What If We Combined IBM's Social Business with Apple's User Experience?

1/24/2012 In a recent blog post by Mark Fidelman, he discusses how every company needs to be more like IBM and less like Apple. Mr. Fidelman brings up some great points. He talks about how, in the past, IBM was known for being the thought police and Apple for allowing employees minds to be free and to think outside the box. This is not the case anymore. Nowadays, IBM appears to be wide open, encouraging collaboration among the company through social business, while Apple appears to be Big Brother.

What I do like about the IBM model is that the genius grows with co-creation and collaboration verses the genius resting on one person. Remove one person in the IBM model and another one steps up.

IBM’s Vice President, Sandy Carter says that IBM’s social culture is partially if not directly responsible for IBM’s success: “Our employees use social computing tools to foster collaboration, disseminate and consume news, develop networks, forge closer relationships, and build credibility. As a result, they’re better informed and prepared to take action on behalf of IBM.”

Carter also mentions an IBM Business Value Study where companies that use social business tools outperform the non-social group by 57% (EBITDA) and states, “If you’re not transforming your company into a social business, plan to be out of business.”

From what I can see, IBM is doing a great job with social business and in having employees and customers collaborate, but I think IBM is lacking on the user experience. IBM's communities and blogs are clunky and boring, which will affect user adoption.

Why do you think Apple is so successful? It is simple, keep it simple. One button, one call to action, often leads to a great user experience. I am not saying that everything needs to be one button, I am just saying keep it simple and fun.

Think about this… What if we combine the social mentality of IBM with the simplicity and user experience of Apple? That could be amazing!