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IBM’S DIGITAL INFLUENCE PROGRAM Asha Kaul and Varun Thappa wrote this case solely to provide material for class discussion. The authors do not intend to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The authors may have disguised certain names and other identifying information to protect confidentiality. Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation prohibits any form of reproduction, storage or transmission without its written permission. Reproduction of this material is not covered under authorization by any reproduction rights organization. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, contact Ivey Publishing, Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 3K7; phone (519) 661-3208; fax (519) 661-3882; e-mail [email protected]. Copyright © 2013, Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation Version: 2013-04-16

In the first week of August 2011, Sumita Bajaj, director of Marketing and Communications, IBM India, was reassessing the growth and development of the Digital Influence program, which had been conceptualized in the fall of 2009. The project’s aim was to use social media to increase the share of voice and reach of IBM’s five software brands (Rational, WebSphere, Tivoli, Lotus and Information Management). In the past year, planned and concentrated work had shown positive results. Now, the challenge was to engineer sustainability into the approach. On August 16, 2011, in dialogue with Roshni Sengupta, Digital Strategy and Marketing manager, IBM Software Group, India/South Asia, (see Exhibit 1), Bajaj asserted that IBM’s achievements, though commendable in such a short time, were not unexpected. However, the objectives of the digital influence strategy—an increase in brand perception and the creation of technology evangelists— remained to be achieved. The Digital Influence program had been launched in February 2010, after almost eight months of planning. Seventy-five software subject matter experts (SMEs) were selected to help the firm achieve its desired objectives. Within a year, in 2011, share of reach for all the brands had improved substantially. Lotus had the maximum rate of increase at 1,933 per cent, followed by Information Management (IM) with 421.8 per cent. Although the percentage increase was as per the projections, Bajaj was hesitant about declaring victory at this point.Was the model sustainable? What challenges did IBM face in the implementation process? Would the current plan of operations help IBM gain market space and create technical evangelists? BEGINNING AND CONCEPTUALIZING IBM India had planned for the Rational Software Conference1 to take place in August 2009. It was expected that 7,000 chief information officers (CIOs) and their team members would attend. In June, the marketing group met to organize and address issues related to social media for the conference. Bajaj was worried that the plans did not project a 360-degree communication with the stakeholders. She instructed Sengupta to call off some of the activities for the conference, namely those related to social media 1The name of the conference was changed to “Innovate” in 2010.

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Page 2 9B13M025 influence. With the event barely a couple of months away, all preparations were started fresh with new inputs to influence the target audience. Bajaj emphatically asserted to the marketing team:

I will not be able to spend the kind of dollars on branding IBM software that we spent on branding Smarter Planet.2 So how do you build a marketing mix that supports driving increased mindshare about IBM software without running out of money or contradicting the bigger IBM vision, that is, Smarter Planet and reaching IBM’s target audience?

IBM had been experimenting with the application of social media in the business and marketing context by creating Facebook pages, Twitter profiles and YouTube videos. The intent was to use social media as a vehicle to extend the marketing mix. In July 2009, after studying the existing marketing plans, Bajaj instructed her team to shut down all ad hoc sites created by different IBM teams. Voicing the reasoning behind the decision, she stated, “I’d rather not be on Facebook than have five people following me.” In September 2009, she met with the team to discuss and conceptualize an integrated plan for social media. Toward the last quarter of 2009, two main objectives were envisioned for the initiative: (1) to understand the brand perception of IBM’s five software brands among the target audience and (2) to ensure the creation and visibility of chief technical evangelists3 in professional networks. To expedite the process, IBM hired Ogilvy and Mather (O&M) in February 2010 to help rethink the social media strategy in a well-defined timeline and create mind space among consumers through digital listening and influence (see Exhibit 2). O&M completed the first round of assessment by October 2010. By December 2010, IBM was ready with a social media aggregator that aimed to aggregate the entire brand and create an integrated view of all the conversations. DIGITAL DIALOGUE Blogging4 gained ground in 2005, changing the way individuals and companies positioned themselves and their products. The personal focus in blogs secured a favourable response from consumers and future customers. It gave them an opportunity to voice their appreciation and grievances, which were almost immediately addressed. However, with this changing trend, bloggers’ focus shifted from blogging as a hobby to blogging as a means of earning money. Companies began hiring external experts to post information on their products and promote technical evangelism. But, with the passage of time, the companies that were trying to promote technical evangelism faced a slackening of effort, according to Rohit Sajnani, a 32-year-old blogger, who had actively pursued blogging as a hobby for years before he joined IBM. He continued, “The trend I have noticed is that people start with articles, publish them weekly, or monthly, and then after sometime they stop publishing.” He regarded this irregularity among

