Connect 2017 - All Change & Call for Speakers

The website for IBM Connect 2017 is now up and giving us more detail about the event next year. It’s all change from Orlando to San Francisco but actually the only thing that hasn’t changed is the name - from the looks of the event and tracks this seems to be a very different kind of conference.

Taking place in San Francisco at Moscone West from 20-23 February there seems to be a bigger focus on new technologies than in the past and certainly ones that step further towards the edges of traditional ICS products.  Today many of us work cross-product and with hybrid infrastructures so its welcoming to see IBM recognising that and offering a conference that gives us both present and future topics to learn.

Registration for the conference isn’t open yet, but you can submit a session as a speaker here  only until Nov 4th and the topics listed give an insight - an exciting one I think - into what the conference will contain.  I plan to submit a session myself and hope to be there in San Francisco next February even if I’m not speaking.

Sessions can be submitted in the following categories:

Emerging Technologies: Join experts discussing technologies that are shaping our world. The Emerging Technologies track explores our work/life challenges and investigates the promise that technologies like Augmented Reality, Internet of Things, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, and Watson will bring.

Strategy and Business: Discover how pioneers are addressing current trends and issues in our constantly evolving domain of strategy and business. Led by industry speakers and leveraging case method, the track explores business challenges, approaches, and outcomes across engagement, expertise, productivity, and work.

Development, Design and Tools: Delve deep into product, design and code with the experts. Discover a deep understanding of products and solutions that help us redefine everyday work including Verse, Connections, Notes Domino, Bluemix, Cisco WebEx TM, Toscana, Spark, Box and more.

 

It’s Cham-peen Time

The IBM Champion program is once more open for nominations for 2017 Champions.  For those of you that don’t know, the Champion program has been set up by IBM to reward and thank people who have established a voice in their community.  To become a Champion first IBM need to know what you do and there is a nomination form which can be used by others to nominate you or by you to nominate yourself.  All the nominations are then reviewed by an internal IBM team who choose the Champions each year.  Before going any further you can nominate people here until Nov 4th.

Last year Theo Heselmans and I were selected as the first IBM Lifetime Champions which means we don’t need to be nominated (I will still be nominating others) and last week I participated in a web conference with IBM on the Champion program, what it’s about, what the value is to you and how to become one.  You can watch and download that event here and I recommend you do if you’re interested in becoming or nominating a Champion.

For me being a Champion means that the work I do, writing, speaking, feeding back to product development, has been valuable to someone , that they wanted to say thank you and that IBM recognise my work.  It doesn’t change what I do or make me more beholden to IBM but it does expand my audience and makes me feel good 🙂  So that said, if there is anyone who makes a difference to your work, answering questions via forums, twitter, on their blogs, who speaks or organises a conference or whose contribution you’d miss if they were to stop - NOMINATE THEM here.

I have heard plenty of people say (and said it myself once) “well if no-one nominates me I guess I don’t do enough” and that simply isn’t true.  No-one knows what you do as well as you.  Other people may not nominate you because they don’t know everything you do or simply because they think you have already been nominated.  I’ve been guilty in the past of not nominating someone I thought was a shoe-in only to find out no-one else did either.  Nominating someone else is also a huge compliment to them and a way of saying thank you even if they don’t end up becoming a Champion.

Now go out there and get nominating !