Being smart is being capable of making adjustments that resemble human decisions, especially in response to changing circumstances.  Being Smarter is having the ability to sustain those adjustments in response to changing circumstances.  Our world is becoming smarter.

After watching a speech from Sam Palmisano (CEO of IBM) at the ‘SmarterCities Shanghai Expo’ it very much drummed home how interconnected and instrumented our world has now become. The speech takes you out of the box we are all living in and allows u to appreciate the economic and societal progress we have really made.

Just now, all over the globe, we are changing; economically, technologically, politically, socially. Just think if we were to go back 100 years and circle the earth you would have seen 16 spots of light which would resemble 16 cities of 1 million people or more. Now today you can go up into space as tourist and see 450 of those similarly sized areas of light representing 1 million or more. This is the urbanization of our planet and it will continue. In 2007 we crossed a threshold that states more than half the people in the world live in and around cities, by 2050 this will rise to 70%. This is the equivalent of adding 7 New York cities to our planet.

There are 2 things we need to consider at this time…….great challenges and great opportunities.  In order to deal with these pressures on our infrastructure it’s essential we look at our current challenges that dominate our world today; climate change, geo-politics of energy and our availability of natural resources, security (9/11, Terrorism) and of course the financial crisis. These are all incidents that brought about a need to be smarter in our world if we are to continue to grow as a prosperous planet and I mean that in every sense. In our cities we have transportation challenges, utilities and water challenges, healthcare challenges, education challenges, public safety challenges and governmental challenges. These are what make our cities flow, a breakdown of one can have consequences for the rest. We need to recognize the urbanization of our planet, recognize this moment in time and invest in a smarter future.

 However, saying one thing and acting upon it are two very different concepts. One thing I have learnt at IBM is….. ‘Strategy without execution is… delusion!’ In 2001/02, IBM’s strategy was to move away from commoditization and they have executed that move in an incredible way; In Malta, IBM have secured a $70 million dollar contract to help  Malta build the first the national smart grid which will also monitor the country’s water systems. IBM are now involved in smarter rail systems in China, smarter healthcare managing medical records, smarter water systems in Japan, smarter oil exploration in South America and on and on and on. Ipods and Macs are cool but they are commodity products, used for personal entertainment and can be copied. IBM’s value proposition was instead to add value to society, “to go to a place that we have never been before……so they can’t copy us!”  8 years later and 91% of IBM’s profit comes from software and services. It’s all about building a system of systems now.

However, it’s not all about technology, you can’t just build systems and through them together, it needs leadership all around the world to continue becoming smarter. “We will have to lead by listening; to influence, not dictate, to serve rather than to dominate” (Sam Palmisano)

Those bright city lights that you see from space can then therefore be seen as spots of opportunity that can shape the way live and work in our daily lives. IBM is just one of the leaders in this exciting era, it’s a privilege to be part of such a global organization that is taking the responsibility of adding value to our society.

Times are changing, we are becoming smarter but we must seize the opportunity when it presents itself, let’s be part of building a smarter planet that can be sustainable for generations to come.

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes. 

Have a great day ;)

Graham