2 Smarter Planet was a corporate initiative of IBM that highlighted the strategies to be followed for creating a planet that is “instrumented, interconnected and intelligent.” IBM, “What Is a Smarter Planet,” www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/in/en/overview/ideas/index.html?re=sph, accessed November 2, 2012. 3A chief technical evangelist referred to a person who attempts to build a critical mass of support for a given technology for the purpose of establishing it as a technical standard. Source: Technology Evangelist Director, “So What Does a Technology Evangelist Do?” www.technologyevangelistdirector.com/the_ted_role.htm, accessed July 29, 2011. 4 In December 2004, Merriam-Webster declared “blog” to be the “Word of the Year.” By 2006, blogging had gained ground. Many companies tapped into this market and began using this trend to empower employees (e.g., Sun Microsystems), ask employees to blog on specific topics as technology, investor relations (e.g., Dell), evangelize products to the masses (e.g., Adobe) and explain decisions and dilemmas to customers (e.g., BBC). Blogs gave these organizations an opportunity to learn more about their target customers and simultaneously gain deeper insight into their preferences, build relationships and provide an opportunity to let them be heard. Clive Thompson, “The Early Years,” New York Times, February 12, 2006, http://nymag.com/news/media/15971/, accessed September 29, 2011.

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Page 3 9B13M025 bloggers as one of the major challenges, not only for this project but for the entire exercise in general. Writing blog posts required commitment, easy language and non-factual content. For the enthusiasm to continue and for the voice to continue to be heard, bloggers also needed to write on some generic topics. Too much specificity could reduce the share of voice5 in cyber space in terms of preference and consideration. However, with the passage of time, the nature of writing in blogs and the expectations from bloggers had changed. Sajnani commented:

In 2001/02, blogging was not really a known phenomenon and there were few bloggers.However, my blog became quite popular and I got many queries and feedback via email . . . about 30 daily for each article. The number, however, would reduce as the article became old.

IBM ventured into corporate blogging in 2009 with the intent of making a difference in the ecosystem.6The organization began operations in this domain with two guidelines: to not talk of products that were no longer in use and to not share client information. Care needed to be exercised because, “Anything happening in an open audience forum shapes people’s perception,” asserted Rahul Dev, managing partner of 360 Degree Digital Influence, O&M, who had been assigned the marketing vertical project in India. LAYING THE FOUNDATION With the help of senior management and technical evangelists, IBM designed a social media campaign. The aim was to look at IBM’s social media presence and the preference of IBM software brands across a broad set of influences, stated Dr. Deep Parker, director of IBM India Software Laboratory (ISL). A goal-setting exercise yielded the following objectives: to build communities around the IBM software brand, to establish expertise, to increase mindshare7 of individual software brands and to influence purchase decisions. The consolidation and integration of individual brands’ social media activities were planned by evaluating existing content and defining boundaries for the creation of new content. Additionally, IBM established relationships with key social media influencers, both internal and external, who wrote posts, hosted blogs and attracted a major following in cyber space, by short-listing them for writing blogs, organizing blogger boot camps and disseminating information. Technical experts for individual software brands who could both write their own blogs and follow other blogs were identified and recruited from IBM’s labs.8 After evaluating these experts’ current social media profiles, roles, skills and competencies, the bloggers were selected and assigned to participate in active community conversations and to create a favourable dialogue for IBM. Finally, training was imparted to develop these experts’competencies for beginning conversations, participating in ongoing dialogue and managing crisis situations.

5Here, “share of voice” refers to the proportion of the total audience or readership commanded by a media group across its full range of publishing and broadcasting activities. 6 IBM used “IBM Ecosystem” to refer to the group of people (i.e., academics, entrepreneurs, business partners, etc.) the company worked with for building a Smarter Planet. Source: IBM Ecosystem, “Business Survival Skills: Mobile Computing,” video, www.youtube.com/user/IBMEcosystem, accessed November 2, 2012. 7Here, “mindshare” refers to securing a greater share of customers’ thinking, or mindspace. 8These labs were also known as IBM’s Product Development Laboratory.

