All posts by wannes

26/042016

Social Connections 10 – An international line up of 70+ speakers!

News abstracts, agenda, connections, Speakers by Wannes Rams

Still undecided about attending Social Connections 10 in Toronto on Monday June 6th and Tuesday June 7th?

If you are then check out some of the great sessions by speakers from across the globe! Our agenda is now publish on our website Link and in our mobile app (where you can create you own personal schedule for the event! (Find out more about our mobile app).

Here is a selection of some the great sessions you need to come and listen to:

10+ user case studies focused on their implemention of IBM Connections!
Great sessions by IBM Champion (18 IBM champions are currently attending the event)
A peak into the future with sessions on Toscana, Future of work and What is coming to IBMConnections
Our popular ‘Spotlight track’ with 15 minute sessions
Some great sponsor sessions from IBM, panagenda, Harbour lights, TimetoAct, TrustSphere and Kudos
and more……

At finally, we have over 70 speakers at the event. These people are from all parts of the world and have some great content to share with you!

So what are you waiting for – Register now!

16/032016

Yet another keynote: IBM’s New Way to Work demo

News ogs demo by Wannes Rams

Featuring the fabulous demo team from the OGS Demo at IBM Connect, Sarah Gibbons and Christopher Crummey. They will be providing a demo on IBM’s New Way to Work.

I think I can safely say that a lot of people (including me) were impressed by the demo at IBM Connect earlier this year. Missed it, want to see it again, this is your chance.

14/032016

We want to hear from YOU – submit your abstract for Social Connections

News abstracts, soccnx10 by Wannes Rams

With the first keynote speakers getting announced and the first abstracts for Social Connections 10 in Toronto flowing in, it is time to start thinking about submitting YOUR abstracts. Yes that’s right we are talking to all of you!

Social connections has always prided itself in being a very open conference that offers a podium to both the best of the best of seasoned and well known speakers as well as to anyone that can contribute from a wealth of day to day experience. Be it customers, business partners or vendors.

We welcome first time speakers as well as seasoned ones as we believe that it is important to hear the stories of those that might otherwise never get told. Stories of those ‘living it’ and working with it day in day out without being in the spotlight. Be it as an administrator, a developer, a business user, a project member or anything else. To do so we offer a variety of categories and time slot options ranging from 15 minutes to 1 hour to accommodate the different topics:

Administration – sessions relating to administering Social Business platforms. It could be the design and build of infrastructure, upgrading, managing users, migrating to the cloud, integration with other services or platforms etc. Sessions relating to cloud, hybrid or on-premise infrastructures are welcome! (30-minute and 60-minute slots)
Case Study – sessions focused on telling the story of existing Social Business projects. We love case studies! And the more honest the better! Ideally these sessions should feature at least one speaker from the company that uses the platform, but they could be accompanied by a vendor or partner. (30-minute slots only)
Development – how and why to develop for these services. We’d love you to share your tips, techniques and experience of developing solutions or applications, where you might hit issues, and how you overcome them. (30-minute and 60-minute slots)
Future of Work – sessions in this track should explore topics around the area of improving the productivity of individuals and organisations through the use of social technologies. (30-minute slots only)
Management – sessions that take a higher-level view of the issues, challenges and opportunities that surface when deploying social platforms. (30-minute slots)
Spotlight – this track is designed to give new (or experienced) speakers the chance to present a short session on a topic of their choice. Think of it as being akin to TED talks, but within the framework of Social Connections. You can choose to use a presentation deck or not, to prepare earnestly or to speak from the heart, the choice is yours. What we’re after is insight, interest and passion – the rest is up to you! (15-minute slots only)
Sponsor – for those organisations that are sponsoring the event at Gold level or above, there is the option to submit a Sponsor session for the conference. (30-minute slots only)

So if you are an experienced speaker and have a topic you know you can expand on or have never spoken at a conference before but feel you have something to contribute, a story to tell, a lesson learned that could help others in a similar situation then please don’t hesitate and submit a session. We would love to hear from you!

