IBM has used online "Jams" or mass collaboration events to engage large numbers of employees on strategic issues. Some key points: - Jams typically last 48-72 hours and involve 50-200 facilitators guiding discussion among tens of thousands of participants. - Past Jams focused on sharing best practices, defining corporate values, and generating ideas around growth and innovation. - Jams leverage text analysis tools to identify trends in massive discussions and surface key themes. Over 100,000 employees have participated in Jams to date. - Jams provide a way to gather organizational insights at scale in a way that is not possible through traditional top-down or anonymous surveys. The discussions and outcomes are

1. IBM Innovation Jam – Experiences & Techniques
“Pulling off a corporate makeover sometimes means touching base with everybody.”
-Investor Business Daily, January 2006, on IBM’s Jam events
March 2008
Søren Duus Østergaard
Senior e-Government Advisor
IBM
© 2006 IBM Corporation

2. Jam: The ingredients
 A Jam is a massively parallel conference consisting of:
– A high-profile, online event
* 12-14 weeks of event preparation
– Specific in duration, typically ranging from 48 – 72 consecutive hours
– A defined agenda, focused on strategic & critical enterprise issues
– A real-time discussion database with ideas, best practices & employee sentiment
* A disciplined “behind-the-scenes” planning and orchestration effort
- 50-200 facilitators, moderators, SME’s, executives, comm’s staff
- Business Unit and geographic participants
– Real-time text mining & analysis to surface & steer live discussion trends
– Robust event hosting infrastructure (same as US Open, Wimbledon)
– 2-3 weeks post-event research & analysis
– An event report with key conclusions and an action plan
What makes IBM’s Jams unique?
• Leading technology - eClassifier data analysis to help identify trends in massive discussion content
• Internal IBM Jam team and IBM research apply proven experience in planning, execution and
analysis
• On Demand event hosting infrastructure to ensure a technically robust delivery
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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3. How has IBM used Jams?
WorldJam – a new
collaborative medium to
capture best practices on 10
urgent IBM issues.
Results:
 72 hours
 52,595 participants
(unique users)
 6,000+ ideas
 268,000+ views of posted
ideas
IBM Meets with 52,600 Virtually:
quot;IBM invited all 320,000 employees to a marathon brainstorming session... capping a nine month effort to
imagine and build a suitable room in cyberspace for an event that would be impossible to hold anywhere else.“
-- The New York Times, May 28, 2001
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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4. How has IBM used Jams?
ValuesJam – an in-depth exploration of
IBM’s values and beliefs by
employees.
Results:
 72 hours
 22,007 participants
(unique users)
 9,337 posts/replies
 1.25 million views to site
 Set of new core values defined
by IBM’s workforce
 210,000 downloads)
Homebred CEO Summons IBM's Past, Present, Future:
“To create this old/new culture, Palmisano got IBM's 320,000 employees involved. ‘It couldn't come from the top,’ he
says. ‘It's got to be theirs. And, almost, it's more important it's theirs than what it is.’ “Over the summer, IBM held
what it called an online jam — a massive, 72-hour chat room where employees could voice ideas.”
-- USA Today, November 19, 2003
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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5. Values Jam - why did IBM do it?
 Ability to find important patterns, themes,
learning across the enterprise on specific
business issues
 Transform IBM into a values-based
management system company, and leverage
employees who are the closest to the action
 Not top-down or bottom-up – lack of hierarchy
improves employee acceptance of outcomes
and resulting action plans
 Sense of immediacy given time-defined nature
of event – helps drive change
 Nothing is lost – organizational learning
captured and a record lives on for analysis
 Structure provides sense of common
purpose, keeps employees/ideas on track
“I walked into our executive committee meeting and said, ‘You guys ought to read every one of
these comments, because if you think we’ve got this place plumbed correctly, think again’.”
- Sam Palmisano, Harvard Business Review Interview, December 2004
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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6. How has IBM used Jams?
WorldJam2004 – focused on pragmatic
solutions around growth, innovation and
bringing the company’s values to life
Results:
 54 hours + 7 days of rating ideas
 56,870 participants (unique users)
 32,622 posts/replies
 2.3 million views to site
 Tens of thousands of ideas
 Ratings site translated into 11
languages
 65 ideas received 5,000 or more
votes –
 35 were funded with 100 Mio $ IBM Meets with 52,600 Virtually:
quot;IBM invited all 320,000 employees to a marathon brainstorming session... capping a nine month effort to
“Your colleagues are providing IBMcyberspace for an event that would be suggestions from anywherelines,
imagine and build a suitable room in with a body of concrete, pragmatic impossible to hold the front else.“
ideas that will serve us well for years -- and that will, in the near term, help us jump-start the work of
making IBM a living, breathing example The New York Times, May 28, 2001
-- of our values.” – Sam Palmisano
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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7. • 140,000+ people have participated 4.200,000+
views
• 4.2+ million page views of Jam- 46,000
related materials posts
• 46,000+ ideas posted – from more 32,662
posts
than 75 countries and 67 companies
2,378,992
views
1,016,763
views
6,046 9,337
posts posts
268,233
views
InnovationJam2006
WorldJam2001 ValuesJam WorldJam2004
IBMers, family, clients and
a new collaborative focused on pragmatic
an in-depth exploration
partners discuss how to
medium to capture solutions around
of IBM’s values and
combine new technologies
best practices on 10 growth, innovation and
beliefs by employees
and real world insights to
urgent IBM issues. bringing the company’s
create market opportunities
values to life
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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8. 90 Hours of Jamming
80 Countries
>1.000 Companies
20 Industries
90.000 Logins
32.000 Posts
1.500.000 Pages
Average Jammer returned
8 times
14 Immediate Major opp’s
© 2006 IBM Corporation
8 IBM Jam

