Posts Tagged 'לוטוס'



Moving on

Wednesday, April 22nd 2009, will (most likely) be my last day at IBM.
After 8 years (and 22 days to be precise) at Big Blue, I will embark into a new journey.

When I started out at IBM, at 22 (spot a recurring # here?!), straight out of the army, I already knew a lot about the company (my dad was a 30 year IBM veteran), but little about how my career at IBM will look like, or what would I like to do when I’ll grow up. At 31, with 8 years experience at the largest IT company in the world, I believe I have an answer.
IBM truly is a great place to work in, regardless of what you hear/read on the outside. Over the past 8 years, I’ve worked with some 1,500 people (1/3 of them are at my IM buddy list) under 6 local managers (and 6 European/US managers), held 4 different jobs at 2 departments, worked out of 2 HQ buildings, got my B.A in Finance and MBA in Marketing, graduated (with Distinction) IBM Global Sales School and built an impressive network of friends and colleagues, inside and outside the company.

Summarizing my time at IBM will take place at a different time, and post, but I’m happy to have had the opportunity to work with an amazing bunch of people, learning from the best and being part of a company that has an impressive past (which spans almost 100 years) and literally sets the future (PC, e-business, services and outsourcing, innovation, research, patents, SaaS and our planet) of the IT market.

Being responsible for Lotus Software Sales in Israel was the most challenging job I ever held, but at the same time the most interesting and fun. Fun – because I got to sell stuff I love, digg and totally believe in; challenging – because of the local market landscape and the competition. I believe we left a huge impact on the local market, strengthening the Lotus brand and helped our customers succeed – which is the most important thing. Working daily with our customers, solving business issues with Lotus solutions, was definitely the highlight of my work.

Through this post I would like to thank all the people – friends and colleagues, inside and outside the company – with whom I’ve worked over the years. THANK YOU! It was a pleasure knowing you and I do hope we’ll stay in touch.

I’m not a custom to linking songs in my posts, but there’s one song that comes to mind, to wrap up this goodbye post, and that is ‘My Way’, by Mr. Frank Sinatra.
Shalom, and see you around.

Prof. Sheizaf Rafaeli – The Twitter Phenomena

Prof. Sheizaf Rafaeli is a known tech figure in the Israeli landscape, a columnist in several newspapers and Director of INFOSOC – Center for the Study of Information Society at the University of Haifa. In yesterday’s Calcalist, he wrote a column titled ‘The Twitter Phenomena‘, trying to understand why the micro-blogging social media service hasn’t won us (Israelies) over. Sheizaf also refers to the different add-ons (eco-system if you’d like) twitter has helped cultivate, such as twitpic, tweetdeck, tweetfollow, twitterfeed and others.

The phone was born to allow faster communication; Wikipedia offers free access to (open-source) knowledge; commenting (talk-backs) gave people the opportunity to vent. Twitter created a new form of communication, and an eco-system of add-on services.

Sheizaf’s column came in an excellent timing, with IBM Software Forum and Luis Suarez’s post. At IBM Software Forum Niv Calderon talked about monetizing social media, focusing on twitter – with public and corporate examples, such as Ford Motors, Comcast, JetBlue and Chris Brogan – showing how you can reach 1.5m impressions (people) with a single tweet. There’s definitely money in it. Niv recorded his lecture on video, which I’m sure he’ll post soon.
Mid-week I noticed Luis’s post, ‘Using twitter in the enterprise, by Ed Yourdon‘. Luis also focused on twitter as a corporate tool, linking to other posts talking about the business value of twitter, and of course, Ed Yourdon‘s presentation.

I view twitter as a sales and marketing tool. If you happen to follow me around, I’ve been known to tweet about the stuff I sell, people I meet, posts I read, events I speak at. Being interconnected to other social networks (like facebook), updated easily from a variely of end-user devices, focused and captured audience – it’s easy to understand why this micro-blogging tool has reached 6m users. Lotus Software has strengthened its brand name in Israel, and gained some ground against the local competition because of twitter.

As for twitter in Israel, Sheizaf predicts twitter will, eventually, catch on, and Israel will quicky adopt the micro-blogging tool, much like we did with facebook not too long ago…

Links:
Sheizaf Rafaeli – The Twitter Phenomena (Hebrew)
Luis Suarez – Using twitter in the enterprise, by Ed Yourdon
IBM Software Forum
Niv Calderon
Pew Study – Twitter users are mobile, urban and engaged online

IBM Software Forum – Summary

Updated March 11.

The event this afternoon just ended, I’ll upload some pics next week, once I get them from our marketing pips. We had over 500 customers and business partners attending, in the six sessions, covering everything IBM Software has to offer. My presentation from today’s event is below, and also available on slideshare, but I wasn’t the main attraction of the evening.

Amir Belferman’s lecture (Amidar Housing) was excellent and provided everything the audience needed to know, including cost analysis of the various options they considered. Amir’s presentation is available online, at my slideshare space or at ibm.com event page.

Niv Calderon caused some riots in the crowd, showing where the money is in social media, and why local businesses need to start taking it (more) seriously. You can watch Niv’s lecture online here.

IBM Software Forum is tomorrow – Lotus agenda

With over 600 people at the guest list, 70+ for Lotus Software only, it’s gonna be hard forgetting IBM Software Forum – but, just in case, it’s TOMORROW (Thu), at Cinema City.
The event will start at 15:00, with some social networking and refreshments, and at 15:45 we’ll break into the six sessions. The Lotus session will include three speakers – myself, Niv Calderon and Amir Belferman from Amidar Housing. Here’s what’s planned for Lotus:

See you all tomorrow 🙂

Surviving the rough economy with Lotus Software

Intranet Journal published this super article, on how Lotus Software can help you and your company reduce expenses and navigate through the rough economy. My friend Ed Brill posted about this earlier this week. John Roling outlines nine actions you can take, that will help you weather this economical crisis, including: moving to Lotus Symphony, upgrading to Lotus Domino 8.5, deploying Lotus Sametime for IM and web-meetings and others:

As we’re all painfully aware, the current economic climate is far from wonderful. Businesses are looking for ways to cut corners and reduce costs whenever possible, and many times that leads to belt-tightening in your IT departments. I want to share with you some ways that products from Lotus can help you reduce costs in some obvious, and not-so-obvious ways.

Links:
Intranet Journal – Surviving the rough economy with Lotus Software
Ed Brill
Dvir Reznik – Now’s the time to deploy IM

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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.