Irving Wladawsky-Berger

Reflections on Immigration

In mid-January I went back to Mexico for meetings with clients and academics, as well as colleagues from IBM.  As you might imagine, the immigration debates going on in the US are being closely followed in Mexico.  The people I spoke to were generally very critical of the Mexican government because it has not done nearly enough to improve economic conditions in the country so that the poor don’t feel the need to go North in search of a livelihood for them and their families.

But, they also had many questions about our actions in the US.  I was asked, for example, why, almost twenty years after the dismantling of the Berlin Wall - with all the ugliness it symbolized - here is the winning superpower of the Cold War planning to build a new, even bigger Berlin-style wall.  Such questions caused me to reflect back on immigration, and the debates it has ignited in the US.

Immigration is a very complex subject.  There is no doubt that the US needs a comprehensive immigration solution that properly takes into account various factors, including the security of our borders, the enforcement of workplace rules and labor demand and supply. We also need to find a practical and decent way to deal with the existing population of illegal immigrants in our country.  President Bush made immigration reform a key priority in the 2007 State of the Union.  I sincerely hope that this coming year, the Administration, the House and the Senate will engage in a civilized dialogue and come up with a good, bipartisan immigration reform bill.

Thank You

Before posting my next blog entry in a day or two, I would like to take a minute to thank all the people who took the time and wrote such nice comments to last week's post - where I discussed my feelings about my upcoming retirement from IBM and the institution where I have worked for 37 years.

I really, really appreciate your sentiments. 

Thank You

Moving On

After thirty-seven years at IBM, I will be retiring this coming June.  I will continue to be involved with the company on a part-time, emeritus basis, contributing as appropriate where I can.    

Thirty-seven years in one company is a long time indeed, especially in this day and age.  I suspect that few will ask me why I am finally moving on.  Indeed, many may wonder what took me so long.

In truth, I have been thinking about this change for a while now, especially since becoming eligible to retire seven years ago.  But I could not quite bring myself to do it until now.  Why is that?  Well, IBM has been such a special place for me that it made my decision to retire very difficult.  Let me offer some personal reflections by way of explanation.

Well Functioning Business Ecosystems

The annual compilation of companies receiving the most US patents was released last week.  For the fourteenth consecutive year IBM earned more U.S. patents than any other company, with a record 3,621, exceeding the next closest patent holder by 1,140.

As in previous years, we used the occasion of this announcement to call attention to an important new program: a new initiative aimed at helping smaller companies participate and contribute to reforming patent systems and improving patent quality around the world.      

IBM will develop and host the online Inventor's Forum, where individuals, small and mid-size companies, as well as venture capitalists and others who work with them can share and debate their ideas on patent reform.  Since they account for a significant percentage of the invention that occurs around the world, it is crucial that we all understand their ideas as well as their concerns - so we can collaborate to improve the overall health of our patent systems.

I believe that in our increasingly global, integrated and transparent world, major business and societal initiatives like patent reform can succeed only if managed in a collaborative style for the benefit all constituents - not just the bigger and more powerful players.  We need to learn from the characteristics of well functioning biological ecosystems.  Let me elaborate.

Outsourcing and Collaboration

A variety of books and papers have been written on the growing trend of outsourcing products and services.  Their basic premise is the need for companies to evolve from the vertically integrated, hierarchical organizations that were the norm for the last hundred years and to focus their energies on those activities that bring real business value.

The outsourcing trend naturally leads to the establishment of industry value webs or ecosystems, in which each participant specializes in its key areas of strength.  The rise of the Internet, the adoption of technical and business standards, and plummeting transaction costs are key driving forces behind this trend, along with the need for businesses to become more flexible in order to compete in today's fast-changing, dynamic marketplace.

While the basic direction toward networked enterprises and industry value webs is a given, many important questions arise on how best  to implement them.  A particular concern is whether a company that outsources some of its key functions puts itself at risk of being hollowed out in those areas, and is thus trading long-term innovation for near-term efficiencies and flexibility.  This is indeed a valid concern - one that lies at the nexus between outsourcing, and collaboration, talent and innovation.  Let me offer some personal thoughts.

We should think of outsourcing as a spectrum of business relationships that extends from relatively straightforward procurement at one end to close alliances at the other, with various degrees of collaboration in between.  Examples at the extremes are easiest to articulate, especially in more mature areas such as those involving technology and hardware.

A Key Trend for 2007 - and Beyond

As the New Year begins, it is traditional to review key events from the last year and make predictions for the coming one.  I followed that tradition a year ago when I chose Reflections on Blogging as the theme for my last blog entry of 2005.  I had started this personal blog in May of that year, so a year ago blogging was still a relatively new experience for me - as well as for most people. 

What a difference a year makes!  The sense I get from blogging now, - for me personally and for the world in general, - is that it has achieved liftoff and taken off, no longer a novelty but a part of the environment in which we live in, important for some of us, irrelevant for many.  This is not unusual.  New technology-based capabilities often go from relative obscurity to market acceptance in one short year, - from being used primarily by leading edge adopters in research labs and universities, to being embraced by a wider marketplace. 

At the beginning of 1996, for example, most people were trying to understand the implications of the Internet and World Wide Web.  What was surfing the Web all about?  Why would anyone other than teenagers with time in their hands want to do something so silly?  But, by the end of 1996, a big shift had taken place.  In rapidly increasing numbers, people around the world were going on-line, and more and more companies were starting to formulate e-business strategies to avoid being left behind by the growing number of new and existing companies already leveraging the Internet for business value. 

So, let me start the year by commenting on a key trend that I believe will similarly take off in 2007 and become more widely accepted in the marketplace as the year progresses.  I believe that highly visual interfaces and virtual worlds will become increasingly important for interacting with applications, communicating with people and engaging in commerce,  - what we in IBM have started to call v-business.