Conference Season is Picking Up

I have been a bit out of the loop the last 4-6 weeks but for those who have been in the know, there are many conferences, especially IBM ones, over the next few months.

Some are asking for abstracts. Hint, hint.

MWLUG in Grand Rapids NEXT WEEK, August 27-29

ICON UK September 12th in London

Social Connections VII in Stockholm November 13-14 (abstracts due by end of August)

DanNotes November 20-21 in Korsør (abstracts due by end of August)

2015

Lotusphere/IBM Connect/ IBM ConnectED in Orlando January 25-28 (Abstracts not open yet)

IBM Impulse/IBM Innovate/IBM Pulse/ IBM Interconnect in Las Vegas February 22-26 (Abstracts due by Sept 26)

No doubt I missed a few but feel free to let me know and I will add them.

See you out there...somewhere...soon.

Social Cafe at Connect 2013

Donna Bieg posted this and I wanted to make sure everyone knew about it. My session is on Wen at 11AM and I may be on a panel in between.

The Social Cafe is on the exhibition floor to the left as you come down the escalator or to the right if you come in from the Lunch level.

Take a break and recharge your mobile device in the Social Cafe, while listening to short informative social talks by industry leaders from TechCrunch, Deloitte Digital, Redbook Thought Leaders, customers, business partners, IBM and IBM Champions. 

A wide variety of social topics will be presented, including: Social enablement, collaboration, mobile apps, social networking, and community management.  Stop by to discuss the value of social with Chris Heuer of Deloitte Digital and debate the future of data with TechCrunch witer, Alex Williams. You can see the full schedule below.

Location: 

Talks will be conducted at the social cafe in the solutions showroom, near the bookstore.   

 Monday, January 28, 2013

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

 

Connect2013 Tip #2 Sametime Goodies

Everyone who uses Sametime loves it. It just works and does some great things too, when properly configured.

There are some things few people ever know about so I want to highlight some and end with a few links to nice ST tools.

1) Why does every Community use the same icon?

Because you never changed it. Really. You go into the Manage Sametime Community from File-Preferences-Sametime-Server Communities-CommunityName and the Icon tab and you have a prebuilt set of 5 choices or you could add a 16x16 icon same size as a favicon.

While this normally would not occur or be needed by the average user, if you also logged into

A) IBM Greenhouse for instance, or

B) LotusLive IBM SmartCloud for Social Business
you see where this could be helpful. I made those icons for you for each Community, enjoy.

2) Did you know you can check someone's calendar availability for a meeting from their sametime icon?
Right click on the person and select Check Availability. How awesome is that!

2a) While there, right click and look at all the options you have, Instant meeting! Collaboration History! Wait, you never tried these? Go do it now. I'll wait. Remember to thank the Sametime team and Product managers when you see them at Connect.

2b) If you used SUT or SUTLite you would have even more options and benefits like calling the person directly.

3) Did you know Sametime has a screen capture tool built-in as well?
Where you see the More drop down menu, you have a screen capture tool. It says Capture Part of Your Screen

4) If you use IBM Connections and Sametime you must get the IBM Connections Plugin for Sametime
No administrator needed to make it work, but your mileage may vary based on the installed version of Connections. You get a nice quick integration to hop to your Connections applications.

5) Got Skype? Pentos says they have a plugin for Skype usage with Sametime. Looks interesting and they provide a 10 day trial, just enough for those coming to Connect.

6) Many clients exist for android, iPhone, Macs, Linux in addition to the IBM provided client so ask around check it out. when I am doing testing I use QuipIM on my Android phone in addition to the IBM client.

Lots of Sametime sessions at Connect 2013, see you there!

Thoughts on the IBMConnect Conference

I didn't see much posted aside from the obvious people in the social areas, probably because many were focused on client needs, as was I, but I did manage to get to some IBMConnect sessions.

