As IBM Connect 2014 continues, I just got my hands on this video which shows how the production team came in and built the stage and got everything ready for the IBM Connect 2014 Opening General Session. Think of this as a behind the scenes look on how everything comes together for the show. If you are here, I am curious to know... What has been your favorite thing so far ??
Check out the credits at the end. My favorite is the Costume Designer .
And now we get to the last day of Lotusphere 2012 #ls12. Lotusphere 2012 was my 5th Lotusphere, but it was the first time that I actually stayed the full day on Thursday and left on Friday. Usually, I would head out to the airport Thursday at noon so I had never seen a Closing General Session or participated in a Blogger Open before. Like Sharon said, I'm surprised with the number of people who leave Wednesday night or super early on Thursday.
Thursday started like any other day with customer breakfast and then customer meetings. Then it was time for the Ask the Product Managers session. As usual, Mitch Cohen live blogged that session so you can see what happened there. It was an easy session for me since I only had to answer 1 question in the whole hour :) .
Leaving on Thursday also gave me a chance to connect with more people. At lunch I finally got to see Chris Whisonant if only for a few minutes and of course got my hands on the famous pretzel cookie.
After lunch, I took a very loooong walk encouraged by Alan Lepofsky. The last 7 days I had been trapped inside the Dolphin and/or Swan so it felt great to spend time outside and breathe some fresh air. I also had never been all around the property. Given the weather was so great, I had the opportunity to take some very cool pictures.
From there I headed to go see my first ever Closing General Session. The session was mainly hosted by Andrew Zimmern, who has his own TV show on the Travel Channel: Bizarre Foods.
Before the final session started, the big screen was showing tweets from earlier in the week. I managed to grab a couple of tweets but this is the best one that came out:
I think that tweet summarizes Lotusphere 2012 very well. Looking back on Lotusphere 2011, I think it was very focused still on the "Why Social Business", whereas this year with so many customers sharing their examples it was more about "How Social Business". And this was reflected as well on my 1:1 conversations with customers. They knew they had to become a social business and they were going to do it. They didn't need me to convince them of that. Rather, they wanted to talk adoption and roll-out strategies.
Finally, after the Closing General Session, we walked to the Blogger Open for some mini golf fun. It was awesome!!!! Our team didn't win anything (sorry guys!), but still had tons of fun.
I can't wait for Lotusphere 2013!!
It's a good sign when 2 hours have gone by and I've barely noticed.This is one of the best Lotusphere keynotes ever. #LS12And third, the hashtag for the conference, #ls12, started trending on Twitter as well.
— Alan Lepofsky (@alanlepo) January 16, 2012
#ls12, Michael J Fox, and OKGO all hit Twitter's Trending Topics for the US at the #LotusphereOGS twitter.com/suzielivingsto…asd
— Suzanne Livingston (@suzielivingston) January 18, 2012
While in Argentina, Marcelo showed this cool dynamic infographic that shows you the latest social media counts in "real-time", in the last day, last week, last month or last year.
Unfortunately, I found out about it after my Social Business presentation. I think it would've been nice to show this to the audience so they get a sense, again in real-time, as to the massive amounts of activities that are going on in the different social networks out there.
There's also an iPad app you can try and download: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/social-media-counts/id392861163?mt=8%20# . You can read more about it here. It looks like this was made available back in January, but I just stumbled upon it. I think I missed it in all the Lotusphere #ls11 rush.
As I was catching up on the news over the weekend, I came onto this one that I thought was very cool!
Inspired by the Shorewood Lib Dub video (with over 1.4 million views), back in October 3M employees (3Mers) from all over the world published a video they created on their own time. The video spread virally internally and it was posted to YouTube yesterday.
What's really cool about this is that 3M, well, let me quote them:
We relied on internal social media tools, specifically Lotus Connections and an internally-developed video sharing tool called 3M DIY Video Library. Connections’ Communities allowed for private discussion and debate. Connections’ Wiki managed group documents for project plans, team pages, storyboards and music strategy. There was a private community blog for announcements, status updates and weekly newsletters. Teams uploaded drafts of their video segments for comment (and praise) from the other teams to the video library.
Most of the employees in the video had never created a video and had never used Connections in the past. They all did this on their spare time, sometimes over holidays or vacation. Here's the video that has delighted 3M employees and executives:
I also liked how they recruited volunteers, they sent an anonymous invitation with as little information as possible: "Will you join us?". 75 employees from US, Poland, Russia, Italy, Dubai, Singapore and other countries accepted. Most employees didn't know each other, have never met, and probably never will. Isn't that awesome!!??!! (Note: I was also happy that Puerto Rico was represented in the video :) )
Congratulations to the 3M team!
To read more about this project and see the whole story behind this, see this post.
Yesterday, I made a quick trip up to the IBM Watson Research Facility. I participated in an all day Executive Briefing with a customer as we convinced them that IBM was the right choice for collaboration technologies. But enough about me. This is about Watson.
Wondering What Is Watson? Maybe this video will help.
While I had done briefings in other IBM/Lotus locations, this was my first trip to Watson. As geeky as I am, I was excited to make this trip and see where all the magic of IBM Research happens. One of the things that caught my attention is the 7000+ patents, awarded to IBM in the last 2 years, shown on the walls as you walk into the briefing center. Very impressive.
I was hoping to run into some of the folks that I've met using our internal Facebook/Twitter system (aka Lotus Connections), but it didn't happen. I also didn't get a chance to play Jeopardy against Watson, but that's ok, because judging from the video above, I would've lost anyway. Can't wait to make my next trip up.
Enjoy!
As you may have heard, I had to bail out on Lotusphere 2010 because my son was suddenly hospitalized. Shortly after the opening keynote on Monday, I boarded a plane back home. Therefore, this recap is pretty short.
One of the great things about the keynote is that I got a chance to see it from the "blogger's couch". That means that I witnessed the entire keynote up close and personal from the very first row. Here's a picture taken from my iPhone:
As usual, one of my favorite things of going to Lotusphere is meeting with all my colleagues. On Sunday we had the Lotusphere Tweet-Up where I got to see friends such as @marciamarcia, @elsua, @sursinus, @vjburns, @idonotes, @bilaljaffery, @alanlepo, @olufsphere, and many many others. We all took a picture in front of the DeLorean. And while I don't have a picture of the tweet up, I do have one with my twin brother (can you guess who's who?):
If you also missed Lotusphere, here's a quick recap by DJ Steve Porter:
Enjoy!
For the 3rd year in a row, the Lotus Social Software Community will be getting together at Lotusphere. I'm going to be co-hosting the event along with Brian O'Curran, Sonia Malik, and Bilal Jaffery. If you'll be at Lotusphere, be sure to join us at this year's event:
What: Lotusphere Tweet Up
Where: Meet @ the playground between Grotto Pool and position N in the map.
When: During the Opening Reception, Sunday night January 17th @ 6:30pm
Why: Because our photos may be out of date.
For more information, see: http://planetlotus.org/61b548. See you there!
Thank you all for your support!
If you want to nominate someone else as the IT Superstart of 2009, go here: http://www.ibm.com/vrm/itsuper_etp_recipient_2250IN/LBenitez194164846
If you are not following Ed Brill, well you should, but also, that means that you missed this link that he posted. It's a new commercial that's being shown in-flight Virgin Atlantic flights. I thought it's pretty cool.
Enjoy! (and yes, I've been posting a lot of videos lately, but that's because Lotus Knows I Like Videos.)
I just found this video hillarious...
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