Domino's Pizza App on the Apple iWatch!
Guys .... I love this app for the iWatch to track your pizza from your wrist! You can find the app from the iTunes store.
What other super apps are you seeing for the iWatch?
IBM Partners with Girls Who Code to Build Women in Tech Pipeline
On Monday, we kicked-off of our summer immersion program with Girls Who Code – an amazing national non-profit organization that seeks to inspire, educate, and equip girls with computing skills for the 21st century!
IBM will host female high-school students in New York City for an intense, 7 week summer immersion program. These students will experience a robust curriculum of daily classroom instruction, workshops, demos, and talks by a team of remarkable female IBM leaders and more. We’re empowering these girls with hands-on training on the latest and greatest IBM Cloud has to offer! That means instruction on Bluemix, our premier PaaS solution, and a host of other Cloud technologies. They’ll receive more than 250 hours of superb training in a variety of computer science disciplines, including:
· Robotics
· Graphic design
· Mobile apps
· Data structures and algorithms
We’re also providing these girls with career advice, along with help developing their presentation skills, and inspiring their entrepreneurial pursuits. We’ve also lined up some technical experiences through field trips, including, a tour of Astor Place — home to some of our coolest IBM Cloud technologies.
This partnership demonstrates IBM's commitment to helping close the gender gap for women in technology. Currently, women hold 25% of jobs in technical fields. When deciding a college major, 0.3% of girls choose computer science.
We’re so excited to teach these young women using the latest tech from IBM Cloud -- especially Bluemix. Our goal is to enable women around the world across a variety of STEM fields and I can’t think of a greater first step than this partnership with the amazing people of Girls Who Code.
“The gender gap isn’t just a Silicon Valley issue anymore,” said Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code. “The shortage of women in technical roles, whether it’s retail or entertainment, is a massive crisis both in terms of innovation and socioeconomic equality throughout the United States. Girls Who Code has established a successful track record of empowering girls to pursue majors and careers in computer science, and we’re inspired that so many diverse companies have invested in taking our movement to the next level this year.” IBM hopes that along with Girls Who Code, we can see a reverse in this trend, and a move toward balance in the future.
In 2015, Girls Who Code will host 57 programs reaching close to 1,200 girls in nine cities nationwide throughout the summer, representing a significant increase from the 19 programs serving 375 girls in 2014. We’re proud to join this critical effort to close the gender gap in the computing and technology sector!
Effective Social Media Communications - 3 Tips For Friday!
I am riding in the car today with my 16 year old daughter. She was looking for a specific song on the radio. While constantly switching stations she was listening carefully but selectively scanning out the 'wrong' songs. Station after station was rejected until she heard the familiar song she was seeking.
This experience made me think of social media communications. How do you break through all the other "stations" out there and have your audience search for yours?
Here's 3 tips for our Friday!
- Make it noticeable. The song my daughter was searching for had a certain beat. Does your message have the characteristics that will help it to break through the barrage of messages that bombards everyone every day. Should you use video? a Podcast or a blog? How do you express yourself? Make sure you have listened to the right influencers and plan purposefully the message.
- Make it targeted. If you use channels creatively and mix them well, you're much more likely to get your message to those for whom it's intended. The channels have to be ones that your target audience is exposed to. My daughter's song was on her favorite rock station, not my jazz station. Make sure you are where your audience is.
- Make it crowd sourced. Testing your messaging can help you really ensure that you nailed it. I heard that Taylor Swift gets many bits of feedback on her songs from focus groups, family, and informally with fans. Sometimes you think you got it, but you missed something of importance!
Birds in a V Formation -- Enabled to Change Speed Quickly Based on the Lead Bird
Today, I was at the beach -- my favorite place in the world! As I was laying down I looked up and saw the birds positioning themselves into a new V formation.
Some lessons I learned from the "V":
- Speed of change. It's amazing how quickly they can respond to any changes from the bird in front. The V enables them to sense each other's movements especially the leader's faster.
- Take Turns. Birds take turns at the front. Each then takes a turn at leading and following.
- By working together, a flock of birds is greater than the sum of its parts. By not being selfish, individual birds can reap the collective advantage of aerodynamic movements.
Is your team so in sync that they can respond with speed to the leader's movements?
I've learned that much can be learned at the beach!!!!
Top 3 Factoids for Social Selling
1. Leads developed through employee social marketing convert 7x more frequently than other leads (Source: IBM)
Wow! Employees are becoming the new sellers!
2. Sales reps using social media as part of their sales techniques outsell 78% of their peers (Source: Forbes)
Developing a relationship online makes a big difference!
3. 77% of buyers are more likely to buy from a company whose CEO uses social media (Source: MSLGroup)
It starts Top Down!
Announcing startupdelta.org – the whole Dutch startup ecosystem connected on IBM Bluemix!
Today I’m excited to announce a partnership with StartupDelta, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and other partners from the Dutch entrepreneurial ecosystem, on the startupdelta.org digital platform. It connects 10+ innovation hubs in the Netherlands, which together form one of the largest and best-connected startup ecosystems in Europe, built by our developers at IBM Groningen on IBM Bluemix.
From today, startups from all over the world have easy access to everything the Netherlands has to offer.
This StartupDelta announcement is an addition to IBM's partnership with local government teams like Digital.NYC, Tech.London, Tech.Berlin and more! The goal is to encourage the local ecosystem in their mission and to accelerate entrepreneurs growth in the market.
With StartupDelta, the Netherlands will attract entrepreneurs and investors, build an all-inclusive community, and offer the tools and services startups need to start strong and scale up in the Netherlands. Through this partnership, visitors to StartupDelta.org may access comprehensive information about startups, news, jobs, workspaces, events, meetups and much more.
This is an exciting event, as it’s the first time we’re seeing an entire country band together with such ambition in the tech realm. The Netherlands seeks to become the “west coast of Europe for awesome startups,” and we at IBM want to help them achieve that goal! While this is our first time partnering with a countrywide community, it confirms our strategy to help build and take part in entrepreneurial communities in leading cities and areas around the world.
Startups from all over the world will have easy access to everything the Netherlands has to offer. To that end, we’ve brought our best tools and services to the table, from our premier development platform, IBM Bluemix, to our IBM Global Entrepreneur Program for Cloud, which provides up to $120 in cloud credit to startups. And who can forget about our amazing Innovation Space located in B.Amsterdam, one of the largest startup communities in Amsterdam.
So welcome, startups, investors, and everyone in-between, to StartupDelta.org!
Who Packed your Parachute?
I heard a story about a war hero who did amazing things for his country. One day while having dinner, a man he didn't know came up to him and asked if he was that "famous" hero He replied yes, but how did the man know?
The man explained that he had packed the parachute used in that particular occasion.
The hero went home but was haunted by the young man's comments. Had he acknowledged this man when he passed him before? Why didn't he know who packed his parachute and prepared him for the adventure?
As I heard the story, I thought, do we acknowledge those who pack our parachute? For example, our parents who prepare us for life our assistant who prepares us for the day, the VC who took a chance and funded us , or the developer who coded that great app you sold and the list goes on.
So on this wonderful Friday, I want each of you to thank one person who 'packed your parachute'.