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Page 4 9B13M025 Under each brand, IBM created specific areas on which posts could be written. The brands were Rational, WebSphere, Tivoli, Lotus and IM (see Exhibit 3). For instance, under WebSphere, two specific areas for blogging could be business process management and education infrastructure. Through this process, IBM aimed to increase connectivity and community influence. For example, an increase in the number of footfalls for a particular event or a conference could be compared with the level and method of interaction on these blogs to help gauge the success of the new measure. According to Pratik Goswamy, technical evangelist, “This is just the beginning and we want this to be woven into the fabric of the processes of the organization.” Are You Listening? The project was launched with a “listening exercise,” in which IBM asked O&M to analyse 80 keywords (see Exhibit 4) with respect to IBM’s products. O&M performed a ranking by comparing across brands, competing brands and sub brands. The Radian 6 tool was used to capture conversations from micro blogging sites and other social platforms. The measurement parameter was the frequency of occurrence of the 80 keywords that had been selected to measure the reputation of IBM India’s software brands.This listening exercise helped IBM learn what was being said about the company in the media. The process began with O&M measuring the “quantity” of blogs, which, according to Goswamy, would eventually be replaced by measuring the “quality” of blogs. O&M conducted the listening audit for approximatelythree months. During this time, 12 different exercises were carried out from an overall brand perspective, including individual and competitive brands. By September 2010, both O&M and IBM had a fair idea about the strengths and weaknesses of the brands. The identification of these gaps helped IBM to decide on its future course of action for promoting products and their value. Gradually the individual software brands were launched. WebSphere was followed by IM, and, by November 2010, teams for all the different software brands were in action. According to Sengupta, the first few reports from O&M concentrated on IBM’s position in terms of conversation volumes and keywords. Over the course of the 12 weeks of the analysis, the most popular brands were found to be those that were the least talked about, whereas, their least popular brands were most talked about, in terms of the volume of posts. The study documented the percentage and volume of dialogue across media channels for the five brands (see Exhibit 5). In Motion Findings from the exercise revealed that (a) YouTube was an upcoming and important medium, as were other social media platforms, such as Twitter and blogs, and (b) social media collectively was able to generate a considerable amount of traffic. “It was clear that we needed to concentrate on not just one, but on all these facets of social media,” said Sengupta. After reviewing the report of the “listening exercise,” Bajaj called a meeting to discuss the findings. She pointed out that for IBM to increase its mindshare in the software business, it would need to shift its focus from advertising to “digital influence.” By actively engaging in online conversations, IBM would be able to influence what was being said. In the meeting, Dev pointed out that sharing was the best possible strategy for gaining visibility in the social media space. According to him, advertisements had never been considered the best tool in the social media space. Although many sharing tools were available, Twitter was one of the best. Citing an example, he continued:

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Page 5 9B13M025

IBM releases a document called the CEO study, with interviews of over 300 top CEOs of the country. One can easily view and download this from the website. But it is a 100-page document. What we do is read through the whole document, convert the whole piece into numerous 140 character tweets and then share it along with the hyperlink to download. This gives amazing results.

The strategies to be adopted for a blog were different and required a developers’ perspective, which would essentially be technical in nature with a communication aspect that addressed the manner in which the blog post would be “voiced” in social media. To be able to increase the share of voice, volume and reach, and to be heard and responded to, four points needed consideration, according to Dev. First, the blog needed to be short and concise, approximately 300 words. Second, to be able to cater to a wide audience spanning the globe, the blog had to be written in an easily comprehensible “blog language.” Third, unbiased and contemporary writing were necessary prerequisites. Finally, care needed to be exercised while writing. Rather than writing open statements, use of subtle language was advised (see Exhibit 6 for a sample IBM blog). In addition, Dev quipped:

Individuality is very important in a blog piece. People should be able to relate to what you write. You have to have a style of writing, an individuality associated with your work, and it has to be opinionated. If it is not opinionated, then people will not be interested in reading your blog.

