News

Latest news from the Let’sConnect user group

11/062013

Masterclass – We have a winner!

Last week we announced that we would be raffling off one free seat to the ‘Doing Business with IBM Connections‘ Masterclass by Michael Sampson among all people signed up to the Social Connections event by June 7th. Today we can announce that the lucky winner is Ms Marie-Christine Schindler from Zurich, Switzerland!

The winners of the 50% discount for a masterclass seat are: Gina Battye from the UK and Siegfried Lautenbacher and Yvan Cainzos from Switzerland.

Congratulations to all winners and for everyone else who is still interested there are still a few seats available for the Michael Sampson masterclass. Your chance of getting a thorough and in depth insight into how IBM Connections can help your organization get the benefits of social business as well as great tips on driving adoption.

Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity for a masterclass by the author of the recently published book “Doing Business with IBM Connections: Opportunities for Improving Processes, Driving Results, and Achieving Great Outcomes with IBM Connections 4.5” (a copy of which will be handed out to all masterclass participants) and register today!

03/062013

Social Connections V – Less than four weeks to go!

News connections, soccnx, social, zurich by Wannes Rams

We’re into the home straight! Social Connections V takes place at the end of this month, and it’s full steam ahead as the team pulls together the last of the logistics, prints banners and brochures, confirms bookings for buses and dinners, orders beer for the SpeedSponsoring and much more! Whilst we still have a few spaces available, registration is fast filling up, so if you’d like to attend this fantastic event in the beautiful city of Zurich, there really is no time like the present – register now!

Remember, thanks to our sponsors, it is absolutely free to attend…

With that in mind, we thought it was worth bringing you up to speed on some updates:

The full agenda has been published, along with event timings, sessions and speaker names
The event reception has been announced for all registered attendees, with a fabulous dinner arranged on edge of Lake Zurich (there are less than ten spaces available for the evening event, so if you haven’t registered yet, do so now!)
Local hotels are filling up fast. Our recommendations are the Novotel, Ibis, Ibis Budget, and 25 Hours. More details available on the event FAQ.
The ‘Doing Business with IBM Connections’ Masterclass with Michael Sampson workshop has been announced and is attracting great attention. This TagItOn session is a chargeable day’s event taking place at the same venue on the day before Social Connections V, allowing attendees to maximise the value they receive from their trip to Zurich. Michael’s new book on attaining personal productivity and business value from Connections has just shipped, and this masterclass will lead attendees through the core topics covered, including using the platform for managing meetings, holding discussions, running projects, making decisions and more. Of course, the greatest benefits of attending will likely be the opportunities for discussion and learning directly from Michael and others on the day

With this in mind, we have a fantastic opportunity for you…

At close of play this Friday we will draw one lucky person from our list of registered Social Connections V attendees to be awarded a complementary ticket to the masterclass (worth €449), and another 3 to receive 50% discounts (€224.50). All you need to do to be included is to be registered for the main Social Connections V event. Should the winners already be registered for the masterclass, we will of course honour their discounts and refund the difference.

So, if you’re like to attend the biggest and best IBM Connections event this summer, or to learn from one of the true gurus of social collaboration, you know what to do… Register now!

We’ll see you there!

02/052013

A bonus for those attending Social Connections V: ‘Doing Business with IBM Connections’ Masterclass with Michael Sampson

News business, connections, ibm, ibmcnx, masterclass, soccnx, social by Wannes Rams

As many of you will already be aware, Social Connections V takes place on 28th June in the beautiful city of Zurich, Switzerland.

As has become the format for these events, we have three very full tracks of great Social Business and IBM Connections content, including business, technical and case study tracks, more than 25 great sessions from the best speakers around (the final agenda will be published this week), and some fantastic social and networking opportunities too! Once again, this event is absolutely free to attend as eleven superb sponsors have stepped in to cover the costs of the event.

However, we know that many attendees and sponsors will be travelling from a distance to attend the event, and thus we wanted to deliver the most bang for their bucks (or ‘fizz for their Francs’ perhaps!). Therefore for the first time, Social Connections has an option for a second day’s content at this event. We’re calling this TagItOn and this time, we are thrilled to offer a true masterclass by one of the worldwide-experts in Collaboration and User Adoption, Michael Sampson!