9. © 2006 IBM Corporation
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10. © 2006 IBM Corporation
10 IBM Jam

11. © 2006 IBM Corporation
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12. IBM Jams…. what’s been the value?
 WorldJam2001
Established a new medium to share best practices across a global workforce; 66%
said others' comments influenced them to think differently about one or more issues.
 Manager Jam
Identified issues for two-year, companywide Role of the Manager@IBM initiative; 60%
of participants state that they plan to do something new as a result of the event.
 Consultant Jam
Accelerated merger of IBM's consulting practice with PricewaterhouseCoopers
Consulting; 25% of participants have a more positive impression of the PwCC
acquisition after the Jam (68% neutral).
 On Demand IT Jam
Qualified a number of key workstreams in IBM's internal On Demand IT plan.
 ValuesJam
Set of new core values defined by IBM’s workforce (210,000 downloads of “Our
Values at Work”); 40% report that the Jam facilitated communication with senior
leaders (much higher than in the past).
 WorldJam2004
Senior management qualified 35 workstreams for implementation. Follow up
continues.
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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13. 4. In the background
 IBM’s e-Classifier text-mining tool is
used to scan the discussion forums to
identify emerging themes and help
participants quickly grasp the essence
— and priority — of the underlying
discussions in any forum.
 IBM’s SurfAid provides real-time
metrics on usage and demographic
participation.
 Forum participation and discussion is
influenced through real-time human
intervention using both e-Classifier and
SurfAid data .
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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14. Real Time Reporting
Analyze data coming from your site in real time
Answer business questions such as:
•How many visitors are on the site?
•What content are they examining?
•What are my traffic patterns throughout the day?
•Do various campaigns stimulate immediate responses?
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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15. Habitat Jam: World Urban Forum
The World Urban Forum was
established by the United Nations to
examine rapid urbanization and its
impact on communities, cities,
economies and policies.
In December 2005, the Canadian
government, IBM and UN-HABITAT
hosted a 72-hour ‘Habitat Jam’ to
stimulate ideas in preparation for the
WUFIII conference in Vancouver in
June 2006.
To learn more, go to http://www.habitatjam.com/
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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16. Habitat Jam
From the world’s slum dwellers to the elites of government, business and academia, tens of
thousands of people representing 158 countries -- including many who live in severe poverty
and had never before seen a computer -- came together via Habitat Jam, the largest public
consultation ever held on urban sustainability.
“Habitat Jam helped bring to the fore the concerns of the urban poor, especially in developing countries.
The Jam has meant that for the first time many slum dwellers were given access to Internet facilities. It
made their voices heard.” -- Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka, executive director of UN-HABITAT.
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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17. Back up – Additional Remarks
© 2006 IBM Corporation

18. Jam: Key characteristics
 Scale:
–Big enough to capture meaningful results
–Typically enterprise-wide or very large cross-segment
 Non-hierarchical:
–Equal access for all
 Focus:
–Predefined goal & discussion themes
–Structure to keep employees/ideas on track
 Immediacy:
–Intensive, finite window of activity
 Transcript:
–Nothing is lost – organizational learning is captured and
lives on for analysis
 Pragmatic:
–Idea stimulation vehicle
–Participants rate actionable ideas and behaviors
 Not anonymous:
–Participants are identified
A Jam is a focused transformational intervention. It’s a big event.
Describing a Jam as a discussion forum is a vast oversimplification.
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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19. Jam: How does it compare to other mediums?
If you need . . . You could use a . . . Use a Jam if you want . . .
 More structured participation/facilitation
Discussion of random issues Discussion forum, chat-room,
 More focused discussion
over a longer time Blog
 Text mining to help structure the discussion
 Focus on urgent strategic issues
A place for people to provide A suggestion box, wiki
 Immediate actionable outcomes
ideas for improvement
 Lower-cost alternative
To foster peer contacts, facilitate Face-to-face conference, training
 Lasting data archive
group discussions and problem- class
 Broader, more democratic participation
solving
 Dialogue among attendees
To roll out a change agenda Speech, video broadcast, intranet
 Broad participation creating legitimacy
announcement
and buy-in
 Active discussion & ideation
To take the “pulse” of the Survey, poll
 Less structure and formality
organization
 Ability to capture participants’ “tone”
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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20. What a Jam is not
 An announcement vehicle for party or company promotion
 A top-down communications tool for CEO’s or Politiians
 A dumping ground for employee/citizen suggestions and complaints
 A community creator / definer: it’s a population, not a community per se
 A personal soapbox for managers and politicians (‘They agree with ME!)
 Anonymous: participants are identified (award and reduces negativism)
 Does not happen more than once or twice per year (avoid “Jam Fatigue”)
Jamming is ideal for situations with:
4. A very large audience
5. A limited timeframe
6. Massive “many-to-many” dialogue.
No other medium can meet these needs as effectively.
Jamming is not the best medium for ongoing dialogue or small-scale discussion.
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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21. What makes
a Jam
successful…
and how we
can help?
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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