Corporate blogs had strict guidelines and rules, which, in a sense, ran contrary to the concept of freedom of expression in blogging. The IBM blogs tried to expand beyond the confines of corporate guidelines, but did not totally absolve the writers from rules and regulations. O&M was responsible for doing content and sanity checks on all corporate blog entries prior to their online posting. The checks were specific to issues related to copyrights, references, content, grammatical construction, presentation and language. A three-month training program was organized by O&M to ensure that no mistakes would be made with respect to copyright infringement, referencing and quoting. In the initial phase, stated Dev, it was a painstaking process, as all content needed to be run through plagiarism software, such as Copyscape, Duplichecker and Terminator. Inside Out IBM adopted an “inside out” approach to this project. On the inside, IBM had its own teams with technical expertise, and on the outside IBM had external bloggers who were “in dialogue” about these technologies. The top management at IBM was convinced that employees with technical expertise were most suited to write posts because, first, they “knew” their product and, second, they were the best at handling customer queries/posts on blogs. For instance, a post on product development, written by an SME, would carry more conviction than a post created by an employee involved in servicing. Additionally, the younger demographic, who had a familiarity with social media tools, blogs and Facebook, was viewed as an enabler for drawing SMEs into their fold. According to Goswamy:

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Page 6 9B13M025

We are looking at generation Y and Z, the young developers who are not going to read through the clutter of books. The reading is going to be through a totally different channel The factor has to be exciting and enticing for this group . . . and what better channel than social media?

Prior to this program, just a few SMEs were already active in the social media space. When Bajaj and Sengupta discussed this program with their colleagues, they were able to generate interest and recruit other people on board. The selection of bloggers was based on the stringent criteria of interest, relevance and value associated with social media. Some employees with technical expertise of a high order were also nominated by the brand leaders. IDEATION TO ACTION The task assigned to the SMEs was to generate conversation in spaces where IBM did not currently exist and to follow the subsequent dialogue. The program ran mostly on the employees’ internal motivation and the visibility associated with the work, which they did outside their normal work hours. To keep them motivated, the senior management team would ask a simple question, “Do you want to be the worst brand?” On more than one occasion, this question acted as a strong motivator. Other strategies followed by the company included recognizing competence and meritocracy by awarding certificates, and issuing invitations to customer-facing events and conferences. After the initial setting-up of the team, Bajaj, Sengupta and Goswamy agreed that further recruitments would be strategic and based on marketing goals, interview processes and advanced selection criteria. With the internal team in place, IBM and O&M decided to scout for external bloggers, who, based on their experience and competencies, would be equipped to write in the blogging space. The selection process was rigid and covered only business-to-business (B2B) bloggers who could be potential influencers for the brand and had a strong presence and relevance in the social conversation space. Additionally, they would need to possess the capacity to initiate discussions and should be active advocates. The recruitment of these bloggers was based on such parameters as social influence, ranking, active participation and relevance to technology, and knowledge of B2B technology topics. The bloggers were asked to build awareness about the capabilities at IBM. Their influence was measured by such parameters as blog volume per brand, volume of tweets, quality of tweets, volume of posts per SME, social media activity per month and “active” vs. “passive” SME performance. The tools used for measuring social media influence were Radian 6, HootSuite, Twitter analytics tools and manual dashboards for quantitative analytics. Blogs attracting comments were considered to be qualitative. If they did not measure up to the company’s expectations, their future engagement was reconsidered. Finally, only 10 per cent were retained in the advocacy program. The project began with training SMEs who could write on technical topics and managers who possessed competency on a wide array of subjects and could project an executive focus. The minimum work experience required was five months. IBM organized continuous training sessions on writing skills for the technical experts who were now part of the Digital Influence team. They organized “blogferences,” through which bloggers were given exposure and the opportunity to meet one another and test their blogging skills. Awards were given to the best posts, and discussions were initiated. The first blogference was organized on June 8, 2010, with the objective of imparting education on the “dos” and “don’ts” and the “how to” of writing blogs. The first blog created in the IBM space was on WebSphere India. The second blogference was held on September1, 2010, to catch up with bloggers, review progress and to encourage participation. The