Michael will be running a full-day workshop on Thursday, 27th June at the same venue as Social Connections V. Featuring strategies to help the attendee, their organisation and their colleagues focus on doing business better with IBM Connections, this workshop strips away the technology focus of so many training sessions and gets right to their heart of how we operate as individuals and teams, and how this can be improved through the right use of the IBM Connections platform. With a maximum capacity of 25, this session is going to be really focused, packed with value and offer tremendous opportunities to learn from both Michael and the other attendees’ experience.

The early bird rate is just €349 (or €279 for non-profit and academic users) – this rate ends on 17th May so if you want to attend, now’s the time to register!

Online Ticketing for ‘Doing Business with IBM Connections’ – a Michael Sampson Masterclass powered by Eventbrite

This is a real opportunity that is not to be missed. Michael only travels from New Zealand to Europe once or twice a year so opportunities to learn direct from the expert are few and far between. Book this TagItOn workshop alongside your free attendance at Social Connections V and get the very best value from your travel.

We can’t wait to see you there!

11/042013

A summer evening at the lake – Social Connections V evening program announced

News soccnx by Wannes Rams

As with every Social Connections event we aim to offer not just a day program full of interesting en enlightening sessions but also a ‘social’ evening program. A moment after a hectic and busy day to bring participants and speakers together to sit down and continue the conversations of the day while enjoying some of the stunning local scenery and cuisine.

It always depends on the available funds and sponsorships if we can actually organize this but due to our Evening sponsor WebGate we will again be able to host a full evening program in Zurich!

What does it mean?

Well, registration for the evening program is open to all registered participants of Social Connections V on June 28th in Zurich. After the day event there will be buses for those signed up that will take us to a beautiful location overlooking one of the nicest views of Zurich: The Zurich Lake. Here we will have drinks followed by a full dinner either outside (if the weather cooperates) or inside one of the nicest restaurants of Zurich. After dinner the buses will be ready to bring us back to the IBM Forum with an intermediate drop off at the Novotel for those staying in that vicinity. We expect to be back at the IBM Client Centre around 11-11:15pm

What will it cost me?

Absolutely nothing! As said, because of our sponsors we are able to offer this completely free of charge. We feel it is important to add a ‘social’ component to an event surrounding the topic of Social business so this is our gift to you as a participant.

What do I need to do?

Register. As the number of seats for this event is limited we require each participant to register separately from the conference registration itself. If you registered for Social Connections before April 11th you should have received an invite for the evening program, if you registered after April 11th a link to the registration for the dinner is included in your confirmation mail. Or – if you have trouble locating these – please email us so we can send you the link.

We look forward to spending an evening with you in Zurich!

03/042013

Curious about the Social Connections V sessions line-up? Here’s a sneak peek!

News soccnx, SoccnxV, Speakers, zurich by Wannes Rams

After announcing Heidi Ambler and Michael Sampson as our fantastic Keynote speakers for the IBM Connections user group event in Zurich on June 28th it’s time to lift just a little bit more of the covers of what you can expect this June. As abstract submission is still open we can’t disclose the full program yet but as the number of great sessions that have been entered is so big already we decided to give you a little sneak peek of some of them to wet your appetite

First of all, in the Business track we’ll have a session by Tim Clark from Collaboration Matters who’ll be discussing how to project manage an IBM Connections implementation by using examples from a real life implementation project

Project Managing a Connections Install

Deploying Connections is easy. 10 days of I.T. effort and then tell the users the url. Right?
Well, No. You are so far away from the truth it might actually be funny.
Let Tim take you through the Project Management (PM) of a Connections project from start to finish and show you all the gory stuff in the middle too.
He’ll explain why you need to PM a Connections project and suggest best practise stages for you too.
Experiences from real world PM from real world Connections install projects..

But if project management isn’t your thing then the development stream might be an option. Mikkel Heisterberg of Intravison will tell you all about the Activity stream and how to develop for it.

Developing for the Activity Stream

The future of business is social and the activity stream is the way events and messages are communicated in the social business. In this session you’ll learn all there is to know about the activity stream including exactly what it is and how to interact with it using your favorite development environment whether that be JavaScript, XPages, Java or even the plain vanilla HTTP based REST API. This session is for you if you want to start working the Activity Stream.

