Internal Use of Social Media

In this video Jon Iwata, SVP of Marketing and Communications at IBM, discusses using Social Media as an Internal Tool. One idea is that as employees become comfortable using social media inside the company they will be able to utilize those skills in communicating with external clients and business partners.



One quote from Mr. Iwata about maintaining control when using social media internally, "Are they (your employees) going to criticize management sometimes? Of course. But they are doing that anyway."

Too many organizations are worried about controlling their employees. I know many corporations that block blog and video sites on their intranets. Where is the trust? Social media will not work until leaders trust their employees and realize that much of this communication is already going on. They can "unearth ideas" if they will loosen their grip on employees.

TeamIQ (Latest IBM project)

A few months ago I had an idea pop in my mind (can't remember if it was in the shower or not). You know, one of those ideas that you can't stop thinking about. An idea that you think will change the way your company works.

Since this idea was not part of my day job at IBM, I've spent any spare time explaining the concept to developers so they could help me make it happen.

The idea...drumroll please..TeamIQ, a new tool that aggregates the social tools of teams, is ready for prime time. We have tools inside the IBM firewall that are similar to those available to the public. The world has del.icio.us, IBM has dogear. The world has Google Docs, IBM has cattail. The world has facebook, IBM has beehive. The list goes on.

The new tool, TeamIQ, enables teams to input a list of their co-workers' email addresses and in response they receive a table that lists links to their coworkers' Beehive connections, Cattail files, etc. For example, if you are in a meeting you can paste in the Invitee list to find out what your co-workers are doing and who they are connected to.

I'm excited to evangelize and enhance this tool the next few months.

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?

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?