ibm.com: Smarter Work

May 4 2009

Today, IBM announced the Smarter Work initiative, as part of the overall Smarter Planet theme.  The press release and website tell the story -- and yes, the point is, that it's a story, a theme, a marketing message:

You probably work a lot smarter today than you did twenty years ago, or ten years ago--or even last year. The Internet and wireless revolutions continue to transform the way individuals create, use and share information; the way we build and maintain relationships; the way we make decisions.

So why does it feel like we are working so much harder?

Image:ibm.com: Smarter Work

Unfortunately, the best work in many companies often happens despite our processes and structures, rather than because of them. Individuals and teams today are ready to collaborate, multitask and cocreate--and yet, every week, businesses waste 5.3 hours per employee because of inefficient processes. A full two-thirds of employees believe there are colleagues who can help them do their jobs better, but they don't know how to find them--and 42% of people say they are forced to make decisions with the wrong information at least once a week. It's no wonder that 91% of CEOs surveyed say they need to restructure the way their organizations work.To work smarter, we'll need smarter organizations--enhancing and benefiting from their people's expertise, enterprise and creativity, rather than inhibiting them. Transforming the collaborative infrastructure and processes of our places of work will enable people to take advantage of the full scope of an instrumented, interconnected and intelligent planet. And the good news is that many organizations around the world are showing the way.
While there are some technology announcements this week -- both at IBM's IMPACT conference in Las Vegas and at RIM's WES conference in Orlando -- the biggest "news" is the launch of the Smarter Work theme.  And Lotus customers -- Celina Insurance, Salvation Army, and many others -- are front-and-center as part of the message.

I also want to point out something subtle but important.  When you read the press release issued today, "IBM Approach to Working Smarter Builds on Leadership in Business Process Transformation and Collaboration", you might notice something surprising for a release issued from a conference focused primarily around the WebSphere set of technologies.  Tom Rosamilia, who is the general manager for WebSphere, is talking about Lotus in this release.  His team reached out to me to help them with a customer example of an Exchange to Domino migration for Tom to use in their press conference today.  In short, there's a linked value message coming out of the WebSphere team, that tells "their" audience to pay attention to what's going on at Lotus today.  That's different, in a clearly positive way.

Link: ibm.com: Smarter Work >

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  IBM  Add/View Comments [26]

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  1. 1  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 5/4/2009 11:35:58 PM

    I'm tempted to point out all the ways in which this message doesn't work. But instead, I'll ask a simple question...

    How would Samantha be presented with this message and why would she react in the way that matters to IBM?

  1. 2  Rob McDonagh http://CaptainOblivious.net | 5/5/2009 12:11:39 AM

    The fact that the WebSphere guys are talking about Domino is great. That's a big win.

    The rest of it? I don't get it. I'm prepared to admit that I'm being an idiot (that only happens twenty or thirty times a day, after all). But is this the part that is supposed to be different from the IBM status quo, message-wise? So far it sounds very familiar. Big, nebulous, and not particularly exciting.

    What am I missing?

  1. 3  Christian Tillmanns  | 5/5/2009 2:02:09 AM

    I don't even get the WebSphere thing. Imagine an Exchange product manager announcing with joy that a SharePoint manager talked about Exchange. What would you expect that Steve Balmer would have donne with them? Burn their desks probably.

    Isn't that normal, that in one company they talk about another product from the same company, if it comes up? I know, there was a problem a few years ago, with IBMers rather selling Exchange then Domino, but that should be fixed by now. Can somebody explain that to me, please? And the rest of the story? Oh well, it does not hurt, but probaly I am an idiot like Rob and don't get the message.

  1. 4  Mark Hughes  | 5/5/2009 7:38:46 AM

    I was interested in the message and could not read it all the way through, got bored. I find myself doing that allot lately, so it may just be me. Sounds like a white paper

  1. 5  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 5/5/2009 7:57:17 AM

    @1 the message isn't for Samantha. It's for Ted. Does that help both @1/@2? It's a business-oriented section of the website...dare I say like microsoft.com/peopleready.

