Back home for a few days now after a great Social Connections in Munich and still recovering from a very nasty cold (so my apologies for this one being a bit after the fact..).
This was the first real conference dedicated fully to HCL Connections since the takeover earlier this summer. Much anticipated by both customers as well as partners. So how was it?
Continue reading Social Connections Munich – People power your business HCL Connections powers your People!Well not really of course, but lets face it, it’s an interesting way to start an article about a conference that will be held just short of German October Fest in the heart of Munich. Especially knowing that I might be Dutch but work for an Austrian/German company and just happen to have a dirndl (don’t ask, it was a dare)….
So what am I really talking about? I’m of course talking about Social Connections. The user group for users working with Connections (what was formerly known as IBM Connections). This event is organized roughly every 6 months somewhere around the globe and brings together customers, partners and HCL to talk about and present about the platform. Most importantly though this time is special as it will be the first major event completely focused on the Connections platform since the announcement of the sale of the platform to HCL. It’s also being touted by HCL itself as a flagship event and THE place where they will be talking about the plans they have for the future. Some of which has already been discussed at the Factory Tours and other events as well of course….
Continue reading Social Connections Munich: To Dirndl or not to Dirndl…
Two weeks ago I was at SocialNow conference in Lisbon and was honored to have a short session on ‘social analytics’. The conference has quite a unique setup in that it is completely based around a fictitious company called Cablinc which is thinking of implementing an Enterprise Social Network. All speakers address the conference as if they are presenting to the company trying to either instill knowledge as a ‘consultant’ or get them to buy their product as ‘vendor’. Several speakers and vendors are invited around various topics and they are provided with information about the Cablink company as well as specific use cases they could use in their presentation.
As this is quite a different approach to what I would normally do I decided to really go ‘analytics’ on this challenge of talking social analytics as one of the ‘Consultants’ and build Cablinc a dashboard around the theme “What does Cablincs current usage of mail & file storage facilities say about the need for implementation of an ESN?“…
Two weeks ago I returned from Las Vegas and due to personal circumstances I wasn’t able to post my opinion on the event sooner. So a bit late but here are my two cents on a few days in Las Vegas!
This was the first time for IBM to combine the former Connect event, focused on IBM Collaboration solutions, with all the other events of other IBM brands into one massive 4 day event. With thousands of visitors (estimated numbers ranging from 23.000 to well over 30.000 according to various people I spoke), hundreds of sessions on a wide variety of topics, two impressive conference locations (MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay) and a showcase floor that could easily encompass several football pitches, it was indeed massive. Granted, that scale also caused some challenges and problems but overall I must say I really loved it…!
My blog has been really quiet the last few months for which my apologies. It’s one of those times where I simply don’t have time to blog nor the topics to blog about. But as there were a few things noteworthy lately I figured it’s time to do an update blog now. Continue reading Upcoming events & the IBM Champions program
It has been a while since I posted and it’s time to catch up. Times have been rather busy so this post is mostly to just distribute my slides from Snoug & engage. Both wonderful events that really do deserve a big round of applause for setting up great events for people to come together and learn about all there is to know about IBM ICS’s products!
Continue reading Session slides for my Engage & SNOUG sessions
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.
During ICONUK last week (15-16 September 2016) I did a session on “IBM Connections Adoption Worst Practices“. Slides for this session are available on my slideshare and here:
Regardless if you’ve implemented IBM Connections, are considering it or in the middle of the planning stages – there are wrong (and right) turns to take at every step. Join Femke to learn about misconceptions and tribulations others have faced while striving to become a socially enabled company. Hear about real World examples and often funny anecdotes from the trenches of adoption to show you how NOT to do it and giving you tips on how to do it better along the way.
Walk away with a grasp on what to focus on to make a success out of your IBM Connections environment.
Update April 2016: As the SocialBiz.ug site has since been taken down this webcast cannot be viewed anymore. The slidedeck is still available however on my Slideshare account which you can find here: -LINK-
Quite often people ask me how they should position and integrate a Social Enterprise Network like IBM Connections in an existing landscape of applications and strategies for managing information and documents. Often they already have several tools, intranets, and applications and want to know what things to consider, how and when to migrate and how to get users to make the transition into using the new platform without getting confused. Or they might be totally new to the concept of working with ‘unstructured’ data and unsure of how to proceed. So being able to take a step back and analyze the relations, effects, impacts and requirements can be really important to making it into a successful project
This will be the topic of the webcast I will be hosting in conjunction with SocialBiz UG on Dec 1st from 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM EST (16:00-17:00 CET):
Learn to integrate and position IBM Connections with existing document management platforms
“There are a lot of benefits to your organization using IBM Connections, but equally important is knowing how to integrate your social software platform into your existing information management ecosystem and empowering your employees for successful adoption. Join Femke Goedhart for a real-world look at managing the entire integration cycle from evaluating your current environment to creating a migration strategy and handling adoption challenges. Get an understanding of why information management in a Social Enterprise is so critical and how IBM Connections fits into that framework.
Join this webinar for an in-depth look to learn how to:
- Accurately review and categorize your current information management ecosystem
- Understand IBM Connections in relation to your company’s current use of Legacy systems
- Recognize common technical migration challenges
- Identify what functionality your users may require to use IBM Connections
- Create an implementation/migration strategy that will assist user adoption “
To register for the webinar go to the SocialBiz UG site
It has been a busy month all over but the last two weeks have been extremely busy. Both with a major project at a customer going live this weekend as well as with two conferences last week and this week. I had a great day on October 28th at the IBM Client center for SNoUG the Swiss Notes User Group and congratulate the SNoUG team on their effort of setting up a fantastic event. I really enjoyed it and found the sessions, connections I made and information I got from the sponsor booths extremely helpful.
I also want to give a big thanks to the team, speakers, sponsors and attendees of Social Connections in Stuttgart who helped make that a great event. After having left the SOCCNX team at the end of SOCCNX 5 due to work pressures and missing the last three events it felt like a warm bath to join the team back for SOCCNX 9. Organizing an event like that with 270 attendees, 65+ speakers and 22 sponsors in a remote location (ok for me) like Stuttgart always is a big challenge but I think we can say it was a big success and completely in line with all the other Social Connections events!
Below I’ve attached the slide decks I used for my presentations both at SNoUG in Zurich on October 28th 2015 and the one in Stuttgart for Social Connections. As the last one was only a short (15min) one the slide deck for that one is significantly shorter than the first one. Enjoy!