Steve Cogan

Current

• UK Lotus Connections Technical Product Leader at IBM

Past

• Technical Sales (Software Pre-Sales) at IBM (Lotus, SWG)
• Principal Lotus Systems Architect at Unisys
• Senior Architect at BrowseWeb Ltd (Sole Proprietorship)

• Knowledge Management Consultant at Gemini Consulting
• Journalist (Self-employed)

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2 more...

Education

• Leeds Trinity and All Saints College

Recommended

7 people have recommended Steve

Connections

173 connections

Industry

Computer Software

Websites

• My Twitter feed
• My Blog
• Social software colleague

Steve Cogan’s Summary

An experienced individual working in client-facing roles for over 15 years, Steve is currently a senior software pre-sales specialist in IBM’s software group. He has excelled since taking this role in 2007, leading to awards and recognition – both in the UK and globally. Recognised as a subject matter expert in social software & collaboration.

Steve is experienced in a range of organisational cultures across high-pressure and rapidly changing environments. His background of working with senior business management has enabled him to develop awareness of business issues and their impact on IT project conception and delivery.

His “can do” professional attitude is demonstrated in a proven ability to assess issues quickly, take control of the problems and effect solutions in a diligent and professional manner. He has developed excellent communication skills through the experience of working with staff at all levels of large organisations. His professional approach, combined with high attention to detail, has led to consistently delivered results over many successful engagements.

Steve Cogan’s Specialties:

• Knowledge management, Web2.0, social software & collaboration leader & advocate
• Design & implementation of Enterprise collaborative architecture solutions
• Development of business cases to support solutions
• Ability to leverage relevant domain experience in RFI / RFPs
• Technical excellence and an ability to deliver projects to tight timescales
• Mastery of the end to end sales & client engagement cycle
• Understanding of software delivery channels from SaaS to on-premise

Steve Cogan’s Experience

• UK Lotus Connections Technical Product Leader

  IBM

  (Public Company; IBM; Information Technology and Services industry)

  January 2009 — Present (1 year 3 months)

  Driving adoption of the market leading enterprise social software solution, Lotus Connections, within IBM and across UK clients.
  
  Master Certified IT Specialist – The Open Group - Portal & Collaboration workstream (2009)
  
  Level II Certified member of IBM’s Professions Institute (2009)
  
  • Winner ‘National Excellence’ award, 2007 & ‘BlueIQ’ [social software enablement programme] worldwide award, 2008
  • Excellent client feedback including, “…can honestly say he has been the best IBM Software representative I have had dealings with. He is very proactive, very keen to help and looks to be very influential in IBM circles. I respect and trust Steve and I know my team do too.”
  • Excellent peer feedback including, “Having spoken to you... it suddenly got me thinking about Web 2.0, collaboration and the value of communities which can be harnessed. … In five minutes, you sold me the power of the Web 2.0 stuff and the benefits for a large organisation … and I thank you sincerely for this. You have got my mind racing about what I should be do-ing Web 2.0-wise and I thank you. ”
  
  
  Keywords & tags; web2.0 collaboration social-software socialsoftware social-networking socialnetworking enterprise enterprise2.0 adoption lotus lotus-connections wiki community consultancy pre-sales presales sales-engineer salesengineer saas cloud virtualisation virtualization hosted on-premise architect architecture socialsoftware social-networking socialnetworking email e-mail km knowledge-management consolidation server-consolidation datacenter-consolidation

• Technical Sales (Software Pre-Sales)

  IBM (Lotus, SWG)

  (Public Company; IBM; Information Technology and Services industry)

  February 2007 — January 2009 (2 years )

  Working with clients in financial services industry to leverage leading Lotus collaborative tools, processes and technologies for business advantage.
  
  Currently working in social software/networking and web2.0 concepts.
  
