IBM: Business Goes Social

Mr. Chris Haylock Asia Pacific Sales for IBM Messaging & Collaboration

Social? I must be dreaming when I heard that through IBM. I guess I was used to only hear server and management solutions with them that it's actually one of the last things I'd probably hear from them. Apparently I forgot that they actually do almost everything these days and true enough they've proven once again that the business model we usually are accustomed to is changing... and its changing so fast people have no choice but follow the social business management trail. IBM being a leader in the industry have solutions that cater to this and I must say; as a person who works in the same industry I was impressed to see what they can do on an enterprise level.

Chris Haylock,  of Asia Pacific Sales for IBM Messaging & Collaboration explained to us how these things were used to leverage getting ideas across platforms and the corporate structure. How important is it to actually get a wider scope of intelligence in the work place? Are ideas being well utilized in a better, wider scope? It's like crowd sourcing and the whole structure to support it in an enterprise level. I was beginning to think they have solutions for everything these days. I wouldn't be surprised why they have lead the industry all these years. Captcha for example was one of the things discussed. On how intelligence on a wider scale was utilized to digitize information. The error margin was smaller too because the sample was too large and chances are that when almost everyone interpreted it in a certain way, it must be the correct one. Social computing was not really too new for them to begin with because they internally even used it via their own intranet. It was like running a beta test of their own for years. 

Author of Documentation on Getting the Most Out of Your Communities with IBM Lotus Connections and Lotus Same time, Kevin O'Connor is the current Client Software Leader at IBM

Kevi O'Connel discussed how effective it is using the collective intelligence of people to enhance businesses. This particular model of business was like second nature to me and I too have been doing it for years via social media. Imagine a world without the need of external software, even make documents itself social, where most of the editing is done on browsers much like google docs or other free ones but is secured and well managed because of the structure of solutions they offer at IBM. It's like everything is in the cloud and everyone who's involved can have real time contribution to the piece. That in my books would be like a perfect world. Everything's going to be easier to resolve and the turnover time would be faster anytime, anywhere after that.

Lou Sassano, Business Unit Executive for Worldwide GB and Partner Sales was enthusiastically explaining how it works on a corporate structure.

Lou Sassano, Business Unit Executive for Worldwide GB and Partner Sales, Mr. Chris Haylock Asia Pacific Sales for IBM Messaging & Collaboration and Ferdinand Macatangay Channels Manager for IBM's Software Group

Simon Lee, Regional Executive for IBM's Portal and Social Solutions 

Social Media tools for organizational productivity and corporate culture change is unprecedented in most businesses but not with IBM. They know that it is important to spur growth at any facet of the corporate structure to maximize anyone's potential, more so if you are working in a global workforce model. IBM has continued to take Social Business model and Media seriously. To enable stakeholders and stay connected with clients on a whole different level is their idea of a smarter planet. I love their way of thinking and its quite amazing they are starting to share what they have internally to make things better for other corporations now.   

IBM Executives knows Social Business Solutions can make your business better. You know who to turn to now if you need to make your SME's or Enterprise level corporation world class. You simply cannot ignore the need for a social platform. It is happening!

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IBM Philippines

Social: Twice!

Times are hard and just like everyone else I wanted to get a loan through social security channels. I applied for it a few months ago and had so many issues regarding requirements that were supposed to be done by the government agency years ago. They basically need my birth certificate and I just didn't utter complaints anymore so I can finish this early. Even if I came from a shift I went through all that brouhaha and red tape. True enough; we got the papers submitted on the same day. I went home and only spent 2 hours of sleep before getting back to the office. It was that hectic and I had so many things to do including social networking matters. I needed to organize it because I feel it's cluttered. This is no OC symptom but somehow it's near that.

Have you ever felt too much of your personal information is out on the Internet and you can't manage them? That's how I feel these days and I hope I can make some necessary adjustments on how this could be fixed. In a nutshell we all need some help sometimes. With the money we worked for there should be someway to make things easier so we don't have to go through unnecessary logistics. Maybe we can also get that integrated to social media and make better solutions for transactions like these in the future. Wouldn't that be neat?! I know, right?!

The Western Union Network Challenge

Do you know how connected you are in Facebook vs the world?!
Their app can literally get that information, show it to you and more!

Life lessons can be learned from experience and we can't have enough of it. History in itself explains the who, what, when, where and how's of the country you live in and I'm glad I live in a noble one called The Philippines. Today, we have a few million people living outside the country that still send help to their relatives/friends here and it's like part of the culture. Almost every family in our 80 million strong population have one or two relatives elsewhere in the world and that plays a significant part in nation building; a fact that Western Union knows. They made a site that would graphically explain everything to the ordinary Juan/Pedro. Initiatives that impressed people like me who spends quite a lot of time in the blue collared industry.

You can also see graphical representations of different economic aspects here and around the world. You can see how ours fare versus other nations. You will see how much aid a country gets, export growth, foreign investment, remittances, GDP rates, import growth and population. This is essential to predicting and verifying the economic stability of a country. Without looking at previous data and comparing them to the current one today: not a single member would make sense.

When asked about the application and the site about its incapacity to earn or generate income, Ms. Angela Heng VP for Corporate Affairs said that they are doing this as service to help people better understand Western Union and its history. What a noble gesture from one great corporation celebrating it's 160th year in the business.


Since Western Union is one of the world's most connected corporations, they are looking for the most networked person in the world by the use of the Social Media network Facebook and a site they dedicated for this located at http://www.westernunionworld.com/yourworld. You can compare with your friends and show them how globally connected you are. Check out your Facebook photos after using the application and you'll get an idea how connected you are (in photos) too! Your personal score will also contribute to your respective country of residence; so the app will soon know who's the most geographically connected country.

I have my friends and family in around 29 countries around the world; and it was shown there too!

Since the Philippines is one of the most well connected people in the world, Western Union is using the data to be gathered with this application to also know how we would rank against other countries. If their theories are correct we probably would place second to one or more first world countries. Pretty amazing if you ask me. Would you want to rank first? Why don't you visit the site and use the application now; tell me how you fare against other Pinoys and people across the globe!

These guys already took the challenge; so why don't you?!

P.S.

Thanks to the generous people at Western Union because we'll have a contest about this! That's coming up in a few days! Watch out for that! =)


Capisce?!


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