For those that don’t know this term, it is the highest honor that IBM can bestow on an inventor/engineer/contributor.  These are the best and brightest not just at IBM but in the industry.

On occasion, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with other fellows and I can say that this is why IBM has been and is one of the technology leaders in the industry.  Here is the line up of new fellows and press release:
IBM has elevated nine employees to the title of IBM Fellow — its most prestigious technical honor. The company also presented more than $3.5 million in cash awards to corporate and patent portfolio awardees in addition to awards given to more than 500 IBM technical leaders from around the world directly responsible for collaborating to deliver true innovation and business value every day.

Nine employees who earned the coveted distinction of IBM Fellow: Pictures here

Emmanuel Crabbé
Systems and Technology Group, East Fishkill, New York
Dr. Emmanuel Crabbé is an extraordinary and steadfast contributor to the I B M Systems a n d Technology Group. As Chief Technologist for the Systems Group, he has consistently demonstrated leadership in technology development, qualification, and product bringup. In particular, Dr. Crabbé’s work in leading the process development team that designed and implemented the 65-nanometer process resulted in the successful general availability of the eClipz POWER6 system in June 2007. His work in this area has led directly to the POWER6 systems boasting the world’s highest frequency of operation.

Robert H. High Jr.
Software Group, Austin, Texas
As an industry pioneer in the field of Services Oriented Architecture (SOA), Robert H. High Jr. has positioned IBM as a leader in delivering critical technologies to its clients. His leadership of the SOA Foundation, which lays out the basic business case behind IBM’s advocacy of SOA, has allowed the company to communicate an understanding of both the value and structure of SOA deployments to thousands of clients. It has served as the genesis of the SOA Portfolio, a core contribution of future Software Group and Global Business Services profitability.

Hiroshi Ito
Research, San Jose, California
Today, all advanced chips in the world are produced with chemically amplified photoresists, a process co-invented by Dr. Hiroshi Ito. Without this revolutionary technology, advances in semiconductor technology would have fallen behind the timeline set forth by Moore’s Law. Dr. Ito’s invention has greatly aided the production of more powerful chips at a lower cost, and contributed substantially to the worldwide economic growth of the last 15 years.

Susan L. Miller-Sylvia
Global Business Services, Sacramento, California
Susan L. Miller-Sylvia has established herself as a leader in the worldwide Global Business Services community and a mentor with relentless influence on IBM technical professionals and executives. She is a member of the Americas IT Architect Board, and a pioneer in the development of image technology solutions, particularly as it pertains to enterprise content management, document management, digital media, and unstructured data.

David Nahamoo
Research, Yorktown, New York
Over the last 25 years, Dr. David Nahamoo has championed worldwide efforts to realize spoken language as the inevitable mode of interaction with digital systems. He is a world-class technician, having developed algorithms that contributed to IBM’s leadership in speech recognition, some of which resulted in the company’s highly successful deployment of ViaVoice. His research in the areas of acoustic modeling, training, and resource-optimized implementations has been at the core of IBM’s Automatic Speech Recognition engines for years.

Pratap Pattnaik
Research, Yorktown, New York
Dr. Pratap Pattnaik has been appointed an IBM Fellow for his technical leadership in defining and optimizing the stack for IBM’s enterprise server systems. He has been the chief architect and scientist for defining, designing and implementing the key research technologies that have influenced IBM’s server design in the area of commercial systems and high-performance computing. His research has resulted in significantly faster and less expensive systems, and he has pushed the robustness of the UNIX operating system to new levels, yielding significant client value. Dr. Pattnaik’s contributions span across the enterprise stack of systems, software and services, including partitioning, autonomic computing, and reliability, availability, and serviceability technologies. He was the first to recognize the importance of the memory subsystem in a multi-core system.

Thomas L. Seevers
Sales and Distribution, Lincoln, Nebraska
Dr. Thomas L. Seevers has been a leader in developing and defining the role of the Client IT Architect within IBM. He has contributed to the company’s thought leadership around the development and deployment of IT architecture and systems integration, working directly with some of IBM’s largest clients. He co-authored TeAMethod (Technical Architecture Method), a common approach to engaging clients and designing appropriate solutions. The approach has been used by more than 2,000 practitioners, and has enabled seamless transitions from sales to deployment. It has also been adopted as the basis for the continuing deployment of the Client Values Initiative. Dr. Seevers led the development of the IBM Industry Transformation Toolkit, which is a basis for understanding a client’s needs and identifying the IBM solutions that address those needs.

