Soren Duus Ostergaard - IBM innovation jam

© 2006 IBM Corporation

March 2008

“Pulling off a corporate makeover sometimes means touching base with everybody.”-Investor Business Daily, January 2006, on IBM’s Jam events

IBM Innovation Jam – Experiences & Techniques

Søren Duus ØstergaardSenior e-Government AdvisorIBM

IBM Jam © 2006 IBM Corporation2

Jam: The ingredients A Jam is a massively parallel conference consisting of:

– A high-profile, online event* 12-14 weeks of event preparation

– Specific in duration, typically ranging from 48 – 72 consecutive hours– A defined agenda, focused on strategic & critical enterprise issues– A real-time discussion database with ideas, best practices & employee sentiment

* A disciplined “behind-the-scenes” planning and orchestration effort- 50-200 facilitators, moderators, SME’s, executives, comm’s staff- Business Unit and geographic participants

– Real-time text mining & analysis to surface & steer live discussion trends– Robust event hosting infrastructure (same as US Open, Wimbledon)– 2-3 weeks post-event research & analysis– An event report with key conclusions and an action plan

What makes IBM’s Jams unique?• Leading technology - eClassifier data analysis to help identify trends in massive discussion content• Internal IBM Jam team and IBM research apply proven experience in planning, execution and

analysis• On Demand event hosting infrastructure to ensure a technically robust delivery


How has IBM used Jams?

WorldJam – a new collaborative medium to capture best practices on 10 urgent IBM issues.

Results: 72 hours 52,595 participants (unique users) 6,000+ ideas 268,000+ views of posted ideas

IBM Meets with 52,600 Virtually:

"IBM invited all 320,000 employees to a marathon brainstorming session... capping a nine month effort to imagine and build a suitable room in cyberspace for an event that would be impossible to hold anywhere else.“

-- The New York Times, May 28, 2001



ValuesJam – an in-depth exploration of IBM’s values and beliefs by employees.

Results: 72 hours 22,007 participants

(unique users) 9,337 posts/replies 1.25 million views to site Set of new core values defined by IBM’s workforce 210,000 downloads)

Homebred CEO Summons IBM's Past, Present, Future:

“To create this old/new culture, Palmisano got IBM's 320,000 employees involved. ‘It couldn't come from the top,’ he says. ‘It's got to be theirs. And, almost, it's more important it's theirs than what it is.’ “Over the summer, IBM held

what it called an online jam — a massive, 72-hour chat room where employees could voice ideas.”-- USA Today, November 19, 2003


Values Jam - why did IBM do it? Ability to find important patterns, themes,

learning across the enterprise on specific business issues

Transform IBM into a values-based management system company, and leverage employees who are the closest to the action

Not top-down or bottom-up – lack of hierarchy improves employee acceptance of outcomes and resulting action plans

Sense of immediacy given time-defined nature of event – helps drive change

Nothing is lost – organizational learning captured and a record lives on for analysis

Structure provides sense of common purpose, keeps employees/ideas on track

“I walked into our executive committee meeting and said, ‘You guys ought to read every one of these comments, because if you think we’ve got this place plumbed correctly, think again’.”

- Sam Palmisano, Harvard Business Review Interview, December 2004



IBM Meets with 52,600 Virtually:

"IBM invited all 320,000 employees to a marathon brainstorming session... capping a nine month effort to imagine and build a suitable room in cyberspace for an event that would be impossible to hold anywhere else.“

-- The New York Times, May 28, 2001

WorldJam2004 – focused on pragmatic solutions around growth, innovation and bringing the company’s values to life

Results: 54 hours + 7 days of rating ideas 56,870 participants (unique users) 32,622 posts/replies 2.3 million views to site Tens of thousands of ideas Ratings site translated into 11 languages 65 ideas received 5,000 or more votes – 35 were funded with 100 Mio $

“Your colleagues are providing IBM with a body of concrete, pragmatic suggestions from the front lines, ideas that will serve us well for years -- and that will, in the near term, help us jump-start the work of

making IBM a living, breathing example of our values.” – Sam Palmisano


WorldJam2001 ValuesJam WorldJam2004a new collaborative medium to capture best practices on 10 urgent IBM issues.

an in-depth exploration of IBM’s values and beliefs by employees

focused on pragmatic solutions around growth, innovation and bringing the company’s values to life

InnovationJam2006IBMers, family, clients and partners discuss how to combine new technologies and real world insights to create market opportunities

• 140,000+ people have participated • 4.2+ million page views of Jam- related materials • 46,000+ ideas posted – from more than 75 countries and 67 companies

6,046 posts

9,337 posts

32,662 posts

268,233 views

1,016,763 views

2,378,992 views

4.200,000+ views

46,000 posts


90 Hours of Jamming80 Countries>1.000 Companies20 Industries90.000 Logins32.000 Posts1.500.000 PagesAverage Jammer returned

8 times14 Immediate Major opp’s





IBM Jams…. what’s been the value? WorldJam2001

Established a new medium to share best practices across a global workforce; 66% said others' comments influenced them to think differently about one or more issues.

