Category: IBM Conferences

conferences

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A new challenge …

I have been a little busy of late – working on some exciting projects (which I will be blogging about shortly).

The planning for ICONUK 2016 is in full swing too – don’t forget to register, submit your abstract or sponsorship over on the iconuk.org site

I have attended Social Connections 10 in Toronto which was an amazing time – was so good to catch up with so many friends, the sessions were fantastic, the venue was lovely, socialising is always good – and Toronto what an great city 🙂

I have been working with WebSphere for what seems forever and as a Connections consultant since version 2 – which I love doing. Learning new things and keeping busy is something that I crave .. so this brings me on to a new challenge ..

From the 1st of August I will be joining BCC

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BCC have been working with companies to secure their social business infrastructure, automate underlying administration processes and ensure regulatory compliance for over 18 years – I am really excited about  joining a fantastic team and I will be continuing to work in the Connections space on some new and exciting products and projects .. 

My first “outing” with the BCC team will be at MWLUG in mid August

So here is to new things – onwards and upwards 🙂

 

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It’s almost time for ENGAGE :)

It’s that time of year again when our community gathers in a European city for the biggest user group meeting outside Connect / Lotusphere .. the fabulous Engage User Group. This year we are meeting in Eindhoven in the Netherlands in a fantastic location of Evoluon.

engageLogo Evoluon1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am speaking again with my good friend and college Mr. Christoph Stoettner on Wednesday, March 23 at  16:00 in Room D. Saturn – We will be covering everything connections related, installing, migrating, backing up etc 🙂

Tomorrow I am meeting the lovely Tim Clark for the roadtrip to engage .. looking forward to seeing friends, learning some great new stuff in the amazing amount of sessions and some good old social networking .. see you there 🙂

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Can you spare an item to help raise money for two amazing causes?

Friends, Geeks, Costumers, fellow Disney fans, lovers of star wars, friends of friends, basically everyone ….

As some of you know I am part of a team behind a charity convention later this year (August 7th).
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Our aim is to raise much needed funds for two amazing causes

Demelza Hospice Care for Children – a charity supporting children and young people (0-19) who are not expected to reach adulthood, and offer support to their families across Kent, South East London and East Sussex

Feel the Force Day (registed charity – 1st sensory legion) – Feel the Force Day is an accessible film and TV event designed for visually impaired and disabled people. Days include tactile costumes, props, vehicles, TV and film related smell jars… plus a few new and original ideas at each event.

All proceeds from Invictacon will be split between the two charities above – as you will agree both great causes.

 

So how can you help us?

The Invictacon team are looking for donations from you .. not in the monitory sense (although cash donations are lovely) – we are looking for items that we can use in our raffle and blind auction.

It can be anything related to film, tv, sci-fi, comic books, gaming, sport, any fandoms etc… that will help us raise some funds for Demelza and FTFD

 

How can you get it to us?

  • IBM/LOTUS/Conference people – we are at Connect 2016 in Orlando and Engage 2016 in Einhoven – bring it along (as long as i can fit it in a case)
  • Costuming friends – we will be at a few sci-fi / comic cons this year – let us know where you will be and we will come and collect or arrange for a friend to accept it on our behalf
  • Anyone else -You can contact us to arrange pick up (if you are local to the southeast of the UK) or postal / courier

 

Any donations will be gratefully received – and we would love to tell the world that you have donated a prize (if you don’t want us to do that, that is also ok)

We are also looking for category sponsors for the costume / cosplay competition (or for the whole comp) – a small prize, trophy and certificate will be presented in each category

  • Kids under 10
    Kids 10 – 16
    Adults 16 and over
    Best Group

The competition is being judged by the lovely Alan Flyng – Star wars (ESB / ROTJ – storm-trooper and imperial officer) who is an amazing costume maker / wardrobe master who has worked on thousands of TV, film and theatrical productions.

 

Thank you

So my plee for help ends .. if there is anyway you could part with something no matter how small to help us raise funds for both causes the whole team would be so so grateful.

The team and I can not thank you enough – we are all volunteers and get nothing but a warm and fuzzy feeling for raising some well needed funds for two amazing causes.

 

So thank you

Sharon, Sam, Nathan, David and Nicky

 

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IconUK .. yes we are a go

As hopefully you will have seen ICONUK 2015 is going ahead ..

Registration will be open shortly and please start thinking about those abstracts as you will soon be able to put those forward too.

The call for abstracts will be open until the 31st of July .. and sessions announced in August.

Of course if you wish to sponsor this amazing event the sponsor pack will be available in the next few days ..  you can also mail sponsors at iconuk dot org for more info 🙂

Please check the ICONUK site for further information.

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Come see us at Engage.UG

We are thrilled that our session Adm11. Connx install in 45 minutes or less, or your money back – has been selected for Engage.

It’s going to be a great conference – 65 speakers in total, among them 30 IBMChampions!

The agenda; looks fantastic – jammed with sessions into 5 tracks over 2 days. As well as all the great content, there are social events, speed sponsoring, a chance to network and catch up with old friends and make new ones.

It is one of the best user groups around and Theo and the team work tirelessly to put on an amazing 2 days. If you work with IBM Collaboration software in any way, shape or form its a fantastic opportunity to gain more knowledge.

