Whenever October rolls around, my brain automatically switches on its “Data Management, Analytics and ECM” focus.  Because October means the IBM Insight show, always in Vegas, always at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.  But this year, it’s going to be a bit different as I’m here with my fabulous new company: Mainline!

The annual Insight show is always a unique experience for this social maven, as it’s targeted more towards solutions and technologies that are outside a typical “social” realm.  Upon greater inspection though, you can see of social tools, especially IBM’s collaboration portfolio, are integral parts of this conference and necessary for any organizations successful achievement of goals.  IBM does a great job incorporating other not-typical solutions into all their conferences, and getting better at it every year!

I’m looking forward this week to see of IBM’s Internet of Things, Smarter Way to Work and Watson marketing initiatives are going to help drive customer and business partner success.  I’m also interested in seeing the vertical presentations by customers, including the Mainline Healthcare Session, and how customers are using I&A solutions in day-to-day activities.

Be sure to follow me on twitter to see where I am and what sessions I’m attending throughout the week.

First blog of 2015 – let the fun begin!  This week I’m on my way to Orlando, Florida for the newly renamed IBM ConnectEd conference.  This year is sure to be different from the many IBM Lotusphere events as *most notably* it will ONLY be hosted in the Swan hotel, rather than the Dolphin.  I’m curious to see how this works out, as I’ve heard that there are over 500 people registered today than IBM expected.  Not sure where they’re going to put everyone!

During this show, I will be speaking during the Business Partner day activities on how to engage with IBM Co-funding and maximize your marketing budget dollars.  My talk will focus on successful activities, where you should outsource investments and most importantly, how to incorporate social in your marketing initiatives.  On this note, I invite anyone with questions on how to better work with the IBM system to reach out, as I have over 10 years experience with this subject.

Looking forward to seeing everything there and I’ll post more photos and reactions to events at the conference throughout the week.