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Social software and Shimon Peres

Published December 13, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
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Shimon Peres, Israel’s President, visited Haifa Research Lab (HRL) this week, along with Meir Nissensohn, IBM Israel General Manager. Mr. Peres demonstrated excellent knowledge in internet and social networks, as several researchers presented their work in the field of business implications of social networks. Then Mr. Peres discussed in Arabic with Aya Soffer, using IBM’s MASTOR, a two-way, free form speech translator that assists human communication using natural spoken language for people who do not share a common language. The speech translator is in use in Iraq by humanitarian services, to improve communication with the local population.
Mr. Peres concluded his visit by driving ‘the virtual car’ (pictured above), a new driving simulator that enables social communication between cars on the road – to decrease accidents and improve road safety.

Links:
ibm.com (Hebrew): President Peres visits IBM Haifa Research Lab
ThePeople.com (Hebrew): Presidential Visit

In the picture below (from left to right): Mr. Shimon Peres, Israeli President, Dr. Aya Soffer, HRL (both sitting), Yossi Shoval, Media Relations Mgr. and Mr. Meir Nissensohn, GM, IBM Israel (far right).

Negotiating my Lotus skills in Brussels

Published December 12, 2007 Uncategorized 2 Comments
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I’m attending a course in Brussels this week, on negotiation skills and customer satisfaction.
We had an exercise in pairs – there was a 2 Euro Chocolate bar on the table, and we had to negotiate for it.. I’m a sucker for chocolate, so I offered my ‘customer’ 30 minutes of my time, showing how to better utilize Lotus products for his benefit.

So, if anyone’s interested in 30min (or more) of my time, in order to increase their productivity with Lotus products, just say the word.. but I’ll need something in return 😉
A beer would be a good start..

My new Nokia N95

Published December 11, 2007 Uncategorized 1 Comment
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It has been a while since I posted – apologies, it’s 4th Q and there’s a lot of pressure. Even the late hours in which I used to write are now dedicated to customers and opportunities.
I didn’t get a chance to update you on my latest acquisition, or shall I say upgrade, to Nokia N95, multimedia phone. I set my eyes on that particular phone for some time, as it is, by far, the best cellphone currently on the market. Features-wise. I know the iPhone is much more cooler, and maybe some HTC’s are more comfortable to handle, but if you look at the overall package – there’s really nothing close to it, other than its big brother, the N95 8GB.
Much has been said about the capabilities of this phone, so I’ll mention the highlights:
Arm 11 332MHz processor, 3.5G phone, BT 2.0 (with A2DP support), Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g with UPnP), 240×320 16M colots screen with auto-contrast, Symbian OS 9.2, S60 rel. 3, Mini-USB port, 3.5mm headphones jack, internal GPS receiver, TV-out, 5MP still camera Carl Zeiss Optics, with 30fps video quality, and another CIF camera for video-calls – all of that packed in a dual slide 120g machine.

So far I had little time to play with it, but I already have taken full use of the 5MP camera – all of the pictures here were taken with the phone camera. You can see the nH Brussels Airport Hotel, where I’m staying this week, the fine print on the elevator door and some night shots, with the built-in flash (updated in my Flickr account soon).
On top of that, I installed Lotus Sametime Mobile, and Lotus Mobile Connect (for secure VPN tunneling), so whenever I detect a hotspot, I can ping some colleagues and show off… 😉 If we mentioned Wi-Fi, there’s obviously Fring, which allows you to use your N95 as a VoIP phone, bringing your buddy list from AOL, Google Talk, Skype, MSN Messenger, ICQ, Twitter and SIP.

Gotta go now – busy day tomorrow, but before I go, you need to check out the latest video from a Lotus Notes and Domino campaign in the UK. The slogan is ‘Clear your desktop‘, which Lotus Notes provides very easily…

IBM 2.0

Published December 2, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
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Gave a short presentation earlier this week, at New Blue – the internal course our HR dept. gives to new IBMers, couple of months on the job. I lecture every course, about 3-4 months apart, and I always updated my slides couple of days before.. The title of my lecture is ‘Internal Communications at IBM’, which was chosen when I was still responsible for internal comms at IBM, and discussed about IBM’s strategy and how we (as a company) convey our message internally, parallel to the external path.

With each lecture, as I update the slides, I notice that our evolution, in terms of communicating what IBM is, internally, has really matured and grown over the years, as we (IBM) are starting to adopt web 2.0 tools and technologies, and make them available to the general public. IBM is a strong believer of ‘use what you sell’ lifestyle, and our 350,000 employees worldwide serve as a pretty good test group. We have internal technology adoption programs, that provides evangelist employees (such as myself) to explore new tools and technologies at an early Alpha and Beta stages. But it doesn’t stop there – each evangelist provides valuable feedback on the tool/technology/solution, enabling the developers to perfect the product even more, before it’s ‘matured’, and available for the rest of the company, or released to the public.

As I was building the presentation, I started creating a slide that shows what web 2.0 tools/solutions we’re using internally.. After 20 text boxes or so, I stopped. I don’t know of any other company in the industry that enables its workforce to such an abundance of web 2.0 tools, aiming at making their work enjoyable, effective and in context. And most of the stuff we’re using internally is available to our customers, so it’s really a win-win situation.

The 40 year old virgin in army uniform

Published December 2, 2007 Uncategorized 2 Comments
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Last week around 6pm I got a call. ‘Blocked number’ blinked on the screen – I have couple of customers, mostly financial institutions that have blocked numbers, so I picked up the phone.
An automated machine started talking to me, asking me if I am who it thinks I am (well, security, you know), and then popped up the main surprise of the evening – an army reserve drill. Now.

For those not familiar with army service, I’ll explain in a nutshell. In Israel we have a mandatory service for men and women reaching the prime age of 18. Men serve 3 years (more if you’re an officer, special course/forces, etc) and women serve just under 2 years. At 21 you discharge, start college, work, life – and army reserve. Discharging from reserve is between 40-45, depending on the rank and role you perform. Some (like in my platoon) continue to volunteer until 50 and even more.

So, last week, the call, the drill. The rumors said we’ll have to sign-in, spend 3-4 hours in the base and they go back home. Told my significant other ‘I’ll be back’ by midnight. Left work, put on the uniform and started driving to somewhere in Israel (didn’t think I’ll actually tell you the location, right?). When I arrived, the (very) cold truth hit in the face: we’re in for a long night (3-4 hours sleep) and next morning we’re heading for ‘an excursion’, touring an area with the platoon. But, since we got in at 10pm, we had some time to burn. The good people from our battalion have arranged for a projector and a portable DVD. So, we sat in this hugh warehouse, watching The 40 Year Old Virgin. The wax scene is still hilarious, even after 5 times…
The pictures explain much better…

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Mobile & Media Consultant. I help startup companies launch products to the consumer market. Reach out: dvir.reznik [at] gmail.com
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This is my personal blog. The postings here do not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my past employers or of my clients. It is solely my opinion.