What if Darth Vader won?

May the Fourth Be with You!

Ever wonder what it would be like if Darth Vader won?

Could Darth Vader have won instead of the Rebels? Could it be that a strong network of Sith Lords could control the masses through social media efforts using The Force? These may be strong words, young Padawan.

There is an amusing Twitter account I follow called @DeathStarPR that brings my point forward. What if social media was used as an insidious effort to gain the upper hand against the Rebels? What would the Star Wars universe look like decked out in only black and white?

To read more hop over here to the IBM Social Business Insights Blog.

Day 2 of Impact 2013

So what did I do on Day 2 of Impact? Today was The World in Motion.

Business calls most of the morning, bad wifi upstairs, bad wifi in OGS and the exhibit hall. A frustrating problem because if you needed 30,000 IP addresses or so, what would you do?

Duh, grab a Z series! Okay not exactly but it is a problem which should have been addressed Sunday.

Which brings me to what I did Tuesday, meetings, interviews, an ignite speech and a session I did with 3 other IBM Champions and a night cap of Matchbox 20.

So the OGS had BMI, one of the music publishing and royalties companies, explaining what they do and how they leverage IBM products while dropping song snippets from numerous artists. As an ex-ASCAP person it was nice to see and hear the industry has come a long way since the paper trails I used to audit.

Westjet had a video that explained what they needed IBM for and how they accomplished so much in such a short time. Nicely done.

Today's 4 things to know are:

1. 3.6B $ is spent on process reinvention
2. 25% productivitry improvement due to social interactions and software
3. 47% cloud process growth 
4. $100B big data business

There was also a demo of what a mobile app could be doing in the near future around auto insurance and an accident of a viper.

I then ventured off to the Social Playground, great name given we are in Las Vegas, and powered up my now worn down laptop and phone. Caught up on some emails met some people, committed to do another Google+ hangout and prepared for my Ignite talk.

The Ignite talk was fun, for me, and was not supposed to be a sales thing, but others did do it that way. I think I had the best slide though (see the slides here):

Afterwards I spent the rest of the afternoon in meetings or doing interviews with the Redbooks team, GWC (Global Websphere Community), Websphere Socmed team all before heading to my session.

We had an open panel on mobile plans and services. Fellow IBM Websphere Champions Yuki Kurosawa, Andrew Paier, Ashraf Souleiman and myself were joined by Phil Kelly of IBM as the moderator. Hope no one took my "Buy Apple" as a forward looking announcement or stock tip. 

We left there and headed to the BP reception which preceded the Matchbox20 concert. We had great VIP seats upfront, thanks Daphne! The band played for about an hour and a half and I now have Matchbox20 Twitter groupies following me. No doubt they are also following the other 9,000 people that tweeted tonight.

And the day ends with me finding out The Venetian does not do late checkout. Really? In Las Vegas? Oh well what can you do. Tomorrow I head home on the red eye. A day of meetings and hopefully some sessions is ahead of me. 

PS - The video we shot on Sunday debuts at the OGS on Wen. morning.

Why I am NOT Changing My Moniker

This post is being written in the Dolphin hotel, where everyone in Orlando is gathered for the annual Collaboration lovefest called Connect 2013, formerly known as Lotusphere.

Some people may make fun of us, they may think it is out dated, they may believe there is nothing else to do, or care about this or just don't get it. Sure I speak in a bubble that has it's own terms, acronyms and quirks like any other solution out there, but it is one which I believe in very strongly.

As I sit here writing this, I am listening, watching the great video the Connect 2013 team provided everyone with the history of past Lotusphere events, most of which I have attended (I hope there is some Lotusphere Europe bits in there too). The great speakers, the executives, the cheers, the parties, the legendary "things that stay at Lotusphere", and more, that gave us great highs and few lows.

Many people this year asked me if I was dropping or changing my Twitter/Skype and other monikers that use Lotusevangelist. The answer is no, it stays, and will stay for however long I continue to do what I love.

There is no one pushing me to change the name, although I had thought about it this year, one of the sessions at Connect reminded me why I chose this title to leverage.

The session done by my evangelist idols, Luis Suarez, Louis Richardson and Luis Benitez brought to me what is important. My brand. My world, my readers, my friends and our greater good we could create.

Perhaps changing my moniker would be accepted, but that would deny what I am, what I believe and what I do.

My role, so to speak, as an IBM Champion for ICS and Websphere is to be a brand ambassador. Maybe this is idea of not changing my moniker is not inline with some people, but if you Get Social and understand it, you understand that your personal brand is very important to you. You work hard to grow your social influence, but without being a thought leader or technically competent, it is luck if you get anywhere. I am not that intelligent, plenty of great speakers this week cover and covered many topics, most likely better than I. However, when you need to explain solutions and work with management that may not understand the social imperative or the open business (Luis Suarez used this line tonight) direction this will lead your company, who would you prefer to put in front of that client? Someone who not only sells it and works on it, but also uses it and leverages it across products and geographies or someone who you can't even find on Linkedin?

There is nothing like IBM Domino and Notes, Sametime or Quickr out there that really does so much and in so many ways and with IBM Connections you get even more embedded into a realm that was started 20 or so years ago.

None of this is new, so what does this have to do with My Brand? One becomes connected, some say too much, but I don't think so because how can you get across and truly be authentic, when your name changes everywhere each year because of what the industry analysts decide to rename so they can sell more subscriptions?

Walking the halls here and people recognizing me and following me because they have that hope, the view, that I bring them hope or guidance to do what they may not have thought they could.

I want open business, not partially open business. My blog is public and open, anyone can read it and search and find it easily. It brings in business and if IBM did not have an issue naming me an IBM Champion or a Redbooks thought leader, who am I to argue with what works for me.

As Michael J. Fox said last year at Lotusphere 2012 on stage, "A lady gave birth in a tree, what have you got?"

When I believe in something strongly enough, I encourage others to do so as well. I encourage admins to see their lives through their boss or their bosses boss. I ask developers to think about the junior devs or admins like me that are weak on development skills when they share information. I help marketing people recognize there are more people out there they never even thought would use their products. I bring a global view that crosses cultures and is not bounded by geography, sales compensation plans or personal biases. I blog because I care about tomorrow and the person working on a problem or an idea at 3 AM and they need inspiration or support.

And I renew this belief every year I come to Orlando for the conference formerly known as Lotusphere that has graduated to be called Connect.

IBM Social Business Social Residency

I am honored to be a part of this, the second Social Residency run by the IBM Redbook team, that starts next week.


It takes place in Raleigh, NC next week with 6 of us, 4 Business Partners and 2 IBMers, working through sessions related to IBM solutions in this space.

We are expected to produce some blog posts and probably a bunch of other efforts in our week filled with meetings on site and remote with various IBM executives and Product Management.

Looking forward to meeting everyone in person since a few I know online only.

Thanks to Femke who previously was at the first one and blogged about the second one and encouraged me to apply.