My IBM Journey

While it is great to be 65 years old and ready to retire, I will certainly miss many IBM colleagues. So this post is to just share a few of many great memories, and lessons learned along the way:

1998

My first visit to IBM Research – Almaden was as an Apple DEST (Distinguished Engineer Scientist and Technologist) in June of 1998, while I was still working in Apple’s Advanced Technology Group. Ted Selker (IBM Fellow) had invited me to present at his annual User Experience conference. After my presentation about WorldBoard, a proposed planetary augmented reality system, I recall the next speaker was Larry Page, whose talk was about the little startup Google, that he and his Stanford classmate had recently founded to organize all the information in the world. At dinner that night, with just Ted, Larry, and I, at a French restaurant in downtown San Jose, Ted hinted that IBM was working on a heads up display technology that would be perfect for WorldBoard, and invited me to author a paper for IBM Systems Journal on Information in Places. Ashok Chandra, Ted Selker and Norm Pass (IBM Distinguished Engineer) recruited me to IBM Research, and it has been an exciting journey ever since – nearly 23 years later now.

Lesson from Paul Horn – leverage the matrix: On my first day of work at IBM Research, I asked Paul Horn (VP IBM Research) what was the secret of success at IBM? Without missing a beat, he instantly said “leverage the matrix” and then added “leverage the matrix to do big IBM-scale innovations that matter to our customers and the world.” For me, that translated to getting to know as many new IBMers as I could every week. To put this into practice, this advice means building a network of colleagues and champions across all parts of IBM, all business functions, all industries, and all geos. It was great advice, and I pass it along to all IBMers that I mentor.

From Research, I moved to work for Gerry Mooney (VP IBM Venture Capital Relations Group). He was just starting the group, and he asked me to be his CTO. This happened just as the Internet Bubble was in full swing. IBM had become a limited partner in key funds run by the top VC firms in Silicon Valley and globally. Our job was to create win-win relationships with startups. For example, one startup partnered with IBM, and IBM was able to close a billion dollar outsourcing deal with a large healthcare provider. The startup had a component that the customer needed, and IBM could provide the systems integration and other components of the complete solution. During the next ten years, IBM acquired about one company a month, with an average of $100M annual revenue each, so that translated into over a billion dollars of revenue growth per year just from acquisitions.

Lesson from Jim Corgel – do your homework: On my first meeting with a VC firm, Jim Corgel (VP SWG) and I made the call, because Gerry was tied up elsewhere. I literally met Jim C. for the first time in the elevator ride up to meet the big cheese VC. Jim C. asked if I had done my homework? I said I was still learning. Jim C. nodded, and then said he would do the talking. The venture firm leader began the conversation with “I have a couple startups that are going to put you out of business, IBM. Not even sure why I accepted this meeting.” Jim C. said “I have studied your portfolio and found several companies of interest.” The VC kept up his aggressive statements, and Jim C. kept up his polite replies. Finally there was a long pause. The VC said, “I am not sure we have anything else to talk about.” Jim C. then said, “Your company X is of interest. They recently made a sale to IBM customer Y.” The VC agreed that was a huge win for the startup. Jim C. then proceeded to tell the VC interesting details about the deal, that it was clear the VC did not know. Jim C. also indicated that IBM had been the trusted system integrator on the deal as well as provider of hardware, software, and service. Jim C. then asked “Would you like IBM to introduce your company to additional customers who might be interested in the startup’s innovation.” Suddenly, the VC’s body language totally changed, and the rest of the meeting was a huge success. On the elevator, I told Jim C. that was amazing. Jim C. just looked at me and said, “next time, do your homework.” That was the kick in the butt and guidance I needed to start looking for what mattered in my new CTO role – I needed to find the win-win-win-win situations that make business sense for an IBM customer, startup, VC, and IBM.

2002

By 2002 the Internet Bubble had burst, and it was time to hand the VC CTO role off to someone else who might benefit from the experience (Jurij Paraszczak, IBM Research). About that time, Paul Maglio (IBM Research) came to visit me at our IBM Ventures building in Menlo Park, and suggested that I return to IBM Research to lead a new group at IBM Almaden. With the support of Robert Morris who was Lab Director for Almaden at that time, we founded Almaden Service Research. The story of service science and the IBM Smarter Planet initiative have been told in many places – and both became Icons of Progress for IBM during the IBM Centennial, along with ninety-eight other achievements celebrated by IBM during its 100th birthday year 2011. Almaden Service Research, the group I led with Paul, made contributions to data-driven and science-driven service innovations for IBM and our customers. One of many highlights for me was when Mark Dean (then Lab Director for Almaden) hosted Sam Palmisano and the IBM Board of Directors at Almaden and I got to present to them.

