Next week IBM will be putting on IBM Connect, the conference formerly known as Lotusphere. The theme is "Get Social. Do Business." and the sessions are divided into two primary tracks: 1) Create a Smarter Workforce and 2) Create an Exceptional Customer Experience. Think of the first track as focused on employees (internal) while the second is focused on customers (external), although both topics do have some overlap.
Leading up to the event, I've been pointed to several websites, so I thought I'd share them all here to make things "easier" for people.
1) The main conference home page with marketing information and links to other resources
2) The Session Preview tool
3) The Social Business Online, the online community for conference attendees (powered by a combination of Domino X-Pages and IBM Connections)
4) The Social Aggregator, which brings together Tweets, blogs, videos and photos
5) IBM Software Channel Livestream, for watching the keynote and other videos live
6*) There is yet another site for industry analysts (powered by Tumblr, not an IBM platform), but that's private. I don't understand why this is not within the Social Business Online site listed in #3.
There are also non-official sites, such as IBM Connect Live, which is run by Carl Tyler and Chris Miller.
On Twitter, the official hashtag is #IBMConnect, but many people (myself included) will also be using #LS13.
Given that the event is geared towards teaching organizations how to properly use "social tools" to improve their business, I'm surprised that IBM is not setting the best example. Instead of multiple sites all with different domain names, IBM should be running a single site (ideally located at www.ibmconnect.com, a URL that IBM already owns) that includes the registration, agenda, session content and online community. The best example of a conference that I've seen is Salesforce's Dreamforce event. It's easy to find (the URL is the event name!), register, login for community access, watch the videos, etc... all from one location.
I've been privy to many of the announcements and demos (under NDA, so don't ask!) and am impressed with the vision that IBM has around helping organizations collaborate both internally and externally. I'm looking forward to IBM Connect/Lotusphere... seeing old friends, making new ones, going to a slew of parties and hopefully enjoying a little Florida sunshine.
