event – Sandra's Blog

Our slides from Engage

The last two days at Engage were very busy and the event went very well. Theo and Hilde set once more the bar of how events should be run and were the perfect hosts. The two days were filled with sessions, roundtables and meetings around the IBM ICS stack as well as a analytics related track.

Here are the slides from the session I held together with Roberto Mazzoni from the University of Zurich regarding the IBM Connections environment that is now also used from the students.

IBM Connections ready for students at University of Zurich from Belsoft

I enjoyed the days in Rotterdam, it was great to meet so many great people from all over the world. Save trip home everyone!

Out of my comfort zone

I had a very busy year so far. We started with different new projects, mostly IBM Connections related, but we also worked on development projects and did consulting around security topics. A very interesting and inspiring IBM Think event followed in March. Just after being back from Las Vegas we organized our annual customer event and presented the good news about #Domino2025 to a very eager audience. Should anyone have missed the great news, here are the most recent slides from IBM and HCL as presented during #SocialConnections in Philadelphia.

IBM Domino 10: A new chapter begins from LetsConnect

So far so good and nothing out of the ordinary, right? But after months or years doing our business like it was “business as usual” we wanted to step outside our comfort zone and approached totally new customers (prospects) and introduced them to the collaboration solutions and offerings from IBM.

Talking to new companies and contacts, that we’ve had no ties nor common ground with, was totally outside my comfort zone and I felt unsure and somehow out of place. But, it was worth it! The experience was totally eye-opening.

The eye-opener was that those Swiss companies (not small ones) from different industries never had heard of IBM Connections and were not aware that IBM even had a solution that could help fulfill their business needs around collaboration sites and know-how sharing. To look at solutions from IBM never crossed their minds.

Those customers never assumed they had a choice besides the offering from Microsoft. So after very busy weeks and a lot of conversations with different companies I can confirm there is a huge opportunity to talk to new faces and going outside the comfort zone.

In only a few days, I will be at Engage in Rotterdam and will have a session with Roberto Mazzoni from the University of Zurich. We will talk about how the University works with IBM Connections and made the solution popular amongst students as well. I will also share my insights from outside my comfort zone and what I’ve learned over the last few weeks.

IBM Connect in San Francisco – A comeback

During the next few days IBM Connect 2017 will take place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. While the subject of many sessions, solutions, products and most of the speakers are familiar or known for many years, the venue and location is brand new.

So, for the first time it’s not sunny Florida end of January it is (actually rainy) San Francisco and the community is gathering around the Moscone Center and will try to make San Francisco their home for a week.

I am looking forward to many great sessions and I am very interested in hearing how IBM will want to integrate new AI capatabilities aka Watson into their products and solutions. I want to learn more about the roadmap and the next releases of the software our customers built their collaboration solutions on.

For me it will be a totally special comeback to the city we “almost” wanted call our home for the rest of our lives. Instead, we decided to go back to Switzerland and start with our project and Belsoft as a company for IT services. A decision we never regretted, but still San Francisco will always be a city I called close to home and because of this IBM Connect in San Francisco is a very special one for me.

So, I’m back home and looking forward to seeing my 2nd family that is spread all over the world and meets once a year.

IBM Connect Switzerland – Session Slides

Early March saw an interesting event at the IBM branch office in Zurich. IBM Connect Switzerland was a gathering of customers and business partners around the ICS brand that had not only interesting key-note sessions and technical break-out sessions, but was also the opportunity to meet and talk with a lot of Swiss customers about our solutions and products.

I had finally the opportunity to deliver our session “Shaping collaboration at the University of Zurich” together with Roberto Mazzoni from the University of Zurich at the point of origin, namely in Zurich. The first time we showed the slides in London during ICON UK last autumn. During Social Connections VII in Stockholm last November, we focused on IBM Connections and shared the insights on how the University is going forward with the roll-out of IBM Connections at the University.

Shaping Collaboration at University Zurich from Belsoft

First of all, I’d like to thank Roberto Mazzoni that he was and is willing to share the story of the University of Zurich around all things collaboration. His insights and his openness to share the success and also the work-arounds or detours in details are of great value. Many customers are shy when it comes to sharing and this is why public success stories are so important.

Shortly after the event I caught a really bad flu that slowed me down and stopped me even for more than a full week. I am back now and I am looking forward to a great Social Connections 8 in Boston that will start in only one days and allows us to talk about another great customer story around IBM Connections, IBM Sametime and the integration of XPages applications. Expect a future blogpost regarding our session: “European Collaboration with a Swiss Twist” in a few days.