    @3 I knew as I wrote this that someone would respond with what we would say in American slang as "duh, of course they would". My point is, it hasn't happened to this degree, where a Lotus brand story is front and center in a WebSphere event, in the past. Whether it should have or be obvious is a different story.

  1. 6  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 5/5/2009 8:05:57 AM

    { Link }

  1. 7  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 5/5/2009 8:25:13 AM

    @4 - No, it's right in line with IBM's marketing approach: "Don't show, tell"

  1. 8  Irv Schor  | 5/5/2009 8:26:34 AM

    The reference from the Webshpere side certainly is different, and refreshing. Cross selling/referencing certainly gives the community a better feel for commitment to the Lotus brand. Great job.

  1. 9  Keith Brooks http://www.vanessabrooks.com | 5/5/2009 8:37:36 AM

    This reminds me of the GE campaign about bringing good things to life. Maybe this will provide that seem good feeling about IBM.

    Time will tell just what this brings out.

  1. 10  Rob McDonagh http://www.CaptainOblivious.com | 5/5/2009 9:37:59 AM

    @9 - The GE campaign was interesting. So was the BASF campaign (effectively: "We don't make the widget. We make the widget *cooler*."). I don't know how well they translated into effectiveness. I certainly knew more about those two companies and realized their presence in markets. But at the risk of being struck by lightning, that was due to massive TV ad campaigns, catchy slogans, and cute jingles. I don't expect to see that from this campaign, though I wouldn't mind being surprised.

    @5 The message will make a lot more sense to Ted, that's true. But there aren't very many Teds in the world. And why the push to places like YouTube or social networking sites? Ted doesn't visit YouTube unless someone sends him a link, and he wouldn't know a Facebook page from a VT100 terminal. It seems like the message doesn't match the media? The full page WSJ ad is for Ted, no question.

    This is very definitely not my area of expertise, and I have to keep reminding myself to stop wishing IBM would pull off something like the Apple Mac/PC ads (mentally writing "IBM is not a consumer company" on the blackboard 1 trillion times). This still seems like a traditional IBM campaign, though, with some Web 2.0 sites slapped onto the sides of the box.

  1. 11  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 5/5/2009 9:54:34 AM

    Sorry Ed, but I'm with these guys, and I'm going to be a little more blunt. If this seems combative it's because this "marketing message" was so offensive it felt like an attack.

    "Individuals and teams today are ready to collaborate, multitask and cocreate..."

    Really? I hadn't noticed, and I'm sure that 91% of CEO's and 42% of other workers hadn't, either. Thanks for the statistics, by the way. I'm not sure how I would know what I know without some statistic from a marketer to tell me.

    "It's no wonder that 91% of CEOs surveyed say they need to restructure the way their organizations work."

    So you're saying that every organization on the planet is broken. That's uplifting. Why bother reading on since everything is apparently messed up? Oh, because IBM is here to save the day! I don't know how, so maybe the next paragraph will illustrate.

    "Transforming the collaborative infrastructure and processes of our places of work will enable people to take advantage of the full scope of an instrumented, interconnected and intelligent planet."

    *blink* { Link }

    All this marketing message says to me is IBM still doesn't get it. It spews facts, uses overwrought marketing language that is meaningless, and leaves me wondering what the hell I just read. How is that any different than any other IBM marketing campaign? Oh, right, now you're cross-promoting the confusion across brands. I prefer my cold dead fish either as sushi or prepped for oven roasting, thanks.

    I think this circles back to last week's discussion about who you're targeting. Just because you say that's your target doesn't mean your target agrees. Do you seriously think that this marketing is going to resonate with Ted? Do you think he is going to suffer through all the dry reading and come out the other side with any clue how you're going to achieve what you say you can? Not from this marketing he won't. And not from the Smart Planet site, either.

    @9 - How on Earth could you compare the two? GE's ads showed lights going on and factories running. IBM talks about "an instrumented, interconnected and intelligent planet" but doesn't show it.