  • Played key role in worldwide sale of enterprise social software to large global organisation covering hundreds of thousands of seats
  • Successfully defended strategic clients from competitive threat, leveraging previous experience in this area
  • Led creation of virtual ‘Showcase’ environment to demonstrate our capabilities in the field. This was re-used globally with multiple customers

• Principal Lotus Systems Architect

  Unisys

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; UIS; Information Technology and Services industry)

  July 2001 — February 2007 (5 years 8 months)

  • Principal architect in global consulting practice specialising in IBM-Lotus
  • Design authority for IBM-Lotus technology projects and bids
  • Evangelising service offerings with Unisys and to clients; UK, Europe and globally
  • Coaching, and leading IBM-Lotus technology bids/projects worldwide
  • Developed and managed service offerings
  
  Main Achievements
  • Developed successful methodology for Lotus Domino consolidation
  • Strategy and process audit for European collaborative platform of major pharmaceutical client
  • Enterprise architect in major data centre consolidation project – focus on Lotus Notes-Domino platform
  • Enterprise Lotus Architect for major document management system for major global financial client. The project was nominated for IT ‘project of the year’ by Computing magazine
  • Awarded the “Invent the Future” prize for knowledge management in Worldwide Consulting practice

• Senior Architect

  BrowseWeb Ltd (Sole Proprietorship)

  (Sole Proprietorship; Myself Only; Information Technology and Services industry)

  January 1998 — July 2001 (3 years 7 months)

  • Collaborative project design & implementation for blue-chip clients in finance, consulting and manufacturing market sectors
  • Business & IT process re-design
  • Coaching client teams on infrastructure & security best practices (Lotus Notes-Domino)
  
  Main achievements:
  • Technical and project managed major worldwide collaborative platform (Notes-Domino) upgrade across 30+ countries
  • Successfully managed virtual team of 45 resources across 30+ countries
  • Instituted management reporting process with defined and agreed key performance indicators across global manufacturing company
  • Developed security recommendations to comply with Bank of England regulations for major UK bank for their collaborative environment
  • Managed re-design and roll-out of key business and IT processes for financial client's collaborative platform.

• Knowledge Management Consultant

  Gemini Consulting

  (Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; Management Consulting industry)

  July 1993 — December 1997 (4 years 6 months)

  Gemini Consulting (Management consultancy), now known as CapGemini
  
  Duties and Responsibilities:
  • Business analyst
  • Knowledge management leader
  • Management of support teams split between EMEA, USA & Asia-Pacific
  
  Main achievements whilst in this role:
  • Implemented project communication/knowledge management strategy
  • Managed follow-the-sun global teams across three continents
  • Led process team to redesign client’s internal knowledge capture guidelines
  • Business Analyst - played a key role in major (multi-million £) consulting contracts for management consulting practice

• Journalist

  Self-employed

  (Self-Employed; Myself Only; Newspapers industry)

  January 1988 — July 1993 (5 years 7 months)

  Feature writer for national newspapers & magazines. Published by-lines included: The Independent, PC Dealer & Computer Trade Weekly. Subjects ranged from IT security and future trends, such as parallel processing, through to music including interviews with artists including Utah Saints, Art of Noise & Tangerine Dream.

Steve Cogan’s Education

• Leeds Trinity and All Saints College

  BA(Hons) , Communication & Cultural Studies , 1990 — 1993

  The Communication & Cultural Studies degree led to my interest in Knowledge Management, which I continue to practice to this day.

  Activities and Societies:

  Managing Editor of College Newspaper - successfully relaunched 'TASC News' in my final year. Used my media networking to land exclusive interviews with personalities such as Stephen Berkoff. Continued to write professionally for various publications during this time.

Additional Information

Steve Cogan’s Websites:

• My Twitter feed
• My Blog
• Social software colleague

Steve Cogan’s Groups:

Member Lotus UK User Group, Connectr (Lotus Connections) SIG.

•    The Greater IBM Connection: IBM's alumni program for past and present IBM employees
•    Unisys - Ever Worked - Employees and Contractors
•    IBM Lotus Software Employees
•    Unified Communications
•    IBM co/ex workers independent group
•    Cloud Computing
•    Software as a Service (SaaS) Group
•    Lotus Connections User Group
•    Enterprise Web 2.0

Steve Cogan’s Honors:

Achieved entry into IBM's worldwide Professions body in 2009 as L2 Certified IT Professional.

Winner IBM Worldwide BlueIQ award 2008.

Winner of IBM National Excellence Award, 2007.

Winner of "Invent The Future Award" for Knowledge Management (Internal Global Corporate Award, 2004)

Professional Certifications include:
• Principal Certified Lotus Professional - PCLP Domino R5, 6, & 7
• IBM Certified Advanced System Administrator ICASA - Lotus Notes Domino 6, R5, 6, & 7.

Steve Cogan’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• career opportunities
• consulting offers
• new ventures
• job inquiries
• expertise requests
• business deals
• reference requests
• getting back in touch