Manager JamIdentified issues for two-year, companywide Role of the Manager@IBM initiative; 60% of participants state that they plan to do something new as a result of the event.

Consultant JamAccelerated merger of IBM's consulting practice with PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting; 25% of participants have a more positive impression of the PwCC acquisition after the Jam (68% neutral).

On Demand IT JamQualified a number of key workstreams in IBM's internal On Demand IT plan.

ValuesJamSet of new core values defined by IBM’s workforce (210,000 downloads of “Our Values at Work”); 40% report that the Jam facilitated communication with senior leaders (much higher than in the past).

WorldJam2004Senior management qualified 35 workstreams for implementation. Follow up continues.


4. In the background IBM’s e-Classifier text-mining tool is

used to scan the discussion forums to identify emerging themes and help participants quickly grasp the essence — and priority — of the underlying discussions in any forum.

IBM’s SurfAid provides real-time metrics on usage and demographic participation.

Forum participation and discussion is influenced through real-time human intervention using both e-Classifier and SurfAid data .


Real Time ReportingAnalyze data coming from your site in real time

Answer business questions such as:•How many visitors are on the site?•What content are they examining? •What are my traffic patterns throughout the day?•Do various campaigns stimulate immediate responses?


Habitat Jam: World Urban Forum The World Urban Forum was established by the United Nations to examine rapid urbanization and its impact on communities, cities, economies and policies.

In December 2005, the Canadian government, IBM and UN-HABITAT hosted a 72-hour ‘Habitat Jam’ to stimulate ideas in preparation for the WUFIII conference in Vancouver in June 2006.

To learn more, go to http://www.habitatjam.com/


Habitat Jam

From the world’s slum dwellers to the elites of government, business and academia, tens of thousands of people representing 158 countries -- including many who live in severe poverty and had never before seen a computer -- came together via Habitat Jam, the largest public consultation ever held on urban sustainability.

“Habitat Jam helped bring to the fore the concerns of the urban poor, especially in developing countries. The Jam has meant that for the first time many slum dwellers were given access to Internet facilities. It

made their voices heard.” -- Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka, executive director of UN-HABITAT.

© 2006 IBM Corporation

Back up – Additional Remarks


Jam: Key characteristics Scale:

–Big enough to capture meaningful results –Typically enterprise-wide or very large cross-segment

Non-hierarchical:–Equal access for all

Focus:–Predefined goal & discussion themes–Structure to keep employees/ideas on track

Immediacy:–Intensive, finite window of activity

Transcript:–Nothing is lost – organizational learning is captured and lives on for analysis

Pragmatic: –Idea stimulation vehicle–Participants rate actionable ideas and behaviors

Not anonymous: –Participants are identified

A Jam is a focused transformational intervention. It’s a big event.Describing a Jam as a discussion forum is a vast oversimplification.


Jam: How does it compare to other mediums?

Focus on urgent strategic issues Immediate actionable outcomes

A suggestion box, wikiA place for people to provide ideas for improvement

Active discussion & ideation Less structure and formality Ability to capture participants’ “tone”

Survey, pollTo take the “pulse” of the organization

Dialogue among attendees Broad participation creating legitimacy and buy-in

Speech, video broadcast, intranet announcement

To roll out a change agenda

Lower-cost alternative Lasting data archive Broader, more democratic participation

Face-to-face conference, training class

To foster peer contacts, facilitate group discussions and problem-solving

More structured participation/facilitation More focused discussion Text mining to help structure the discussion

Discussion forum, chat-room,Blog

Discussion of random issues over a longer time

Use a Jam if you want . . . You could use a . . . If you need . . .


What a Jam is not

An announcement vehicle for party or company promotion A top-down communications tool for CEO’s or Politiians A dumping ground for employee/citizen suggestions and complaints A community creator / definer: it’s a population, not a community per se A personal soapbox for managers and politicians (‘They agree with ME!) Anonymous: participants are identified (award and reduces negativism) Does not happen more than once or twice per year (avoid “Jam Fatigue”)

Jamming is ideal for situations with:

4. A very large audience5. A limited timeframe6. Massive “many-to-many” dialogue.

No other medium can meet these needs as effectively. Jamming is not the best medium for ongoing dialogue or small-scale discussion.


What makes a Jam

successful…and how we can help?

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