The abstract deadline is Friday April 8th.

11/032016

Social Connections 10 – Social Business Masterclass hosted by Luis Suarez!

News Adaption, adoption, connections, elsua, Enablement, Engagement, masterclass, NoMail, soccnx, SocialBusiness, toronto by Wannes Rams

Social Business Masterclass – ‘From Adoption to Adaptation, From Enablement into Engagement’

Wednesday June 8th – 9am to 15:30pm

Lunch and refreshments included

The Social Connections team are please to announce that as part of our Social Connections 10 event that we are collaborating with Luis Suarez to host an unique event in Toronto – a Social Business Masterclass!

What if instead of “driving” adoption within your organisation, you could inspire and facilitate adaptation instead? What if you would have the means to re-define a new way of working with your fellow colleagues and peers through that very same adaptation to become a successful Socially Integrated Enterprise? What if that methodology, good practices, extensive expertise and know-how would all be at your fingertips, so you could apply it right away? What if you knew the nuts and bolts of getting your management and senior leadership teams all involved right from the start to help facilitate the final social business transformation you have always been looking for? Are you ready?

Come and join us on this one day masterclass to find out and learn how you can get the most out of your IBM Connections deployment to begin, or continue, that transformation journey into becoming a successful Social Business.

What you can learn

You will learn how to

not only install social software, but also make your business into a social business
promote and support new ways of working in your company
get closer together with new forms of communication and collaboration between colleagues and business partners, and accelerate the digital transformation
avoid typical mistakes in the implementation of company-wide social networks and achieve successful results.
convince executives and middle management and may face resistance

Whether you are just getting started with your Social Business Adaptation Journey, or whether you are already a very well seasoned 2.0 knowledge worker, this workshop will provide you an opportunity to learn with other fellow practitioners through plenty of practical, hands-on advice, good practices, lots of hints and tips and, most importantly, all of the necessary knowledge resources available to date.

This session is going to be really focused, packed with value and offer tremendous opportunities to learn from both Luis and the other attendees’ experience. So do not hesitate too long. Places will be allocated in order of registration.

The cost to attend this masterclass is in addition to your attendance at the Social Connections Conference (the event is only open to attendees of the Social Connections conference). We have put together a really attractive rate for the masterclass and if you register before April 1st, you can benefit from a ‘Early bird’ rate!

What are you waiting for – please register now

04/032016

The Social Connections 10 Mobile App has hit the streets

News android, ios, iphone, mobile, playstore, soccnx, social, socialconnections by Wannes Rams

We are very proud to announce that for this event, Social Connections 10 in Toronto, we will provide our attendees with a mobile app. The app has been published in the Google Playstore and the Apple apps store.

The app allows for Social interaction using attendee profiles and an activity stream. Please engage with each other. We will also publish our agenda as soon as we have it. We will be adding our keynotes in the next couple of weeks.

You will be able to create your own schedule, see speaker profiles, rate speakers and sessions. We will also have our sponsors listed in the app, so if you want to know more about them, you can. We will be adding more functionality over time, so go and download now and check the app on a regular basis.

May we ask you to allow the app to send notification, that way we can notify you during the event on schedule changes or other important information.

Please use the following link for: iPhone, Android

If you are running Windows Mobile, we have a mobile web version as well

22/022016

Social Connections 10, we will go to Toronto!

News 10, abstracts, canada, event, ibmchampions, ibmcnx, june, registration, soccnx, soccnx10, social, socialconnections, toronto by Wannes Rams

We know we have kept you waiting. Maybe longer than both you and we wanted. But it was for a good reason!

After the great success of our last event in Stuttgart, and because this is our 10th event, we have cooked up something extra.

We won’t release all the details yet, there are much more exciting things to come.

But we can say this: It is with great pleasure that we can announce the dates and location for our next event. This time we will be crossing the Atlantic again, but to a new country for us. We are going to Toronto, Canada! Yes, you heard it right, the beautiful city of Toronto is waiting for us!

