Martin Gomez

Posts Tagged ‘ibm’

Think

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

A very good friend of mine has the following as his IM display image: “‘Your stupid’? … My stupid what?”

It’s pretty clear that if the one communicating the statement were only to think, he/she would’ve added an apostrophe between U and R, and the letter E at the end of the first word. Back in high school, when weaving the web meant pouring into hundreds of lines of bare HTML that rendered very simple interfaces, I got the chance to design my alma mater’s (then-called) Computer Education Department’s site. Having a penchant for branding and marketing, I looked for something that could iconify the Department’s vis/mis.

I chanced upon IBM’s one-word slogan - Think. At that time, I didn’t know that “Think” went all the way back to Watson Sr. All I knew was that it was being used to campaign IBM’s resurrection as led by Lou Gerstner. This inspired me to propose “Think Again” to be the Department’s theme — almost a decade before National Geographic started using the phrase in and for its branding. My proposed branding even had a graphical element — an abstract illustration of Auguste Rodin’s Thinker, like the replica found at Stanford.

Fast forward to 2009, we see IBM going back to its roots, to its core, in its campaign to change the world. One of the videos I stumbled into that I really love is the following.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Think.

Tags: ibm, think
Posted in Art, Business, Creative, Learning, Tech | 2 Comments »

Shaping the world: Towards a humanely smarter planet

Monday, December 15th, 2008

I recently attended a dinner event where one of the presenters used Scott McLeod’s 2007-updated version of Karl Fisch’s 2006 presentation, Did You Know. To the right is the 2008 version of the video.

Seeing myself as being at the intersection of all these shifts and trends, the presentation immediately caught my attention. The presentation made me recall a recent article in Wired that predicts the Yuan to be the world’s mainstream currency, as an effect of globalization.

Being part of a globally integrated enterprise, I am pretty excited about these changes and looking for the next tipping point.

In Sam Palmisano’s recent speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, he called on the leaders of the world to make the planet smarter. In making the earth smarter, we see less waste and more goods delivered. Conservatives would immediately blow the whistle and tag this as an even easier way for the bad to spread. I say, while it may be true, it is also an opportunity for good to spread. This enables the creation of an infrastructure for good — one that could actually help save lives, not just souls. Ways on how this good can be done has found its way to IBM’s core strategy. I am very optimistic about this, not just because I’m an IBMer, but because it’s fundamentally good and technically sound.

As we do know that governments would usually dictate how the world works, it would be very interesting to see what governments of the future might look like. Government 2020, a study by the IBM Institute for Business Value looks at 6 worldwide forces and the perpetual collaboration mandate. To quote,

The future of societies around the world is being shaped by six drivers outside the realm of government control. Powerful changes related to demographics, globalization, environmental concerns, societal relationships, social stability and technology will affect virtually every government, demanding individualized responses suited to each nation, region or locality. These nearly universal drivers will require “perpetual collaboration” that starts with intensified, multi-directional communications, and shared operational and technical standards. Beyond those core essentials, effective strategies also hinge on government commitments to facilitate efforts involving multiple agencies (within and across borders), and improve partnering with transnational organizations.

I am very sure that there would be skeptics asking how this could happen if graft and corruption engulfs most governments. I say, one need not have to read Augustine to understand the universality of faith, hope and love. These three values extend to the relationship of a citizen to his/her country/nation. I say, the will of the people must never be undermined — in Filipino, "hindi rapat minamaliit ang puso’t isipan ng taumbayan, maski audience pa yan ng Wowowee."

IBM Corporate Responsibility Report 2007-2008

Recently, IBM’s Corporate Responsibility Report was published. The report included the results of hard work by the IBM Corporate Service Corps. Many people ask me what IBM does — or, if IBM still exists as it’s perceived that the whole IBM has been sold to Lenovo. It would be easy to describe IBM using the IBM Values but it might be better to describe it this way … "IBM is a company of 380,000 individuals who do, in new ways, what IBMers have done for nearly a century: invent technology and apply it to business and society on a global scale to make the world work better. Today, we create and integrate hardware, software and services to enable enterprises, institutions and forward-thinkers around the world to succeed."

It’s pretty exciting to see what future IBM leaders have learned, collaborated with and implemented to help solve problems of the have-nots with innovative solutions. Indeed, when we know how to learn from the small corners of the world, we will then be able to truly shape the world.

Tags: corporate, globalization, government, ibm, innovation, planet, responsibility, smart
Posted in Art, Business, Tech | 2 Comments »

Posts Tagged ‘ibm’

Think

Shaping the world: Towards a humanely smarter planet

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