soccnx

17/072012

Social Connections IV registration is open

News abstracts, amsterdam, connections, iv, netherlands, registration, soccnx, social, sponsors by Wannes Rams

No sooner has Social Connections III in Dublin been and gone than thoughts turn to the next event!

As may know, so far the IBM Connections user group has visited England, Wales and Ireland. Therefore the next step is to head to mainland Europe and to one of the most ‘social’ European cities, Amsterdam!

On Friday 30th November, Social Connections IV will take over the IBM Forum in central Amsterdam for a day of tremendous IBM Connections content, Social Business education, customer case studies, ‘Birds-of-a-feather’ style discussions, networking and fun.

Registration has just opened, and thanks to the generosity of our sponsors is completely free once again.

An action-packed day of 30 or so sessions is planned, and we are inviting abstracts from potential speakers – we’d love to hear from you if you would like to present on a business-related or technical subject, or if you’d like to chair a panel or BoF-style session. We’d welcome sessions from Lotusphere veterans and never-spoken-before newcomers alike, and if you have a Connections customer story to tell then you’ll be pushed to the head of the queue!

We are also very keen to sign up additional sponsors, so if you have solutions or services to sell to the IBM Connections community, please do get in touch!

The entire day is completely free to attend, and there will also be a reception on the Friday evening – details will be shared ASAP.

As you can see from the wrap-up video from Social Connections III below, the day will be incredibly informative and also great fun, so there is really no time like the present – register today!

06/072012

Soccnx III in Dublin – the wrap up!

News soccnx by Wannes Rams

Were you there? If not then you’ve missed something. No, correction, you missed a lot! It was a wonderful day with so many attendees, great speakers, fantastic sessions and a absolutely wonderful atmosphere. But don’t let me say so let the day speak for itself!

A big thanks to Jon Scott of Cardiff University for making this fantastic round-up!

Social Connections III – Dublin from Social Connections on Vimeo.

A small selection of the hundreds of tweets with the hashtag #soccnx that day!:

‘@oneillbp311: #soccnx today! #ibmcnx’

‘@oferguetta: Fantastic turnout of customers and partners at #soccnx here at IBM Dublin Labs this morning!! Great to see all the familiar and new faces!!’

‘@mikroche: Great turnout for #soccnx in IBM Dublin lab – thanks to all for travelling! #ibmcnx’

‘@mikroche: Gamifying the event at #soccnx – we have a resident caricaturist making Profiles pictures in the lobby ;-)’

‘@SimplyS1mon: Great to catch up with so many great IBM’ers at the Dublin Labs! #soccnx @mikroche’

‘@maxverbong: Hard to chose sessions #soccnx Would be great if i could split myself up. Next: Social Business for patient care coordination’

‘@synapticity: Thanks to #soccnx in Dublin. Excellent use of my time and nice to catch up with many people. Good content as usual!’

‘@oferguetta: #soccnx Wonderful day at Social Connections III in Dublin, wonderful content, great catching up with our wonderful customers & partners.’

‘@proseccocalling: Great day@ SocialConnectionsIII, many interesting sessions with lots to mull over. Have enjoyed meeting new people too :o) #soccnx’

‘@cardiffmark: Excellent day at #soccnx. Well worth it. It’ll be good if we get many of our business users at the next event’

‘@pdhannan: Had a really great day at Social Connections III. Did I learn lots? …. YEAH!!! #ibmcnx #soccnx’

‘@SimplyS1mon: Social Connections III – A user group that keeps on growing and exceeding expectations! #soccnx’

‘@ShvetsovaNata: #soccnx There was true community atmosphere: experts with shared passion, talented in listening, posing tough questions, collaborating’

‘@proseccocalling: Good Guinness, good food, good company. A gid nite as we’d say in Scotland #soccnx’

‘@kil0ran: At the airport waiting to fly home from #soccnx , great conference, thanks to all orgs and sponsors. See you in Amsterdam!’

02/072012

Dublin event – Pictures

News soccnx by Wannes Rams

A selection of pictures that were taken during social Connections III in Dublin on June 22

25/062012

Saying goodbye to Dublin. Social Connections III truly social!

News dublin, ibmcnx, soccnx by Wannes Rams

So it is over, a couple of hectic days are coming to a close in the Dublin airport coffee lounge while I’m awaiting my flight back to Amsterdam.

It was a great event in so many ways…

The great venue at the IBM Developer labs and the hospitality IBM and especially Fred Raguillat, Eamon Muldoon and Jon Mell showed us opening up their Innovation centre and auditorium, helping us organize this, navigating the bureaucratic hurdles and making us feel welcome at the heart of IBM’s Connections developers facility
Meeting so many familiar and new faces (over 100 people signed up!) from all over the world including places as far away as Norway, The United States, Brazil, Poland and Russia
The fantastic line up of speakers, eight of which IBM Champions, who delivered a staggering 21 sessions in 2 tracks all in one day
The new technical track that opened up Social Connections to a new more technically focused audience
The speakers dinner on Thursday night to thank all those wonderful speakers who invested their time and effort to share their knowledge with the community
The support and help we got from so many who make it possible to do things like recording the sessions and manning the desk (thanks to Jon, Jess & Huw)
The after event at the Guinness Storehouse where everyone could enjoy a pint & good meal while discussing all they had learned that day and practice that one thing that this is all about: building Social Connections.
And last but certainly not least The absolutely wonderful sponsors: IBM, Sogeti, TimeToAct,TeamStudio, Connections101.net and Collaboration Matters without whom it would simply not be possible to organize all this free of charge to participants.

