
IBM Design - bkmn
https://www.ibm.com/design/
======
butu5
Even though IBM doesn't seems very sexy startup. But they survived 100+ years
and trying to find way to stay in business.

They learn and adapt. They contribute significantly to Open Source. Now they
are understanding importance of UI/UX design and trying to invest heavily on
it.

Lot of big name startup even though succeed for short or medium term but
struggling a lot in long run. I really enjoy reading the below book about IBM

Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? by Louis V., Jr. Gerstner (Outsider came to
IBM as CEO) IBM is nearly in verge of collapse during early 90s. And he pulled
it off.

[http://www.amazon.com/Who-Says-Elephants-Cant-
Dance/dp/00605...](http://www.amazon.com/Who-Says-Elephants-Cant-
Dance/dp/0060523808)

~~~
arrty88
I would like to see IBM release something similar to Material Design /
Bootstrap - that is home grown from their own design experts.

~~~
jchendy
Material and Bootstrap are very different, so I'm not sure exactly what you're
looking for, but FWIW, IBM does have some resources available, including what
appears to be working code in the "animation library"
[https://www.ibm.com/design/language/resources](https://www.ibm.com/design/language/resources)

~~~
makeitso_or_not
Yup, the IBM Design Language is a growing library/guidelines for all new IBM
Designed products. Still a work in progress, but there is finally a unified
look/feel/function for future apps/sites.

------
adventurousocto
I was hired as one of the product designers in the winter class of 2015 and
love my job. It’s not smooth sailing but it is also my first job out of
college and it is incredibly rewarding to see the kind of impact you can have
on shipped products and also really inspiring to see a 100 year old company
trying to change from the inside out. We have an amazing culture in the design
studio and I couldn’t imagine working anywhere else right now.

------
andreastt
96 HTTP requests, totaling 5406.72 KB, in 12.87 seconds. Maybe good design for
print, but certainly not for web.

~~~
grp
I was going to say it works like a charm with javascript disabled, but it's
just broken fast!

------
jchendy
Is there anything new here? This site was all over the tech news last year
when it was released, but I can't tell what, if anything, has changed now.

~~~
thothsscribe
They recently updated their design thinking process. Pretty much the same
thing, but more focused on iterative approaches?

------
slantedview
IBM is truly owe of the most loathsome tech companies in our industry. They
have a long record of treating their employees horribly. Many people I know
have been laid off at IBM and made to train their (foreign) replacements. One
person I know has worked for IBM 3 times (twice through acquisitions) and was
laid off all 3 times! Please keep this stuff in mind as a contrast to their
flashy new marketing.

~~~
rdtsc
They have to. It is part of the strategy and how it can manage to stay alfoat.
At some point software consulting business was big so they had consultants for
big projects. Then I don't know cloud got bit, so now what should they do,
keep hoards of consults on payroll as a jobs program like TSA? Maybe retrain
them? The fastest and easiest way it so lay them off.

At some point I've heard they sold cheese slicers. They probaby had experts in
that. What should they do when the market situation changes? Keep selling and
hiring more people in that area or lay them off.

------
yarou
IBM is largely a relic from a bygone era. You know, the era where people of
color didn't exist and women were largely relegated to secretarial roles.

I have it on good authority that you need to pay for snacks at IBM. When an
executive was asked why this was so, they replied that: "the coffee is free,
because it will make our engineers more productive."

IBM, not even once.

~~~
jldugger
> I have it on good authority that you need to pay for snacks at IBM.

I work for the State of Oregon. It's pretty much illegal to give employees
free food without a business justification. Buying my own snacks and coffee is
the default, and not a huge deal; I'd rather have money to spend as I deem fit
than more calories. Complaining about not having a mini fridge full of Red
Bull and a cabinet stocked with Doritos is a great way to make yourself look
tone deaf and selfish when the vast, vast majority of American society doesn't
have these fringe benefits.

Far, far worse is the series of things IBM's been doing to benefits. They've
shifted the 401k match to the end of the year, so you have to survive any
layoffs and stack ranking system to earn your contribution. Early retirement
has been slashed from 6 months pay to 1 month.

~~~
jeoffw
IBM 401k did move matching to the end of the year. I was annoyed about that
too until I realized that Google employees only get 50% matching on their
contributions, capped at $8250. Meanwhile, IBM contributes 1% automatically
and matches 100% of your contributions up to 5% of pay.

IBM's 401k benefit is easily verifiable:
[http://www-01.ibm.com/services/socomm/shared/pdf/IBM401PlusP...](http://www-01.ibm.com/services/socomm/shared/pdf/IBM401PlusPlanBrochure.pdf)

Google no longer lists their 401k benefit publicly, but there is this:
[https://www.quora.com/What-exactly-is-Googles-
employee-401k-...](https://www.quora.com/What-exactly-is-Googles-
employee-401k-matching)

------
neurobashing
I note Apple products featured quite prominently.

~~~
jchendy
Possibly related to this: [http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/15/apple-teams-up-
with-ibm-for...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/15/apple-teams-up-with-ibm-for-
huge-expansive-enterprise-push/)

------
fallingmeat
Hey IBM, instead of just telling us you care, how about _actually_ creating a
delightful experience for ClearCase, ClearQuest or DOORS.

I guess it's easier to simply say "Design" 37 times on a static site, maybe
add some bright colors, people of 'diverse' background and a hoodie for
effect. Nailed it!