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Page 7 9B13M025 objective of the third blogference (October 4, 2010) was technical. Bloggers were asked to write about the Software Universe. The fourth blogference, held on October 25, 2010, was a Live Blogging Contest for all of India’s SMEs, who were assigned current topics such as smarter software and cloud computing. In case the bloggers faced difficulty in writing on the assigned topics, they were given the freedom to create posts on any other topic. The sentiment and authority of the bloggers ensured an audience in cyberspace. The blogs created by internal experts were low on authority but high on sentiment, which indicated a low presence and stature in the social media world. Conversely, blogs by the team of external bloggers who had a relatively high standing in the social media domain were low on sentiment, but high on authority. Both internal and external bloggers were assigned the task of selecting a social platform of their choice and increasing influence. This task, according to a senior technical evangelist, was as important as building on competencies, since long-lasting results were directly linked to competition from other software companies and independent bloggers, with the latter providing free and radical opinions on many technological areas. According to Sengupta, “It really did not matter whether it was the internal people blogging or the external, as both got IBM the brand coverage it required.” In 2011, the focus of the recruitment process for SMEs shifted to selecting people who were passionate about social media, considered it a vehicle for change and were keen to become the face for the IBM brand. Almost all the recruited bloggers were from the Indian cities of Pune, Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. From Naïveté to Wisdom IBM wanted the team members of the Digital Influence project to consider online blogging as something internal and not external. According to IBM, it was more of a mental switch, which would make blogging a daily activity. Hence, employees were encouraged to write more posts as IBM felt that regular and successful blogging was just a matter of “breaking the ice.” According to Goswamy, “It is about weaving it in as a part of the process, as a natural extension to what we do. What starts as a practice of 10 people has a cascading effect on the rest of the team. That is the buoyancy we wish to achieve.” Currently, to write an average blog of 250 to 300 words required approximately two to three hours for an internal blogger. However, the competent and experienced external bloggers would take approximately 45 minutes to write a blog. With time, IBM’s top management felt that technical experts would improve their skills in writing and be more time efficient. Sengupta emphatically stated that a consistent approach was required. A couple of posts per month would not be sufficient to draw traffic. Customer support could be garnered only by influencing opinions through an increase in share of voice, volume and reach. All blogs were linked to Twitter, and the influencers were able to draw traffic in the form of queries raised by external audiences. Periodic checkpoints with SME leads helped to improve follow-up on social media activities. Enabling sessions were organized, which helped the SMEs to gain practical experience on social channels. SME visibility initiatives were taken, such as featuring the bloggers on IBM.com/India. Software web page and periodic recognitions increased SMEs’ interest and helped secure momentum for the program. Within a year, in 2011, the number of SMEs increased from 75 to 95, of which 49 were new recruits. The remaining, who had been selected the previous year, were dropped for various reasons. The share of reach

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Page 8 9B13M025 for all the brands showed substantial improvement. Lotus had the maximum rate of increase followed by IM. In the year 2010/11, 250 blogs were written in six months by 25 IBM employees. The individual blogs created by these bloggers were linked to the company’s corporate blogs. The increase in share of voice and volume of conversation indicated an overall positive effect on IBM’s perceived quality. It was agreed that while this process would have an impact on the sales, it would not be directly measurable. According to Parker:

It all seems to indicate that we have hit on something interesting. We have to scale up the process and get deeper. Some people will actually become the convergence point for a few of the larger communities around. If I see 10,000 readers that is one thing, but if it scales to millions of readers, it is completely different. I think we are somewhere in that evolution, we have to wait and see how much of momentum builds up around it.

INFLUENCING THE GROUNDSWELL9 IBM worked with O&M to draft a resource deployment strategy following a pre-engagement analysis.In the pre-engagement stage, Tivoli was in the lead with Rational in the second position. The most prominent social media channels for both Rational and Tivoli wereblogs and macromedia engines such as Twitter. At the pre-engagement stage, the conversations were found to revolve around individual software brands. IBM and O&M realized that certain audiences associated themselves with certain individual brands, which was a relationship that could be leveraged. Another key finding was that conversations related to IBM brand benefits and capabilities were already happening in the web space, and most presented neutral views on IBM, which, according to O&M, presented a clear opportunity to be tapped. Further analysis of the quality of influencers and content indicated the absence of posts related to IT managers, CIOs and senior developers/architects. This omission indicated the need for a strategy to enter this circle of influencers. One of the most critical insights from this exercise was that IBM needed not only to continue to tap existing bloggers but also to build relationships with influencers. A post-engagement analysis (see Exhibit 7) revealed a positive result for all the software brands. For example, Rational had experienced a monthly rise in the number of blog posts. IBM’s share of all blogs increased from 16.6 per cent in June to 46 per cent in November 2010. Despite a spike in October, the overall range for the number of IBM related posts was between 16 per cent and 40 per cent of all posts. Most conversations happened on blogs and macromedia, but forum discussions were absent for the brand. The average mention of brands grew by 2,280 per cent between June 2010 and November 2010. For WebSphere, blogs captured most of the conversations. Posts in macromedia had increased over the months but the share was still low (see Exhibit 8).Overall, the range in the number of posts led to the conclusion of a fairly high strength in the blogging activity. An increase of almost 20 per cent was seen in the share of voice from June to November, 2010 (see Exhibit 7).

