Chicago – Let's Connect

20/062017

Social Connections 11 in Chicago – it’s a wrap!

News austria, Chicago, connections, post, social, socialconnections, wrap, wrap up by Maria Nordin

First of all a big THANK YOU to all of you who partiticipated at Social Connections in Chicago in any way.

Without you we couldn’t do an it!

We had 2 great days in Chicago and what a city! Friendly and welcoming people, good food and a never-ending sunshine. I’m sure that many of us who were there definitely have Chicago on our list of vacation cities.

What makes Social Connections so great is just that; that we arrange our conference in a new city and country each time. That way we all get to extend our network and meet both old acquaintances and make new ones every time. New IBMers, new business partners and new customers. Lots of people to get to know and learn from and new business opportunities for our sponsors.

Great thing no. 1

Our sponsors. We are truly amazed at how innovative you are. You offer so many interesting and smart solutions and you showcase so much expertise and all it is available to all IBM’s customers. We are especially happy for our returning sponsors, but also our new sponsor friends which makes us equally happy.

Great things no. 2

Our speakers. You are all great! The knowledge, the expertise, the diversity and depth of your sessions is amazing! We had sessions about IBM Connections Pink, Docker, sponsors showing their solutions and the all popular sessions on real life customer stories.

Great things no. 3

Everyone who attended! You are the best! You came from near and far. Many locals from Chicago and some of you came all the way from the other side of the globe! That mix is hard to beat! Here are some statistics. We were 167 attendees which feels like good number in the US where we are the new kid on the block. We also managed to get really great and big American customers there both attending and speaking. We were 70 companies represented which also are happy with. And 14 countries.

Great thing no. 4

Evening events! As some of you know we take pride in doing the full circle of networking by putting a lot of effort in finding a cool event for our gala reception to which all attendees are invited. In Toronto we for example visited Hockey Hall of Fame and in Stuttgart, Germany were visited Sensapolis which is an indoor playground and restaurant combined.

This time we held the reception at the very cool table tennis club called AceBounce. That was if I can say awesome. It was so fun to see everyone playing matches with 2 or even 6 people in. All combined with really good food.

So by this the team of Social Connections, also called ‘the Midnight Squad’ as we mostly do our work around midnight, would like to thank you all again a fantastic 2 days in Chicago!

Last but not least

Social Connections 12 comes to Austria on October 16-17! We are now heading back to Europe and our fall event and the planning is already in full swing! Make sure you are in the lookout for more detailed updates from us. Subscribe to our newsletter here, follow us on Twitter here, on Facebook here, join our LinkedIn group here, our blog here.

We hope you all can be there!

15/052017

Party time! Time to reveal the location of Social Connections fabulous Gala evening!

News 12, Chicago, conference, connections, event, gala, gala reception, ibm, ibm connections, reception, soccnx, social, social connections, socialconnections by Maria Nordin

We know that a perfect way to end the first day our conference is a fabulous Gala evening together with old and new friends! Other ingredients should include good food, refreshing beverages and something extra fun. And this is the Chicago edition!

Welcome to a fun and playful evening at the table tennis club Ace Bounce – the home of PING PONG.

Ace Bounce offers an immense subterranean playground. Filled with ping pong tables each with their own party going. All kept in perpetual motion by DJs. And topped off with generous servings of food and beverages by award winning chefs & mixologists. Perfect for our conference!

We are sure you will enjoy a night with a game of table tennis and a bite to eat with your customer, your IBMer or that other business partner!

Register for Social Connections here and then check your email for the registration link to this evening event! Make sure you secure your spot to our fabulous gala night! 1 ticket per attendee.

So come and play with us! The Social Connections team is in hard training! 🙂

23/032017

Think Pink, Connections Pink comes to Social Connections Chicago!

News agenda, Chicago, connections, ibm, ibmcnx, ics, pink, schedule, sessions, soccnx, socialconnections, speaker, Speakers by Wannes Rams

We are announcing our first session!

We are proud to present Mr. Pink Jason Gary as a speaker at Social Connections. Jason will tell us all about the future of IBM Connections which we know as Connections Pink.

Those of you who attended IBM Connect remember the excitement and vibe in his session where the room was so full we all had to stand in the back and along the walls.

We can’t wait to hear more from Jason on the latest updates regarding Pink since IBM Connect.

Jason will be speaking with Baan Slavens. Baan is Senior Offering Manager for IBM Connections. Baan focuses on understanding the collaboration market and the future direction for collaboration for IBM Connections. She is also the Offering Manager for IBM Connection Mobile and the lead for the strategic direction of all the mobile applications in IBM Collaborations.

Check out the full description of this session here.

More to come! This is only the first of many great sessions we have lined up for you. Stay tuned for more information.

Register for the conference through our website, and note that we are accepting abstracts until end of the month if you are interested in speaking.

14/022017

Social Connections 11 Chicago Venue decided. We are going to Summit West on June 1st and 2nd!

News Chicago, connections, event, ibm, ibmcnx, register, registration, soccnx, social, socialconnections, Speakers, sponsors by Wannes Rams

After a frantic couple of weeks, the searching, comparing, discussing and negotiating is over!

We have made the choice, signed the contract so it is official – It’s gonna be Summit West that will host Social Connections 11 in Chicago.

The event will take place June 1 & 2 in this amazing downtown location!

The venue we have chosen for our 11th event is for sure gonna rock. It is called Summit Chicago and is located in the heart of Chicago with plenty of hotels nearby. Those of you who joined us in Toronto will recognise the high quality, the professional staff and the fantastic location!

Want to find out more about the location – please follow this link http://www.summitchicago.com/

We are extremely excited that we can finally kick off things and start finding speakers, sponsors, event venues for our evening events.

In the meanwhile we have opened call for abstracts and registrations.

For our sponsors, the ones that make this event happen, see the sponsor page for our packages

Join us for 2 days of learning, networking and fun. We will be running tracks spread over 3 separate rooms on a variation of topics. Of course we will talk about IBM Connections, both cloud and on premise and we will provide you with the latest news on 6.0 and Connections Pink. Apart from that, we have decided to add some more content next to IBM Connections. We will be having a limited number of sessions on Watson Workspace and Analytics.

We have created a special IBM Connect rate for the first 20 people who register before the end of IBM Connect. This rate will automatically expire after IBM Connect, so make sure you register fast. $99 for this conference is not even a bargain, it’s nearly a free giveaway!!

We hope to see you all in Chicago for a great event.

The Social Connections team

(Maria, Simon, Wannes, Lars, Martin, Femke, Doug, Christoph, Jan)