Executive viewpoint
Nancy Pearson, Vice President of BPM, SOA and WebSphere Marketing, talks about the wisdom resulting from thousands of participants in the Smart Work Jam, the evolution of BPM BlueWorks, and working smarter in Retail, our industry focus for January. Read her commentary.
Results from the wisdom of a crowd of 2,000
On September 16-18, 2009, IBM hosted the Smart Work Jam, engaging industry and university thought leaders, clients, Business Partners and IBMers to discuss how we can work smarter together. For 72 hours, more than 2,000 participants from 68 countries “jammed” with nearly 5,000 posts across seven topics. The Smart Work Jam Report, which details the results of that conversation, is now available.
Based on the concept of crowdsourcing, Jams help businesses and organizations unleash the brainpower of their enterprise to unearth ideas around business-critical or urgent societal issues. In IBM, the Jam began as an internal experiment nearly 10 years ago and is now a proven IBM management tool for driving innovation and collaboration. To run its Jams, either internally or with clients and Business Partners, IBM uses its own InnovationJam™ solution (link resides outside of ibm.com), an Internet-based platform for conducting conversations through brainstorming.
Creating an environment that empowers people and is built for change
In September, the Smart Work Jam forums posed provocative questions that explored ideas for creating a collaborative and connected business environment that both empowers people and is built for change. The Jam fostered a number of ideas that hit upon key themes around:
- The evolution of the workforce,
- The nature of work and the technology that enables it, and
- The impact it can have on people and organizations in healthcare and government.
Underlying these is the role collaborative applications can play when part of processes and platforms that are agile and connected.
The Jam Report summarizes the central themes that emerged from this interactive dialogue. It includes highlights and insights distilled from the Jam, as well as ideas for innovation in these areas. You will also see the results of quick polls that were used to quantify participant’s views on questions related to the forum topics.
IBM learned much from these ideas and will consider the role it can play to help realize some of them. By sharing them with you, IBM wants to encourage a continuation of the thinking and the dialogue on how we can work smarter . . . together.
