For me, conferences are all about learning, not just in sessions but outside of sessions. The next few days at IBM Connect are going to be full of learning – about the direction for IBM software for the next few years, about technical content, about resolving questions from developers and product managers, about the contacts in my social environment. In the two years since I first spoke at Lotusphere, as it was then, I’ve learned a load of stuff from a lot of people as well as sharing a lot of knowledge. I look forward to doing more of that over the next few days.
So what am I doing?
Today kicks off Team Social, of which I am part again this year. I haven’t been able to get as heavily involved in the build up as last year, but I’m sure I’ll be busy with that for the next few days. Amongst other events I’m speaking on Wednesday at 11.30 in the Social Lounge on the IBM Mobile apps that are available. The Social Lounge is a great place to learn that you may not expect, so please do stop by at some point if you’re here.
In the User Experience Lab there will be copies of the Notes Client Cheat Sheets we launched on the Intec website last week. In hindsight over the last few weeks I think I requested too few to be printed by IBM. So get there early and if they’re gone, blame me, not IBM. But you can still print copies from the Intec website.
On Monday at 7pm I’ll be joining my fellow authors of the XPages Extension Library doing a book signing at the bookstore in the product showcase.
On Tuesday at 3pm I’m speaking with Mike McGarel (thanks, @mmcgarel, for approaching me about the session) in Dolphin South Hemisphere III. If you’re coming to the session, stick around right to the end for a cool bonus demo of a social control for XPages. It shows how big benefits can be added to XPages with a little imagination and breaking down the steps to produce that vision.
Thursday morning I’ll be on stage for Gurupalooza too, answering questions along with loads of experts on all technical skills.
In the mean time I’ll be in many sessions, as well as visiting the developers and learning outside of traditional environments. Hopefully by the end of the week I’ll have gained a huge amount that make me a smarter developer for the year to come and beyond, as well as empowering those I work with (both colleagues and customers).
