But I will definitely add this, Steve Jobs was more than an innovator and a visionary. He was not Thomas Edison of our times as many have said. I think he was an artist – a Michelangelo or a Leonardo da Vinci of our times. Technology was his canvas and iMac, iPod, iPhone and IPad his masterpieces. He approached technology with an artist’s “open” mindset rather than a technologist’s or scientist’s “Do’s and Don’ts” conditioned approach. As a result, what he achieved is truly breathtaking and his creations speak for themselves. I don’t think we are going to see any one similar to him in our life-time. It is often said that those whom the gods love die young. This surely seems to be true in case for Steve Jobs.

During Stanford University’s commencement speech in 2005, he said that “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” So true. If only we can find a little bit of Steve Jobs within our heart and soul, our life will be so much richer and fulfilling!

Finally, to end this post I want to share this Bloomberg video on life and work of Steve Jobs. I am sure you will find it informative and inspiring. In case if you don’t see embedded video below, please click on this link for the video.

Rest in Peace Steve, you will be missed! You made it possible for me to video chat with my friends and family members on the other side of world at push of a button from a device that a 3 year old or a 85 year old person, and all age groups in between, find it not only easy to use, but also enjoy using it.

IBM is a great example of how companies should handle employees’ use of Social Media. IBM has approximately 400,000 employees spread through out the world, still it allows them to use Social Media without much restrictions. Casey Hibbard has written an excellent blog post on how IBM uses Social Media to spur employee innovation (see this link).

As per Casey’s post, IBM lets employees communicate with each other and the public over Social Media channels without intervention. This in spite of the fact that IBM has:

• A few thousand “IBMers” on Twitter
• Thousands of external bloggers,
• Almost 200,000 on LinkedIn
• 17,000 internal blogs
• 100,000 employees using internal blogs
• 53,000 members on SocialBlue (like Facebook for employees)
• As many as 500,000 participants in company crowd-sourcing “jams”
• 50,000 in alum networks on Facebook and LinkedIn

Watch this CNBC interview with Adam Christensen, IBM’s Social Media Communications Manager and John Abell, New York Bureau chief, Wired.com. According to Adam, IBM’s job is to help employees go out and have conversations that they want to, so that they can lead the business they are involved in. Not allowing employees to use Social Media is “short sighted” and companies will be “missing an opportunity”. (watch this video for more)

To succeed in this new age, it is important to embrace and adopt changes brought about by Social Media. And for that to happen, it is critical that organizations have proper guidelines for Social Media use by their employees. Employees should be allowed to use Social Media freely within those guidelines. (for IBM’s guidelines, see this link and for an excellent database of Social Media usage policies of 116 organizations, see this link).

I want to end this post by sharing a thought provoking video on how the workforce is changing in Social Media Age. Please watch this video and let me know if companies should restrict employees’ Social Media use.

Panel 1: On Social and Technological Innovation being brought about by Social Media:

Panel 2: Implications of Social Media to business:

Notice the impact of engaged employees on business outcomes on slide no. 4. I also like the mantra on slide 23:

• Be Found.
• Be True.
• Be Talked About.

Time has come for HR managers to be passionate about Social Media and embrace Social Networking in a big way so that their most precious resource, namely employees, remain engaged and continue to deliver outstanding business results.

As planned, this contest was held on December 5, 2009. A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology won $40,000 “high-tech scavenger hunt” by discovering the location of 10 red weather balloons first.

Team from MIT “Crowdsourced” solution to this puzzle by inviting people to sign up to help find DARPA’s red balloons (see MIT RED Balloon Challenge Team’s website for more info). MIT team plans to give away $2000 to the first person to identify location of each Red balloon, and also $1000 to the person who invited that person to join this contest, and $500 to whoever invited the inviter, and $250 to whoever invited them, and so on … (see how it works). Fascinating stuff isn’t it! MIT team not only planned their strategy well but also executed it brilliantly. And it’s no surprise that they won DARPA’s Red balloon challenge.

So what can DARPA’s Red balloon contest teach Social Media Pros? Several things in my opinion:

• First of all, DARPA held this contest to identify ways social networking can help accomplish a large-scale, time-critical task. DARPA could have engaged Social Media consultants to help them figure this out and they could have spent endless hours debating and discussing about how Social Networking can accomplish a large-scale task. Instead, they chose to conduct a simple experiment through Social Media. Lesson for Social Media Pros is that rather than having a long debate on how Social Media works and how it can be leveraged, it is better to design a simple, low cost experiment and start using Social Media to understand how it works. Outcome of such small and inexpensive experiments are more valuable than having endless discussions on the subject. They are also far more cost-effective compared to time and travel cost of personnel involved in figuring this out.
  

• Secondly, MIT Crowdsourced solution to this contest by inviting people to sign up to help find DARPA’s red balloons and also encouraged them to invite their friends to sign up. MIT team provided monetary incentive even if some one’s friend (or one of their friends (or one of their friends…and so on…)) found a balloon. Lesson for Social Media Pros is leverage reach of Social Media and have trust in wisdom of crowd. It is important to reward not only individual member for their winning contribution, but also those who brought them to the network thereby extending reach of network and making Crowdsourcing a reality.

MIT’s winning approach to solving DARPA’s Red balloon contest can be applied in business and government for finding innovative solution to complex problem cost-effectively and quickly. Added benefit is the buzz it can generate, both in “traditional” and “New” media resulting in free publicity and media coverage. For that reason alone, it is worth the money spent!

What do you think? What other lessons Social Media Pros can learn from DARPA’s Red balloon contest? Looking forward to your comments: