The biggest news in the tech industry the past week has been the rumored IBM acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Like everyone else who follows the tech industry I have spent more than a few hours trying to get my head around all the competitive implications. Needless to say the rumor has made for some interesting hallway conversations, not to mention some lively debates among analysts in the office.

At the same time I have been finalizing the material for the B2B Social Media workshop my colleague Laura Ramos and I will be conducting tomorrow in Foster City, and next month in Orlando. In doing so, I couldn’t help but notice I have a lot of Sun examples of social media done right. IBM holds it’s own, but in the tech industry specifically Sun and Dell are the poster children of social media marketing, and both have been struggling mightily.

A couple of years ago I was on a panel with Toby Redshaw of Motorola, who in the course of discussion confidently declared that the only way to get a Web 2.0 initiative off the ground was to fire the CEO. Since then I have seen just that over and over again: the firms looking to implement Web 2.0 tools for social media marketing — as well as employee collaboration and productivity — are those with a “motivated” CEO, typically one who is fresh on the job. The CEO fresh on the job does not typically find himself at the most successful company.

Which brings us back to Sun and IBM. Let’s take a quick look at their homepages as they stood in August of 2008 (the orange boxes are mine). Notice anything? One has community and social media all over the place while the other offers just a hint. So which one is acquiring which? And is this more than just coincidence?

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I just finished reading a great Q&A in CW Bulletin, the online companion to CW Magazine. The interview is with a veteran creative director and entrepreneur at Grayton Integrated Publishing on how to cut costs with creative projects like marketing, advertising, and publications.

The interview contains some very sound advice, and I was struck at how much of it sounds familiar (pun intended):

What’s the first step to defining your objectives?
Whether you’re creating a magazine or a brochure or launching a full-blown campaign, don’t discuss what it will look like until you’ve agreed on its purpose. Who is your audience? What are you telling them? What are you hoping to achieve? Don’t try to figure out if your vehicle should be a bus or a Ferrari until you’ve determined where it’s coming from and where it’s headed.

Turns out the interviewee is my mother. Long-time readers of this blog may also remember that my Grandmother was recently in Sailing Magazine.

Alright dad, time to step it up!

Update: A few gramatical errors and some horrible spelling errors. Turns out my mother was also a copy editor.

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