And if Administration is what makes you tick then check out the great sessions by Victor Toal from ToalSystems on managing your Connections install:

IBM Connections: So you have it installed – now what?

You have successfully installed IBM Connections in your environment – but now what comes next? Installation is one thing, but keeping your new environment up and running requires a different focus:
What are some of the regular actions you should be doing to proactively keep your environment running?
Where do you start looking when something looks wrong?
How do you fulfill some of the requests users now come to you with?
How do you correctly change configurations without breaking what you just built?
These questions and more are what we will explore during our conversation about IBM Connections.

Or the session by Gabriella Davis from Turtle Partnership on how to identify and solve problems once they arise.

Tools of the Problem Solver

In even the best built, most redundant and intensively supported environments – sometimes things go wrong. In this session we’ll look at how the IBM Connections administrator can work to diagnose problems through logs, database performance, maintenance and auto started services. We’ll also review how to gather the information IBM support will need to help you

As said, only a little sneak peek… more great sessions are yet to come when the full program will be announced in the first week of May!

So mark your calendar for June 28th in Zurich this summer and sign up. Don’t wait too long, seats are limited and going fast. This is one event you don’t want to miss!

08/032013

Social Connections V – Keynote speakers announced!

News connections, keynote, keynotes, soccnx, social, switzerland, zurich by Wannes Rams

The Social Connections organising committee are delighted to be in a position to announce the two (yes, two!) keynote speakers for our next event in Zurich, Switzerland to be held on Friday, 28th June 2013.

Opening the event will be the fantastic Heidi Ambler, Director of Social Computing at IBM, presenting her perspective on the latest and greatest news on IBM Connections and the new Connections Content Manager solution.

Heidi is a long-time Loti (joining the organisation in 1991), and has previously been product manager for Smartsuite, Notes, Workplace and Connections. Now Heidi is responsible for the product management team for IBM’s Social Business products, so has the challenge of managing such talents as Suzanne Livingston, Baan Slavens and Luis Benitez. We are honoured and delighted that Heidi will be making the trip over from the USA to take part in the event.

Closing the day will be someone who will have travelled even further to be with us, over 11,000 miles from New Zealand. Industry analyst and collaboration strategy guru Michael Sampson will be wrapping up the event with a bang, delivering a second keynote on how to take Social Business solutions and ensure they truly add value to individuals and teams in your organisation.

Michael’s passion is helping organisations to make collaboration work, when their employees have to work together effectively while separated by distance and time. Michael advises end-user organizations in New Zealand, Australia, Europe, and the United States on making collaboration work.

And a very special bonus…

Given Michael is travelling so far to be with us, it would be madness not to make the most of his time in Europe. Therefore we are thrilled to announce our first Social Connections +1 event.

On the day preceding Social Connections V, Thursday 27th June, Michael will be delivering a special workshop for Social Connections attendees. Entitled ‘Doing Business with IBM Connections‘, Michael will be delivering a full day’s training on how to best use IBM Connections to solve your personal and organisational problems, to deliver enhanced productivity and to get the very best value from the investment you’ve made. Unlike Social Connections itself, it will be a paid event but we have no doubt that attending the workshop will pay for itself many times over! We’ll be announcing more details in the couple of weeks, but definitely keep the date free!

Call to action…

If you haven’t registered for Social Connections V yet, go do it now (see button below) It is shaping up to be the biggest and best Connections user group ever! We now have 9 amazing sponsors who are funding what will be an incredible day.

We are also looking for additional presentation abstracts for the event. If you are a seasoned presentation veteran or someone who has never stepped on stage before, we would love to hear from you. We plan to review the session abstracts on 1st May, so you have just a few weeks to get those sessions in!

Also, look out for more information on hotels and travel very soon… In the meantime, get registered!!

14/022013

Call for abstracts for Social Connections V

News soccnx by Wannes Rams

Now IBM Connect is over and everyone is eagerly awaiting the upcoming IBM Connections 4.5 release, the preparations for Social Connections V are in full swing. With a fantastic location in beautiful Zurich and already a good number of people signed up from over all over it promises to be a great event. Our last event in Amsterdam was maxed out with over 200 registrations and had people attending from over 16 different countries and we are expecting a similar turnout for Zurich in June!

