Summit Training

Recently, I traveled to Armonk for Summit Program training. I spent a few days meeting my peer IT Architects as well the other Summit attendees which included sales representatives, client representatives, and brand specialists. The training was a phenomenal introduction into the culture at IBM. Understanding where the company came from and what adversities that IBM has overcame turned out to be extremely invigorating. Furthermore, most companies don't zero-in on their financial statements when bringing new hires into the company. However, IBM wanted to focus our attention on what direction the company is attempting to head in. While every single cog within IBM is essential to the entire unit operating seamlessly, we were presented with knowledge of what industries and sectors the future of computing and services resides in.

One interesting part of this experience was taking a tour through the IBM headquarters. It was mesmerizing to see how the company has evolved over the past one hundred years. Viewing some of the first envelope sorters, the first type writers, the personal computer, the system 360 is indescribable. Only pictures of these inventions can delineate how captivating these machines were. Furthermore, the illusive history of IBM will show us where the next hundred years will take the computing world. Not to mention, I had the chance to snap a once in a career photo along the way.

However, I am leaving out one of the best parts of the Summit training program -- the people! The other architects that I am working with are incredible and outstanding people. They all come from technical backgrounds, but are social, fun, and energizing to be around. I know that our architect class will accomplish great feats in the future. We can leverage our backgrounds and experiences to better improve ourselves and push each other to reach new heights.

Not only were the architects motivated individuals, but the atmosphere of combining the technical architects with the sales people of the Summit program was astounding. As architects, we received a glimpse into the minds of successful people that are excellent at inspiring others. The social energy that the sales group brought with them encourages me to not only remain technically competent, but also to enhance my social skills at every opportunity so that I can become a well rounded individual. 

I wore a suit everyday, but I enjoy dressing up. I was glad to be surrounded by other like minded people who are intelligent, technically sound, and personable. I will be looking forward to meeting up with my section of trainees as we head to Raleigh next month for Global Sales School training. It is an exciting time to be an IBMer.

Patent Pondering

"Inventing is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". Perhaps one of history's greatest inventors, Thomas Edison, hit the nail on the head when he said his now famous quote. For the majority of my academic studies, the work involved with school merely dealt with completing the task at hand but focused little on creating new ideas to solve the problem through a completely different method. I am a believer in a Utopian society. So, I am continuously thinking of how ordinary activities can be optimized in order to accomplish tasks in the most efficient manner possible. Although I like to think that I have grandeur ideas, I have noticed some difficulties with transforming these abstract ideas into tangible implementations that have the potential to be patented. 

At IBM, the culture strongly encourages employees to generate their own ideas, write up a description of the idea, and then submit the idea to a patent design team. While I have a day job consisting of an abundant of projects to complete by certain deadlines, I do enjoy imagining an ideal world and coming up with new ideas to move us from present day to this ideal world that I envision. Rather than watching TV late in the evening, as the majority of other people tend to enjoy, I prefer sitting down with my thoughts and letting my imagination run wild. While this purely used to be a hobby, I can now submit ideas that I develop on my own time through the IBM patent team. However, the idea engendering process is not as straight forward as I anticipated.

To begin, I am currently working with a team on an idea that has a strong possibility of passing through the rigorous patent process at IBM (I am also an optimist!). But, who wants to stop at one patent when they could develop a dozen more? If only it were simple to think of an idea and write it up during the twilight hours of the evening. Prior to joining IBM, I fabricated a plethora of "patent-able" ideas. What happened? For starters, I was unaware of the precedent work that others have published. Therefore, my ideas were definitely new and useful ideas, but more than likely lacked the punch, in terms of uniqueness qualities, that sent an idea all the way through the patent process.

While exploring the depths of my imagination in hopes of stumbling upon my next eureka moment, I discovered another attribute of the patent process that makes it somewhat difficult for idea thinkers. The potential patent has to exist as a plausible idea at a certain date in the future. Said another way, a potential patent cannot be too near-sighted because the idea may already exist or would require such simple implementation techniques that it would not surpass the minimum novelty requirements of patents. If the idea is too far-sighted, in terms of technological advancements, then the idea may be seen as too far-fetched and too abstract to implement within the realm of present knowledge. Therefore, the ideal patent must exist somewhere in the middle, in such a way that it is novel enough that no one has thought about the problem in the same way and that the patent architecture could be created in the near term future with modern technology.

Now that the difficulty of uniqueness and feasibility has been addressed, one must choose an area to host their idea search process. The ubiquitous nature and power of mobile computing has a garnered my attention. Not only does the vast majority of Earth's population own a phone, but they carry it on them at all times. The data that is generated through a mobile device is astronomical. I am also familiar with mobile computing and my creative side can envision many improvements in the mobile space to help better the world. Therefore, I now know where to look in order to start generating ideas on my own time.

As I embark on a career that reveres patents, I plan to start patenting early. Some of my short term goals include not only sending our current idea through IBM's patent process, but also adding one or two more patents to the list of my accomplishments. One of the main struggles that I currently face is giving my creative side the right size cage to develop, so that new ideas are not too small in terms of uniqueness and not too ambitious without a sense of plausibility. As Edison noted, inventing is 99% perspiration. I will keep pressing on until a worthy idea knocks me upside the head.