1. Sarah Siegel, ssiegel@us.ibm.com, IBM Center for Advanced Learning, for Graduate School of Business, Columbia University
11 June 2012
Social Media Accelerate IBMers’ Up-skilling
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Professor Ackerman, thank you for inviting me to speak with your class this evening
about IBM as a case study, to show the value of using social media for accelerated
skills development. Before we begin, I am curious. I understand that the majority of
you come from beyond the United States. [Next slide.]
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2. © 2012 IBM Corporation
I want to poll you on your reaction to this message, but first, I just want to put it in
context. Here we’re referring to the use of social media by business leaders like you
and your teams. How many of you agree with this statement?
Can you say why? For those of you who did not raise your hand, why didn’t you?
[Next slide.]
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3. Deeper Insight Virtual Conference Informal Learning Exchange (ILX) peer learning application
SimArchitect - Serious game
3 © 2012 IBM Corporation
While we’re together, we will:
•See a number of examples of social technologies we’re using for skill development
or up-skilling at IBM, some of which are from vendors and some of which are home-
grown, including discussing their impact so far; three of them are shown here
•Imagine the future a bit
•Return to the present to discuss what to consider prior to introducing social tools to
your companies and teams as well as how to choose the right technology.
How does that sound? [Next slide.]
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4. © 2012 IBM Corporation
SimArchitect is an example of an innovative approach to rapid up-skilling in our
Growth markets. One of the core goals is to accelerate the development of self
efficacy in a risk-free environment. It’s also about growing skills socially because IT
Architects need to be more active in enabling knowledge and skills transfer.
This is just now coming out of pilot mode and it will be rolled out among early
technical leaders in the IT Architect pipeline across the Growth Markets. We worked
with a premier gaming vendor on this, and added what we call a “social wrapper” to
it, built on our IBM Connections technology, to make the game more compelling,
since it is a single-player game. You can see that while players are engaged in the
game, they can be in touch with experts and peers, which makes the learning less
lonely.
So far, pilot results show amazing overall satisfaction and an impressive learning
gain. Now, I’ll show you a virtual conference of today and contrast it with what we
could do in the future. [Next slide.]
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5. 5 © 2012 IBM Corporation
The Deeper Insight global virtual conference for new IBMers took place for the second year just last
week. Many thousands of new IBMers participated. One benefit was that we could accommodate
many thousands of IBMers concurrently, which no physical space, other than perhaps a sports
stadium could do, and another is that it enabled the many new IBMers to feel smarter and at home
quickly while giving them an opportunity to interact with a range of more seasoned IBMers who they
might not have had the opportunity to meet as readily, if travel were involved. This was built on the
Unisfair platform, which is a vendor’s solution and we had nothing at IBM like it, that could
accommodate the number of IBMers that we needed to host. In terms of impact, we were pleased
that booth visitors spent an average of 18 minutes in this booth, which was new this year. And when
we compare another booth that was part of the conference last year, that booth had twice as many
downloads this year as last, so we feel that we had some combination of more compelling content to
download, along with the societal culture being a year more mature and comfortable with learning in
an environment like this.
This booth included:
•Live chat ‘round the clock with leadership development SMEs
•Special discussions for leaders, including one on what’s next for Watson clients and another on how
to become an IBM executive
•[Click on] Information, including:
•The Prize Giveaway of 30 min. 1:1 with a senior IBM leader x 4
•How to have career development discussions with employees.
•External resources for leaders on Twitter, and on Facebook and Linkedin, external aggregator
communities for the internal Connections-based IBM Manager Community. [Next slide.]
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6. 6 © 2012 IBM Corporation
That was pretty cool, but imagine if we made it easier for IBMers to collaborate with
one another after the virtual conference. Let’s say that a new IBMer met someone
more senior at the conference who agreed to mentor her. What if, she could,
through her touch-screen mobile phone…[Next slide.]
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7. 7 © 2012 IBM Corporation
…access her mentor through Sametime Meeting with Video? Increasingly, IBMers
are already accustomed to contacting friends and family through two-way video, say
via Facetime on their iPhones. Why not make it easy for them to use a secure IBM
solution to do so with their IBM colleagues? [Next slide.]
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8. Mobile learning strategy evolves
2009 Mobile
QuickViews
Books 24x7
On The Go
2010 New Hire
SMS alerts
Sales Eminence
Success Packs
BAO Success
Stories
2011 Immigration GBS SAP Pre-Hire ILX Mobile Aggregator
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© 2012 IBM Corporation
We should talk a bit about the current mobile environment and how we’ve made
these performance aids accessible via mobile phones. The main point of the story
here is that we have been working on performance aids for mobile phones for a
relatively long time. We’d like to focus particularly on 2011 because you can see ILX
mobile; I will highlight the Informal Learning Exchange next. [Next slide.]
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9. Informal Learning Exchange (ILX)
9 © 2012 IBM Corporation
Informal content is now integrated with what the business plans/schedules (class
and self paced) and this expands the boundaries of our classroom walls and online
learning boundaries!!! And makes content more relevant! Many thousands of new
learning items were found and consumed, rated by many, many thousands of
IBMers in 2011, its first full year. [Next slide.]
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10. 10 © 2012 IBM Corporation
Now, also imagine that in the ILX of the future, there is a button that an IBMer can
press to record a brief video to capture knowledge, share and post it, earning
reputation points and increasing social contribution/status/influence…. [Next slide.]
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11. A vision for the future?
11 © 2012 IBM Corporation
And what if we measured and rewarded the reputation points, based on impact to
the performance of those touched by his or her contributions? Something to
consider – how to motivate more social business behaviors. Now, let’s return to
today. The future may also be social, but so is today. I want to show you two other
kinds of social learning that are enabled by a vendor and by IBM. [Next slide.]
