IBM exeptional Work and Web experience

During the Lotus here opening session you generally expect new announcements, products and roadmaps but for the most people this didn't seem to happen today.

I had the same experience, but there is vision!

After some more thoughts about exceptional work experiences, web experiences, get social and do business (all the buzz words) i see there is vision. Not yet a complete roadmap and even just the beginning of a change in products, but enough future vision to built a roadmap

Let me explain what I think is so interesting.

1) Systems, Process, People!

Several years ago we spend all out IT budgets on IT systems, hardware and ERP where key elements of information systems, then business processes where hot and now we see the people component kicking in fast, it’s a mind shift next generation thing, but it’s there!

2)  Portalize activities

After building all those IT silo’s (ERP, Messaging, Documents, Datawarehouse, Procurement, HR etc….) we thought of building portals to create user dashboards for more efficient and smarter work.

Then, just about 2 years ago we where confronted with LinkedIn, Facebook, feeds, micro blogging, blogs and many other social components consuming lots of time and now we even build them behind the firewall in corporate environments using activities and discussions.

So how do we solve this time consuming and focus killing social monster? We built a ‘reverse portal’ consolidating all social activities into one ‘activity feed’ (presented today).

3) Social Capital 

I think IBM today defines the future from here towards a more mature social software model that makes social components (PEOPLE) the center of future business by integrating silo’s, portals and activity feeds into the exceptional web experience translated for me towards Social Capital. Social capital is the added value of social software towards business systems, tools and processes.

IBM recognized this and now starts creating more business value with social software by injecting their product portfolio with social components (Business Analytics, Intelligence, Commerce, Development, Messaging etc). Seems like a logical start!

Note to IBM: please line-up the user centric product UI’s to make the integration and user experience seamless!!

I have been working on the Social Capital concept before and now see the value to finalize my presentations in this area, I guess I should go and work on the concept quickly.