9The term “groundswell” refers to a strong public feeling or opinion that is detectable even though not openly expressed. Source: Merriam-Webster online dictionary,www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/groundswell, accessed July 29, 2011.

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Page 9 9B13M025 On a monthly basis, the volume of posts on blogs for Tivoli and IM was quite high (see Exhibits 9 and 10). Macromedia posts had also increased over the months. The volume of conversation in the blogs spiked from June to November 2010. The blogs accounted for maximum conversations for Lotus (see Exhibit 9). Macromedia posts had also increased over the months. However, forum presence was almost negligible. In May, Lotus had a 70 per cent share in blogs, but by November 2010, this share had risen to 87 per cent. A sharp increase in the number of posts indicated an increased reach in November 2010 (see Exhibit 7). In terms of volume, Lotus was the true leader (see Exhibit 10), but in terms of reach, Rational (17 per cent), WebSphere (17 per cent) and IM (44 per cent) scored higher than Lotus (15 per cent) and Tivoli (8 per cent). BELLY UP? Within nine months of starting the campaign, IBM Software’s share of voice in the digital space went from 0 to 14 per cent, without any actual advertising. The trend analysis of all five software brands showed a substantial increase in three of the brands. Two of the brands, Rational and Tivoli recorded a decrease (see Exhibit 10). IBM moved up the ranking from three to two, with Microsoft in the lead and Oracle not far behind. The investment in the project represented10 to 12 per cent of the company’s overall brand marketing budget for fiscal year 2010/11. IBM’s membership increased from 0 to 10 per cent across social media channels, which were specific to India. Prior to beginning the digital influence program IBM had no membership across channels on the digital media platform. Within a year IBM’s membership across channels increased to 300 per cent with brands as Lotus and IM enjoying a major share of voice in the market. Activities across social media created a loyal customer base, placing the company in the league with other players operating in the same space. However, in August of 2011, Bajaj was still hesitant. She knew that much more time and energy had to be invested in the campaign. Her meeting with Sengupta on August 16, 2011, was targeted to plan the way forward. While volume of share of voice for some of the brands had increased, the same percentage could not be assigned to all brands (see Exhibits 11 and 12). Bajaj knew that it was a massive task to create and sustain the group of technical evangelists and to ensure the appropriate choice of medium in cyber space. In view of changing consumer preferences and blogging challenges, she wondered whether IBM should continue with its existing strategies or amend those strategies in favour of speedy and higher visibility of its software products.

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Page 10 9B13M025

EXHIBIT 1: ORGANIZATIONAL CHART FOR IBM’SDIGITAL INFLUENCE SOFTWARE GROUP

Source: Company records.

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Page 11 9B13M025

EXHIBIT 2: IBM’S DIGITAL INFLUENCE PROGRAM TIMELINE, 2010

Source: Company records.

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Page 12 9B13M025

EXHIBIT 3: IBM’S FIVE SOFTWARE BRANDS

Software brand Description Social media platform

Rational

It is a fully integrated software delivery platform that addresses 

requirements, design, development and management across electrical, 

mechanical and software technologies. It also helps organisations derive 

the greatest value from the products they deliver.

Twitter, LinkedIn, Blog

Websphere

WebSphere Solutions help organisations build, deploy and run 

applications in a proven, secure and flexible environment. Application 

integration and sophisticated user interfaces are key aspects of 

WebSphere. 

Websphere application 

portal, Twitter, Blog

Tivoli

Tivoli software provides smarter solutions and the expertise an 

organisation needs to design, build and manage a dynamic 

infrastructure. It helps achieve greater efficiency by managing all asset 

types on a single platform.