Moshe Yanai
Systems and Technology Group, Waltham, Massachusetts
Moshe Yanai is one of the most influential contributors in the history of the data storage industry. His thirty years of technical expertise and design innovation are legendary. He has led three major waves of innovation in enterprise data storage, including: using fixed block architecture disks for mainframe storage; developing the Symmetrix high-end storage systems, the first that enabled multiple open system servers to connect to the same storage over SCSI; and finally, the development of the first truly scalable grid storage system, which he developed at XIV Ltd., a startup that was later acquired by IBM.

Harry M. Yudenfriend
Systems and Technology Group, Poughkeepsie, New York
As the lead technologist for IBM System z I/O, Harry M. Yudenfriend has developed and implemented a roadmap that has allowed consistent data growth, performance improvements, enhanced resilience, continuous availability, increased scale and improved efficiency. In particular, he has improved the server/storage synergy and increased the scale and intelligent management of devices attached to IBM System z. He is an inventor of HyperSwap and Dynamic I/O Reconfiguration Management for continuous availability, HyperPAV for improved efficiency and simplification and extended addressability volumes for increased scale, all of which added to the total of 90 patents issued or pending to his name.
The title of IBM Fellow is the company’s most preeminent technical distinction and is granted in recognition of outstanding and sustained technical achievements and leadership in engineering, programming, services, science and technology.  To further enhance their potential for innovative achievements they are given additonal responsibilities in their areas of specialization.  Only 209 individuals have earned this designation in the company’s history and, including the newly named Fellows, 70 are active employees.

I enjoy reading the SageCircle blog as it has so much cogent advice for those in Analyst Relations (both for the professionals and also the rest of us). Carter Lusher writes well and has a lot to offer. I readily admit that there are times I don’t put down everything in writing, because I want to keep an ace or two up my sleeve, but Carter lays it on the line.

I was reading his recent blog on The Top 5 Mistakes that A/R (un)Professionals make (I added the UN to include me), and came across this the line in title, about narcissitic prima donnas. After soiling myself while laughing so hard, I started to think about my experiences with analysts over the years. Here is a snip..

4. Vendors use the same approach used for all analysts and all firms. Some firms have very bureaucratic briefing request procedures while others permit vendors and PR firms to call the analysts directly. Market researchers need numbers while advisory analysts provide customer success stories. Some analysts are very structured in the information they want and the briefing structure while other analysts even at the same firm are very informal.

Downside - analysts are narcissistic prima donnas who want to do things their way. Vendors who ignore basic differences between analysts and firms run the risk of irritating the analysts, not providing needed information and wasting the analysts’ time.

Before I digress to my spew, please go read this entire blog, as he makes some great points about how and who to contact (as usual he writes better than me). I use many of these tactics and one (or more) may be some of the aforementioned aces. You must treat different analysts and firms according to their needs and the relationship you have with them, period. Please pay attention to Carter’s point if you want to even be considered as in the A/R game.

I believe in staying a step ahead of those who sit in my seat at the competitors. For me, second place is first loser, I compete at everything, even with myself if no one is around. If I get to the Kobayashi Maru, I try to Captain Kirk it. Knowing the analysts on a relationship basis is the key to working with them properly

Now to my point. While Carter has nailed it for many of the analysts, the analyst profession has changed greatly since I’ve been in A/R. Back in the days when I was dragging my knuckles and carrying a club and building a fire in a cave, it was a tongue lashing almost every time we met with most of the analysts. After words, the executives would look to avoid those who were belligerent, unless the exec was just as much of a horses patoot (and I’ve seen a few in my days). Come contract time, the comments would fly like sparks from a bonfire about which analyst really added value or not. It is amazing the correlation in time/belligerence and value/change in how much we worked with them.

I’m going to give analysts credit now. Either I’ve run into a different crowd or they have kept the cerebral and left the hangover mentality, gnats attention span and verbal abuse behind. For example, I’m in a huge program review with one of the big three right now and the lead analyst couldn’t be more cordial. The review rules were clear, we are given our say and it has been as fair as you can be, and on time. I have nothing but good things to say.

I can site numerous other examples of analysts working with me to solve a problem rather than dumping on me, mostly because we know that it is the best way to get through it rather than just berate us on how bad we are.

I will say though, that analysts always come with a few things in their toolbox…. an opinion, a willingness to share it and most of the time more knowledge that we have about the industry. I’ll let them comment on ego, which some have (see the comment by Tom).

Here is how to properly remember our veterans.

I filmed this at church when they had the veterans stand up by branch of service, it was very moving.

I have some other salutes also, here is one from Toby Kieth to the dixie dipsy chicks twits. Toby’s father served, so he is one of the few of the famous who go over to entertain the troops and support those who fight for the free world.

America Salutes the hero’s.

Here is a video memorial to the fallen.