    The Smart Planet page is a massive abstract graphic followed by a wall of text. That doesn't say "instrumented, interconnected and intelligent planet" to me. By contrast, (since Ed brought it up) Microsoft's People Ready site is less cluttered, has minimal text, and *gasp* shows people!

  1. 12  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 5/5/2009 10:00:26 AM

    I'll give it this: at least it mentions some customers by name and what they actually did.

  1. 13  Brett H  | 5/5/2009 10:19:45 AM

    This is good too, but still - it's as Mark @4 said, it reads like a white paper. Sorry but no-one's going to read through this War and Peace except the bubble.

    Show AND tell works better than just tell. When oh when is this going to get through to marketing...

    Isn't one definition of insanity, the constant repitition of the same failed thing, and expecting a different result each time?

  1. 14  Erik Brooks  | 5/5/2009 10:42:39 AM

    I'd give kudos for the Websphere team mentioning Lotus, but obviously they should've been doing that for years.

    There's car company here in the US called General Motors that made the wonderful decision to create shared-platform cars and trucks across their various brands. But some of those shared models COMPETE ACROSS THEIR OWN BRANDS. GM is doing wonderfully now, by the way. Sounds strangely similar...

    So yeah, that part of it is definitely a Good Thing (tm). Not really a step forward, but at least it's no longer a string of continuously backwards steps.

    Overall, this is definitely better than the typical stuff I've seen IBM crank out. Not MUCH better though - it's still very lengthy, with no quick tables/snapshots to make a quick impact. A simple table with "Company XXX did YYY resulting in $ZZZZ" would probably grab people faster and get them to read the entire article. But instead we've got a lovely unfamiliar logo front-and-center.

    As per Nathan, it'd be great to actually show something.

  1. 15  Bill Brown  | 5/5/2009 12:44:53 PM

    Lately, the ad (if you call underwriting NPR an ad) that is impressing me the most is Oracle. Something to the effect "In XXX countries, YYYYY organizations are using Oracle."

    Imagine if people (espcially non-CxO types) started hearing how many organizations and users are using Lotus, perhaps the typical reaction wouldn't be "No one uses Lotus" and Microsoft couldn't get away with saying "Notes is dead."

  1. 16  Keil Wilson  | 5/5/2009 5:11:14 PM

    Ed, you don't have to go back to 1999 to find a more user centered marketing message from IBM/Lotus. You should be familiar with this page:

    { Link }

    When I saw this, I thought the "Clear Your Desktop" message was the start of a shift in way IBM was marketing Lotus Notes. The ads on this page are funny and brief. The messege and demo on this page don't involve a lot of jargon: Notes 8 is new, it's redesigned for you (the end user), it will help make work simpler and improve your business. I think it's targeted at exactly the people Nathan, Rob and others are talking about.

    At my organization, when those at the top made the call to move to Exchange, there was little political blowback. Even though the decision was of questionable business value, the complete apathy of the user base towards Notes meant that there was little resistance. In the end, the only poeple shouting from the rooftops about impact of the switch were a handful of outside consultants who were easily discredited as only protecting their own interests.

    IBM has spent a great deal of effort recently redesigning the product around the end user's concerns. That decision was made because the end users complained loudly about how ugly and difficult Notes was. Won't those same users be heard if they loudly sing the praises of a new product designed around them? They need to be reacquainted with the new Lotus Notes.

  1. 17  Keith Brooks http://www.vanessabrooks.com | 5/5/2009 7:23:13 PM

    @11 I was referring to the idea that someone else already played this deck of cards and I agree with your view of it. I liked GE's way, even though it may not have made one difference in their share price or sales.

    I for one was rather depressed to see that although IBM invites people to be smarter, there is NO WAY TO DO SO from the site.

    Where is the buy now link? Where is the IBM is hiring you to create the future link?

    So just what does this tag line at the end of all the ads really mean?