So gear up with your biggest smile and join us on June 6 & 7, 2016 in the vibrant capital of Ontario, Canada.

As before we are running a 2 day event filled with good speakers, captivating sessions, lots of IBM Champions, a Gala night you wont forget and of course the amazing Social Connection team.

But we cannot do this without you! So send in your abstract for that session you already have in the back of your mind here, or register here.
And last but not least, there is much more to come. Keep your eyes open here for more details, news and announcements. We will updating you on a regulat basis from now on.

11/012016

Changes to the Social Connections organisation

News by Wannes Rams

Over the past year, the team behind Social Connections have been working hard to put the organisation onto a firm footing for the future.

As a thriving user group that had delivered 7 successful events between 2011-2014, and a growing leadership team featuring a number of IBM Champions from around the community, it was felt that it was time to cement the great work that had been done to get this far, and to build an organisation that would support and withstand the efforts of organising regular events across the world.

As part of this effort, I’ve been delighted to work with Wannes and Simon in particular, to transition the ownership of the events from my own company, Social 365, to a brand new entity (registered as a company in the UK). This company is solely responsible for planning and delivering the Social Connections events, and has been set up from day one with the right frameworks to enable it to manage the demands of worldwide events, including the complexities of tax and VAT across national boundaries, a team based in more than half a dozen countries, and that is capable of working with sponsors that range in size from independent ISVs to multinational corporations!

Back in November, we delivered Social Connections 9 in Stuttgart – the biggest and (from your feedback) the best event so far. This event was run by Soccnx Limited, and with the vast majority of the planning work done by others on the Social Connections team. Whilst I was incredibly happy to attend and to speak at the event, the plaudits for that event should go to the rest of the team – they did an incredible job!

So it is with this in mind, that I was ready to step away from the Social Connections effort at the end of 2015, and leave it in the very capable (and indeed, talented) hands of Wannes and Simon, and their brilliant team (Christoph, Doug, Femke, Jan, Lars, Maria and Martin).

I’m incredibly proud of what we have achieved with Social Connections, and can’t wait to see and hear from the team as they plan for the events in 2016 and beyond.

12/112015

Social Connections 9, it’s a wrap!

News soccnx, stuttgart, wrapup by Wannes Rams

It’s great to be back at home base, recovering from the Social Connections 9 event and resuming normal family and work pace. After the hectic weeks leading up to the event and the effort of actually running it, this is proving to be a welcome and much needed change!

Before too much time passes, the team wanted to quickly write up the event for those that couldn’t attend. We tend to follow a broadly similar pattern for each Social Connections conference, so hopefully this will help you to decide whether you should attend the next one!

After a short introduction from the team, the first day of the two-day event kicked off with a warm welcome from Barbara Koch (Solution Sales Leader Social Business & Commerce, Germany) and Huguette Ranc (Vice President, Client Success Social & Smarter Workforce, Europe). We quickly moved on to the event keynotes. We’ve been proud of our keynote speakers and sessions at every event, but think that we surpassed all previous lineups this time, featuring presentations from John Stepper (Deutsche Bank), René Schimmer (IBM), Eric Marzo-Wilhelm (ThyssenKrupp) and Silvia Cambie (IBM). The keynotes varied in tone and content, but were all very well received by attendees. After the first break, and alongside the third keynote, the breakout sessions kicked off (with Victor Toal having the honour of launching the technical content for this event). We had 23 breakouts planned for the first day, split over several tracks to have something of interest for every type of attendee. Rooms were full, speakers were energised, and the audience seemed to appreciate the content as well.

Meanwhile, our sponsor lounge was already alive and buzzing. With a record 16 exhibitors (from a total of 22 wonderfully supportive sponsors) the area filled up nicely at each and every break time. After the last session of the day, we served drinks in the sponsor lounge and kicked off our Speed Sponsoring with MC Tony Holder. This was the opportunity for our sponsors to convince their audience of their solutions in just 3 action-packed minutes and to open up conversations for the next day.

