Can Smart Water Make a Critical Difference for the Eel and Mussel?

Years ago, I had my professional career beginnings at IBM. I was in sales. It was at IBM that I met Joe Mastromatteo. Joe spent part of his career at headquarters where the BIG iron was created. Joe has provided me with several ideas for posts. As a retired IBM employee, Joe remains faithful to Big Blue’s evolution from a preeminent computer hardware manufacturer to a global service provider.

Inspiration for this current post again has been provided by Joe who continues to see alignment between the purpose of my company and IBM’s continued evolution of its environmental business model.

I wonder if IBM sees a similar synergy?

In a couple of recent posts, I discussed the fate of the European eel and a few species of native American (from Oklahoma, actually) freshwater mussels! Both are endangered because of declining water quality. Both can be characterized as Biological Dominos.

Building A Smarter Planet is a blog that is part of IBM’s A Smarter Planet campaign. If you have been even partially focused on corporate promotions, you would notice that IBM continues to move deeper into the application of smart technology as an important component of solving environmental problems.

So, what’s the connection between IBM, the European eel and an Oklahoma mussel?

Perhaps another way of asking that question to understand the connection might be: Would smart water have made a difference in the longevity of the eel and mussel?

From the Smarter Planet blog, its author, Tim Washer takes us on a trip to Lake Champlain. When you look at the video: Mad Science - Making Water Smarter the connection will become perfectly clear.

The irony (and benefits) of the evolution of IBM – besides the obvious business potential and Green association – is that when I worked at IBM, Big Blue was all about BIG computers. Today, Big Blue might have a lot more to do with BLUE water than CPUs!

There is even one more ominous stretch in this comparison. IBM moved aggressively into global services because the mainframe computer WAS BECOMING ENDANGERED. For the opposite reason, it is now moving aggressively into the environment because it IS BECOMING ENDANGERED!