IBM's Collective Intelligence Roadshow

[Steve Bennett]

I have just attended part of this annual event, mainly to hear Karl Kruszelnicki speak on Collective Intelligence. In 2011 The Collective Intelligence Event opened with a panel discussion led by Dr Karl Kruszelnicki on the key issue of productivity growth, or more specifically on Addressing Australia's Productivity Deficit. Very entertaining but perhaps not as original as in past presentations. The highlight was his presentation of a statistical analysis of grandmother death rates and students sitting exams. After this I attended the Businessphere track - featuring presentations on key CHRO (Chief Human Resource Officer) workforce imperatives, how you can combine business intelligence with social software, and productivity success stories from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the Department of Justice and the Land and Property Management Authority. So here's how the sessions played out. Panel Session: Addressing Australia's Productivity Deficit Moderator: Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki Panelists were IBMers: Iggy Pintado, Director of Marketing, Sustainability & Innovation at UXC Connect, Heidi Ambler, IBM Program Director, Social Software and Mac McIntosh, Associate Partner, Strategy - Collaborative Networks. The panel was very 'marketing' oriented but the live polling of the audience (live and online with a simulwebcast) was interesting. The majority of time was spent talking about social business / media. Sounds like we should all be looking at how ants organize themselves. There was little said in relation to productivity declines in Australia (-2.7% in recent years) except to say that the fact that Australia avoided the worst of the GFC has slowed the adoption of social business practices. The implication being that the social tools unlock productivity gains. This sounds right, but no evidence was presented to back the assertion. Of course the counter argument could be that Australia is avoiding the high cost of early adoption? "Forget the content, context is king" was advocated by panelist Iggy Pintado. In my opinion, this is simply wrong as any casual reader of bloggers and tweeters today knows. Yes context enriches content enormously but garbage remains garbage. Take a look at what is being blogged and tweeted out there. The old example of the 3M company was given. This is where research staff in the US are allowed to spend 17% of their time on their 'own' projects. Products originated from these 'private' projects now generates 50% of their revenue. 2010 IBM Global CHRO Study Presented insights into what Chief Human Resource Officer leaders in Australia & across the globe say are their most important workforce imperative. Presented by Mac McIntosh, IBM Associate Partner, Strategy - Collaborative Networks The study was conducted last year, polling 707 executives globally. Two goals emerged as overtaking today's top goal of improving operational efficiency: New product development Moving into new markets. Another message was that leaders (defined by financial outperformance) are 64% more likely to be using advanced supply/demand analytics. The most damming statistic was that 78% of respondents were ineffective at fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing. A close second was that only 21% have recently increased investments...



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