For those who hate the military, this one is for you.

And finally, God Bless America by Martina McBride.

Trucks and guns seem to go together pretty well. Max Motors in Missouri is holding a promotion for just that, $250 of gas or $250 gun.

“Everybody has a right to protect themselves,” store manager Walter Moore told us. “So we’re giving them guns.”

What did they pick? So far out of 45 people, only 2 picked the gas. Guess which 43 aren’t going to get robbed?

As Brad Paisley sings, “my eyebrows ain’t plucked there’s a gun in my truck, oh thank G-d, I’m still a guy”.

Is this Obama inspired?

Once again, I’d wish I’d written this. I’ve thought about most of these, but wasn’t cogent enough to list them.

So Hat Tip to Dave Johnston who put this together.

1. If you don’t pay for your house, they take it back.
2. If you buy a house that you cannot afford, you will not be able to pay for it (See also: #1).
3. Everything is paid for, even free downloads. Or free healthcare.
4. You do not have an inalienable right to not be offended.
5. Smaller portions of crap is still crap. So is crap with whole grain.
6. The President has a lot less power than advertised. He or she cannot, for example, “cap outlandish interest rates,” or “expand flexible work arrangements,” regardless of how nice it sounds in the commercial.
7. Losing exists, no matter how many trophies are handed out.
8. Dandelions are flowers. Humans just have an attitude problem.
9. Nobody looks for the state-issued professional license when they get a haircut. Same goes for the florist, or the lobster seller, and most likely even your doctor.
10. You are a minority somewhere in the world. Rub some dirt on it.
11. Some humans are more productive than others. This concept is similar to inertia. It is not a judgment, it is physics.
    
12. In 1998 climate change was a chance of thunderstorms in the 5-Day Outlook.
13. You can spend 8 hours clicking a computer’s mouse and still not do anything.
14. Humans are hunter-gatherers. Omnivores. This means wild game. It’s just science, no hard feelings.
15. I don’t know what a robe is for either.
16. When an investment plan requires more and more new investors’ money to pay returns for the initial few, this is called a Ponzi Scheme. However, in the United States, this is called “Social Security.”
17. Women are different than men. Many women I’ve known love this fact.
18. A product or service - regardless of how amazing - that requires money to create or deliver, but does not produce actual revenue, is not a business. That is called a charity.
19. Everyone argues at the airport. The best bet is to get home and make up over wine.
20. When the industry you work in becomes obsolete, you frequently lose that job. This is not an outrage, it is evolution.
21. New people being born throughout the world (from the wombs of existing people, thereby producing additional people) creates more demand for goods and services. If the supply stays the same, prices go up. This is commonly called business.
22. The guy on the Bluetooth headset at Target is a douchebag. It’s not you.
23. Money and trade is simple. You’re the thing that’s complicated.
24. 94% of the United States is undeveloped land.
    
25. Grand Theft Auto IV has amazing, open-world realistic gameplay. Even more amazing? Actual reality.

n/t War on Terror News.

Today is the NASCAR All Star Race in Charlotte NC. Without doubt, it is the most patriotic sport of the biggies, and yes if you compare the fan attendance, it is one of the biggies. It also has some of the most patriotic fans willing to support and defend their country. It’s hard to find many Metro-Sexual men in this no PC crowd, no girly men here. I know the NY’rs I work with subtract a few IQ points from those with a southern accent, but there are a ton of millionaires and a few billionaires in this crowd…..match up against that.

So, in honor of Armed Forces Day, or maybe because they are patriotic, or maybe because the advertisers know the audience so well, here is the list of sponsors by Car from the Armed Forces. It’s going to be tough to chose between the 8 and the 88.

h/t to Kisp on this one, but it’s how I found out about it…

It never fails to amaze me that when I see those protestesting the military, the main wall between them and the enemies who want to take us down, cause us harm and take over our great nation.

I’ll point out that there has never been a time without a war somewhere since the beginning of man (i.e. Cain/Abel), and while a smaller dog will snap at the ankles, it’s the dog with the biggest bite who lives another day. We should all be grateful to those who are willing (our military is volunteer).

Fortunately, there are enough brave souls that are willing to fight for our freedom that allow these idjuts to protest.

The military is one of the few things that our Government has done right. It has kept us from having to fight the war as a home game for now 200+ years, and has save many other countries along the way. So hat’s off to the military. I’ll salute them and say to the protesters, go find the better place you think you can find, but you won’t get better protection.

Happy 60th Birthday Israel. The irony in this is the reality that the right number is about 5060 years old, as that’s how long they have really occupied the land, but nevertheless, Happy Birthday 60th.

