IBM Press, a publishing imprint of Pearson, today announced its latest books for business and technical professionals, including Maria Azua’s The Social Factor: Innovate, Ignite, and Win through Mass Collaboration and Social Networking. (www.ibmpressbooks.com/title/0137018908)

This book examines “The Social Age” in which we are all now living and working, which arose from the massive adoption of low-cost, Internet communication tools. Azua discusses the implications for companies that must now think and work differently by using these tools to encourage innovation and collaboration, both within employee communities and beyond company borders. The Social Factor draws on examples from IBM and other enterprises, as well as the Obama Presidential campaign, which illustrate the incredible power of social networking.

Key concepts introduced within The Social Factor include:

• An overview of “The Social Age,” including the events that led to the social networking revolution
• The defining characteristics of social age organizations, including a shift in “top-down” management hierarchies to realize the value of information residing within organizational layers
• Using wikis, blogs, cloud tagging, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube as the primary tools and venues that can measurably advance the objectives of a company, including growing the bottom line
• The cloud computing paradigm, or massively scalable computers available on-demand (i.e. pay-as-you-go utility model) that are changing how CIOs and IT professionals execute IT strategies
• The phenomenon of open source and collaborative software development as representing a new mindset that can result in even better software solutions
• Best practices for using social tools to drive innovation and technology adoption, with guidance on how to bring social innovation into the organization

Azua is vice president of Cloud Computing Enablement for IBM Enterprise Initiatives, responsible for the deployment and operations of cloud computing collaboration communities. Prior to her current role, she was vice president of technology and innovation reporting to the IBM CIO, and in this capacity she focused on the development of innovative IT solutions and integration of new technologies, including state-of-the-art social networking tools and programs for the enterprise.

A related forthcoming book, Joey Bernal’s Web 2.0 and Social Networking for the Enterprise: Guidelines and Examples for Implementation and Management Within Your Organization, will serve as the enterprise decision-maker's guide to using Web 2.0 for profit. Drawing on an extensive collection of case studies from companies that have used IBM and third-party technologies to build high-value Web 2.0 applications and systems, Bernal’s book discusses specific technical implementations such as AJAX, REST and mashups. The official book will publish in late October 2009, and currently is available as an eBook on the publisher site. Bernal is a certified IT specialist for IBM, and has an extensive background in the design and development of portal and web applications. (www.ibmpressbooks.com/title/0137004893)

Multisite Commerce: Proven Principles for Overcoming the Business, Organizational, and Technical Challenges, by Lev Mirlas, is designed to help executives and project managers looking to more broadly reach their existing and prospective customers at lower costs. Mirlas, who pioneered the concept of a shared multisite platform with IBM WebSphere Commerce, introduces best practices and methodologies for implementing and managing multiple commerce sites. He first explains why multisite commerce is critical for business, yet difficult to execute, and then addresses it from the business, implementation, and technical perspectives. (www.ibmpressbooks.com/title/0137148879)

Additional titles from IBM Press:

• (Sept. 2009) The Business of IT: How to Improve Service and Lower Costs, by Robert Ryan and Tim Raducha-Grace: (www.ibmpressbooks.com/title/0137000618)
• (Sept. 2009) Innovation Passport: The IBM First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) Journey From Research to Reality, by Mary Jo Frederich and Peter Andrews: (www.ibmpressbooks.com/title/0132390760)
• (Early 2010) Audience, Relevance, and Search, by James Mathewson, Frank Donatone and Cynthia Fishel. It is available now as a manuscript-in-progress via the Safari Books Online “Rough Cut” program: (http://safari.informit.com/9780137048250)

About Pearson
The global leader in educational and professional publishing, Pearson is home to such respected brands as Addison-Wesley Professional, Cisco Press, Exam Cram, IBM Press, Prentice Hall Professional, Que, and Sams Publishing, which have as their online publishing arm InformIT (www.informit.com) -The Trusted Technology Learning Source. In addition, Berkeley-based Peachpit (www.peachpit.com), the publishing partner for Adobe Press, Apple Certified, and others, publishes best-selling books for creative design professionals. Pearson is also co-founder, with O'Reilly Media Inc., of Safari Books Online (http://safari.informit.com), the premier on-demand technology content library providing thousands of expert reference materials through a single point of contact, including expert technology, creative and design, industry and management resources in video, audio and written formats. Pearson Education is part of Pearson (NYSE: PSO), the international media company. Pearson's other primary businesses include the Financial Times Group and the Penguin Group.

IBM Press is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.

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