EMC's Innovation Conference who-ha is wrapping up today. We'll showcase the idea finalists and honor our winners and new Distinguished Engineers/Fellows at our company-wide meeting we call, "The Quarterly."
So I had a lot of take aways from The Innovation Conference. I'll start with the 'one year later' observation on our behavior as an organization. Last year our internal social network, EMC ONE was brand new. About 4 weeks old, operating in stealth mode. Chuck Holliswas a presenter at the conference. He shared the new tool -- a tool allowing us to connect, collaborate and do all the web 2.0 stuff many of us take for granted, like drinking water, today. I was stunned when a member of the audience -- our techie audience no less -- asked, "Why would I want to participate on such a network? Will I get paid more to do it?" Another asked, "What if my boss doesn't get it and I get in trouble for writing something s/he didn't like?"
Why participate? Such a question seems laughable now! Consider:
- The conference theme was coined by EMCers participating on EMC ONE.
- The logistics were planned by EMCers participating on EMC ONE.
- Proposed "innovation ideas" were presented and discussed by EMCers participating on EMC ONE.
- Winners were voted via a poll of EMCers participating on EMC ONE.
- People who engaged all year from more than 60 countries -- in the more than 80 communities inside of EMC ONE -- were included in this year's conference via the global video broadcast.
- The conference went live around the world, and the world went live back to the conference as we toggled from our facilities and EMC crowds waving in Shanghai, Israel, Ireland, India, Russia and Massachusetts.
This meeting was was different from those I've experienced throughout my 17 year-career at EMC. Not so much on content (that's always pretty good) -- but on the intangible "feeling" of connection. For example, I've always known all of the execs in the room. The PR guy, the marketing folks, and the events crew. I have known a few of the "all star" techies, too ... but everyone else, not so much. And yet, even with those I "knew" -- did I really "know" them as people? Not so much.
Fast forward a year.
The Conference event to me was filled with "friends."
People I didn't know a year ago.
People I would have had no catalyst to interact with a year ago.
People who don't work in the HQ building.
People I've learned a lot from in the past year.
and people, now working together via many social networking/"Enterprise Collaboration" tools, who have done so much to further EMC's brand, EMC's connection and value to customers, EMC's innovations, EMC inclusiveness, and EMC's warmth as a place to work.
All because they WANTED to, were passionate about their subject and opinion and willing to sacrifice a whole lot of personal time to do it.
After the conference -- where this year Steve Todd seemed to be a conference brand name -- many of us, who regularly connect and conduct business via an assortment of web 2.0 tools, went out to share a laugh in person. A treat was having inaugural Visual Talk Radio guest, co-creator, and sometimes co-host, Mark Twomey (aka Storagezilla) join us in person. Joining us was new friend, Radha Sekhar, visiting EMC EMC India, who reminded us to celebrate the moment with this photo -- a moment, which for me represented an amazing landmark year for EMC and our future global and connected competitiveness.
Is it all roses? No. Some folks still don't get it. One person told me there was a joke at another meeting recently that all bloggers should get back to doing their jobs or be fired. Some folks were still thinking in business unit silos, versus global collaboration. But for 95%+ of the people involved in the Innovation Conference, it sure felt as though they 'got it.' We have about 8,000 active participants in EMC ONE currently. The next step? Keep spreading the knowledge, the rewards and the 'feelin' to other 32,000 who might look at web 2.0 with the same type of questions our innovators had last year when learning of EMC ONE.
PICTURED: Steve, Stu, 'Zilla, Brian, Gina, Rahdha and me. Steve's pepper shaker is symbolizing the award he won for having one of the top 3 "best ideas" from the global idea contest which yielded 984 submissions from EMCers around the world. Blogger and co-community manager in EMC's Culture Talk community, David Spencer, had just left -- as did EMC techie and fellow blogger, Dave Graham.
Check out Gina's blog on this same event. She included a brainy 'concept map' on the connections those of us out sharing a laugh have -- connections that wouldn't have taken place without these new 2.0 tools.
------------------------ Talk Back -----------------------
Can you see the value -- and the potential value -- of these types of connections yet? Connections that by-pass organizational silos, geographies, hierarchies, and the skin-deep 'knowing' of people in the standard business-as-usual environment?
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