The Greater IBM Connection Blog

Endless Possibilities For Alumni to Innovate With IBM

Greater IBMer, John Patrick, Former Vice President of Internet Technology at IBM      

John Patrick was an IBM employee for thirty-eight years.  During his IBM career John helped start IBM's leasing business at IBM Credit Corporation, and was senior marketing executive for the launch of the IBM ThinkPad brand. He is the author of Net Attitude, and President of Attitude LLC.

The Internet has enabled everything to be connected to everything, so setting up a blog to "connect" past, present, (and maybe future) IBMers to each other and with the company seems like a very good idea. The The first step was the Google Group, the logical step two is the new Greater IBM blog. Over time other forms of web technology such as wikis, audio and video podcasts, instant messaging, and various mobile technologies will likely enter the mix.

[The blog is the first part of our wider program, see the previous post Eds.]

The possibilities are endless -- collaboration on projects, personal networking for jobs and deals, referrals to and from IBM, and social networking for the fun of it. I look forward to being part of this as it evolves. Upon e-tirement in 2001 with nearly four decades at IBM, I don't really feel like I left anyway! Feel free to visit patrickWeb. There are a number of categories that I have been writing about for more than ten years. Things related to IBM are at this site, I am sure I will be writing about and linking to the Greater IBM blog as will others. Cross linking will increase the overall "connectedness". That's what the web is all about. I am really proud that IBM is taking the blogosphere so seriously.

Greater IBM corporate alumni social networking innovation John Patrick Attitude LLC

What is "Greater IBM"?

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Former IBMers comprise a global community of several hundred thousand diversely talented people, including many in the 90,000 partner companies and organizations that IBM helps innovate every day.

Greater IBM is a new, company-sponsored program to reach out to the full range of IBM veterans and work with this important group to build a more creative and entrepreneurial  relationship -- with current IBMers and business partners, with each other, and with the rest of the world.

The goal is simple: to drive innovations in business and technology by unleashing the ability of people who share an IBM heritage to come together in a "enterprise social network."

One might be inclined to call such an effort an alumni network or association, but the "alumni" label is limiting, if not misleading: Greater IBM is not about keeping corporate "graduates" connected to careers past. It is about creating something altogether new: an innovation community that transcends the boundaries of "inside" and "outside" IBM.

Such distinctions have become less meaningful in a globalized economy where collaboration has become as important as competition. And such a new way for a global company to engage with its extended human ecosystem makes sense in the emerging environment that some call the People-Powered Web.

In this self-organizing age, one might even say that Greater IBM is actually a question:

• How can IBMers past and present interact with each other in rich, new ways for mutual benefit?

• How can IBM veterans provoke change and new thinking within the business that will enhance IBM's capacity to be the best innovation partner to the world?

• Conversely, how can the sizable number of once (and possibly future) IBMers amplify IBM's ability to lead and advance the frontiers of science, technology, business and society?
  

• Finally, how can IBM nuture its extended network of relationshup to make Greater IBM not just  something of great value to all members, but a model for how other organizations can likewise benefit by reaching out.

We're purposefully presenting the Greater IBM idea as a number of questions because the real innovation in building it will be to drawn on the insights and interests of Greater IBMers themselves. In other words, this collaboration depends on your proactive contribution.

In fact, that is the organizing idea for this blog: posts will be based on the thoughts and ideas you submit on how a Greater IBM initiative should unfold. This approach explicitly reflects the open, global and multidisciplinary nature of innovation today.

So let the process begin: what do Greater IBMers want in a continuing relationship with the company?

1. Access to current IBMers, news and resources?
2. New channels to do business with IBM, such as with our VC Relations group?
3. Opportunities to connect with the rest of Greater IBM?
4. New career possibilities, say, via IBM's PartnerWorld program?
5. Work together on the world's greatest business and societal challenges?

We expect the answers will be as diverse as former IBMers themselves, and for you to have many that we haven't thought of yet.

To get the ball rolling, please email your  vision for what Greater IBM can become to greaterIBM@gmail.com, and we'll incorporate your input into posts. Also feel free to comment on any post here, as well as to join the parallel discussion on the Greater IBM Google Group.

While our ambition may be great, we're starting modestly, with this blog. A Greater IBM Web site  with many excellent tools and features for business collaboration is under development, so stay tuned to this channel.

To that end, you can help make this a viral success from the start by telling two other Greater IBMers you know about this grassroots initiative and encourage them to ask two others this question:

What can Greater IBM do for you?

Greater IBM corporate alumni social networking innovation