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soccnx
29/122013
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29/122013
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20/092013
Social Connections V was a blast!
Beautiful city (Zurich), great turnout (180), fabulous sessions (26), wonderful sponsors (10) and much much more besides…
We still have lots of great content and photos to share from the event, so look out for those over the next few weeks as the team recover from their post-event stresses and strains and plan for the next event.
Next event?!
Yep, you heard it right… We’ll be back for yet another fantastic Social Business and IBM Connections user group very soon.
When?
After five events in just under two years (it seems crazy just saying that), the team has taken a well earned break and is now planning for the next event to take place in April 2014.
This has given us an extra four months or so to pull together the details for an even bigger and better event next time. This will ideally allow us to grow the agenda into a multi-day event and thus give everyone involved even better bang for their buck (or in the case of attendees, even better value for their free registration fee)!
Where?
The million dollar question!
After events in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and Switzerland, there has been talk of heading to locations in Europe or even to the USA. The team are keeping all options open for the future, but after much consideration, have decided that the immediate plans are to continue to grow and sustain our wonderful European community.
We are therefore looking for an event location in Sweden or Norway for Social Connections VI. Finding a classy location with good travel links that can accommodate up to 250 attendees, can host 3 or 4 sessions simultaneously and have space for sponsors and networking is not as easy as it may seem, particularly for a self-funded user group!
Therefore, we are definitely open to suggestions! We have already had some great ideas flow in over Twitter, but if you know of a great location that we might be able to use for Social Connections VI, please do let us know. Likewise, if your organisation would be interested in helping us to organise the event in your neighbourhood then we would love to hear from you!
Who?
As you may be aware, Social Connections is run by a team of experienced, passionate, knowledgeable but slightly mad volunteers! As attendees to previous events would hopefully attest, this group manages to put on large, well-organised events that would put many a professional events organisation to shame.
This event will see some significant changes in this team (more details later) so we are on the lookout for more willing folks to step forward to join the team, particularly those native to Scandinavia. We can promise lots of laughs, strong coffee, camaraderie, in-jokes and lengthy Skype chats. In return, there’ll be no pay, but you’ll get to be part of one of the best teams and events around! If you’re interested, get in touch by email or reach out to Stuart, Sharon or Simon over one of the many social networks.
What next?
Look out for more details on socialconnections.info, on Twitter and in the LinkedIn community. We hope to have some date and location details for you very soon.
11/062013
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!
02/052013
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!
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
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
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
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!!