting effective meetings, or managing effective client relationships, or diagnosing an organizational context, etc.

As a consequence of this vocational discovery I have started a book series under the name of 'architecting collaboration' and its spin-off is the collaboration laboratory where I practice my co-facilitations and host thought leadership meetings and national think tanks. You may find this no longer an interesting subject to follow and I understand.

My LinkedIn circles

I have found that my +3.700 connections can be divided into a number of circles with different preferences and behaviours whenever I post something on my LinkedIn 'playlist'. Normally LinkedIn's algorithm makes a mess, by sharing different types of contents not to the members I would like and I struggle to learn how to better cater for a growingly wider audience.

To conclude this article, let me show you what are the major 'hits' played for each circle and some other additional resources you may find interesting.

IAF circle (#facilitation)

This is my latest circle, even though it started in 2012 when I attended my first IAF - International Association of Facilitators - Conference in Geneva. I have discovered that the profession of 'group facilitator' existed and that we could be certified. I have invited and presented the Radio Station a group activity that ever since become so popular, yet my certification was deferred. A major personal transformational process has occurred since then culminating in my final passing of all the requirements to be awarded my IAF(TM) Certified Professional Facilitator certification.

I am currently a member of the Future Foresight Facilitation SIG (Special Interest Group) and you might want to read this article:

Switzerland circle (#meetings)

As a co-founder of groupvision this company has always provided a great deal of support and inspiration to our iberian activities and since 2014 I worked as Managing Partner out of our headquarters in Zurich (canton of Zug). This article has +1.800 views explaining the difference between a meeting and a workshop: Meetings vs. Workshops.

I also have worked as a country representative of EON Reality, a company founded by my dear friend Dan Lejerskar, a Swedish serial entrepreneur with whom I have learned a lot both personally and professionally.

MICE circle (#events)

Also, in 2014, I have worked with a visionary entrepreneur and author Shuli Golovinski, the late CEO and founder of Newtonstrand an Israeli company that offered collaborative technology designed to serve the event industry. I have learned a lot from Shuli and from this extremely dynamic sector, having attended their most important shows in Europe, pe, IMEX in Frankfurt and IBTM in Barcelona. I have this hope that IAF and the event industry can one day establish further bridges and learn from each other. How important is the design of your event? This was the starting question for a lively debate and I wrote this article about it.

AV Pro circle (#visualcollaboration)

This is the circle that reunites all my past professional live as Regional Manager of CTOUCH in Southern EMEA. I am now applying my vocation for the creation of a Thought Leaders community - Visual Collab - that started in October last year. Our goal is to open a space for relevant stakeholders to be able to encounter and express themselves in meaningful conversations about the future of the digital workplace and visual collaboration tools.

There is also this LinkedIn group you may be interested to join: Digital tools for visual collaboration and group decision-making

Education circle (#lifelonglearning)

As a founder of the Fundación para la Colaboración, I have organized a number of initiatives in the education sector in both Spain and Portugal. The University of the Future has attracted +700 views. I have exposed my vision on the development of research and projects in the field of Entrepreneurship as an academic field and my narrative consists of three parts: (a) the current pains, (b) the diagnostic and (c) the recommendation for a course of action. Universities linger in the kind of state where problems do not have "a solution" and can only be subject to amelioration at a faster or slower pace, depending on a number of circumstances. 'Problems' in this unsolvable state are also called 'problem-situations'.

Healthcare circle (#healthcareinnovation)

Last but not least, this circle was generated by the initiatives that were started when I was completing my PhD in Lancaster University Management School in 2000, and developed a partnership with the Public Health Unit, to create the Forum Hospital of the Future and later in Spain, the Iberian Summit of Healthcare Leaders.

This is the +600 followers LinkedIn page you may want to follow and we have also a Facebook page with +6.000 followers: here.

To conclude

I am not expecting anyone reading this article so far to 'like' it, because I have been indirectly trying to self-promote myself and the value I can bring to you and your business with my recently found life time vocation. That said, if you have found here something of value your 'like' would be really appreciated.

If you can spare another 2'34 minutes, please keep this video in mind to learn more about my current organization the IAF - International Association of Facilitators - I am so proud to belong.