Even old dogs like IBM can learn new tricks

What is usually the first company that comes to mind when you are talking about the old guard of computer technology?

For most of us it would probably be companies like DEC, Microsoft, Oracle or IBM affectionately known as Big Blue. For the younger generation these would probably be dinosaurs since for them anything before last month’s newest startup would be considered old.

This new generation who tout the powers of things like social media, blogging and Twittering as the greatest thing to happen since .. well since Microsoft got slapped by the DoJ look upon the relics of the industry as leftovers who will never be able to make it in this new world. Unfortunately they could be in for a really big shock because some of these so-called relics are coming out of their slumber and they are proving that they can be just as hungry and these little upstarts littering the cyber landscape.

Such is the case of Big Blue; or for you youngsters out ther – IBM. Even though they are laden down with legacy crap like Lotus Notes they are beginning to make some very serious moves into the … are you youngsters sitting down? … into the social media field. they are doing this in any small way either. Yes they have have many employees who have been blogging and the such for some time but recently they launched a corporate backed blog called The Greater IBM Connection which is a group blog effort of a bunch of really smart people at IBM.

It was on this blog that IBM announced a new initiative called Smarter Planet for which they will be utilizing the Tumblr platform

I wanted to share a quick link to a new site focused on IBM’s exciting new Smarter Planet initiative.

We’re trying out an innovative service called Tumblr that is a very easy way to share links, quotes, videos, images, audio and other content, a sort of spontaneous form that the creators call a “tumblelog.” You can check it out here:

http://smarterplanet.tumblr.com/

The goal to highlight the many different ways that this smarter world is emerging in areas such as intelligent energy grids, transportation systems, healthcare and the environment, to name a few.

However they aren’t just stopping there either for they have set up a Smarter Planet room on FriendFeed. All this from a company that I would bet most of the Web 2.0 upstarts have written off as a leftover from a day gone by.

Well if there is a lesson you should be learning from this it is never ever count us old timers out cause we could just come back to bite you on the ass as we move pass you in the incredible technology race we are all a part of.