I had looked forward to them and got to meet some great speakers and people. Unfortunately the rooms were not filled and in some cases rather sparse which leaves some questions as to its return next year.

Dr. Burns should come back next year and provide updates on what they have done in 2012. His story from the OGS and in his session his feeling is open and honest and something we all should think about. Are you in this for the money or to help people. The answer is not simple but if you want to play in the greater Social Sphere you need to be straight with people or you lose fast and we are seeing this in the marketplace lately.

While my thought was IBM may change the name of the Sphere to Connect, that was changed when I realized I was on a short list of committed people to the event. Naming being such a difficult thing in this day and age. A great idea but perhaps better to have done it not during and thus conflict with Lotusphere itself. Maybe append it before or after in the future? Also keep it to one day if it is just theorists/customers. And I would prefer not to have any IBMers speak at it, they have Lotusphere, this was expected to be about customers experiences and social leaders.

Guy Kawasaki should have been part of the OGS on one day but to run his session in parallel to so many others deprived many of the chance to hear him.

As a Business Partner I realize the IBMConnect event was not aimed at me per se. However as a BP I represent our interests which also include our clients needs and if the choice is between a technical session because of a client request and a good theory or customer reference session, theory, and unless it is in our clients vertical, will always lose to the money

Should IBM do it again, I would still attend because they did make the effort to get speakers we would want to hear and although I can't promise to be in all of them, they at least were the ones I clipped to my calendar to not miss. They were thought provoking and led to great discussions over the conference but maybe the audience that attends Lotusphere has immediate and production needs that push these sessions lower on the "must see" list.

Rachel Happe's Session at IBM Connect

Admittedly I have not got to too many sessions Monday, client needs take precedent.But one session which I wanted to be at, I missed, Guy Kawasaki's. The other which i made was  Rachel Happe's.

In her session she discussed people as an asset. Communities as a benefit and in some way an ROI for those who seek it out for "getting social".

As an Accountant by degree, it was interesting to pose the question, why are employees a liability? They are not listed as an asset on the financial pages but as an expense and thus a liability.

What if the people stop being a liability and earn their keep? What if they start making money for the business? In the end they will still be a liability. Legal and financial. Their monetary gains or benefits get put into another space in the finanicals.

I posited that there are many personalities within companies, the usual, leaders, followers, early adopters, etc.. and how can a company expect to change those personalities? Just because their employer sets a new course doesn't mean people will change because at this point companies have beat people down enough that the will to do better is not always found. We agreed that a new direction will encourage some to come out of the middle and grow but others will still not do it.

This is the problem companies face today and for the future. Does this make these employees expendable? Does this mean there are budding entrepreneurial people within your organization? Yes and no.

Companies have always thrived because of people who wanted to do more, be more or help more. Those people become managers and eventually leaders. But my questions are around what can a company do to encourage their employees to take these risks? Fail fast is one thing but large companies do not move quickly enough.

IBM through Lotus Notes and Domino and the IBM Connections software has been helping and encouraging companies to do this through various ways. It started with a simple discussion databases (version 1.0 still runs on version 8.5 for those who like a solid long term solution going on 20+ years) that has evolved through email, instant messaging, mobility, workflow to today where Connections brings about a more 360 degree view of your organization via blogs, wikis, knowledge profiles, Ideation and analytics that can help you find the nuggets you seek and more importantly let everyone weigh in on the items or agendas.

But companies need to see this and feel it. It's not enough to say you are social or open, many are not despite these assurances, but to truly embrace it. Encourage the openness, seek out the differences and the crowd will let you know which will work for you. But the road to this nirvana is one few travel. If you want employees to believe in your product or company and help it grow, they must have a say and they must also not be hurt by stating their opinions.

It will take time and we are seeing in the business world executives from the old school of thought being pushed aside for newer executives that see the benefits. It will take time and the world will be a better place because of it.

The end result is a compound interest return once everyone is engaged, compared to a static return when there is a team effort that is not all encompassing.