Posts Tagged 'beehive'

Social media adoption – the IBM story

Last week I had the pleasure of talking to a group of college students from Canada, who came to Israel with Hillel Foundation of Toronto. They visited IBM for half a day, and we had a good discussion about social media and how IBM adopted it internally. As anyone, they were looking for the ROI, so I gave them examples of how social media at IBM helps me on a daily basis.
All of them were Gen Y of course, so at the first portion of my presentation (what is web/enterprise 2.0) I just hit ‘next’ all the time.. 😉

Since most participants knew what social media is, an interesting discussion started, of why it’s important and how such tools will benefit them – in the coming months. Some of the students were already part of the social media space, either working at VCs or other organizations aimed at helping SU companies in their early stages.

It was an excellent opportunity to share some of the work IBMers are doing using social media tools, for the past 5 years now! We have lots of social media tools (see slide above), some stay as research projects while others grow up and become IBM solutions (such as our social software solution – Lotus Connections).

The presentation from last week is available at my slideshare space.
Feel free to leave your comments and thoughts!

Socially connected, all week long…

It’s been quite a week for me, which started with army reserve, followed by spending 8 hours with Jeff Schick (IBM VP, Social Software) and Arjan Radder (Social Software Sales Mgr., IBM EMEA) during their visit to Israel and ended up with more army reserve.

The 36 hours Jeff and Arjan spent in Israel were dedicated to customer meetings, analyst and media interviews and some middle-eastern food (aka Falafel and Humus ;-). The first outcome of their visit has already surfaced: Yuval Dror (aka The Globe) published a well-written article in today’s newspaper (Hebrew), on IBM’s internal collaboration tools and our commercial social software solutions. We also met with Ayelet Noff (aka blonde2.0) – a light and fun meeting that summed up Jeff’s visit in Israel. I’m sure Ayelet will post her impressions soon.


And, to finish the ‘social software week’ IBM announced yesterday the opening of a new research/development center in Cambridge, MAIBM Center for Social Software. Irene Greif, IBM Fellow and Center Director elaborated on the center’s mission: The center will provide additional resources to IBM’s global research teams and external organizations so that they can better test social software “in the wild” – within IBM’s enormous employee base or on the public web.

Links:
IBM Center for Social Software
Employer blocks facebook? Yediot Ahronot article
IBM ups investment in social software – 451 Group
Cambridge IBM facility to focus on social links – The Boston Globe

IBM’s ‘Facebook’

Enterprise social software is gaining momentum in Israel towards the end of 2008, a trend that I believe will become stronger in 1H 2009. In a great timing, just before our KM and Collaboration User Forum, where we’ll demo IBM’s social software solution, TheMarker IT published a great article discussing enterprise 2.0 examples, from Deloitte, IBM and Best Buy.

The implementations vary from one company to the next, but the goals are similar: higher employee retention, knowledge sharing, win young talent, support global operations, shorten development cycles and others.

IBM’s Beehive, is a natural evolution of the company world renowned BluePages solution (employee directory), an inhirint part of IBM Intranet (w3):

“Very early on, we recognized the importance of connecting people within IBM and moving beyond a static view of the individual,” says Jeff Schick, vice president of social software. The heavily used directory includes 450,000 employees and gets 6 million lookups per day.

Although Beehive is still experimental, there are already some 38,000 employees (in just 9 months!) actively using Beehive, with actual benefits:

For Michael Ackerbauer, a manager in the CIO’s office at IBM, the results are already in. He learned about Beehive a year ago, and “I quickly got hooked,” he says, especially since he manages a team of developers who work remotely. “It’s valuable for the team to get to know me on a personal level, and I like to get to know them.”

Jeff Schick, VP, Social Software, IBM SWG, provides an advice for companies looking at social software solutions:

“Knowledge workers today have no time to add new activities to their day; they’re looking for how to work smarter,” Schick says. “Poor user adoption is rarely because users didn’t know how but rather didn’t see why.”

If you RSVPed to our user forum event Sep. 8, you’ll have the opportunity to epxerience Beehive first hand, along with Lotus Connections – IBM’s social software for the enterprise solution, which is based on our internal experience. Seating is limited, so RSVP now.

Update:
TheMarker IT artilce is a translated (with permission of course) version from The Industry Standard, ‘Social Networking Behind the Firewall‘.

Links:
TheMarker IT: IBM’s ‘Facebook’ (Hebrew)
Event: KM and Collaboration User Forum, Sep 8th, IBM Israel
The Industry Standard: Social Networking Behind the Firewall
IBM: Web 2.0 Goes to Work for Business
IntranetBlog: http://intranetblog.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2008/7/7/3781562.html
IntranetBlog: Beehive builds buzz at IBM




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.