Session Info:

Adm11. Connx install in 45 minutes or less, or your money back
Connx install in 45 minutes or less, or your money back (Entry fee €1.00 *)
New to Connections Admin / Dev? Need an environment to test your development? Need a test system or proof of concept? Don’t know where to start? Never fear – We can help you become Collaboration Super Hero!!!
In this session we will help you plan, install and most importantly CONFIGURE a connections environment to fit what YOU need it for.
Need to get data into your new system – No problem. We will guide you through migrating / importing existing Connections data into your new Connections environment.
From software required, DB selection, useful tools and trouble shooting tips – for Linux and Windows – whether you are an admin or a developer we will enable you.
* Money back for this session only. Note – the actual install takes a lot more than 45 mins 🙂
** All money goes to Dander4Dosh 2015

 

Come and see us just before lunch (11:30am) on Tuesday 31st March  – Room C: Vermeylen 2nd floor

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MWLUG here I come

I have been a bit quiet on the blog lately. I have been a little busy both work wise and home wise what with making costumes and building armour (more of that in another post) but this weekend I fly out to my very first MWLUG.

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I am really looking forward to it after hearing so many great things about it. I will be speaking on the thursday morning, but am arriving on sunday the 24th so will get to spend a few days seeing the sites and working from the hotel room.

If you are going to be there I am looking forward to catching up with old friends and hopefully making some new ones

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Registration for ICONUK now open

Registration for Icon UK is now open

Head over to the registration page and sign up early as placed are limited.

 

If you would like to speak please submit your abstracts before 30th June. There are four tracks this year, Management/Strategy, Development, Admin and Open Source. If you are interested in sponsoring please email sponsors@iconuk.org.

I am all resisted and really looking forward to the event – see you there 🙂

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Speaking at Engage

I will be speaking at Engage by BLUG in March – a big thank you to Theo and the team for the opportunity

On Monday the 17th of March I will be Christoph Stoettener’s assistant again in delivering – Adm04. Practical Solutions for Connections Administrators – Tips and Scripts for Your Daily Business – 14:45 – 15:30, room: B

On Tuesday the 18th of March I will be speaking with my friend and college Mr Tim Clark – Adm08. Collaboration Stack – Lessons Learned at the Coal Face – 16:00 – 17:00, room: B

I am looking forward to my first BLUG / Engage as it is such a great conference, the full agenda can be found on the Engage web site

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so I DID make it to Connect

So thanks to some very good fortune and help from an old and awesome friend I was able to make the Connect conference in Orlando last week.

I will post my full round up later in the week – but the highlights

The Good

  • SPEAKING for the first time with my good friend Christoph Stoettner  I am not ashamed to say I was extremely nervous about speaking at Connect for the first time, but if I have the opportunity to do so again I will grab it with both hands
  • The flow for the first two days with Jay Bayer hosting the opening sessions, flowed really well, he followed the twitter stream and was interacting as we went along.
  • Craig Hayman the new ICS head honcho wearing yellow sneakers when he came on stage got a massive roar of approval from the Champions den.
  • The Champions den was great again – thanks to those who run the program for looking after us for the week, for the breakfasts with the IBMers, for the lunches, for the opportunity to hang out with the cool kids.
  • The newly revamped Design Studio (UX lab) spent a good few hours giving feedback, and checking on some things I spent time on 2 years ago to find they have improved a billion %
  • Closing General Session – stroke of Genius .. Mars Rover, Nasa dude, room full of geeks  – best CGS ever – thank you IBM

The Bad

  • Lack of technical info in the OGS – even though I am still a newbie to this conference (this was my 4th year), it has got worse in the 4 years I have been attending. The demo’s are generally awesome .. but we have little or no idea what makes up the demos. I don’t expect a full break down but a slide with an overview that the segment of the demo for instance may contain Connections and Sametime with domino as the back end mail system would be enough to suffice – Customers, HR people, our bosses and less technical types may see that demo and say *WE NEED THAT* – wouldn’t it be great if we knew what *that* was made up of 🙂 I know the OGS is for the press and marketing people etc, but a small pander to the technical community would go a long long way.
  • There seem to be a loss less late night socialising this time round, maybe we are getting older, maybe we were tired because the days felt fuller – its not too much of a bad thing from a sleep perspective but it was from a spending time with people perspective – there are so many in our ICS community that I only see once or twice a year, just wish I had more time with you.
  • Some of the session scheduling was a bit crazy – even with re-runs there were 2 I wanted to make but missed, its hard to jam all the great sessions in the 4 days, but sometimes it seemed that there was Connections sessions up against other Connections sessions and Domino against Domino when they may have been a bit more staggered – just my opinion – may be it was my bad scheduling.

  • I didn’t make it to any BOFs this year 🙁 again that was bad scheduling on my part.

  • I also missed the Great Geek Challenge as I wasn’t feeling great – gutted as it sounded like so much fun (as it always is) 

The Ugly

  • Well there wasn’t much ugly to be honest .. they could have done a better job with the staff shirts, but they were a lovely shade of blue 🙂

 

Full round up coming soon – we have the best community on the planet (or Mars 😉 )

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Alas I will not be at Connect this year

Due to circumstances out of my control, I will not make the IBM Connect conference this year.

To say I am devastated would be an understatement – as I was due to speak with my friend Christoph.

I will miss the great sessions, the opportunity to catch up with remote colleges, visit the user experience lab (which I have done every year I have been), chat with the product managers and developers and participate in the Champion activities.

I will mostly miss catching up with the great people of this community, the networking, the meeting new people, making new friends and seeing the people I only get to see once a year.

I am absolutely gutted 🙁 I hope everyone that is going has a good time and I will be watching twitter for the updates on what is going on