Celebrating 8 Years in IBM!

As most of you may remember from a recent blog post I created a few weeks back, today was my first day at my new job as part of IBM‘s Software (SWG) Tech Sales and Social Software Programs and Enablement Teams. Overall, I have been having an incredibly busy day with plenty of meetings, getting to know folks, prepare a number of different initiatives and tasks (Some of which I am hoping to be sharing over here as well at some point), buzzing around from one place to another, but all in all with plenty of good fun! Yes, I mentioned it way back, when I was first announced it, to me, this is my dream job come true! And today I have been able to validate that hunch. And big time!

Like I have just mentioned, I have been having some really good discussions around the subject of social software and the adoption of social computing within the Enterprise. Today, for instance, I participated, as one of the panelists, on one of the most powerful IBM (Behind the firewall) communities monthly events around the subject of ROI for Social Software (Yes, one of my favourite subjects recently) and the dialogue around it is still buzzing around in my head, despite the fact it took place several hours ago. I got to come back to it again and share some more insights on that particular subject.

Also another thing that I have been working on today is starting to figure out how to reach out to larger audiences and get them more involved with the subject of social networking. We already have got something piled and almost ready to go, but it will actually be taking place at a later time this month. Not to worry, I shall be blogging about it as well.

So, as you can imagine, it has been really busy the whole day today, with hardly any chance to hang out in many of the various social networking tools I frequently engage with, but I knew from the beginning of the day that it was going to be that hectic and still looked forward to it, as I knew I was going to be able to contribute into several different places on how knowledge workers can start embracing some of that social software culture!

But all that excitement was topped by something that has got to do pretty much with the subject of this blog post. Yes, I had an interesting, very busy, incredibly enlightening and rich day at work, but a day like today, 8 years ago, I became an IBM full time employee, having worked before for over two more years with a contractor company to IBM. Yes, that is right, I have been working for this company since 1997, but on November 1st 1999, I became an IBM full time employee.

Who would have thought that a bloke like me, graduated as an English teacher in 1995, at the University of Salamanca, Spain, would have been for so long in one of the largest IT companies in the world doing what he loves the most: working as a Knowledge Manager, Community Builder and Social Computing Evangelist! And landing in what appears to be his dream job, too!!

Is there a better way to celebrate your 8th anniversary in a company having gone through all that? I doubt it. The whole day has been an exhilarating set of events, one after the other, and if someone would have told me 8 years ago where I would be in 2007, I would have probably told them they were crazy. But then again, it looks like I am the one who is crazy, because I am still having plenty of good fun. And big time!

Tomorrow is Friday, just a day before the weekend, so guess what I will be doing after I am done with work… of course … CELEBRATING!!! It doesn’t happen every day that you make 8 years (10 in total, with the contractor work) in a job you never thought you would be getting the hang out of it long term. Well, you never know. I may have … after all.

Thus Happy 8th Anniversary, Mr! Hope you still go strong for another 8 years! 😀

Tags: IBM, Software, SWG, Tech Sales, Social Software, Social Software Enablement, Social Media, Social Computing, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration, Communities, Anniversary, University of Salamanca, Spain, Knowledge Worker, Celebrations, Life, Work, Job