soccnx

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.

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!

20/072015

Sponsorship opportunities available for #SOCCNX 9

News soccnx, sponsors by Simon Vaughan

The clock is ticking and the countdown has begun for the IBM Connections event of 2015 – Social Connections 9 in Stuggart – Thursday November 5th and Friday November 6th 2015.

With a venue that can hold 250 people, this promises to be the largest event that we have held. With keynote speakers from IBM, Business partners, IBM Champions and most importantly of all – Customers, this is the event that you need to attend to learn from others and find out what is coming to the IBM Connections platform in 2016.

As for previous events, sponsorship opportunities are available and it is due to the contributions from our sponsors that the event is such a success.

From past events we have received great feedback from our sponsors. Below are some examples:

‘What an event, the number of people we met far exceeded our expectations. We will certainly be at the next event!’

‘It was great to meet so many Connection customers and the interest in our product was amazing. It is the first time we have sponsored this event and we will be at the next event!’

‘Speed sponsoring was great! The chance to showcase our new product to both IBM and IBM Connections customers was really worthwhile.’

‘Thank you Social Connections team! The team responded to all our questions in the run up to the event and ensured that we received maximum return from our sponsorship. We will be at the next event!’

We have recently announced the sponsorship packages for the next event. For the first time we are offering a ‘Early bird offer (sign up and pay by August 31st to get a 10% discount) and a discount for those organisations who have sponsored this event in the past.

Are you a Business partner who has a solution to offer in the Connections space – If so, what are you waiting for?

Interested in sponsoring the next event?

Detail of the packages can be found here or get in touch with one of the team by sending in an enquiry to info@socialconnections.info and ask us about our sponsorship packages (before they are all gone!).

keep-calm-and-submit-your-abstract-featured

30/062015

Calling for abstracts – submit yours now!

News abstracts, sessions, soccnx by Martin Jinoch

Hi everyone!

We have a call for abstracts running for Social Connections 9 in Stuttgart, Germany.

Do you have something super awesome that you want to tell the world about IBM Connections, or Social Business as a concept? Send in an abstract now. We would love to have you do your presentation. This time around we have some different time slots to choose from. You can go 15, 30 or even up to 60 minutes if you got something extra inspiring for everyone to hear and see!

Haven’t got anything yet?

Still plenty of time left. We will close submissions on the 1th of September.

If you’re asking what’s in it for me? You’ll of course get all the awesome recognition and kudos from your peers, plus the opportunity to take part in our ‘Ask the Experts’ panel, you’ll receive complimentary admission to the event including the gala reception and be offered an invite to our exclusive VIP reception.

And for those that might be too shy to talk. Register for Social Connections 9 now, and we’ll see all of you in Stuttgart on 5th and 6th of November 2015!

Cheers!

10/042015

We are sold out!

News boston, registration, soccnx by Lars Samuelsson

Let’s start this off with a big THANK YOU to everyone that has registered!

We can, as of today, say that we are sold out for the Social Connections 8 event in Boston. We are so psyched to see the interest in the conference and the team are working hard to put the last details in place before the event.

Also, as always, we send lots of love to our sponsors. There are more companies supporting this event than ever before, so we have been thrilled at the response. We really could not run Social Connections without you!

The team can really feel our own excitement building up for the event, and we sure hope that you feel the same way. If you have got any questions, do reach out to us via social media or email.

The reason we are closing registrations now is due to space restrictions at the venue, we want to make sure that everyone has a seat for the sessions.

There’s not much more to say right now except, again, thank you so much, we hope to deliver a fantastic experience for you. And see you all in Boston in just a few days!

09/042015

Social Connections 8 gala reception announced… Enjoy ‘A Night at the Museum’!

News boston, gala, gala reception, reception, soccnx by Maria Nordin

After the first afternoon of the Social Connections 8 event has concluded, we would like to continue the day’s conversations in a more relaxed atmosphere.

Therefore, we would like to invite all registered participants to join us for a complementary gala reception at the fascinating Museum of Science, courtesy of our Champagne sponsors, Trilog Group.

As the most highly attended cultural institution in New England, the Museum of Science offers novel surroundings and out-of-the-ordinary experiences that are sure to intrigue and entertain all our attendees!

With an array of interactive exhibits extending across three levels, the Museum’s Blue Wing may be the most unique and entertaining space in Boston. Where else can you dine amid dinosaurs and experience a hair-raising one million volts of lighting all in the same evening?

To top all that off, there will also be a variety of live music on offer all evening – you may just spot a few very familiar faces too!

Given our central location at IBM, no formal transportation will be required – the Museum of Science is just a short walk from the conference location.

Please contact us if you have any special dietary needs or allergies.

We look forward to seeing you in Boston!

08/042015

Social Connections – The show must go on!

News boston, future, soccnx by Social Connections

In the last week several members of the Social Connections team attended Engage conference in Ghent, Belgium. It was a great event and I recommend everybody to visit it next year. Many of us love the way Theo Heselmans runs this event and Engage always provides us with inspiration on how to improve our own conferences. By the way, Engage is sponsoring our event in Boston and we greatly value their support.

The reason for this post is that members of our team received a lot of questions in Ghent regarding the future of Social Connections after Stuart’s recent career move. Though this user group is his baby and his involvement is now somewhat reduced (he won’t be in Boston, for example), we want to make clear that Stuart is still with the Social Connections team, and we continue to plan future activities and events.

