Turbo Blog—Todd Watson, Top Blogger at IBM
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As for my day job, you can read my biography and know that I’ll likely be writing more about what I do at IBM here in future posts. However, I don’t expect to have my IBM job much longer. I keep pretty current on the blogo-sphere, and the average life expectancy of the corporate blogger has recently dwindled close to that of the average life span of the fruit fly. So, now that I’ve started blogging, I figure I’m out of here within the next few hours.
I will tell you in advance that it has been an incredibly good 14-year ride, IBM is a great place to work, and I had a lot of fun blogging on behalf of the company these past few minutes. More important, the bidding for my services moving forward will start on eBay just as soon as I get a call from HR in Somers.
With all that in mind, feel free to consider my biography as an abbreviated version of my IBM obituary—or if you happen to be in the market to hire, the summary version of my new résumé. My qualifications go something like this: I’m a 14-year IBM veteran who
- Knows how to build and manage large, complex, global Web sites
- Can build impactful online advertising and marketing campaigns
- Does great PowerPoint
- Has the ability to fly coach from Austin to Tokyo and use the fare savings to help boost your company’s bottom line
- Can convert several global time zones and currencies in his head
- Is entirely open to learning Chinese, Hindu, Portuguese, or Slovak (not necessarily in that order or intimating any geographical preference) at your company’s expense
If you need any or all of these qualities, I am your man.
If not, and assuming I am still employed by IBM in the coming days and weeks, bookmark this site or add it to your RSS reader because we’re about to embark on a virtual adventure the likes of which have never been seen in the blogosphere, the biosphere, or any other virtual/human-inhabited environment.
You see, I’ve always subscribed to the philosophy that business can be both profitable and fun, and I’ve practiced that in my own business writing and discussions. Quite frankly, boring talk about boring business verges on the coma-inducing. The globalization of business and the core ideas behind what we call on-demand business at IBM are about some of the most exciting, invigorating, and challenging topics I have ever personally dealt with, and that’s precisely how I aspire to approach them—with your participation, of course.
I’ve been at this on-demand business thing for going on 11 years now and have the unique advantage of having been there as the ideas and approach behind the original idea of e-business were being developed. While much of the rest of the world was talking about which Internet browser to use, we at IBM were talking about how the Internet would change the world and business—and about the technologies and solutions we were building that would help our customers adapt and benefit from that change.
That conversation continues today, although I would suggest that the opportunities (and challenges) of on-demand business are even more immense, and at the same time acknowledge that we at IBM do not pretend to have it all figured it out. Although we do work hard to make our own significant contribution—and we’ll certainly talk about some of those contributions here—we learn from our customers, competitors, and partners every day of the week. On-demand business is, if nothing else, all about the web of ecosystems, partnerships, and integration (and ultimately the new business value) that so many of us are collaboratively building together.
As I’ve often said to my own colleagues inside IBM, on-demand business is like building a structure in the middle of an earthquake. The landscape is constantly shifting, so you’d better stay on your game and keep an eye on the trembling horizon. If you look away for too long, it won’t look the same, and you might not even recognize where you are.
So here’s to keeping our collective eye on that horizon together—there’s nothing like a good earthquake to sharpen one’s senses. I’m looking forward to learning more about what’s going on out there in your own environment—business large or small, educational institution, government office, or otherwise—and also to sharing some insight as to what’s going on inside IBM: in our labs, our various business units, and perhaps even down the hall.