Organizing an event like this is daunting: “Is there a big enough audience for this to justify organizing it?“, “Will they come to Ireland?“, “Do we get enough good speakers?“, “What about sponsors??” and most importantly: “How do you coordinate something like this while none of the organizing committee are actually onsite, or even in the same timezone, until the day itself?!?”

The answer to all this is simple, it’s pure dedication, community spirit (so many people and organizations contributed to this in so many big and small ways I can’t name them all) and using a host of social tools to collaborate. With such a globally dispersed organizing committee organizing something like this would simply not have been possible without the internet, chats, phone conferences, a wiki, communities, blogs, twitter and other social tools. After all, what better way to show the power of social connections and collaborations then to practice what you preach!

So… almost time to board and leave wonderful, generous and social Dublin. But I won’t have to wait for long as I hope Amsterdam will be just as wonderful and social come November 30th when it opens up its doors to host the next Social Connections user group event!

I hope to see you all there for Social Connections IV!

Kudos to Simon Vaughn, Lisa Duke, Stuart McIntyre and Sharon Bellamy for making it all feel so effortless and making me part of a truly social and dedicated team.

18/062012

Social Connections III is this Friday. Last chance to register!!

News connections, dublin, ibmcnx, ibmcnxdev, soccnx, social by Wannes Rams

The latest and greatest IBM Connections User Group event takes place this Friday (June 22nd, 2012) in Dublin (at the home of IBM Connections development in the IBM labs). We have 100 awesome attendees scheduled to attend, 20 superb sessions, 6 super sponsors and a diamond (sorry, that was a stretch!) day and evening planned!

If you have been sitting on the fence about attending the event, you have just today to make up your minds as we need to close registration to get badges, security and wifi set up. As the saying goes, ‘if you’re not on the list, you can’t come in!‘.

Here’s the amazing agenda we have planned:

Featuring at least 7 current IBM Champions (including Connections101.net authors Gabriella Davis and Paul Mooney), key executives and developers from the IBM labs (Mike Roche, Martin Donnelly, Tony McGuckin etc) and some tremendous customer case studies, this really is a day jam-packed with ‘mustn’t miss’ sessions for both business- and technology-focused attendees. Once the day concludes, we’re off for an all-expenses-paid evening at the home of Guinness, the Storehouse in central Dublin for the opportunity to learn how to pour (and drink) the perfect pint of the black stuff and of course, great food and drink too. It promises to be an amazing day in the friendliest city in Europe!

So how can we put on such a great event? Put simply, none of this would be possible without the incredible support of our sponsors:

Platinum (funding the event location and reception):

	IBM is a globally integrated enterprise operating in over 170 countries. Today IBM UK has around 20,000 employees, bringing innovative solutions to a diverse client base to help solve some of their toughest business challenges. IBM is a global business and technology leader, innovating in research and development to shape the future of society at large.
	Sogeti is a leading provider of professional technology services and recognises the importance of Social Business both from a services perspective and for internal usage. Connections is used pervasively throughout our organisation to drive communities in the consulting teams, enhance employee skills development, distribute innovations and have fun.

Gold (funding catering, A/V and brochures):

	Connections101 helps guide you through implementing IBM Connections. Paul Mooney of Bluewave and Gabriella Davis of The Turtle Partnership have partnered to share their experiences of IBM Connections implementation – the result is Connections101. For the latest from Connections101 go to our blog at www.connections101.net.
	Simplify the administration of IBM Connections with the Connections Administration Toolkit (CAT) – an easy to install and easy to use web interface tool. Complex multilevel administration commands can be done with just a single click, even by administrators without WebSphere background.

Silver (funding transport and reception drinks):

Teamstudio Unplugged is a mobile offline business engine. With Unplugged and Domino Designer you can quickly create secure mobile apps for iOS, Android and Blackberry devices. These apps sync to your Lotus Domino servers and other enterprise back ends, so that users can access data whether online or offline.

Collaboration Matters is one of the UK’s leading Social Business consultancies. We have constructed a dynamic team that can call on some of the most innovative minds in the fields of Collaboration and Social Business. Based in the UK, we operate throughout mainland Europe and further afield, delivering IBM Connections hosting, consultancy, training and adoption best practice, not to mention the amazing Kudos Badges solution.

So, are you going to attend this fantastic event we have planned? You’ll regret it if not! If so, you need to register by 5pm GMT today. No excuses!

If for any reason you can’t make it in person, please look out for the video recordings and presentations that we’ll be publishing next week. Social in focus, thought and deed, we’re determined to share this event with as many people as we can… Also, make sure you follow the Twitter users @soccnx and hashtag #soccnx for coverage during the day on Friday.