Growing and sustaining technical
communites at IBM with Web 2.0
Andy Piper
http://andypiper.co.uk
http://flickr.com/photos/mcclanahan/13040673/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rooreynolds/1555706680/

IBM has
over
380,000
employees;
over 50%
are mobile
http://flickr.com/photos/killermart/34566562/

Diversity: culture,
technology, expertise,
background, interests
http://flickr.com/photos/derekb/19659998/

... and yet we can
feel disconnected
http://flickr.com/photos/dlemieux/124666239/

“It is hard to find the right people to
collaborate with”
“Collaborative work is not integrated into
business processes. Tools are not integrated
into tasks. Products come first, not integration.”
“How can we encourage collaborative
behaviors?”

Instant
Email Forums
messaging
Blogs Wikis
Feeds Social
networks
RSS Tags Social
bookmarking
Atom
Social
calendaring
Microblogging

Web 2.0 is an attitude not a technology.
It’s about enabling and encouraging
participation through open applications and
services. By open I mean technically open with
appropriate APIs but also, more importantly,
socially open, with rights granted to use the
content in new and exciting contexts.
Ian Davis
http://iandavis.com/blog/2005/07/talis-web-20-and-all-that
http://flickr.com/photos/shawdm/820926627/

Connecting
Recommending
Communicating
Tagging

Participation &
wisdom of crowds

How did my
world get
smaller?
http://flickr.com/photos/shawdm/2472049190/

Technology Adoption
Program (TAP)
Virtually no advertising
Steady adoption
REST APIs offer new uses
http://www.flickr.com/photos/craggie/536320450/

cattail

The internal blogosphere
Integrated with worldwide
employee directory and
intranet security
November 2003 pilot launched * UK second largest
mid 2005 8,000 users group of users
June 2006 version 2
September 2006 20,000 users * number of active
June 2007 version 3 blogs varies
(NB figures are from
Now (end 2007) 35,000 users
late 2007)
10,000 blogs

Profile picture Recommend Extensions

“When I started in this new role, the first thing I did
was search for and subscribe to relevant
communities…”
“I subscribe to people I know and thought leaders …
to know what their thinking is”
“I was able to troubleshoot an issue at a customer
location by searching in blogs…”
“Using my blog, I reduce the number of emails I
send. I just write one blog post to share
information…”

My website
blog content
is my CV

http://flickr.com/photos/hans-on-experience/14188376/

cattail

http://www.graphpaper.com/2007/03-14_sxsw-2007-twitter-social-cyborgs

http://disambiguity.com

“cartoons on the back of business cards”
http://gapingvoid.com

Breaking Status
Location
news broadcast
Chat
(direct, reply) Link
sharing
Feeds Attention
data Self-aware
houses!

Social software builds
bonds

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcvay728/2497387021/

If you liked the pictures:
stock.xchng
Flickr (Creative Commons)

Andy Piper/UK/IBM