keynotes – Let's Connect

Social Connections Keynote with Luis Benitez – IBM’s Take on the Future of Work

The Social Connections team are please to announce another keynote presentation at our event in Toronto on June 6th and 7th (at the St. Andrew’s conference Centre) – Luis Benitez presenting IBM’s Take on the Future of Work.

IBM’s Enterprise Social Solutions provides the platform of tools you need to transform your organization into a social business, enabling you to reach your customers and partners faster, drive innovation, share content and expertise, and complete work faster.

Last year, you heard our vision for a #NewWaytoWork. Today, we will show you what the future of working together with new innovations for personal insights, teamwork, and more. This session will explore our open strategy for Box and Exchange support, and how we will provide a persistent workplace for small teams. Join us and see first hand where IBM Enterprise Social Solutions will take you in the future!
Luis Benitez is the Product Management Leader in the IBM Social Software team. Luis has been helping customers embark on their Social Business transformation since 2007. As part of the product management team, Luis is responsible for the social, mobile, and app dev strategy for IBM Collaboration Solutions, driving the feature requirements into the product plans, understanding market needs and pain points, expanding business opportunities and naturally evangelizing IBM technologies to name a few. Luis spends a good portion of his time helping customers and partners think about how they can use IBM social technologies to help change the way they work.

Luis has been at IBM for 14 years and has held a variety of positions specializing in the collaboration space in addition to the social area. Luis can be found on Twitter at @Lbenitez and at his blog site – Socialize Me

To book your place at the event, register now (and take advantage of our Early bird offer which expires at the end of March!) – Register now!

Social Connections V – Keynote speakers announced!

News connections, keynote, keynotes, soccnx, social, switzerland, zurich by Wannes Rams

The Social Connections organising committee are delighted to be in a position to announce the two (yes, two!) keynote speakers for our next event in Zurich, Switzerland to be held on Friday, 28th June 2013.

Opening the event will be the fantastic Heidi Ambler, Director of Social Computing at IBM, presenting her perspective on the latest and greatest news on IBM Connections and the new Connections Content Manager solution.

Heidi is a long-time Loti (joining the organisation in 1991), and has previously been product manager for Smartsuite, Notes, Workplace and Connections. Now Heidi is responsible for the product management team for IBM’s Social Business products, so has the challenge of managing such talents as Suzanne Livingston, Baan Slavens and Luis Benitez. We are honoured and delighted that Heidi will be making the trip over from the USA to take part in the event.

Closing the day will be someone who will have travelled even further to be with us, over 11,000 miles from New Zealand. Industry analyst and collaboration strategy guru Michael Sampson will be wrapping up the event with a bang, delivering a second keynote on how to take Social Business solutions and ensure they truly add value to individuals and teams in your organisation.

Michael’s passion is helping organisations to make collaboration work, when their employees have to work together effectively while separated by distance and time. Michael advises end-user organizations in New Zealand, Australia, Europe, and the United States on making collaboration work.

And a very special bonus…

Given Michael is travelling so far to be with us, it would be madness not to make the most of his time in Europe. Therefore we are thrilled to announce our first Social Connections +1 event.

On the day preceding Social Connections V, Thursday 27th June, Michael will be delivering a special workshop for Social Connections attendees. Entitled ‘Doing Business with IBM Connections‘, Michael will be delivering a full day’s training on how to best use IBM Connections to solve your personal and organisational problems, to deliver enhanced productivity and to get the very best value from the investment you’ve made. Unlike Social Connections itself, it will be a paid event but we have no doubt that attending the workshop will pay for itself many times over! We’ll be announcing more details in the couple of weeks, but definitely keep the date free!

Call to action…

If you haven’t registered for Social Connections V yet, go do it now (see button below) It is shaping up to be the biggest and best Connections user group ever! We now have 9 amazing sponsors who are funding what will be an incredible day.

We are also looking for additional presentation abstracts for the event. If you are a seasoned presentation veteran or someone who has never stepped on stage before, we would love to hear from you. We plan to review the session abstracts on 1st May, so you have just a few weeks to get those sessions in!

Also, look out for more information on hotels and travel very soon… In the meantime, get registered!!