Can IBM Take the Innovation Ball Back?: A Report From Lotusphere 2012

IBM does a great job of presenting a unified, coherent vision, and this year’s Lotusphere 2012 is no exception. OK Go! rocked the house at the start of the show and Michael J. Fox gave a genuinely inspirational speech touching on themes of gratitude and sharing. After such a slick presentation it is wise to keep the following questions in mind: How much of it is real? Is the vision relevant? Can it be implemented?

The product announcements and demonstrations lead me to the following idea:

Could IBM be poised to take back innovation lead back from Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple?

While this idea will seem ridiculous to Silicon Valley punditocracy, who for the most part have never implemented a system or run an IT department, I think it is plausible for the following reasons:

• IBM in its latest offer has gone a long way to productizing Web 2.0 and Social Media. The integrated collection of messaging, real time communications, social media infrastructure, content management, web experience management, mobility, and analytics all allow a new level of integration of both information and collaboration.
• Unlike the consumer companies, IBM has focused on using standards like Open Social and Activity Streams to connect with existing business applications.
• The flexible deployment model that allows use of on-premise or cloud versions (Smart Cloud in IBM speak) is far more friendly to a huge number of businesses than the cloud only model of the consumer companies.
• The availability of a large ecosystem of channel partners to help with implementation is vital to promote widespread implementation. Creating and supporting such a channel is not something that the consumer companies want to do or know how to do.

What all this adds up to is a platform that can be a central integration point for a new level of process integration.

• By using activity streams to bring in notifications about events, awareness of what is going in a company can be increased. (See my articles about activity streams -- links [1] [2] below -- for more on the importance of manufacturing surprises.)
• By reaching out from those notifications to embedded apps that are present inside the Connections environment through APIs, more information a can be provided about the event and simple actions can be taken.
• By integrating content management, task management, email, and other real time communication, ad hoc collaboration can take place in context.
• By integrating other applications through Xpages and the Notes plug-in, it is possible to bring those applications into the environment.

The consumer companies can claim some of this integration, but the lack of integration with applications is something that they will find hard to overcome. Applications contain the business assets that are the focus of most collaboration. Cloud only deployment model will be a show stopper in many cases as well.

The biggest applause of the session came from the announcement of the Notes plugin that would allow existing applications build on Notes to be included in the Connections environment. This reflects a deep understanding in the audience of the importance of connecting collaboration and social media with existing applications.

So, my view is that the consumer companies have achieved tremendous victories and have changed our lives. Now the way we work will become the focus again. I think IBM has the right vision to become the leader in transforming business processes, which are the key to differentiation and repeatable business success.

Of course there are some significant roadblocks in the way including the following:

• How much will the IBM infrastructure cost?
• Will the configuration and implementation costs be too high?
• How much productized integration is needed? Can you get where you need to go faster and cheaper with systems like Jive Software and custom integration?
• Can you really deliver a great web experience using off the shelf software? Most great web experiences are purpose built.
• Is the system too tied to email delivered through Notes and collaboration delivered through Sametime?
• How easily with other application and integration methods besides Xpages work to integrate with Connections?

In my view, the core vision of adding application integration to a productized infrastructure for Web 2.0 and social media will trump these difficulties and will result in IBM specifically and IT in general taking the innovation ball back and starting the next wave of disruptive innovation.

Two other ideas occurred to me about the conference.

First, I was really impressed that IBM offered a Social Business Makeover. The use of the word makeover, a term that comes primarily from the world of women, was refreshing. It made me realize that unconsciously, we think of most businesses as male. If we started to think of our businesses female or both male and female, I am certain new thoughts would occur to us. Kudos to IBM and its collection of power women for trumpeting the female side of business.

Second, a note to IBM event planners. At a future show, instead of the night club lighting and loud music, why got have a classical guitar virtuoso play several selections? This would be more appropriate to the early morning hours and generate just as much energy. The absence of flashing strobes would provoke fewer migranes. If you need help in figuring out how to really make this work, please drop me a line.)

Finally, in the interests of full disclosure, I would like to report that like many of the analysts and bloggers attending the conference, IBM paid for my air fare and hotel.

[1]IBM's Strategy to Manufacture Social Networking Surprises http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2011/02/22/ibms-strategy-to-manuf...
[2]New Sources for Business Surprises http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2011/02/28/new-sources-for-busine...