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IBM has a vested interest in all organizations using digital technologies to "become social," but they are also an interesting case study in using these technologies (and practices) themselves. 

IBM 2010 Global CEO Study: Creativity Selected as Most Crucial Factor for Future Success. Fewer than half of CEOs Successfully Handling Growing Complexity; Diverging priorities in Asia, North America, and Europe.

If you file your emails into folders in your email program you're wasting your time, according to a study by IBM Research. The 345-user study found that people who used the search function in their email program could find relevant emails as easily as those who had categorised each email into folders. Finding emails by searches took on average 17 seconds, versus 58 seconds finding the emails by folder. The likelihood of success - that is, finding the intended email - was no greater when it had been filed in a folder. "People who create complex folders indeed rely on these for retrieval, but these preparatory behaviours are inefficient and do not improve retrieval success. In contrast, both search and threading promote more effective finding," the study said.

What are the results of the patent system itself? The results are distorted research, protectionism, wealth transfers, and enrichment of the patent bar. Large companies, such as IBM, amass giant patent portfolios.

What superficially looks like shifts in the technological capabilities are really transformations in how businesses organize and execute. The fifth shift in this case-after the mainframe, the departmental computer, the PC, and the Internet-I will reiterate is social business. I would say what it has changed is the base nature of how humans interact with each other. These other technologies are certainly fantastic innovations that will accelerate how we get or deliver messages. But consider this: having common languages across cultures certainly accelerated how we communicated with each other, but as we can still see, the real trick is the ability to convey meaning.