The team will cover the future plans in more detail at the Boston event, but we want to make a few statements earlier, to avoid concerns and rumours:

The event in Boston is definitely NOT the finale! We are already planning and working on the Social Connections 9 event in Western Europe this autumn. As usual, we will announce the exact date and location during our closing session in Boston.
The group remains IBM-centric and focused on IBM Connections and related topics, as it always has been.
On the other hand, we want to widen our scope to include more speakers from ‘outside the bubble’, presenting on generic topics like collaboration strategy, social business adoption, digital transformation, the future of work, and so on. Again, there is no big change, the talks on these topics started many events ago.
We have already started to look for possible venues for Social Connections 10 in 1H16. Any suggestions, recommendations or offers are welcome! 🙂

The world of social collaboration continues to evolve and the team are delighted that Social Connections has became a significant event in the conference calendar (the only semi-annual multi-continental user group we’re aware of!).

Whilst the Boston event is somewhat limited by the venue’s capacity, it has still seen new peaks reached for numbers of sponsors, sessions, speakers and even IBM Champions in attendance. In addition, it has seen even closer collaboration with IBM itself, with previously unimaginable access to product managers, designers and development lab staff.

The team are happy to continue to share in discussions about the future direction of this user group – we greatly value the input of our long-term sponsors and speakers, and of course we try to listen to all members of this great community. However, the team are also very confident that our own strategy and direction means that the future of the Social Connections user group is both bright and assured!

We can’t wait to see you in Boston!

04/032015

What should you expect at Social Connections 8?

News boston, expectation, prague, soccnx by Wannes Rams

Every Social Connections event has been different – after all, we’ve hosted every one in a new country so far! So the culture, the language and the surroundings definitely influence the kind of atmosphere and interactions that take place. That’s the joy of being a truly international user group!

However, there are certainly common themes…

A gathering of like-minded and passionate advocates of Social Business technologies, collaborative approaches and the use of IBM solutions.
Awesome content from internationally renown speakers, plus some case studies that you’ll hear nowhere else.
Hearing the latest product news – from IBM and from third-party vendors. We’ve been thrilled to hear from IBM product managers at almost every event – including Heidi Ambler, Luis Benitez, Kramer Reeves and in Boston, Suzanne Livingston.
A mix of business and technical… From high-level strategy and user adoption tips right down to geeky sessions on TDI assembly lines and widget development. The team always aim for a broad mix of deep content.
An atmosphere of openness and sharing. Attendees come with an attitude of wanting to make the most from the event, the opportunities and to be ready for meeting others that may start as strangers but will likely become friends in the long-run.
We weave ‘Social’ with ‘social’… This is about having fun, making connections, and re-energising ourselves and each other for the hard work ahead!

That’s a lot of words, right? Well as ever, a picture paints a thousand words, and a video… Well that must be a million, right?

So here’s our overview video from Social Connections VI, the event that took place in Prague in June 2014…

Like what you see? Well there’s no time like the present! Register for Social Connections 8 today!

02/032015

Why should you attend Social Connections 8?

News boston, quotes, registrations, soccnx by Jan Valdman

In the few days since we announced our fantastic agenda for Social Connections 8 in Boston, the number of registered attendees has almost doubled!

For this event, we have asked each attendee why they have registered. Here are some of the recent answers that have been given:

Newbies

I’m a new user and would like to know more about Connections.
This will be my first one. Very excited to attend after seeing the great value presented at the previous 7.
I’ve never attended previously but hope to hear insights and feedback from other customers about their successes and challenges with social, what use cases they have, and their adoption strategy.

Learning & Education

Our organization is deploying Connections 5 in 2015. I’m looking for ways to make the business side of the deployment a success.
My group is responsible for support of Connections and helps with user adoption. I would like to hear how other companies are using Connections and what worked best in their organization.
I want to learn what clients are doing
I train business students to work effectively with Connections
Learn more how Social Business trends are driving companies today
Build and extend their skills and knowledge, work in real collaboration between BP and Customers
Plans fell through the last year to attend and me and my team have a strong focus on developing social solutions.
Learn. Meet up with friends.
Learn new things! 🙂
To Network with individuals who share the common passion for Enterprise Social Networking and to keep up to date with latest developments in this domain.
speaking
We are implementing Connections and I want to be better informed about the best way it should be used.
I am looking forward to meeting with customers and understanding the community’s input on our user experience direction.
Thought leadership and Connections
I am most interested in developing additions to IBM Connections

Keep with Trends & Future Evolution

I manage IBM Connections at my company. [I need to u]nderstand the technology, the road map, and network with industry champions.
Hear interesting thoughts and visions about social software – and the location begs for information about future products and developments following
The location leads to expect information about the future of the IBM social products and about new products/thinkings
Keep up with trends and deep diving
Keep up on where IBM is going and some deep diving

Speaking/Sharing

As a IBM Premier Business Partner we are involved in many social collaboration projects. I want to share experiences with the social collaboration community.
I hope to be speaking and also attending technical sessions.
I was a speaker at Social Connections 7
To share knowledge and learn
Share Connections knowledge, network, attend other presentations
Learn from this wonderful community and share my experiences!
An opportunity to meet others and share my story in the hopes that it inspires others.

The Community & Networking

Excited to reconnect with this community and learn more about social adoption.
To meet all the great people here! 🙂
Getting to know more people in the IBM Connections area
Meet customers and how they are being successful at getting value from Connections.
Networking, Education, Visibility
Networking, Latest technical infos on IBM Connections, Speaker 🙂
Obviously to build network 🙂 I hope to see more deep technical session
Connect with customers and partners
Networking, new insights, learning
Social relationship, technical session
I want to meet clients and partners
To meet like minded people.
I was a speaker and attendee at Social Connections 7

And the last but not least:

Because its the best event in the world regarding the product IBM Connections !
To meet all the people!

So, what is your reason to attend?