IBM Academy of Technology Collaboration 2.0 Conference – Somers, NY – 9th till 11th of July – This Time around Is the Good One!

Tags: IBM, Academy of Technology, AoT, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Collaboration 2.0, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Andrew McAfee, Lotus Connections, Connection, Lotus Quickr, Quickr, Lotus Sametime, Second Life, SOA, Learning, Social Learning, Blog Central, Wiki Central, Fringe, Dogear, Media Library, Somers, NY, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Innovation, Communities, Online Communities, Virtual Teams, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing

Yes, that is right, folks. Last year, if you would remember, I couldn’t make it to what is well known as IBM’s internal event of events around the world of Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing: IBM’s Academy of Technology Collaboration Best Practices Conference (No external link, I am afraid). I had a problem with my passport not being US-ready, so this year I thought I would give it another try and see if this time around I would be able to make it. I got my passport fixed already since I have been to the US already a couple of times since then. I also submitted another abstract and see if it would get approved this time around as well. And it did! So from there onwards, it was just a matter of getting the funding for it and slowly make my way to it.

And to cut the long story short from here onwards, after a whole bunch of different discussions with different folks and just on the very very last minute, I have now managed to be able to travel this year to what promises to be quite an interesting and exciting IBM conference event. I got my travel approvals today and within the same day I got everything sorted out! Talking about being fast! heh That is what some other folks would call motivation!

Anyway, this time around the theme from IBM’s Academy of Technology is going to be Collaboration 2.0, a subject that, you can imagine, would get my interest and attention right away. I have just quickly browsed through a number of the different items from the agenda (No external link either, sorry!) and there are a whole bunch of elective sessions on topics related to social computing, social software, collaboration, knowledge sharing and communities.

We would be having Andrew McAfee talking to us, as one of the main keynote speaker sessions, around Enterprise 2.0 (Wondering if he would be doing the same pitch as in the recent Enterprise 2.0 conference held in Boston); then a whole bunch of breakout sessions dealing with different social software tools that IBM has been playing around with for a while now. Examples like Lotus Connections, Lotus Quickr, Lotus Sametime 7.5.1, Second Life, SOA, etc. etc. are just a few of the subjects that we would be getting exposed to, amongst others, but all of them having to deal with how the latest emerging technologies are taking IBM by storm in the way we share our knowledge and collaborate, both internally and externally, with other IBMers, business partners and customers.

As I have mentioned above, I will be providing one of the different breakout sessions around the subject of social computing within the Enterprise and how knowledge workers can overcome the different issues, barriers, problems, whatever they may have had all along that have prevented them from being much more active in their adoption of social software tools both inside and outside of the firewall.

Yes, that is right, I have got a slide deck already in place that I am not going to be able to share it over here, since it contains a bit of sensitive information, but it is going to be a very practical session where I am going to be sharing some tips, tricks, etc. etc. based on my own experiences from over the last 4.5 years on how I have been using most of those social software tools and my own exposure to others’ experiences in the same field.

This would be one of those sessions where I would be able to show people how they can start blogging, both behind the firewall and inside the firewall (With Blog Central); how they can start participating in wikis (In Wiki Central), starting small and build up from there; how they can tag both content and people (Using applications like Fringe); how they can store social bookmarks (Using Dogear); search for podcasts, subscribe to them or even creating your own (Through the Media Library); using several social networking components from Lotus Sametime 7.5.1; or using various different e-meeting tools with strong Web 2.0 flavours.

In a way, it is going to be a session where I will be demonstrating how adopting social computing tools behind the firewall is not as difficult as what most people seem to think. On the contrary, it is pretty easy and I am hoping to be able to share it with all of those folks getting to the event.

Like I mentioned above, it is an IBM internal event, but I am eventually getting to Somers, NY, on Saturday evening (Around 7.30 pm local time), and will be staying throughout the conference till Wednesday the 11th when I would be leaving towards the early evening back home. In between, I would have plenty of time to hang out and about, so if you feel that you would be around while I am there, it would be great to be able to get together with some of the folks reading out from this blog and, finally, be able to put a face to all of those comments people have been leaving all along.

Thus, feel free to leave a comment over here or contact me offline for further details and we would be able to arrange something. I am sure. I am hoping that this time around the connectivity would be a whole lot better than in previous events I have been attending this year, so that I may be able to share some stuff along the lines over here as well. But we shall see how that goes. For the time being, I am ready to go with my passport already up to date and looking forward to meeting up with a whole bunch of folks that I have known for years, but that I haven’t had a chance to meet up face to face. Now is the time, I can sense the excitement of how massive it is going to be in the end and how when coming out of the event all of the attendees would never be the same. Like someone I know would say it is going to be totally awesome!

(Oh, and in case you are wondering, I have already updated my Dopplr account (Although it is currently down at the moment), indicating at which hotel I will be staying and the times I will be arriving and leaving Somers, just in case you may want to meet up along the way)