Posts Tagged 'web20'

IBM 2.0

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.

Web 2.0 for Executives – a dream or a nightmare?

There was an interesting event earlier this week at The Recanati Alumni of Tel Aviv University, under the title of Web 2.0: Dream or Nightmare for Executives.
The panel included some heavyweights of the local IT arena, led by Meir Brand, CEO Google Israel, Guy Rolnik, co-Founder of TheMarker.com and Ranit Zexer, CTO, Matrix.
My friend Sagi Chemetz from BlinkIT moderated the panel.

The overall conclusion from the event is that most businesses are still facing difficulties in building a suitable web presence, and already are hammered by Web 2.0 services, that are coming mainly from the bottom up.

Although I was unable to attend, I totally agree with the above conclusion, and here’s why:
Many businesses I visit are still facing some very Web 1.0 problems, such as building up a proper website, maintaining an updated content, connecting employees/customers/partners to that content – all while reducing costs and increasing revenue of course. When I tell them IBM has Web 2.0 tools and services they can utilize today – it’s just too much.
They are in the 2nd or 3rd floor, while the IT arena is at 5th and even 6th floor. Most companies want to advance in little steps, and that’s understandable, but the current environment is changing, fast. Change in inevitable, and in order to survive in this competitive global market, you must stay ahead of the group.
You must initiate, not re-act. You have to embrace innovation (I know it’s such an ‘old’ buzz word, but I have to use it) if you want to stay in the race. You have to increase collaboration in your business, both inside and out, in order to leverage innovation.

Web 2.0 tools/technologies/services may be frightening to some, but they are actually catalysts for growth. Real time collaboration, such as Lotus Sametime, allows one to be more effective in ones work. It allows you to communicate faster, and get the answer you need now – not later.
Team work is also an important attribute, and a business must provide its employees with powerful tools for effective team collaboration. Lotus Quickr does just that, with an eye-catching user interface and the ability for every employee to create virtual places, in 3 steps.
These are only 2 examples, but there are plenty others.

I can understand executives who are taking a step back and shaking their head sideways upon hearing Web 2.0, effective collaboration or increased team work. But, at the same time, I try to explain the past, present and future of this industry – collaboration and social software already dominate the consumer side – it’s time to leverage these tools into the corporate world as well. Not next year – now, today, right now.

Photo under license from iStockphoto.com

The week is (finally) over

This was a very long week for me.

On Sunday and Tuesday I had Army Reserve Training, so no work done there.
Monday and Thursday were very busy working days.
Wednesday was the SWG Community Day event – so little work was done during that day.

Friday-Sat – my best friend’s bachelor party !! We drove to the north of Israel, 30min from the northern point, set camp on the banks of the river, brought some food and drinks (well, plenty of meat and a lot of beers) and spent the night, eating, drinking and playing drinking games.
I’ll post some pictures later.

As you can see – a very busy week, hence why my writing this week has been kinda slow.

SWG Community Day was a big success. It was the climax of the week for me – the first event in which I led the Lotus brand session. As I’ve written before I thought a lot of what to talk about, what presentation to build, and from the responses I got I know it went well. We had some 35-40 people in our session, mostly BPs and customers, and I hope they all learnt a little bit more about Lotus Collaboration Strategy and enjoy the UC2 demo we showed.
The presentation I gave will be available shortly in the event website, I’ll keep you posted.
There’s also an article you can read (in Hebrew) on the event, right here.


Speaking of articles, there are 2 on the recent Web 2.0 Goes to Work initiative and related Lotus software (Lotus Quickr and Lotus Connections), in InformationWeek and The Marker IT. These exposure we’re getting only shows just how important social software is for businesses, who are thinking of solutions on how to adopt and implement web 2.0 technologies and tools into the business. You can see a scan of the InformationWeek article to the left.

Adam has posted earlier this week about Sametime latest achievement, “IBM Lotus Sametime tops Corporate IM Platform review” at NetworkWorld.
Another excellent example of Lotus Sametime lead in the corporate market. Speaking of corporate IM, and Microsoft’s latest attempt to penetrate that market, there’s an interesting post from Simon Barratt, who installed Microsoft’s Office Life Communications Server 2007, and has some notes on version adaptability… worth the read.
Ed Brill also commented on Microsoft denied OOXML appeal. For those not in the biz, Microsoft has appealed to the ISO that its Open Office XML format be voted as an industry standard early last week. It was denied.

It has also been a good week for Notes and Domino 8 release! Some very cool stuff appeared on the web, here’s a selection of stuff I found, courtesy of Ed, Adam, Alan and more.
First there’s this demo on ibm.com of Lotus Notes 8, high level marketing. Really good, highly recommended.
Then we have some videos:
Lotus Notes 8 on Linux

Lotus Notes 8 customer testimonials

Lotus Notes 8 new features demo

Lotus Connections has landed

IBM announced the launch of its new social software for the enterprise, called Lotus Connections. IBM Lotus Connections is basically web 2.0 for the enterprise, with 5 different features that allows for ‘collective intelligence’ at the organization. With Lotus Connections, web 2.0 is literally going to work, and empowers the business to be more innovative and execute quickly with customers, partners and colleagues.

Lotus Connections includes 5 attributes of social software:

  • Profiles – Find the people you need (employee directory)
  • Communities – Work with people who share common interests and expertise
  • Blogs – Present your own ideas, and learn from others
  • Dogear – Save and share bookmarks (enterprise equivalent of del.icio.us)
  • Activities – Organize your work and tap your professional network

Lotus Connections is part of IBM’s recent initiative “Web 2.0 goes to Work“, which aims at helping businesses apply Web 2.0 technologies to gain a competitive advantage.

Watch this demo of Lotus Connections at work, or click here.

There’s also additional reading material, from BusinessWeek, The Boston Globe, ComputerWorld and The Wall Street Journal. My dear Lotus colleagues have also commented about the recent announcements.

Official reading material from IBM, including deployment data, fact sheets, business case and info for business partners, goto ibm.com/lotus/connections.
You can also download a screensaver… (Windows only).

Getting to know the portfolio, web 2.0 style

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately, in preparation for my new role. There’s plenty of stuff available at the external software website, and obviously at our internal site, but in the spirit of web 2.0 I’ve been doing some free search, to find out what going outside, with the customers and users.
IBM Lotus Sametime is IBM’s award winning instant messaging collaboration application, which allows for more than just chats.. you can web-conference, voice-conference (VoIP), share and much more – and there are over 15 million users worldwide.. not to mention the security it provides to the corporate business.
My free search also included YouTube (of course), and even there I found this excellent overview video, showcasing Sametime.

There’s also this video about IBM’s latest application in the collaboration era, called Lotus Connections. 5 services in 1 applications, which allows total collaboration for the enterprise.

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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.