Making the World Work Better: The Ideas That Shaped a Century and a Company

Of Change and Progress

Samuel J. Palmisano

CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER IBM CORPORATION

One simple way to assess the impact of any organization is to answer the question: how is the world different because it existed?

The date of this volume’s publication, June 16, 2011, is a meaningful one for IBM. On it, we celebrate our centennial as a corporation. For IBMers today—women and men who have lived through an eventful part of that history—that means reconnecting to a storied past, and understanding its implications for a still-unfolding story.

But we believe the lessons of our history apply more broadly. Whether you seek to understand the trajectory of technology or to build and sustain a successful enterprise or to make the ...