3 ms·

“... to reflect our brand and our design principles” Out of interest - What does IBM’s brand mean to you? (Serious question) By that, I think I mean - what do

“... to reflect our brand and our design principles” Out of interest - What does IBM’s brand mean to you? (Serious question) By that, I think I mean - what does IBM make you think of and what emotions does it instil in you when considering the company and brand?

oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
Quality. Professional. Nostalgia. Conservative.
forapurpose 9y ago
Deep, solid expertise and resources, highly professional standards, and a deeply rigid bureaucracy. The latter make accomplishing anything so difficult that it's not worth trying unless you are a customer/partner with influence and unless a big payoff makes it the high cost in time and frustration worthwhile. I avoid buying IBM for that reason - I did recently, because I had little choice, and nothing has changed since the last time I became their customer. IME, the overwhelming response I get from IBM employees to a problem is they tell me about their bureaucratic rules, with no flexibility, and not about solutions to my problem. It's like dealing with a computer algorithm: They follow very specific pre-written instructions, and cannot and will not deal with anything the programmer didn't specifically anticipate. They don't care that a problem exists or needs to be solved; they care only about following their algorithm. And the bureaucracy is so large and complex that they don't know who can solve the problem. When training customer-facing employees, I use IBM as an example of what not to do - it's your job is to solve the customer's problem, not the customer's, and your job is not to follow a procedure; procedures are tools, not outcomes. I'm not blaming IBM's employees by the way; clearly that's a management and organizational problem. When I deal with people at organizations like that, I try to have sympathy - I only have to deal with these frustrations on the occasions I interact with their company; they have to do it all day, every day. They can't bend the rules and go out of their way to help every customer. As long as I'm going on about this: IMHO it also deprives IBM the benefits of human intelligence - dealing with novel situation, innovating and solving problems, etc. Perhaps IBM's view of human work explains, to a some degree, their concept of AI that can replace people.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

oneeyedpigeon 9y ago

Quality. Professional. Nostalgia. Conservative.

forapurpose 9y ago

Deep, solid expertise and resources, highly professional standards, and a deeply rigid bureaucracy. The latter make accomplishing anything so difficult that it's not worth trying unless you are a customer/partner with influence and unless a big payoff makes it the high cost in time and frustration worthwhile. I avoid buying IBM for that reason - I did recently, because I had little choice, and nothing has changed since the last time I became their customer. IME, the overwhelming response I get from IBM employees to a problem is they tell me about their bureaucratic rules, with no flexibility, and not about solutions to my problem. It's like dealing with a computer algorithm: They follow very specific pre-written instructions, and cannot and will not deal with anything the programmer didn't specifically anticipate. They don't care that a problem exists or needs to be solved; they care only about following their algorithm. And the bureaucracy is so large and complex that they don't know who can solve the problem. When training customer-facing employees, I use IBM as an example of what not to do - it's your job is to solve the customer's problem, not the customer's, and your job is not to follow a procedure; procedures are tools, not outcomes. I'm not blaming IBM's employees by the way; clearly that's a management and organizational problem. When I deal with people at organizations like that, I try to have sympathy - I only have to deal with these frustrations on the occasions I interact with their company; they have to do it all day, every day. They can't bend the rules and go out of their way to help every customer. As long as I'm going on about this: IMHO it also deprives IBM the benefits of human intelligence - dealing with novel situation, innovating and solving problems, etc. Perhaps IBM's view of human work explains, to a some degree, their concept of AI that can replace people.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]