With Speed Sponsoring closing out the formal agenda for the day, the team had arranged for bus transport to Sensapolis for our Gala Reception. The idea was to pick an informal location (Sensapolis is primarily an indoor child’s playground) to ensure that our attendees had an opportunity to network, but also to thoroughly enjoy themselves in the process! We offered some activities after dinner such as a challenging climbing wall, karting and Segway-riding. We even had a professional photo booth (with topical props!) to provoke some fun pictures. It worked out exactly as planned, check out the pictures here. Thankfully, despite the fun, games and beverages consumed, everyone managed to make the bus to their hotels and were picked up again on the second day.

On Friday we had another 32 sessions lined up, split over 4 breakout rooms. Many of the sessions were extremely busy, but the most popular was surely “What’s coming in IBM Connections Next” from René Schimmer.

We closed the day’s agenda with the popular ‘Ask IBM’ session. We had some unscheduled departures from those earmarked for the panel (due to the Lufthansa strike and people rebooking their flights) so we owe a debt of thanks to the other IBM people that stepped up on stage and maybe answered some questions outside their comfort zone.

As is now our custom, we couldn’t depart from the venue without our Social Connections community photo!

As a conclusion, we think that this was the best Social Connections event that the team have run so far and it feels as though we are improving every time. We received a lot of compliments as an organisation team, but we could not have done it without a superb venue, supportive sponsors and insightful speakers. I would like to thank our awesome team (onsite, off site and those that had to leave early!) for all the work and all the fun. I’m very sad that we did not have the time to have some quality time together!

Finally, I wanted to share some statistics with you. Social Connections 9 had:

72 sessions (including 11 showcase sessions)
63 speakers (excl. showcase speakers)
268 registered people
260 checkedin people
28 % Customer ratio
Visitors from 22 Countries
19 IBM Champions, 12 of them as speakers

Thanks to everyone that attended.

You can check out all the photos from the event on our Flickr photo stream, and see a really good summary of the social media coverage from the event in this Storify (curated by Alexander Kluge).

See you all for Social Connections 10!

28/102015

Social Connections 9 – Speed Sponsoring 101

News soccnx, speedsponsoring by Wannes Rams

If you’re attending Social Connections 9 next week, and you’ve already taken a look at the agenda on our site or in PDF form, you’ll have noted that we have Speed Sponsoring scheduled at the end of our first day’s sessions, before everyone heads off to the event’s Gala Reception.

For some attendees, Speed Sponsoring is a well-practiced ritual, whereas if you’re new to user groups you might be asking ‘what is Speed Sponsoring?!’

So here’s the Speed Sponsoring 101!

There’s a free bar! This is important…
All our 16 exhibiting sponsors man their pedestals and have a pitch ready to go.
Attendees split into groups so that there is a group at each pedestal. Each attendee gets a form containing all the sponsors logos
Each sponsor gets 3 minutes to pitch their product, solution or service. Plus answer any questions and collect business cards as required!
At the end of the 3 minutes, attendees have their forms stamped by the sponsor and move on to the next pedestal.
At regular points, everyone gets the chance to grab a fresh drink and take a deep breath!
Once all sponsors have been seen, all completed forms are collected and a draw takes place to hand out some awesome prizes!
There is a free bar!

In short, it’s great fun for everybody concerned. Sponsors get to talk about their wares in a rapid and light-hearted way, attendees get a whistle-stop no-pressure tour of all the exhibitors, and plenty of drinks and snacks are available to help the time pass by with even more good humour.

And just to make the Speed Sponsoring at Social Connections 9 go with even more of a bang, we’ve drafted in a friend-of-the-event and IBM Champion to act as MC!

Yes, that’s right, Mr Tony Holder will be in the house!

So, if you’re attending Social Connections 9, make sure you stay around at the end of the Thursday sessions, grab a beverage of your choice, partake in the pitches and hopefully, win a prize!