Ohio produces top football coaches...

..too bad we are struggling to produce jobs.


We just returned from visiting my family in Kentucky for the holidays. After unpacking and getting the children to bed, I relaxed on the couch with my stack of old Wall Street Journals that accumulated near my front door while we were away.

We have lived in Ohio over four years now and I must admit that Buckeye football has entered my DNA. It's hard not to since there are so many die hards filling your mind and heart with Buckeye cheers. The Dec 26 article titled, Why Ohio Makes the Best Coaches, explains why.

2008 Highlights

This will likely be my last blog post of 2008 and I would like to recap my 2008 accomplishments since I will also do this with my IBM manager soon. Here goes:

• Published 3 articles on IBM's intranet (including one on social software that generated 3,200+ page views)
  
• Created Knowledge Library utilizing Dogear (IBM's social bookmarking application like del.icio.us) and WikiCentral (IBM's wiki application)
  
• Discovered and ulitized Wordles (while it may not provide large ROI, these do come in handy when attempting to visually explain something, see Visual Eyes)
  
• My wife had our third child (Kathryn Elise)on March 28
  
• Produced many internal videos and podcasts covering topics such as selling application services, social software, and effective voice mails.
  
• Produced 5 Social Software Story Videos that highlighted business use cases for applications such as Blogs, Dogear, Cattail, and Wikis.
  
• Developed and distributed multiple Firefox Search Add-Ons customized for IBM sellers. (If you are not utilizing the Firefox search box at the top right of your browswer, I highly recommend this time saver)
  
• Learned some Perl for the TeamIQ project
  
• Developed TeamIQ, a tool that aggregates the social presence of a team (imagine a table with links to your team members' Facebook friends, Google Docs, Del.icio.us bookmarks, and Blogs).
  
• Won the Beehive API contest with TeamIQ
  
• Traveled to Leeds, England to produce a sales training video
  
• Won an iPod Nano in a blog commenting contest (then gave it to my wife for Christmas. She loved it!)
  
  
  

Web 2.0 WSJ Story

Today's Journal article titled "The Secrets of Marketing in a Web 2.0 World" was exciting to see since I spend a majority of time evangelizing 2.0 tools inside IBM.

Also in that section Clayton Christensen comments on the positive effects on innovation amid the so called economic hard times. How exciting it is to learn why this is. Too often innovators are given too much money too fast. I work with a very small budget at IBM and our team has been able to complete some very exciting innovations in spite of very little funding.

Social Software Story Video

My main responsibility inside IBM is currently to help the sellers in my organization adopt social software. To do that I've created several Social Software Story videos that show the business value of tools such as blogs. This one is of Luis Benitez:

Enjoy the show!

30M Powerpoints per year?!

While listening to a YouTube video on presentations from Mani Sandher I learned that Microsoft claims there are over 30 million Powerpoint presentations created every year.

I just received one of these 30 million in my inbox this morning and I am going to propose to the author that we move all the content to a wiki. We have so many other options now (including blogs and wikis) that I wonder if there is EVER a time to create a Powerpoint presentation?

Email Love Affair

Oh, Email! Just when I thought you and I might have something special here. You with your big beautiful attachments, comprehensive distribution lists, and slick signatures. The thing is, . . . well . . . I think it would be better if we went back to being just friends. I mean, we both knew that I wasn't interested in anything long-term. I've always been upfront about that. It's not that I don't think you're great. I just feel like we're not meant to be together forever. In time, I hope you see that this is the best thing for both of us. But, hey! We can totally hang out! Maybe I'll see you at a Web 1.0 reunion or something.

(Adapted from the blog post of my friend, Melissa Maxwell)

Web 2.0 Adoption Strategy

I've been involved in many training programs inside and out IBM and I am convinced the best way to training is invite yourself to team meetings. This is especially true of our 2.0 tools since the power will be realized as teams adopt together.

Why team meetings?

1. Managers are usually looking for something to discuss
2. Most team members show up
3. The training is not conducted via ANOTHER meeting
4. Management support is obvious since they allowed you to come

So... next month this will be my strategy. Any sales or solutioning teams in Application Services ready for me to visit their team meeting? And anyone else for that matter.

My first topic would be Dogear (social bookmarking) + RSS Reader.

Kill the "Urgent" option

(From my IBM internal blog posted 15 August 2008)

Today I received an "urgent" email. The more Luis Suarez doctrine I digest I more I am thinking like him (I hope).

Does anyone find the term "urgent" email funny? If it was so urgent, why didn't I receive a sametime? I am green and available and will respond to all urgent questions promptly. If you are on BlogCentral reading this I am probably preaching to the choir.

Maybe the Lotus team would be willing to take away the "Urgent" functionality in Notes?

My Email Schedule

(From my IBM internal blog posted 12 August 2008)

Note: This blog post was inspired by Luis Saurez's article in the NY Times, and Merlin Mann's Google Tech Talk, Inbox Zero

As of 9:01AM today I will be checking email at the following times: 8:30AM, 11:00AM, 1:00PM, 4:00PM

Feel free to use the following ways to communicate with me:

Confidential, Urgent? Sametime, Phone

Confidential, Non-Urgent? Email

Non-Confidential, Non-Urgent? Blog

File to Share? Cattail (IBM's file sharing system)

Call for OPML files

(From my IBM internal blog posted 01 August 2008)

I will be involved in some focus groups for IBM sellers the next several weeks and one of the topics will be RSS Readers and Feeds. In anticipation of this I have been inquiring of some as to which blogs they are reading. Then I thought wouldn't it be nice for those Novice RSS Users to have a base to work with via importing an OPML.

Then I found where one IBMer shared his OPML file on an internal file sharing system. My hope is to provide some useful OPML files for our sellers to begin their RSS life.

Would anyone else like to also share their OPML?

Rich Dad, Poor Dad 2.0

(From my IBM internal blog posted 30 July 2008)

I have a friend that is attempting to break into the real estate business with the Rich Dad, Poor Dad methodology. While I question the risk and tactics of such a strategy I did find the following article from yesterday's NYTimes very interesting.

I am not the guy to flip houses maybe I could flip some websites?

Find an Undervalued Asset. Fix It Up. Flip It. (Now It’s Web Sites, Not Houses)

RSS Reader Review

(From my internal IBM blog posted on 29 July 2008)

As my IBM organization, Application Management Services, begins to adopt 2.0 tools, many sales and solutioners will ask which RSS reader is best? The official response is "None are recommended because it is a matter of preference." Below are few I have tested. I welcome your thoughts as well.

I have only included readers that will accept internal IBM feeds since I believe the pros of using Google Reader or Bloglines outweigh the con of having to use two different readers to read external and internal IBM feeds.

I am personally using the Notes 8 reader since it is very simple and integrated into Notes.

Spectacular (Internal web based RSS reader)
Pros
Ability to watch an individual's activity (such as a team member)
More options than Notes
Large user community
Cons
Have to go to a separate website to read feeds

Lotus 8 - Notes based reader with basic functionality
Pros
No need to go somewhere else to read feeds
Possible support from IBM
Cons
Not as flexible as other readers

Firefox Live Bookmarks - Browser based reader with basic functionality
Pros
No need to go somewhere else to read feeds
Cons
Not as flexible as other readers
No traditional support

FeedDemon - External reader, Stand Alone Application
Pros
Lots of options
Alerting functionality
Cons
Need to install another application