IBM Connect 2017 - Top 5 Highlights

Well what a huge week! There were so many interesting things going on at IBM Connect 2017 last week in San Francisco. I had some fantastic conversations with colleagues around the world and that is probably the most important part of Connect. Learning from others experiences, thinking about our future path, just fantastic.

Yet how to sum it up! Well here are my top 5 highlights for IBM Connect 2017. Let me know what yours were?

Check out Kudos at IBM ConnectED 2015 and WIN a SONOS!

Ok. I admit it. My name is Adam Brown and I am a Sonos Addict (just ask vowe). And now you can be as well:) Win a Sonos PLAY:1 wireless hifi at ConnectEd! These things are just awesome. I have just added two PLAY:1 to my growing Sonos collection at home. They certainly pack some punch and hooked up to Spotify/Pandora/Deeza/Radio/more.... will give you "ALL THE MUSIC ON EARTH".

The Australian team (and Tony from UK;) at ISW and Kudos are giving away a Sonos PLAY:1 at IBM ConnectED to one lucky conference delegate. Kudos/ISW is making the annual pilgrimage to Orlando for the IBM ConnectED so we hope to see you there. We have some very exciting new features for Kudos that we are sure our IBM Connections clients are going to love.

The pitch from Sonos:

"The Sonos system offers deep, crystal clear HiFi sound in a compact and surprisingly powerful unit and can stream all your music library, popular music providers and internet radio; all controlled from your smartphone. You can even add your prize to more Sonos units to build a system for your entire home or workplace!"

The pitch from us:

Be very careful;) While one Sonos is very awesome. Two is even better. Three.... one for the office....need one downstairs as well...maybe one we can use outside.....kitchen.....so consider yourself warned. You will not stop at just one of these puppies!

How do you get your hands on one of these beauties?

All you need to do to win is visit the Kudos team at Pedestal B29, scan your badge and collect one of our adorable Koala's souvenirs and maybe some Aussie chocolates (TIM TAM anyone). That is it. We will make a draw on the last day of the conference and notify the winner.

Kudos is an award-winning suite of applications designed to reward user adoption, measure performance and increase productivity for IBM Connection users. When entering the prize draw why not learn more about what Kudos can do for your organisation, face to face with the team, or check out our Youtube Kudos playlist.

And the nice thing about visiting us at Pedestal B29 is that you can then rock past Crossware at B30 and enter their very cool draw for an Apple Watch. @RobHollier I assume we can enter as well?

Inform Australia (a.k.a. AusLUG) call for Speaker Abtracts

The awesome team organising Inform Australia 2014 (previously AusLUG) have announced the new dates for the event, being Sept 4th & 5th Sept in Melbourne. This will be the 4th annual event and it is great to have it back in Melbourne for the 2nd time.

Inform recently announced that the event is open now for speakers to submit abstracts. Having been fortunate enough to speak at the previous events I can only encourage everyone to have a go and share your knowledge. Developers, Administrators, Users, Managers, Business people, IBMers....all sessions ideas are welcome and the audience tend to be great and interactive. Connections, Domino, Sametime, Traveller, Smartcloud, Talent Suite and Kenexa, Digital Experience, Forms, Portal, Worklight, User Adoption, Success Stories, technical or business, or even just a general topic related to collaboration.

So go on, give it a go. I guarantee you won't regret it. To submit an abstract just head over to the Inform site, register, and then just submit a session from your Profile page.

Ignition for IBM Connections - Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane here we come!

Following on from successful events in Hobart, Sydney, and Melbourne, ISW is now running our IBM Connections Ignition Breakfast series in Adelaide (22nd Nov), Perth (24th Nov), and Brisbane (1st Dec).

This round table breakfast event has been a great series to date with some fantastic discussions on the REAL business value of Social Business and IBM Connections. I always find it interesting to hear from different organisations about the use cases they have for Connections and how they see the technology improving how they collaborate and work with their colleagues and communities. The session covers what Social Business is all about and outlines a series of use cases that demonstrate real business value. Full of live demo's we find it is a great way to progress people from "So why would I bother?" to "Now I get it!!". We spend some time on how to drive user adoption of Connections within organisations and show an easy path forward.

So if you want to hear about the business value of social software, learn some strategies on driving user adoption, or are in the process of implementing IBM Connections and want to hear about other organisations experiences then please register and join us! We have limited seats so get in quick!