Twitter, YouTube, Video 

Blog

Lotus

It helps integrate collaborative environment including e‐mail, 

calendaring and ability to extend with applications and collaboration 

tools. Other real‐time collaboration services include presence, chat, 

voice, data, video, meetings and telephony.

Twitter, LinkedIn, Blog

Information Management

IBM Information Management solutions deliver trusted information

throughout the information supply chain and helpsanalyse information

to gain insights. It further helps identify breakdowns and make better

decisions that optimize business.

Twitter, LinkedIn, Blog

Source: IBM, “IBM Rational Software,” www-01.ibm.com/software/rational/;IBM, “Collaborative Development and Operations,” www-01.ibm.com/software/in/rational/;IBM, “WebSphere Software,” www- 01.ibm.com/software/websphere/;IBM, “IBM Tivoli Software,” www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/;IBM, “Lotus Software,” www- 01.ibm.com/software/lotus/; and IBM, “Information Management,” www-01.ibm.com/software/data/, all accessed July 27, 2011.

EXHIBIT 4: SAMPLE OF THE KEYWORDS IBM PROVIDED TO OGILVY AND MATHER

 Website Security  IT Portfolio Management  Agile Development  Performance Measurement & Management  Model Driven architecture  Software Configuration management  Release Management  Collaborative Software Development  Enterprise Architecture  Software Change Management  IBM Tivoli remote control  IBM Rational appscan

 Web based email software  Workforce productivity  Team collaboration  Business email solution  Business collaboration software  Web meetings  Online collaboration  SOA application integration  Messaging  Application connectivity  IBM Lotus email  IBM WebSphere pricing

Source: Company records.

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Page 13 9B13M025 EXHIBIT 5: PRE-ENGAGEMENT SHARE OF DIFFERENT MEDIA ACROSS THE FIVE IBM BRANDS

Rational WebSphere Tivoli Lotus IM

Blogs 76 52 81.5 70 72 Forums - 45 1 2 - Mainstream News 2.9 - 1 - - Videos 4.5 - 1.9 - - Micromedia 16.6 3 14.6 28 28 Facebook - - - - - Images - - - - -

Source: Company records.

EXHIBIT 6: SAMPLE IBM BLOG

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Automated Regression—How You Justify

Regression Testing is nothing but looking for bugs in code that used to work in past versions. It is not an easy task and so considered to be time consuming and need to be executed with each build. So if we address this task will allow to find bugs in code as fast as possible with minimal effort (automated!). This becomes more important the longer your product has been in production to keep customers happy. Bugs will happen and now way we can stop them we just want them to either be minor ones or issues limited in new code —not the old stuff that people rely on to get their job done till date.

It also acts to reduce the “drudge” work of manual testing and frustrated QA and Customer Support Teams. That work is also subject to human memory as even if all the test cases written somewhere — are they all up to date? Are we sure? What happens if “human memory” on Leave :-)

Similarly automated regression tests also act to codify and formalize one’s experience so, you don’t lose the entirety of knowledge in case someone from the team move on as happens in this Dynamic Industry. So if we handle this will free up all resources at different levels which can do something “real productive.” It also helps your team be “more proactive and less reactive.” The more team spends fighting fires the harder it is to have a truly enjoyable work place. Not sure if you can enjoy this but I don’t as it Stress out.

I keep detailed steps and possible available tools like from IBM Rational and various Automation Manager from IBM Tivoli and IBM Web Sphere with various work-flows in upcoming blogs in January.

Ritesh

Disclaimer: The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions

Posted by Ritesh Kumar Gupta at 10:30 PMNo comments:

For the exclusive use of T. Nguyen, 2016.

This document is authorized for use only by Tifany Nguyen in Interactive Marketing taught by Yuli Zhang, Drexel University from June 2016 to September 2016.

Page 14 9B13M025

EXHIBIT 6 (CONTINUED) Friday, December 2, 2011

Automation—How it will help Optimize Resources

Complexity on SDLC is increasing daily and so is kind of issues and handling them optimally and spending time where it makes sense depending on your role and its viewpoint.

For example when I’m handling, things like use resources and infrastructure optimally and enable Software to do redundant things and allow teams to spend their time in enhancing capabilities than doing these tasks. As it requires to spend time in automating areas and so it takes the back seat as you need to perform daily tasks. Even though everyone aware of the positive impact of this and being an architect I’d rather minimize or remove manual efforts — a long-term gain to team productivity but at the cost of product in the short-term. Now when I see this from developer’s perspective I’d rather be focused on developing and handling the cool new product than bug fixing or modifying current tests.

