Jamming with the world's best company

I love this company. It's enervating and inspiring. Love its vision and energy.

Today is the start of our Innovation Jam. What's a Jam? Like a group of musicians who get together in a studio, and practice and create music off each other's tunes, so we are jamming online. We are a technology company after all, so why not use technology to make the music that will get the world rocking? :)

Technology is an enabler for a hopefully better and kinder world.

Innovation Jam happens online - a giant message board where people post messages, ideas, replies and conunter ideas. The theme for the online Jam session is around delivering Innovation that Matters -- to our company and the world. Incidentally, Innovation That Matters - to our company and the world is the second IBM Value. IBM Values is a guide for the conduct of IBMers worldwide. (Incidentally, the first Value is: Dedication to Our Client's Success and the third Value is: Trust and Personal Responsibility in all Relationships. Is this company cool or what? ;)

So in this Innovation Jam, we will be discussing things that will impact the world: Staying Healthy, A Better Planet (the Environment), Going Places (Travel & Transportation), and Finance and Commerce. And for the first time, we invited our family, friends, business partners and clients to participate in the Jam with us :) We believe that we'll achieve a better solution through collaboration with an entire ecosystem of partners. In a global world, where one thing affects everyone, we can't go it alone, we need to work together to create and produce an optimal solution.

So far, tonnes of postings on Staying Healthy and A Better Planet, with lots of very constructive ideas on planting trees, using solar energy and renewable resources, consuming less; containing contagious diseases, affordable healthcare, and employer programs for employees. I am really enjoying it and learning a lot from reading the postings. Wonderful!

Our MD was just here talking to Talkasaurus and I, and she was just as excited about all the ideas that are popping up. And that led us to talk about some things we can do to energise our folks and truly make this place a more dynamic and exciting place to work. Priceless!

This is our third worldwide Jam. The first Jam happened yonks ago - 2002, I reckon. It was called World Jam - and the topic of the Jam was on what made this company this company ie its Values. After the World Jam which generated a few hundred thousand ideas, we distilled down to three persistent Values which most of us agree on. IBM Values was born.

After IBM Values was born, we took that one step further. How do we ensure that we were living the IBM Values? So the Values Jam was born in 2004, to harness the collective consciousness and intelligence to come up with the best ideas for our clients, company, our people, and the world, in line with our IBM Values. A code of conduct is one thing, but the key is putting that into action.

Now, the next step. Innovation Jam -- where the rest of the Jams was entirely for IBMers, the Innovation Jam is all inclusive of our ecosystem. There aren't too many postings from non-IBMers yet, reckon they aren't used to jamming the way we do, but hopefully, they'll join in with as much passion and enthusiasm as we have.

For this Great Company deserves all that - and more :)