IBM: Quotes from Watson

Passion project pageight is shaping up to potentially be bigger than I expected.

It’s really no surprise. In a completely new network of business collaborators, outside the corporate world, I have been introducing myself differently the last 6 months.

“I make everything bigger.”

At a moment when my original plan was to do-this-thing-by-the-end-of-this-quarter, I choose an alternative result and make an executive decision today. I am the boss, afterall.

I opt to slow down, stay here a little longer. I choose a pace that is more aligned with the sustainable lifestyle I so desire - one where the long road is at its highest value. I take a stroll through my memories and recall a story that makes me think, even bigger.

—

In this mindset, I often find myself at Big Blue.

This time, in a windowless conference room in Paramus, NJ. In the late 2010s, I had the honor to lead a team of brilliant consultants - world-class kinda ones - you know the type.

Alongside a client of the German automotive kind - you know the one, we were imagining how to use IBM Watson as a growth engine in marketing channels. The project was also a foundational market experiment to inform a D2C strategy. We were a small team, playing big. We were switched on and moving at a faster speed than most. We were going first, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Back in New Jersey, we were focused on a scalpel-sharp mission: an impeccably designed market-loved prototype, one that actually works. Simple enough, but imagine the context. The stakes were high and the investments commensurate. The pressure was on.

I could almost always sense when the team felt off: going too far or too deep, spinning too long or nerding-out too hard. It was my role to guide everyone back on.

I often called on this book as a tool. I was studying leadership and eventually carrying it everywhere with me. In a world of corporate constraints that oftentimes made no sense to me, I used it to remind myself of why I was here, in the first place. And to build culture.

Connecting our work to its purpose through the voice of heritage in Watson, Jr’s words became a team ritual known as "Quotes from the Dead Watson". Until now, these were the best days of my career.

It’s really no surprise I am called to pull Watson from my humble bibliothèque today. To remind myself of my own beliefs. And to ride the cycle, not the quarter.

Until then, you can find me on pageight.