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12. © 2012 IBM Corporation
This is the only example of formal learning I will show you. The first is delivered via
Cisco’s WebEx Simulcast. We also use Livestream. This is a screenshot from a
recent hybrid version of our New Manager Orientation that we run for the Growth
Markets. PBC stands for Personal Business Commitments and it’s our performance
management system.
Does anyone know what we mean by hybrid? In this case, 100 new managers were
sitting together in a hall in Bangalore. And another 100 were sitting at their desks in
17 countries, participating in a live chat, moderated by a professional leadership
development facilitator. The scores and written comments were very positive, but
the best part was the participation-rate. We had offered this same course face to
face and through Centra Live Virtual Classroom with no video. And very few new
managers were enrolling in either version. How awful. New managers, who needed
training like this were not getting it! Picture the potential dissatisfaction of their
employees, the possible attrition. They came to this version, though, and as you can
see, appeared to be engaged. And then, to keep the learning going... [Next slide.]
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13. © 2012 IBM Corporation
We invited them to opt into the online IBM Manager Community on our IBM
Connections platform. There, they can do much more than post team photos. They
can join virtual watercoolers to trade best practices and lessons learned with their
peers, they can comment on blogs by senior leaders, who are offering leadership
advice from their experience and they can participate in scheduled learning
activities that are all about their leadership on the ground. I want to show you two
other sorts of online IBM communities as well. [Next slide.]
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14. © 2012 IBM Corporation
The Technical Leadership Exchange or TLE Community is also opt-in and is
designed to engage the leaders who are in technical roles at IBM. We run hybrid
sessions for this community, too, although the learning is not informal, as it is
typically 200-300 leaders together in an auditorium around the world, for example,
we’ll be in Brazil later this summer, and then hundreds and hundreds of technical
leaders from 30+ countries logging in and participating in the session via a
professionally-moderated live chat. We also provide what we call Smarter Panels
via Livestream, where everyone is logging on and no one is co-located. Those are
just 60 minutes in length. Tomorrow, for instance, we will feature a panel of top
Watson researchers, talking about what’s next for Watson. Ahead of the session,
we invited technical leaders to submit and vote on questions to the panel and the
top-five most popular ones will be answered during the panel, and they will also take
live questions for the last 15 minutes. More than 3,000 technical leaders have
enrolled. And finally, what about social learning for potentially sensitive topics about
which leaders like you need to become smarter? [Next slide.]
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15. © 2012 IBM Corporation
…potentially sensitive topics like, cultural intelligence, which I think many of you will
relate to, since at IBM, we define cultural intelligence as the ability to work
effectively with people from other countries. Here, you are looking at a pilot we ran
with managers a couple of years ago, and it was ahead of its time. It was in the 3D
virtual world of Second Life. How many of you have heard of Second Life? [Explain
if no one else is able to do so.]
In our anonymous survey afterward, 75% of respondents said that they were more
comfortable asking “stupid” questions as avatars than they would have been if they
had been face to face. Once bandwidth catches up, and all 3D virtual worlds are as
simple as, say, Farmville, I am confident that this will be a viable way to help, for
example, international assignees be more savvy even before Day 1 of their
assignment, by meeting with a peer from the countries where they’re assigned. Can
you imagine that? [Next slide.]
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16. © 2012 IBM Corporation
Here’s an example of an IBM online community that is inclusive of lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender clients and colleagues; it is behind our firewall and we
also have one on Facebook called “Friends and Family of GLBT IBMers”. What’s so
powerful about a community like this is that if you work for a global company, and
you lead people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, you can learn
a lot just by following this community and reading Forum postings and more. I’ve
talked with a group of Professor Ackerman’s peers at Columbia about when and if
online communities make sense and I’ve told them that they are most powerful and
active when they are perceived as needed. This community is highly active because
the members need it, since historically, being openly lesbian, gay, bisexual or
transgender has been challenging in society, including in corporate environments.
So think of equivalent minority communities in addition to this one and you can see
how it could work additionally.
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17. Questions
Thanks to my colleagues for their collaboration on this work:
N. Ahmad, E. Altinpinar, R. Ashmore, A. Groves, C. Hamilton, D. Lang, T. Littlejohn, T. Masaku, M. Masiar, N. Medhi,
L. Miller, K. Raza, G. Sabharwal, R. Saluja, R. Satish, L. Sitaram, H. Smith, M. Ticknor, P. Vania, K. Watanabe
© 2012 IBM Corporation
I’ll remind us of a couple of questions I promised we would discuss: what to
consider prior to using social media for up-skilling? And also, how do I choose the
technology?.
What to consider prior [First, ask participants what they think and help them if they
are quiet] : a) Appetite of senior leadership; most still meet f2f, Can leaders cede
some control in the short term?; b) Bandwidth; c) Scalability; d) The need to be
perceived as a global player
How to choose the technology [First, ask participants what they think and help them
if they are quiet]: If to be collaborative, then communities; if to be competitive,
gamify the learning activities; if to be immersive, 3D virtual worlds; if to build
networks: Linkedin/Twitter/Online communities – internal & external; if for team-
building and mentoring, 2-way video; if for ideating, an Ideation Blog…..
When you are asking yourself if you, yourself, are ready: Consider that we are all
essentially the same way online as offline and can be effective whether introverted
or extroverted; it’s not about age, but rather about “getting it” and finally, can you
think of the whole realm as an experiment, rather than a risk? If you can, I believe
you can use social media to up-skill your workforce.
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