Inside System Storage -- by Tony Pearson

Can you believe it has been five years since I started blogging?

(If you absolutely abhor the navel-gazing associated with blogging-about-blogging posts, then by all means stop reading now!)

Back in July 2005, IBM decided to merge together two brands, IBM eServer and IBM TotalStorage, into a single all-encompassing "IBM Systems" brand. Thus TotalStorage brand became the "IBM System Storage" product line of the "IBM Systems" brand. The next six months was spent renaming some (not all) of the products. The following January, I was named the Marketing Strategist for this new product line, with the mission to help promote the new naming convention.

We looked at possibly doing a regularly-scheduled podcast, but nobody back then, including myself, were familar with audio editing tools. Instead, we chose a blog. Most blogs at IBM are internal, safely hidden behind the firewall, accessible only to IBM employees. I wanted mine to be different, to be accessible to the public, clients, prospects, IBM Business Partners, and yes, even those working for IBM's various competitors. One thing I like about blogs is that if you have a typo, or make a mistake, you can go back and correct it after it has posted.

Marketing through social media is quite different than traditional marketing techniques. Management was supportive, but legal wanted to review and approval everything I wrote before I posted it onto my blog. Official IBM Press Releases, for example, go through a dozen reviews before they are finally made public. I refused. This kind of review and approval would ruin the blogging process.

Fortunately, this blog was not my first attempt at technical writing. Our legal counsel reviewed my past trip reports from various conferences, and decided to let me blog without review. Occasionally, someone will reivew my blog once already posted, and ask me to make some corrections. It reminds me of my favorite saying used heavily within IBM:

It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
-- Arthur Bloch [Yale Book of Quotations]

Despite these delays, we managed to launch this blog in September 2006, just in time to celebrate the 50th anniversary of disk systems. IBM introduced the industry's first commercial disk system on September 13, 1956.

Over the years, this blog has helped sales reps and IBM Business Partners close deals, and address the FUD their prospects heard from competition. I have helped my readers get in touch with the right people within IBM. And, I have "sent the elevator back down", helping other IBMers launch their own blogs, including [Barry Whyte], [Elisabeth Stahl], and [Anthony Vandewerdt].

Today, bloggers have a profound impact on the world. Not everyone has a positive view on this. Bloggers and other users of social media have been seen as whistle-blowers for fraudulent corporations, as activists against corrupt governments and dictators, and as subject matter experts and fact checkers referenced during television and radio newscasts. In a recent movie, one of the major characters was a trouble-making blogger, and another character describes his blogging as nothing more than "graffiti with punctuation."

I want to thank all of my readers for making this the #1 most influential blog on IBM DeveloperWorks in 2011! This blog has been [published in a series of books], Inside System Storage Volume I and Volume II. And yes, before you all ask in the comments below, I am actively working on Volume III.

For a bit of nostalgia, I invite you to read my first 21 blog posts that I posted back in [September 2006].

technorati tags: IBM, anniversary, blogoversary, Lulu, TotalStorage, eServer, System Storage