Five Things You Need To See At Impact 2012

It’s Sunday morning here at Impact 2012, and the IBM Impact Business Partner Summit has already begun.

If you’re not there, and you were supposed to be there, that probably means you overslept and that you’d better hurry up and shower and get down there.

For those of you who are not attending the Impact Business Partner Summit, I have just one question for: Well why not?!… Seriously, if not, that you means you’ve got almost a whole Sunday to yourself in Vegas.

However, as I mentioned in my post yesterday, it’s always good to have some structure in life and at conferences. So, if you don’t have any structure, I’m going to attempt to provide you some in this, “The 5 Things You Need To See At IBM Impact,” overview post. Listen carefully…

Number one, you need to see all the IBM Impact general sessions, mini main tents, and as many of the breakout sessions and hands-on labs as you possibly can.  You’ll learn a lot there, and it’ll keep you off the Las Vegas Strip, where nothing good can ever happen to you.  Trust me on this.

Solutions For Everyone At The IBM Impact Solution Center

Second, you also need to stop by the IBM Impact Solution Center (the Expo!), where you can spend time playing nice on the Impact Social Playground with all the other boys and girls (more on that in a moment). There’s also the IBM product technology center.

Remember, the conference mantra this year is to “Change the game,” but how in the world are you going to change it if you’re not even in it!??

In the Solution Center, you will find a hub of activity for more than 9,000 expected attendees, and this is where Scott Laningham and I will be spending much of our time on the ImpactTV stage.

This year’s IBM Impact Solution Center will feature the latest technology and cutting-edge solutions offered by IBM and IBM Business Partners. Please take advantage of this opportunity to network, collaborate, and view live demonstrations… even if the demo you’re watching freezes, you’ll learn something!

Playing On The Impact Social Playground

On the Impact Social Playground, you’ll find an exciting social club that will bring together all the social movers and shakers. I’m not one of them, but join us nonetheless and I’ll pretend to move and shake.  The Impact Social Playground is located in the Impact Solution Center and will provide enhanced social networking facilities for all attendees, business partners, Tweeters,  bloggers, analysts and media.

There will also be 2 private recording pods, for those very personal interviews, and a 12 seat recharger bar station seating for networking and catching up on your social activities, and recharging your batteries (yours and your electronic devices). It’s a great place, in other words, to hang out. In fact, I was hanging out there just last night (I told you, it’s better to stay away from the Strip, and that includes me!)

Of course, if you’re ready to leverage technologies that will fundamentally reshape our future and change the way organizations operate, as well as increase human capability, you should check out the Forbes Business Leadership Forum tomorrow and Tuesday.

There, you will find unmatched resources and practical solutions on how to innovate transform and grow your business, including feedback from clients who have successfully leveraged technology to not just reduce costs and improve efficiencies, but also to fundamentally transform the way they do business. When’s the last time you did that?!

The Impact Unconference

And finally, for you developers out there, day 3 will be “Developer Day” and the IBM Impact Unconference. Developer Day will start with an inspiring general session, “Freedom to Achieve Your Application Potential,” which will be followed by a mini main tent session featuring technology comedian Don McMillan who will present on “The New Development Reality.”  You’ll also hear from IBM Fellow Grady Booch, and talks on mobile, cloud computing, and…well, you’ll just have to show up to find out the rest.

Later in the afternoon on Wednesday, the “Unconference,” sponsored by IEEE and the Global WebSphere community, will give developers the opportunity to set the agenda by voting on the ideas they want to hear and presenting topics they want to discuss. It’s the ultimate in crowd sourced content!

So, keep your eye on #IBMImpact via Twitter, and here on the Turbo blog for full coverage of IBM Impact 2012.

IBM Business Partners Get Social

It’s snowing in Toronto today.  And I mean, like, really, really snowing.  Like it apparently hasn’t snowed all winter.

Ed Abrams, vice president of IBM's midmarket business, leads a discussion on LinkedIn about the use of social media by small and medium-sized businesses.

I’ve very much enjoyed my two days on the ground here thus far — the team has been most gracious and I’ve learned more than I can process about our live chat operations (no, not THAT kind of chat!).  The kind where we help you buy the stuff you’re looking for!

And on the help front, I wanted to share some news coming out of the IBM PartnerWorld event taking place in New Orleans this week.  Today, IBM announced the expansion of a global skills initiative to educate clients and business partners on social media tools and techniques to showcase expertise and create new business opportunities.

With today’s news, IBM is further investing in its clients and business partners across the world including emerging markets such as China, Australia and Saudi Arabia to develop the skills that will enable them to sharpen their social networking capabilities to build even stronger and more interactive ties with their clients.