However good automated regression testing is something that “no way” we can ignore and when I say testing it means starting from Code Check-in till release Cycle no manual intervention should require. Not even for configurations of machines or test assets. It’s usually not a huge investment of time but the payoff is large and grows over time - like a savings account. From each point of view

Developer --> Less Time bug fixing Enjoy your Family Life as well Manager --> Better quality product, risks identified earlier. Happy Customers Architect --> Spend time in new Designs with minimal product risk. QA -->Less manual drudge work and satisfied management and improved quality.

In next Blogs I will discuss why and How of Automating Regression Cycle.

Ritesh

Disclaimer: The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions

Posted by Ritesh Kumar Gupta at 10:30 PMNo comments: Source: http://riteshkumargupta.blogspot.in/, accessed September 9, 2012.

EXHIBIT 7: POST-ENGAGEMENT VISIBILITY OF THE FIVE IBM BRANDS, JUNE TO NOVEMBER 2010

Source: Company records

For the exclusive use of T. Nguyen, 2016.

This document is authorized for use only by Tifany Nguyen in Interactive Marketing taught by Yuli Zhang, Drexel University from June 2016 to September 2016.

Page 15 9B13M025

EXHIBIT 8: POST-ENGAGEMENT SHARE OF VOICE OF IBM SOFTWARE WEBSPHERE AND TIVOLI

WebSphere Tivoli

Blogs 61%

Micro‐ media 17%

Forums 0%

Others 22%

Source: Company records.

EXHIBIT 9: POST-ENGAGEMENT SHARE OF VOICE OF IBM SOFTWARE LOTUS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT10

Blogs 87%

Micromedia 8%

Forums 0%

Others 5%

SOV of Lotus

Blogs 60%

Micromedia 30%

Forums 0%

Others 10%

SOV of IM

Note: SOV = share of voice Source: Company records.

10

Post-engagement share of voicefor Rationalsoftware was not available.

For the exclusive use of T. Nguyen, 2016.

This document is authorized for use only by Tifany Nguyen in Interactive Marketing taught by Yuli Zhang, Drexel University from June 2016 to September 2016.

Page 16 9B13M025

EXHIBIT 10: IBM SOFTWARE SHARE OF VOICE RESULTS, PRE-ENGAGEMENT AND POST- ENGAGEMENT

Pre Engagement Post Engagement SOV in Terms of

Volume (Per cent) SOV in Terms of Volume (Per cent)

Rational 32 9 WebSphere 3 19 Tivoli 57 7 Lotus 7 36 IM 1 29

Source: Company records.

EXHIBIT 11: COMPARISON OF THE COVERAGE OF THE FIVE IBM BRANDS, JUNE TO NOVEMBER 2010

Source: Company records.

For the exclusive use of T. Nguyen, 2016.

This document is authorized for use only by Tifany Nguyen in Interactive Marketing taught by Yuli Zhang, Drexel University from June 2016 to September 2016.

Page 17 9B13M025 EXHIBIT 12: BRAND-WISE COMPARISON OF THE FIVE IBM BRANDS, JUNE TO NOVEMBER2010

Parameters Rational Lotus Tivoli Information

Management WebSphere

Volume of conversation

Increase in share of blogs from 16.6 per cent to 46 per cent

Increase in volume of blog posts by 3,333 per cent

Increase in volume of conversation in blogs by 20 per cent

Increase in volume of conversation in blogs by 693 per cent

Increase in blog posts by 70 per cent

SOV Increase in macromedia from 14 per cent to 56 per cent

Increase in blogs from 70 per cent to 87 per cent

Constant share of blogs

Increase in share of Macromedia 28 per cent to 30 per cent

Increase in share of voice from 40 per cent to 71 per cent

Trend analysis

Overall, increase of 23 per cent

Increase in number of posts and reach by 1,933 per cent

Increase in volume of conversation by 40 per cent

Increase in the volume of posts by 421.8 per cent

Increase involume of posts by 82.8 per cent

Source: Company records.

For the exclusive use of T. Nguyen, 2016.

This document is authorized for use only by Tifany Nguyen in Interactive Marketing taught by Yuli Zhang, Drexel University from June 2016 to September 2016.