I’m frequently asked what it’s like to make an announcement at IBM. I’m also frequently told (by analysts):

Why doesn’t IBM just do x,y,z?

Why did IBM do x,y,z?

Who is the person that does x,y,z?

Company a,b and c can do this, why can’t you?

If IBM would spend some of it’s money doing x,y,z instead of stock buybacks, buying this or that, it would make more sense.

So it is when working at a larger company, things are different, especially in a communications function. It’s like working in the military, the congress or the UN sometimes.

IBM is a Big Company

Well, d’uh. But I had to establish the premise for drawing analogies. With big comes a different set of issues. When I worked at a small company years back, many times I made the decision to do what was needed for press, analysts or marketing campaigns.  If I needed money, I just went to see my buddies in accounting that I likely had lunch with and bingo, it was done.  Not so in a biggie company.

Coordinating communications across multiple disciplines, to different constituencies and from different area’s of the company and still seem congruent at the end of the day is also sometimes a feat. When it works, it is a charm, when it doesn’t…you wonder if we all work for the same company. Not only do you have message issues can conflict, you have executive issues…..and conflict.

There are times when the messages are actually competing with another brand or division. Co-opitiion lets you partner with your competitors and when you announce a joint project, it can upset the applecart internally. Oracle competes with our middleware, yet is a services partner. SAP uses our database technology to compete with Oracle, but again competes with our middleware stack. Microsoft is shipped with some of our servers, yet we are all about Open Source and Linux.

To make an announcement, hold an analyst day or any other form of communication, it calls for multiple revisions, making it hard to stay on track.

Working in the Congress

This is when it’s like congress. You have a bill (set of messages) and it covers many states (brands, divisions, groups) which you have to get it passed (make the announcement). There are constant negotiations, earmarks, pork where everyone has to get their message in. In case you didn’t already know, clear and concise messaging is effective, multiple and conflicting messages are not. It is up to the Comms team to keep it on track. Then you have a speaker of the house (executive) that is making the announcement, including the press secretary (announcement team) who field additional questions and clean up.

Then there are the times when we are doing say, acquisitions. We are sworn to secrecy (NDA’s), are given our marching orders (messaging) have a commander (executive in charge of the project) and are basically told when, where and how things are going down. Now drop and give me 20 push ups. This at times can actually be easier as the butt-in-ski’s from various groups don’t get to put in their 2 cents to slow things to the speed of a glacier. But to watch a big company work with the efficiency of an aircraft carrier, I’ve seen throngs of people get organized and get into action in literally minutes….. and it is some of the most effective work in the shortest amount of time you’ll see at a big company.

The UN
Then there are the communications times that remind me of raising teenagers, like nailing jello to a tree. It’s not clear who’s in charge, who’s announcing what and/or why. But we HAVE to get back to TPTB to report progress. I’m sitting back the whole time watching this train wreck waiting to happen. These announcements usually get swept under the rug or butchered if anyone finds out about them. It’s like working at the UN, people posturing about their product or announcement, but getting nothing done and and having no power to enforce anything….
How to get it to work
The net of it is coordination. A/R has to work with P/R, with the executives, with the analysts, with the press, with the WORLD to get the messaging correct and approved, The whole time the internal team has to notify everyone so that when a customer calls, we actually know what to say. All the affected product groups need to be communicated to and worked with. Timing has to be worked out because if you haven’t noticed, we pretty much announce something every day. It’s hard not to step on someone else’s toes, especially if you are communicating to the same mediums. We have to space out the announcements, and getting priority for yours is like going to court and negotiating a plea bargain. Which announcement is more important to the company? Well, what day is it.

The internal negotiations of such machinations is a skill in itself. You learn political, social, communication and flexibility skills in addition to your job. It is very difficult to make such a big company work together effectively, something that we do better than most, but still have a ways to go sometimes.

So when you ask us, why don’t you just do x, y or z, it’s because were going through the alphabet doing a,b and c,,,,plus some hieroglyphics to get it right, not because we aren’t listening to you. When you ask us who takes care of the revalvitating capitulators and I don’t know, it’s because we’re big and a lot of people do a lot of jobs. Oh yes, and since IBM stands for I’ve been moved, people change jobs and who did it last year is rarely an indicator of who’s doing it now.

It’s a good thing I can blog, the only boss I have to run that by is me.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 6:23 PM and is filed under Analyst Relations, analyst, competitors, ibm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.