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Build your Foundations with IBM

Published June 9, 2008 Uncategorized 1 Comment
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IBM announced last week 2 major releases:
The first is Lotus Symphony 1.0 – IBM’s Office replacement suite, built on OpenOffice, over Eclipse, is out of beta and into the real Software life cycle. Mazal Tov !
The second is the GA (general availability) of Lotus Foundations Start, announced in Lotusphere 08, which serves as IBM’s first Collaboration Server for small and medium businesses (SMB market).

Both announcements will have tremendous impact on our Israeli market, and would improve IBM’s position in the local SMB market, providing an alternative for 5-500 employees companies looking for a complete collaboration solution.

So, what’s Lotus Foundations Start is all about?
Running a small business is a big business, and you want to keep it simple. So, Lotus Foundations Start is basically a combination of HW and SW from IBM, with Services from our Business Partners, wrapped in one package. For more details head over to ibm.com/lotus/foundations.

One of top three questions I answer when visiting customers, especially in the SMB market, is ‘isn’t IBM suited for Enterprise-size only?’ And that’s a valid question, since IBM employs 380,000 people, and our brand is ‘Big Blue’… Still, our software is infrastructure, and as such, suits any business, from a 5 people family business to a mature start-up of 400. IBM Express Advantage (custom-made solutions for SMB) includes all the features and capabilities, in smaller packages, and competitive prices, that fit any budget and any IT system.

You can learn more about IBM solutions (Hardware and Software) for small and medium businesses (SMB) at our local website. If you have any questions or concerns, leave a comment below.

Empowering your workforce, browser only

Published May 24, 2008 Uncategorized Closed
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Earlier this week I met with Menora Insurnace, one of the largest insurance groups in Israel, founded in 1935.
Menora are a veteran customer of Lotus collaboration solutions, featuring Lotus Notes for messaging, Lotus Sametime for instant messaging, Lotus Quickr for team collaboration and WebSphere Portal as their one-stop-shop for doing business, both internal and external.

Arjan Radder and myself met our colleagues at Menora to discuss how they can leverage their existing investments in Lotus solutions, and explore new growth engines for Menora and its customers through implementing social software solutions, such as a blogging platform, or social bookmarking service.

Menora employees are working out of their browsers, no client involved.
Their internal portal uses single sign-on to identify and authenticate the user, which in turn presents a unique homepage for each user, based on his/her permissions and preferences.
Their messaging platform is incorporated within the homepage, and they can access their inbox, calendar, address book and composite applications in a click of a mouse.

I’m always amazed to see the breadth of approaches customers take with their Lotus solutions. Building everything around the internal portal is an innovative concept, but in a SaaS (Software as a Service) era, putting everything online (behind the firewall of course) is the way to go.

You can read additional case studies here.

Peugeot 308 Blog Tour

Published May 3, 2008 Uncategorized Closed
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Blink IT, IBM BP, are the first web 2.0 consultant company to sport a test drive for bloggers in Israel, with the launch of Peugeot 308 Blog Tour early last week.
During a 2 week period 7 bloggers will get a chance drive the car, and post their comments on their respective blog. This hasn’t been tried before in Israel, and Champion Motors (Peugeot’s reps. in Israel) deserve some points for allowing this to happen.

This is yet another example of how small investment can raise a lot of awareness.
Blink asked local bloggers to register for the chance to test drive the car, out of whom 7 will be selected. The tour will start in Tel Aviv, go north to Haifa, then down south to Beer Sheva, finishing back at Tel Aviv. Each blogger will get the car for 1-2 days, afterwards he must post a comment on his/her blog. The post can be positive or negative – neither Blink not Champion Motors have any say in the postings.

The investment is minimal – the car is for test drive purposes anyhow, gas is on the company – so you get more awareness and exposure to an audience who’s into blogging and cars (like me.. ).

Even before the tour began there were several posts in the local blogosphere praising the concept or trashing it. The discussion was happening (good or bad) – posts, comments, pictures, GPS, videos – exactly what this Blog Tour is about. Conversation Marketing.
You can even track the location of the 308 in Israel…

It’s all about LIVE sharing

Published April 6, 2008 Uncategorized Closed
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Microsoft Israel Tech-Ed 2008 started today in Eilat, and as usual the event is set to be one of the biggest IT events this year. Every year Microsoft attract thousands of customers, analysts, bloggers, press and consultants – for an event mostly known for the party on the 2nd day.

What I wanted to share with you is the excellent work Microsoft Israel are doing with respects to viral marketing, led by Lior Zoref, Digital Marketing Group. The digital group, along with Tech-Ed staff, are using every web 2.0 medium available to convey the Tech-Ed spirit to attendees and people who couldn’t join in person: blogs, videos, audios, pictures and web.

Prior to the event there was even a 5min video, explaining ‘how to persuade your boss to let you go to Tech-Ed‘. Genius.

Microsoft are also taking the blogging community seriously, and draws the equation blogger=journalist. The bloggers attended the press briefing Sunday morning, to get all the updates and guidelines. Bloggers even got some cute giveaways, such as a power expander (to charge more than one appliance), USB to Cellphone thingy, Energy Bar (to keep those fingers working) and more.

Although I compete with Microsoft on solutions, and not agree with all their tactics and strategies, they are doing an excellent job in adopting and embracing the community, which often lead to greater sympathy… and sympathy can go a long way…

Web 2.0 vs. Enterprise 2.0

Published April 4, 2008 Uncategorized Closed
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Earlier this week I attended the 1st meeting of the newly formed ‘Web 2.0 Forum‘, hosted by GAIT, a prominent Knowledge Management consulting company in Israel. The meeting was held at an insurance company who’s CIO is a true collaboration evangelist, who single handedly transformed the IT in that company, and brought it to the 21st century.

The participants of the forum included colleagues and friends, vendors and customers, from every aspect of the IT arena – tech, academic, business, HR, knowledge management and consulting. It was very refreshing doing a round table with colleagues who share my passion, and I thank Gil (GAIT) for inviting me to the forum. The next meeting will be hosted at IBM, where I’ll expose the forum to some of the super cool platforms and solutions IBMers are using daily, and to the Lotus Collaboration solutions that spur from our own experience.

One of the Web 2.0 Forum goals is to increase the penetration of web 2.0 technologies and platforms into the business, and one of the main points from the round table the participants had revolved around the difference between Web 2.0 (facebook, blogs, linked-in, twitter, etc) and Enterprise 2.0 (Portals, social software, collaboration, social bookmarking, etc).
Although Web 2.0 is alive and kicking in Israel, personally I feel that Enterprise 2.0 isn’t here yet. It’s knocking at the door, pleading the security guy to let her in, but no access. Blocked.
Web 2.0 Forum should help all knowledge advocates in Israel to change that.

Later that week I met with a prominent pharma customer, who attended LCTY Israel late March. After the event, during lunch, we started talking about their interest to build ‘something’ at their infrastructure, that would increase the collaboration and sense of community at the workplace. I noticed that although they were very positive about collaboration and community, their organization didn’t share their enthusiasm. There is work and there is fun – and right now, Web 2.0 is categorized under fun. That’s exactly why Web 2.0 Forum is important – to change the culture, and making CIO/CTO/CEO understand that Enterprise 2.0 = Growth.
That’s quite a chllenge, but hey, I didn’t say it’s gonna be easy… 🙂

In that context, of changing the mindset regarding the business value of Enterprise 2.0, a presentation I gave at Knowledge Management Summit, early March – Understanding Social Networking – Getting Started.

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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.