@ Pulse 2010: Getting Things Going

I have too many friends I work with in Canada to gloat about the U.S. team’s win over Canada in men’s hockey last evening at the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.

So, that’s all I’ll say on the subject.

Hee hee hee.

One of the great things about attending IBM’s major customer events like Pulse is the opportunity to visit face to face with customers and also to see some familiar and friendly faces from across IBM.

We’re a distributed global organization these days at IBM (my team and I joke with one another that we only see each other on other continents…more truth to that than I care to admit) so face-to-face time is a precious commodity in an organization fluent in using Lotus Sametime and Notes to conduct so much of its business.

I ran into one such IBM old friend last night in the hallways of the MGM, Harriet Pearson.

Harriet is IBM’s Chief Privacy Officer and Vice President, Security Counsel, and someone with whom I collaborated with many moons ago to help formulate IBM’s Internet privacy policy.

Harriet has continually been a guiding beacon and thought leader for IBM and the industry around privacy concerns, including the challenging subject of privacy in the social media — view this recent and thoughtful interview as part of SuperNova on the subject of balancing the need for sharing with online privacy.

Harriet will be partnering with IBM System and Technology Group general manager Helene Armitage in Tuesday’s general session here at Pulse to explore how integrated service management can meet the needs of a smarter planet, with a particular eye on the practical concerns of managing growth, reducing costs and ensuring security.

Harriet and Helene will provide valuable insight into how to manage these concerns, and will be joined by a variety of IBM clients who are deploying integrated service management solutions using Tivoli software.

Of course, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

This morning, just after breakfast, expect to see Tivoli Software general manager Al Zollar officially get things kicked into full gear before handing off the podium to the other Al, former U.S. vice president, Al Gore.

I’m looking forward to it all, and plan to provide some real-time updates via Twitter, as are so many of my colleagues, customers, and the press/analyst community…follow the hashtag #ibmpulse to monitor the real-time stream from this morning’s general sessions starting around 11 AM EST.