Talks are already underway with keynote speakers and the first abstracts have been submitted but with over 20 slots to fill there is always room for more so the call for abstracts for Soccnx V is now open for all sessions proposals. As always we aim to get the best of the best in terms of innovation and quality when it comes to sessions and speakers. To get an impression of our agendas in the past take a look at our agenda for Social Connections IV in Amsterdam last November.

But… does that mean we only accept well known and established speakers? No! Social Connections is a user group event for IBM Connections. A relatively new area of expertise for a lot of people which in itself means we see a lot of new blood coming into the community. We love to encourage new and upcoming speakers so if you feel you have something to contribute then don’t hesitate to submit.

The rules are simple. Each session slot is 30min and needs to be given in English and there are four categories for which you can submit:

Management: How do you make your business social? Implementation strategies, best practices, how to build a business case and any other topic that can help organizations plan and implement their own social Business environment.

Administration & Infrastructure: How to do it? What do you need to set up and maintain a good IBM Connections environment? Installation, setting-up, security, integration and anything else that you need to know to administrate a stable environment.

Development: How do you develop for IBM Connections? Building plug-ins, widgets or doing customizations and integration. Anything related to extending the IBM Connections platform.

Case Studies: Why did you chose IBM Connections and what has it brought your organization? Got anything to share about your implementation experiences, the reasons why Social Business is enhancing your business potential or streamlining the processes then we would love to hear! Thinking about social business is one thing. To get a first-hand story from an organization that has actually done it or is doing it can be a real eye-opener.

So don’t hesitate and submit if you feel you have what it takes to deliver a session at Social Connections and be a part of this growing community of IBM Connections users. We look forward to hearing from you!

22/012013

Social Connections V goes Swiss!

News event, soccnx, switzerland, zurich by Wannes Rams

After much deliberation, we are delighted to announce the location for Social Connections V!!

The international and independent IBM Connections user group will be visiting beautiful Zurich, Switzerland on June 28th 2013!

IBM Switzerland has graciously offered us the use of their IBM Client Center and it already promises to be a busy day. Sponsors are being lined up as we speak and abstract submissions are open for speakers interested in speaking at this wonderful event. As at our previous events we will be offering three tracks (Management, Administration/Development, Case Studies) of 30 minute sessions to ensure there is something for everyone, regardless if you are a user, an administrator, a developer or a manager interested in Social Business.

As with all our events we are also planning on providing a full ‘social’ evening program so that people can continue the discussion they had during the day well into the night.

We are thrilled to organize our next Social Connections in the land of mountains, Swiss cheese and chocolates and we look forward to seeing you there!

To register for this event please visit our registration page here, or use the button below:

18/012013

Social Connections V

News soccnx by Wannes Rams

As you’ll have no doubt heard, Social Connections IV in Amsterdam at the tail end of 2012 was a massive success… Almost 200 attendees, three tracks of amazing speakers and sessions, speed-sponsoring, evening reception by the canal and much more.

Never a team to rest on our laurels, we’re already putting the finishing touches to our plans for 2013. Once again, we’ll have two events during the year, one in the Summer and another in November.

We are delighted to announce that Social Connections V will take place in mainland Europe in June, most likely Friday 21st or Friday 28th June. Yes, that’s a little vague, but there are a few loose ends to tie up before we can give out the specifics. Our plan is to announce the confirmed details during the next week, before IBM Connect, so only a few days to wait!

You may be thinking, what happened to New York? We still plan to make it to the USA sometime soon, but it turns out that suitable venues near to that city are both very scarce and extremely expensive! We’re looking at other alternatives and will release plans as soon as we have them.

In the meantime, the team are inviting sponsors to signal their interest in being involved in Social Connections V. If you have an IBM Connections- or Social Business-related product or service and you’d like to exhibit at the event, please get in touch with the team ASAP – we can send you the details.

In the meantime, the Social Connections team (Simon, Sharon, Femke, Jon and Stuart) will all be at IBM Connect at the end of the month. Look out for the Social Connections black shirts (particularly on Tuesday morning), and make sure you stop us and say hello!