    "Let’s build a smarter planet. Join us and see what others are thinking at ibm.com/think".

    Join us, to me means buy or come work on this idea or for us on this idea. I see no such links, so this is just a bad white paper?

    We want to believe, we want to do, we want to help, this doesn't do any of this.

  1. 18  Timothy Briley  | 5/5/2009 9:23:16 PM

    I'm guessing that any members of the IBM marketing team reading the responses to this post must be thinking 'Hey, we're the marketing experts, why don't the gearheads just stick to coding'.

    And the answer is that we've tried. But even though we've watched Lotus Notes get better and better over the years, we've watched our opportunities to make a living 'sticking to coding' dwindle. In the opinion of many of us, it's not the product, it's the lousy marketing of the product combined with the mixed messages from IBM.

    I'm especially angry about this right now because I learned this week that yet another one of us, Chuck Dean, a really knowledgeable guy, has left our ranks for a Microsoft shop in order to keep from moving. { Link }

    Chuck lives on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, an area that my wife and I are from and that we would really like to move back to. But as Chuck can tell you, there aren't any Notes jobs remaining there.

    So as developers, administrators, and business partners, we have a vested interest in Lotus Notes marketing succeeding. We are hopeful that things are turning around, but for many of us time is running out.

  1. 19  Andy Steven  | 5/5/2009 9:44:17 PM

    Well said @18, I've just sent my resume out, no more Notes work in my town... :(

    A few weeks ago I was under the impression it was only my poor little town doing badly, big Notes sales every where else, but I fear not..

  1. 20  Michael Kobrowski  | 5/5/2009 10:08:45 PM

    @15 very right, I do think NPR advertising is a good idea. Builds good will from listeners, of all different socio-economic and political levels.

    @general - I only read the screenshot Ed put up quickly, and thought....not much... kinda neat..good thing to SHOW what companies are doing, yeah.

    Now going through the site... I wish the links

    Overview-Energy-Traffic-Telecom etc would be (also) on top, because its a long scroll down - or maybe on the side as well.

    I looked at a couple of videos and I like it - good videos, showing people - if not the product, because, well. with the Traffic ones, the product isn't that sexy ;) I bet...

    I kind of like the "I am an IBMer and thats what I am working on" although it does sound somewhat like "I am a PC"...

    So.... all in all.. I am confused...

  1. 21  Andy Steven  | 5/6/2009 1:58:36 AM

    I've been posting a bit on this website lately and winging alot, it's only because I think Notes is awesome. Thank god we don't have to try and sell this { Link }{ Link } makes you realise how far mary beth and co are putting us up on the competition.

  1. 22  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 5/6/2009 6:43:04 AM

    @21 - I'd be prepared to give Novell the benefit of the doubt and say that the screenshot would look 1000x better if they'd colourised the content with pastels. Seriously. I used colorschemer.org to ensure my choice of colours in Notes 8.x blended nicely so it looks great. In the wrong hands and with the wrong colours, Notes 8.x could look nearly as horrible as that... nearly.

    Sorry, a bit off topic, but I'm not commenting on IBM marketing here ;o)

  1. 23  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 5/6/2009 6:44:12 AM

    @22 - whooops, colorschemer.com

  1. 24  Mark Hughes  | 5/6/2009 7:27:54 AM

    @22 great resource, i will start using this, thanks

  1. 25  Bill Brown  | 5/6/2009 7:35:04 AM

    @20 I didn't necessarily mean that IBM should start to sponsor NPR (although that wouldn't be a bad thing).

    The statement of how wide spread the use of their product is what caught my attention. Considering how often people say Notes is dead, similar advertising could really open some eyes.

    On a related note, has anyone been receiving multiple copies of the "Smart Work" emails from ls2009? I've gotten three copies addressed "Dear Lotusphere colleague". Someone has been borrowing Mr Peabody's Wayback Machine. I haven't been able to attend LS in 7 years.

  1. 26  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 5/6/2009 8:16:30 AM

    @25: oh yes. { Link }