Sharon Driscoll
Word of mouth andhow we’re seeing that happen within the category and we look at blogs, spheres,we look at press articles, we look at analysts’ briefings, what the investorsare saying. We look at the stock price andhow it’s moving. We look at the factthat in lean times it’s absolutely important to get to your bottom linerevenue, but it’s also in this particular time people were looking forleadership.
Could we stand upand take that leadership role, aid in the solution, help people get through verytough times by rethinking what they were doing. Not taking traditional methods and hoping that they would turn out thesame, but rethinking everything that they did in their supply chain, in theirmanufacturing structure, in the way they went to market, etc.
In doing that wethen started to get a ground swell of buzz that was going around in themarketplace. Positive? Yes, because all we were trying to do was aidin the solution. So in that case themeasurement has been are we talking and touching customers, prospects thatwe’ve never touched before and the answer is absolutely yet.
So we’ve gone out ofthe realm of traditional buyers. Nowwe’re talking to governments. We’retalking to community organizations. We’re talking to communities at large and they’re bringing us in not asa technology company, but as a business partner. I have a problem and I think that you becauseyou handle a lot of the problems in the world and you’ve come up with somesolutions, I think you could help me with my problem. That’s the new measurement for us.
Places we haven’tbeen before and how is the IBM brand and its people, which is their brand, howare they resonating? How is thatresonating across the world?