~~~
thothsscribe
IBM has hundreds, if not thousands, of products that they own and maintain.
Understand that the research for a design, designing it, and then developing
it takes months to years to accomplish. IBM won't be able to update all of
their products, but they will work on the ones that they can and then carry
design consideration to all new products. Thats all a company can do. Same
goes for Microsoft, Google, etc. IBM is a bit late to the game is their only
issue.

Also consider, how are they going to get designers/people who care about
design if they don't advertise it first. Yes there are products that need
work, but to fix that issue they need to say Design 37 and more times just to
get the attention of the right people. I am sure in your line of work as well,
things don't just happen immediately because you want it to and sometimes to
solve one problem you need to solve two or three others first.

~~~
fallingmeat
ok agreed. hope it works!

------
kwahyaj
They just released a new Design Thinking framework, it's pretty interesting
and worth a look.
[https://www.ibm.com/design/thinking/](https://www.ibm.com/design/thinking/)

------
rfreytag
Please be cautious when considering working for or with IBM. IBM's poor
treatment of employees and customers is widely reported. Do your own research.

For example, Cringely has a book outlining IBM's problems:
[http://www.cringely.com/2014/06/04/decline-fall-
ibm/](http://www.cringely.com/2014/06/04/decline-fall-ibm/)

He has many posts in the same vein (note dates in the URLs):

* [http://www.cringely.com/2016/01/11/wheres-the-beef-ibm/](http://www.cringely.com/2016/01/11/wheres-the-beef-ibm/)

* [http://www.cringely.com/2015/07/21/ibm-is-so-screwed/](http://www.cringely.com/2015/07/21/ibm-is-so-screwed/)

* [http://www.cringely.com/2015/01/26/ibm-right-gadfly/](http://www.cringely.com/2015/01/26/ibm-right-gadfly/)

* [http://www.cringely.com/2015/01/22/ibms-reorg-hell-launches-...](http://www.cringely.com/2015/01/22/ibms-reorg-hell-launches-next-week/)

* [http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/27/fix-ibm/](http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/27/fix-ibm/)

* [http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/21/ginni-comes-senses-late-i...](http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/21/ginni-comes-senses-late-ibm/)

* [http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/12/ibms-power8-servers-less-...](http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/12/ibms-power8-servers-less-meets-eye/)

* [http://www.cringely.com/2014/07/25/fed-suckered-ibm-failing-...](http://www.cringely.com/2014/07/25/fed-suckered-ibm-failing-cloud-strategy/)

* [http://www.cringely.com/2014/07/16/ibm-apple-just-big-deal/](http://www.cringely.com/2014/07/16/ibm-apple-just-big-deal/)

* [http://www.cringely.com/2014/06/15/ibm-back-ussr/](http://www.cringely.com/2014/06/15/ibm-back-ussr/)

* [http://www.cringely.com/2014/01/23/ibm-sells-intel-server-bu...](http://www.cringely.com/2014/01/23/ibm-sells-intel-server-business-company-doomed/)

* [http://www.cringely.com/2013/08/07/fulfilling-customer-requi...](http://www.cringely.com/2013/08/07/fulfilling-customer-requirements-is-a-weapon-at-ibm/)

* [http://www.cringely.com/2013/07/25/the-new-ibm-vampires-in-o...](http://www.cringely.com/2013/07/25/the-new-ibm-vampires-in-our-midst/)

* [http://www.cringely.com/2013/06/20/ibm-to-customers-your-han...](http://www.cringely.com/2013/06/20/ibm-to-customers-your-hand-is-staining-my-window/)

* [http://www.cringely.com/2013/04/22/the-decline-fall-of-ibm/](http://www.cringely.com/2013/04/22/the-decline-fall-of-ibm/)

...and many older columns.

See the comment by _slantedview_ in these comments for another example.

Cringely isn't the only one offering serious criticisms of IBM:
[https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=pro...](https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=problems+at+ibm&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)

~~~
rdtsc
Regardless of what happens with IBM, this sounds like someone with a chip on
his shoulder. He wrote a book about how bad it is, then blogs about it.

It is like someone who got out of a relationship (didn't he work there?), but
then keeps obsessing and talking to everyone else about it for 10 years after.

~~~
rfreytag
Many blog entries preceded the book, some by years - look at the URL dates.

Cringely was not employed by IBM according to:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_X._Cringely](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_X._Cringely)

Cringely was an early employee of Apple and has worked for PBS (another TLA),
as a journalist.

My point here is to urge people to be cautious when including IBM in their
career plans. If you can get past Cringely's flamboyant writing style you will
see that _on the topic of IBM Cringely is informed and has been accurate for
years._

Please do your own research into IBM's treatment of employees and customers
before hooking your cart to IBM's horse.

------
fakhar50
this is nice

