It’s conference season!

With IBM Connect just out of the way, SNoUG (The awesome Swiss usergroup event in zurich) coming up in just a few weeks, followed by Engage in May and then being part of the organization for Social Connections in early June my agenda is happily buzzing with event prep and travel plans.

I love this! The ability to be a part of a community of people who share, learn and exchange knowledge at conferences is awesome and each of these conferences offer ample opportunity to collaborate, learn and meet new people.

IBM Connect – Feb 20-24th San Francisco, USA

Afbeeldingsresultaat voor ibm connect 2017 logoI probably should have done this blog before it but as it is you get the “after” view on this event as I simply was too busy to write a blog about it before the event itself. So what did IBM Connect bring for me? Well I have to admit that I unfortunately didn’t get to see a whole lot of sessions this time due to meetings, being a presenter myself and other obligations so I won’t do any recaps of the most important announcements here. If you are interested in those please go to blogs like those of Adam or Gab (#1, #2, #3) who give excellent summaries of that. The one main thing that stood out for me personally though and that I find really exciting is that with it’s whole PINK strategy IBM is doing something that I think will set them apart. And that is that it is committing to both a cloud AND on premises future for IBM Connections. Better yet… by streamlining and uniforming the code streams for cloud & on premises it is offering ways to go fully hybrid where organizations will be able to select where data lives per application.

In a world where all the big providers seem to focus solely or mostly on cloud solutions that is setting IBM apart and making it a player in a very significant market of customers who, for various reason, can’t or won’t go cloud. For them this news is absolutely crucial and it also means that IBM Connections will appeal to a potentially larger group of customers who were waiting to see which direction IBM would take in this.

The whole PINK redesign with a focus on integration and dedicated API’s also means that for partners it will become much easier to develop third party applications for the platform.

That news was excited me most about this conference and I’m really looking forward to seeing how this is going to develop!

SNoUG – March 22 Zurich, Switzerland

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C57UIw_WYAAcU9C.jpgOn March 22nd it will be time for my second SNoUG event. After having been there last year and seeing what a stellar organization is behind it I can’t wait to go back. I will be presenting a session on  Top tips for IBM Connections – “10 things every User should know”. Which is my play on the Swiss army knife session for IBM Connections users.  I’m very much looking forward to doing it as it is a lot of fun and there should be things in there that even the most seasoned users of IBM Connections aren’t familiar with. But even if that is not your cup of tea there should be more then enough other sessions there to keep you occupied. So do join me in Zurich for this great event!

Engage – May 8-9th Antwerp, Belgium

Afbeeldingsresultaat voor engage.ug logoWhich brings us to Engage. The largest user group event in Europe and traditionally one of the most spectacular. Theo’s ability to find the most extraordinary locations for his events has not betrayed him as far as I understand so I’m very much looking forward to this event that will take place in (or next to?)  the Antwerp zoo. Sessions haven’t been announced yet but the quality of sessions is sure to be high as there apparently have already been over 150 sessions abstracts submitted by experts from all across the globe! Definitely an event to put on your radar therefore if you want to really learn about Business & Strategy, Development, Administration & Deployment, Emerging Technologies and Big Data & Analytics this season.

Social Connections – June 1-2nd Chiago, USA

Afbeeldingsresultaat voor social connections logoAnd last, but by no means least Social Connections. The only dedicated IBM Connections user group event that organizes their events all over the world is landing in Chicago this June. Ok, I admit, as I’m partly organizing this one I’m probably a bit biased but seriously: If you want to learn about how Social Enterprise networking, IBM Connections, Watson Work Services or Analytics can help your organization thrive then this is the event to be. Better yet, if you have a story to tell about social collaboration yourself then don’t hesitate to submit an abstract and share your experiences with others just like you!

So that is most of my free time planned for the next few months. And it’s not even all conferences that are on the books. Other great conferences like DNUG can be found in the Social Business User Community Event list that lists all events relevant to the IBM ICS brand. Go check it out if you want to see more.

I hope to see many of you at one of these conferences!