2015 is well underway, with various projects, conferences, and trips starting to take shape in my calendar. I am looking forward to working hard (and smart) in 2015, and I wish you every success as you start to plan your activities and contributions for the year ahead.

I have been back in the office since last Monday (after three weeks vacation with my family), and have been working through a long list of ideas collected over the past couple of months. I have in previous years found these middle weeks in January to be helpful for bringing together ideas that started to take shape over the Christmas and New Year holidays (and this year has been no different), and to start seeing which ones are the best to shift from the idea stage to the action stage. There is still more work I need to do in this area, but initial steps are underway.

For the past three years in late January I have headed up to Orlando to attend IBM’s Lotusphere / Connect conference, and then to work directly with various clients on their collaboration initiatives. I’m not heading to IBM ConnectED this year; I’ll miss catching up with colleagues and business partners at the conference, but will try to catch the content from afar.

Some of you may have noticed a rebranding on my website over the past couple of months. I’ve dropped the phrase Making Collaboration Work, which could be read in a negative slant, and embraced instead a new phrase of Cultivating Productive Collaboration. Much of my previous work, books, and workshops will transfer directly into the new approach, and in addition there will be some directive changes over the next year as I work to fill out various complementary underpinnings.

Thanks for the opportunity to contribute to your success in cultivating productive collaboration. I look forward to the year ahead, and hope we have an opportunity to work more closely together.