The IBM eight week social media boot camp is available to IBM business partners to provide the education and skills necessary to successfully engage in social media and begin driving the conversation around their brand.

This initiative provides IBM business partners and clients access to one-on-one social media coaches who set measurable goals for building and exercising social acumen. The customized curriculum is designed for organizations to become more comfortable and effective in their marketing and sales efforts.  By using social networking tools and techniques participants learn to integrate social media into their daily business activities.

IBM Business Partners Gets Social 

IBM Business Partner Starfire Technologies, Inc. was among the first organizations to enroll in IBM’s Social Media Boot Camp. Prior to the program, Starfire’s use of social media channels was limited. After enrolling in the eight week social skills program, Starfire is now leveraging social channels to re-architect the way it does business.

For example, as a result the tools and techniques offered by the Social Media Boot Camp, Starfire is reconstructing its company website, integrating social media tools and platforms to best interact with customers. The organization has transformed its business strategy by extending its reach through the social networks to create   significant interactions and two-way conversations with its customers.

“IBM’s Social Media Boot Camp was instrumental in our understanding of how to effectively and strategically engage with our customers and business partners over social media platforms,” said Mary Spurlock, Vice President of Marketing, Starfire Technologies, Inc..  “It also taught us enhanced ways to listen to our customers and engage in interactive conversations.  We learned to listen on the channels where our business partners and clients are participating, thus helping to identify and move opportunities faster through the pipeline. It’s also helped us to create a valuable collaborative forum for marketing and client support.”

To join in the conversation around IBM’s Social Media Boot Camps, visit LinkedIn.

All Things Smarter Commerce

The Wall Street Journal’s “All Things D” conference is taking place out in Rancho Palos Verdes, California this week.

A number of digital industry leaders and luminaries are speaking at the event.  (Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings is being interviewed by Kara Swisher as I write this post.)

Former Google CEO and executive chairman Eric Schmidt was onstage there event yesterday, and the Washington Post coverage suggested Schmidt was melancholy about missing out on how to contend with all those hundreds of millions of Facebook friends in the world (read: “the social graph”) while at Google.

Danny Sullivan delivered his own top 10 takeaways from the interview, but the headline that stuck with me was “failing at social,” or in Schmidt’s words, “disambiguating identity” on the Internet.  Schmidt mentioned he wrote memos on the subject four years ago and yet “did nothing.”

And hence chinks in the strategic Web armor are thusly created.  Glad I caught a replay of “Robin Hood” last evening, to get in the spirit of close contact Internet platform battles.

Also makes me wonder to myself aloud, hmmm, what memos might Mark Zuckerberg currently be writing about holes in the Facebook platform strategy!?

Well, the FB seems to have a pretty good head start, so he’s probably got plenty of time to miss a key inflection point.

Meanwhile, IBM had its own announcement to make yesterday around its smarter commerce initiative, one expected to help IBM Business Partners seize the growing market opportunity created by shifting buying patterns in the mobile and computing space.

The headline: IBM will be providing sales, marketing, and technical guidance, and BPs can also qualify to earn incentives of up to 50 percent of the software sales transaction and receive zero percent financing.

IBM’s estimates the Smarter Commerce market opportunity for software at $20 billion, driven by the demands from organizations who are increasingly looking for ways to bring new levels of automation to marketing, sales and fulfillment to secure greater customer loyalty.

IBM is investing in its ecosystem of partners, delivering the right set of skills, technical support, development resources, and industry expertise that will allow them to expand their capabilities to more effectively fulfill client demands brought on by social networking and mobile computing.

Smarter Commerce for Business Partners offers two options designed to help partners build and deliver a broad range of offerings — from integrated supply chain management, collaborative B2B networks and business-to-consumer solutions.

• Software Value Plus Smarter Commerce Capability – business partners can now qualify to receive incentives as high as 50 percent of the sales transaction for Smarter Commerce software, including Unica, Coremetrics, Unica and Websphere Commerce offerings. To qualify, Business Partners must be authorized IBM software providers with certifications in sales and technical support.
• The Smarter Commerce Solution Development Initiative — designed to deliver industry-specific sales and technical support, client focused workshops, access to IBM’s global innovation centers and sales assistance in client engagements. To qualify, regional integrators, ISVs, marketing service providers, must have IBM software and industry-specific certifications in retail, telecommunications, banking and consumer product industries.

Certified partners can also take advantage of the Smarter Commerce University to increase their skills.

Through virtual and face-to-face course materials, business partners can gain access to quick-start sales plays, role-based learning, competitive analysis and analyst review information as part of the training.

Visit here to learn more about IBM’s smarter commerce efforts.