It’s tough to be surrounded by people that hate you and survive all these years, but it appears that they had help,so there is a good reason that they have been there. The Israeli’s are survivors. What I really like is their tenacity at defending their country and their rights. One small strip of land surrounded by hundreds of thousands of miles of land occupied by enemies…whom they defeat or out-think every time.

It is amazing that some of the things that have happened in that region over these years. Technologically speaking, things like WiFi for example, and IBM is invested heavily in the technology there and is taking them to market around the world.

I’ve worked for and with some Israeli companies. And I’ve worked with those who survived the holocost.

Of course, there are some that don’t appreciate Israel quite as much calling it a stinking corpse, and I’m thinking why does one of our presidential candidates want to talk to this guy Mahmoud am-a-dinner jacket, am-a-terrorist? How about aggressive negotiations?

THE BIG QUESTION

Why is an area that doesn’t have a lot of natural resources, not a lot of space, not a lot of people so coveted, reviled and desired by so many? I’m guessing that this has a lot to do with it.

So there will be those who relish this date and those that don’t. Here are others who have covered it:

Infidel bloggers alliance - Did a great job.

Atlas Shrugs who defends Israel and Jewish people on a regular basis.

Gates of Vienna, another defender.

Dr. Sanity, who is as smart and articulate as they come and comments on Women’s issues as well as Scientific achievements:

Israel on the other hand, should be very proud of its remarkable accomplishments in only 60 years. As SC&A note:
Israel, a nation the size of New Jersey, can only lay claim to the following achievements:
-Israel has more museums per capita than any other country in the world.

-Israel has the second highest output of books published per citizen in the world.

-Israelis hold more patents per person than do citizens of any other nation.

-More than 85% of all solid waste in Israel is treated in an environmentally sound manner.

-Israeli companies, Amdocs, Comverse and Nice pioneered voicemail, SMS and other cellular phone services.

-Israel has the highest concentration of high tech companies industries in the world, relative to it’s population.

-ICQ, the technology that powers AOL Instant Messenger, was developed in 1996 by a team of 4 young Israelis.

-Israeli start-up company TransChip developed the first high resolution camera that fits on a single electronic chip, for use in cellular phones.

-Israel is one of only eight countries in the world capable of launching their own satellites into space.

-Israelis developed the world’s first cellphone at the Motorola research lab in Haifa, that companies largest research center in the world.

-Israel ranks third, after the US and Canada, in the number of publicly traded companies on Wall Street.

-Israel has more scientists and engineers per capita than any other nation in the world.

-American industry giants such as GM, Ford and Lockheed Martin manage their manufacturing facilities using software written by Tecnomatix, an Israeli company.

-Israeli company Given Imaging developed a video camera small enough to fit inside of a pill. The camera helps doctors diagnose digestive tract diseases.

-Israeli scientists developed the first computerized radiation free diagnostic scanning device for detecting breast cancer.

-Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation in the world.

And a boatload of other coverage.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Here is a background on how it happened on May 14, 1948
and an excerpt from the story

On the face of it, Ben-Gurion’s hope rested on reasonable grounds. An inflow of Jewish immigrants and capital after World War I had revived Palestine’s hitherto static condition and raised the standard of living of its Arab inhabitants well above that in the neighboring Arab states. The expansion of Arab industry and agriculture, especially in the field of citrus growing, was largely financed by the capital thus obtained, and Jewish know-how did much to improve Arab cultivation. In the two decades between the world wars, Arab-owned citrus plantations grew sixfold, as did vegetable-growing lands, while the number of olive groves quadrupled.
No less remarkable were the advances in social welfare. Perhaps most significantly, mortality rates in the Muslim population dropped sharply and life expectancy rose from 37.5 years in 1926-27 to 50 in 1942-44 (compared with 33 in Egypt). The rate of natural increase leapt upward by a third.
That nothing remotely akin to this was taking place in the neighboring British-ruled Arab countries, not to mention India, can be explained only by the decisive Jewish contribution to Mandate Palestine’s socioeconomic well-being. The British authorities acknowledged as much in a 1937 report by a commission of inquiry headed by Lord Peel:
The general beneficent effect of Jewish immigration on Arab welfare is illustrated by the fact that the increase in the Arab population is most marked in urban areas affected by Jewish development. A comparison of the census returns in 1922 and 1931 shows that, six years ago, the increase percent in Haifa was 86, in Jaffa 62, in Jerusalem 37, while in purely Arab towns such as Nablus and Hebron it was only 7, and at Gaza there was a decrease of 2 percent.

Not really, unless I was born before the Civil War.  I was searching what readers of my blog read and found this which I didn’t know.

The good news is it was a Confederate Ship, since the South won anyway.