Lesson from Nick Donofrio – keep learning and growing, become more T-shaped. Nick Donforio was a huge champion and advocate for T-shaped skills and service science. Nick gave me sound career advice on many fronts, and for me, Nick was the best example of what an IBMer should be like. He was super direct, fast to respond, and thoughtful/helpful in his advice to everyone. Nick would remind me, “if nothing changes, nothing changes” – whenever I would mention a big obstacle that had me stuck. Nick encouraged me to always look for ways to make a bigger contribution, and to let someone else have your old role, so that they can experience that part of IBM, and make their own unique contribution. In practice, this translates to don’t get too comfortable in any job role – keep looking for challenges and ways to make a bigger contribution. Avoid getting stuck in a rut, even if it is comfortable.

2010

While leading IBM Global University Programs (GUP) I visited universities in 45 countries. The six R’s of IBM GUP have been written about and include: Research, Readiness, Recruiting, Revenue, Responsibility, and Regions. Like the VC CTO role, this job was about finding win-win-win-win situations, for cities, their top universities, ecosystem partners, and IBM to work together. The transformation of higher education to accelerate lifelong learning is ongoing.

Lessons from travel and meeting hundreds of IBMers around the world – family first. Whereever I traveled, especially in developing nations, I had local IBMers pick me up at the airport, and escort me to the hotel, and to my universitiy visits, in Cairo, Manila, and cities around the world. All IBMers that I met put family first. What I truly enjoyed is that these global colleagues made me feel part of their families; inviting me to dinner with their family, meeting their friends, even going to the weddings of their children as a honored guest! This is a very special global family in unique ways that continues even into retirement.

2017

My final role in my IBM journey has been leading the Cognitive OpenTech Group – working on open source Data and AI technologies. Grateful to Todd Moore (VP OpenTech) and Willie Tejada (GM Developer Ecosystem Group) for providing me this exciting capstone opportunity for my career at IBM. IBM acquisition of Red Hat for $34B in 2019, certainly speaks to the growing importance of open source software in the world. AI workloads running in Hybrid Cloud environments on OpenShift is a big ecosystem transformation that is still underway. IBM has been a major contributor of Trusted AI open source software to the Linux Foundation AI and Data. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of AI In the enterprise. Still AI is decades away from being solved, and will surely transform business and society in the coming decades. IBM is known for making long-term investments, like Quantum Computing that eventually pay off big for our customers and the world.

Lesson from Arvind Krishna and Jim Whitehurst – open source and speed of collaborative innovation: In January 2020, just before he became CEO of IBM, Arvind Krishna gave a talk about what IBM could learn from Red Hat about innovation. Arvind pointed out that when multiple companies contribute to an open source industry infrastructure there are “innovation speed advantages” as well as “customer co-creation of value opportunities” that are hard to achieve with a proprietary stack. Jim Whitehurst became President of IBM, and his book “The Open Organization” has many lessons about the advantages of a more open organization culture that leads to win-win-win-win situations.

2021

To retire during a pandemic is an odd thing. Normally IBMers get together in fairly large numbers (I know there are many jokes about this). Typically, we gather at some IBM location or well known local spot in large numbers to celebrate the retirement of a colleague. We enjoy telling stories, and radical candor. Lucky for me, as of June 2021, many IBMers are vaccinated. Before retiring I was able to have lunch with ten colleagues; even one who flew in (Jeffrey Borek, on his own nickle, took his first flight in over a year from Seattle for a day trip to San Jose, to wish a colleague a happy retirement). It was fun sharing stories. Many thanks to all who were present (Dr. Max’s great pictures) and all who wished they could have been there – and maybe will be for future events already being planned. It was a memorable send off for sure, including meeting a few more colleagues for bowling later that day (thank-you Josh Zheng).

Finally, I got an email from IBM HR (yes, mine has continued to work just fine, uninterrupted until I left). The email message title was “one more thing before you retire.” Curious, I opened the note. “Would you work for IBM again in the future? If yes, when would you be willing to start? What would you most like to do? Any other thoughts to share before you go?” My answers: Yes, maybe in about a year or so, but just a few hours a week, really anything where I can be helpful, but customer briefings and motivating new IBMers, who are just starting their IBM journey, are surely the most personally rewarding. The future is waiting, and ready to unfold in surprising and innovative ways.

References

Almaden USER Lab and Conferences – https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/985921.985989

Ashok Chandra – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashok_K._Chandra

Gerry Mooney – https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerard-mooney-3b318/

GUP Six R’s – https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/MC.2010.230

IBM Research – Almaden – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Research

IBM’s Service Journey – https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308922682_IBM%27s_service_journey_A_summary_sketch

IBM Venture Capital Relations Group – https://www.ibm.com/innovation/venture-development

Information in Places – https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Information-in-Places-Spohrer/c406e28f844416a98e4802ce85520b67cda391aa

Jim Corgel – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm3cqVuOqMQ

Jim Spohrer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri1-RvtRBCI&t=413s

Norm Pass – https://www.linkedin.com/in/norm-pass-7423b531/