IPR’s 2009 Distinguished Lecture: Jon Iwata, IBM « PulsePoint Group - Communications Management Consulting. And doesn’t that accord with your own experience? Haven’t we all been seeking to identify what is changing – and understand what never changes – in what we do for a living? Aren’t we all aware that we are living in a period that the more historically minded among us would call an inflection point? I don’t believe anyone here tonight needs another wake-up call. On the contrary, the people I know in this room are at the forefront of understanding and embracing change, whether it is the arrival of globalization, or the digital revolution, or the new expectations of business by society and stakeholders everywhere. So, I’d like to offer the perspective of someone who is in the midst of trying to implement new approaches in a large, complex enterprise.
I will not be so presumptuous as to offer ‘best practices.’ Let me start with what, in my opinion, this new profession is not. So, what is this new profession? First, the fusing of brand and culture into a new management discipline. What will? IBM digital chief: “A digital department is somewhat preposterous” « Arun Sudhaman. Ben Edwards departed his role as publisher of Economist.com earlier this year to move to a newly-created position as VP of digital strategy and development at IBM, based in New York. I caught up with the British publishing veteran yesterday in Cannes, after he presented a seminar with IBM’s new digital agency Euro RSCG 4D.
Edwards discussed why social media is such a big priority for IBM, and why his role will hopefully become obsolete. Why are B2B companies scared of social media? I think B2B has generally adopted it later than B2C. It’s probably because B2C businesses by their nature are high volume, low transaction value and a lot of the business is already online.
In that case, why are you so focused on social media at IBM? Because I think the time has come where the sales cycle, the sales process, the engagement model for B2B will over the next few years transfer and become digital. How hard is that shift at a company like IBM? Is that a difficult sell? It’s beginning to change. No. Jon Iwata - Cuil. Jon Iwata at the Yale Club last night. Are corporate ideology and cultural integralism back in town? You are here: Home / Seasoned Posts / Jon Iwata at the Yale Club last night. Are corporate ideology and cultural integralism back in town? Posted by Toni Muzi Falconi on November 5, 2009 · 7 Comments Last night, at New York’s Yale Club, I participated in the Institute for Public Relations’ Annual Distinguished Lecture and Awards event.
The lecture was by Jon Iwata, IBM’s Senior Vice President, who heads the marketing, communication and citizenship organization departments of that company. A full house, jammed with many of America’s most senior and reputed public relators. On my side, a lot of curiosity for Iwata. I have always admired IBM and, as he’s been around that company’s communication activities for 25 years, I figured Iwata must have had something to do with my admiration, and therefore probably had something interesting to share. Here iwata speech is the full speech for your perusal, but I would like to point some of the highlights which left me wondering. Simple enough. Combining Brand Management with Workforce Enablement. By Steve McKee In my December BusinessWeek.com column, I highlighted the vital need for internal branding, calling it the missing link between perception and reality, promise and delivery, effective marketing and positive outcomes.
Now along comes a speech by Jon Iwata, SVP of communications and marketing at IBM, that makes my argument look like a kiddy pool compared to the depths he's diving. His speech was titled, "Toward a New Profession: Brand, Constituency and Eminence on the Global Commons," but don't let that scare you. He made some insightful points about why IBM has created a new internal discipline that combines brand management and what he calls "workforce enablement," aligning "experts in the workplace and experts in the marketplace.
" The reason? In ancitipation, Iwata emphasizes the need to "go from managing outward expressions and manifestations of the company - visual identity, naming conventions, messaging, design and the like - to the behavior and performance of people. " Every Company Is A Media Company.
Example Press Kit. Tools/Tips. Social Media Strategists inside businesses - doers not say-ers. Media engineers. The Brand Gap. 1,000 True Fans. Tech giants poised to go M&A crazy Therese Poletti's Tech Tales. By Therese Poletti, MarketWatch SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- It was as if an investment banker slipped some deal-making potion to technology executives last week, making them all crazy for M&A.
The chief executives of long-time rivals IBM Corp. /quotes/zigman/230066/delayed/quotes/nls/ibm IBM -0.13% and Oracle Corp. /quotes/zigman/19452757/delayed/quotes/nls/orcl ORCL +0.03% both predicted last week that they will do more acquisitions. IBM Chief Executive Sam Palmisano told analysts at the company's big investor meeting in New York that the tech behemoth plans to spend $20 billion over the next five years or so on deals, mostly on software.
See Wall Street Journal story on IBM here. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison told Reuters in a lengthy interview that the business software giant -- which just swallowed its first hardware company, Sun Microsystems Inc. -- will keep on buying in the hardware business. Digits: Does Microsoft have a future in tablets? /quotes/zigman/230066/delayed/quotes/nls/ibm. Tim Ferriss Scam! Practical Tactics for Dealing with Haters. Brute force seldom works with haters. Redirection does. (Photo: Deadstar 2.0) I recently spent a week in Amsterdam enjoying bicycles, canals, Queensday, and… ahem… coffee shops. For real. Honest. The best coffee I’ve had in Europe has to be De Koffie Salon. I also gave a short keynote at The NextWeb about how to deal with haters, protect yourself from (some) media, respond to FlipCams, and other personal branding self-defense 101.
Think you have crazy people contacting you or commenting on your blog? It is possible to learn to love haters. I elaborated on a few points in an interview in the Netherlands with Amy-Mae Elliot, who originally posted them on Mashable in her piece Tim Ferriss: 7 Great Principles for Dealing with Haters: 1. Afterword One of my favorite authors, Nassim N. Choose to be robust. How IBM Uses Social Media to Spur Employee Innovation | Social M. “Be yourself.” It’s one of the rules of social media. If you’re blogging, tweeting or Facebooking for business, be real—or you won’t be followed.
Yet, how do you pull off “authentic” while maintaining the company brand message? It’s tough enough for a small business. What if you’re #2 on Business Week‘s best global brands list, with nearly 400,000 employees across 170 countries? At IBM, it’s about losing control. “We don’t have a corporate blog or a corporate Twitter ID because we want the ‘IBMers’ in aggregate to be the corporate blog and the corporate Twitter ID,” says Adam Christensen, social media communications at IBM Corporation. “We represent our brand online the way it always has been, which is employees first.
Thousands of IBMers are the voice of the company. Organization: IBM Social Media Stats: Results: Crowd-sourcing identified 10 best incubator businesses, which IBM funded with $100 million$100 billion in total revenue with a 44.1% gross profit margin in 2008 Edgy at 114 No Policing. Social Media Is Dead: Long Live Common Sense. IT Data Centered » Blog Archive » 8 Signs of Tech PR Firm #Fail.