Here’s a general round up of info about IBM’s podcasting initiatives:

developerWorks - James Snell: Podcasting @ IBM … includes the text of IBM’s podcasting guidelines for staff.

Today IBM announced to it’s employees an internal Podcasting pilot (similar to an Odeo.com type of service for the IBM Intranet) that is described as a “podcast publishing and directory tool that allows [employees] to easily publish podcasts, and gives others the ability to find your podcasts and subscribe” (emphasis added).

InfoWorld - Stacy Cowley: IBM employees play with podcasting

What do you get when you hand 320,000 employees the tools and corporate podcasting guidelines to internally publish their audio creations? In IBM Corp.’s experience, lower phone bills and better, more informal internal communication.

… and …

One of Edwards’ favorite creations is a weekly status update from IBM’s supply chain organization. The group previously scheduled a weekly conference call with all the employees it needed to coordinate with — a conference that involved as many as 7,000 people. Now, supply-chain executives upload a weekly podcast, which staffers can listen to when they want. “It’s dramatically cheaper,” Edwards said. “Plus you don’t have thousands of people organizing their schedules around this weekly call.”

Now this is useful stuff. Being part of a sales organisation - you realise just how devotes sales people are to their beloved conference calls. Just the other day, my senior management called a 15 minute all-hands conference call to make an announcement about someone filling a management position that had been vacant. I wasn’t sure why that couldn’t be communicated via email, but I also thought - perhaps these announcements and all-hands conference calls (there seems to be at least one a week these days), could be done via a podcast instead? People who should be out in the field selling or supporting our customers don’t need to be stuck in conference calls all day. Perhaps I should take that concept up with our management locally - would be a useful thing to try I think.

IBM - Investor Relations: IR Viewpoint - a series of articles and podcasts about “Understanding IBM’s strategy and business performance.

The infoTalk Podcast - John Furrier: Inside IBM: IBM Internal Podcast with PodTech

Last month IBM interviewed me while at the IBM headquarters meeting with their corporate podcast team. Their internal podcast of me was distributed to all of their worldwide employees.

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This is exciting. I have re-published this IBM internal podcast with IBM’s permission. This is an example of what IBM has been publishing internally in an effort to educate their employees about podcasting and to encourage them to adopt internal podcasting through an internal podcast publishing pilot tool inside of IBM.

Who said IBM can’t be nimble and lead again. Amazing stuff. I’m excited to work with IBM. IBM is open and transparent. Great leadership in a new era of corporate communications and social media.

… great stuff from John, showcasing how IBM are using this technology internally, and how they are linking in with experts like John himself to help foster understanding and excitement about what podcasting can offer.