Nominations are open for the class of 2017 IBM Champions for IBM Collaboration Solutions.
My current work has taken me in a different direction, and I have spent very little time this past year in the IBM space. Â I do miss it a little, but I’ve been enjoying new challenges and learning new things.
I do miss blogging here. It’s not for lack of ideas, but mostly due to lack of time of late. I would love to make some updates to this site and post a little more often. Hopefully I can find time to make it happen in the near future.
As I (for now) exit stage left from the IBM Champion program, it’s been an honor to be part of this talented group of people since the program was created in 2011. Thanks to the IBM Champion coordinators over the years – Joyce, Oliver, Amanda, and Libby – for everything.
It’s almost time to board a plane and head to Orlando, looking forward to seeing a lot of you in Orlando next week. Â I will be speaking again this year, come check out my session on Tuesday morning.
Yesterday IBM announced the 2016 IBM Champions, I am honored to once again be on the list. Â Congratulations to all the Champions, especially the 39 new Champions
Another weekend another set of updates to IBM Connections Cloud, one of which is a new look and feel to IBM Connections Cloud Meetings. Â The Meeting UI has been updated to the Verse theme, and gone is the blank gray box which used to be prominent and it is replaced with quick actions to share your screen or files.
Coming next is Audio/Video integration in Meetings, I have been beta testing it for a while now and happy to see it coming to release shortly.
Check out Luis Benitez’s blog for more of the new capabilities releases this weekend
After reading and digesting the news (and changing my master password) I concluded that I am still more secure with LastPass than without it. Â I would also make that statement about any of the other popular secure password managers out there, I just happened to land with LastPass and am a satisfied user.
For those who are customers of other products, don’t be so quick to jump on LastPass, it was simply their turn now, clearly anyone in this space is going to be a target.
So I will continue to rest easy knowing my data is in LastPass for the following reasons
They were completely transparent about what happened, explained it clearly, and immediately implemented additional security measures to protect their users data
I have Two-Factor authentication enabled, so even if my master password was stolen (which it was not) I am still in pretty good shape
I take advantage of LastPass’s feature which allows me to limit the countries from which my account can be logged in t0 (sure  the United States is a big country and there are ways around this, but every little bit helps)
I like the way LastPass has reacted to other security issues (like Heartbleed) where instead of using it as a promotional opportunity which is what some of their competitors did, LastPass released a tool to help you figure out which passwords should be changed immediately
I am infinitely more secure having unique, secure passwords for every site, than what I had before I went all in with LastPass, so I think I will continue to use LastPass and sleep at night.
The name of the conference might change, but the traditions remain the same.  The conference ends around 4:30 in the afternoon, but many many hours later Mat Newman finally has his badge removed and only then is Lotusphere officially over.  The honor this year was given to Sandra Bühler.
When I looked at the schedule for IBMConnectED, there was one session that was a can’t miss. Â Steve McDonagh was talking about adding Two Factor Authentication to IBM Connections Cloud. Â If you know me, you know I do a lot of work with IBM Connections Cloud and I am obsessed with two factor authentication, of course I had a conflict and could not be there, so with the help of Devin I managed to get a video of the session which Steve was nice enough to let me publish.
On a side note, if IBM Connections Cloud and two factor authentication is of no interest to you, consider watching the first 5 minutes regardless it’s brilliant,
At a time when organizations are striving to be more efficient, we are faced with an overwhelmingly large volume of email that outpaces productivity. But IBM is changing all of this by re-imagining what mail should be and transforming the way we work. Enter “IBM Verse.” Optimized for web and mobile, Verse gets to know you — by identifying the people and patterns of how you work — and draws your attention to the messages, meetings and tasks that you care about. Join Scott Souder and IBM Champion Mitch Cohen for a candid discussion, overview and demos as we kick-off a great week where Verse is sure to be one of the hottest topics!
Learn how you can leverage the data in your existing on-premises or cloud systems (LDAP, Profiles, Active Directory, and others) to automatically provision users in IBM Smart Cloud for Social Business. This session will provide a basic introduction to Tivoli Directory Integrator, and how to connect to multiple data sources to create users in IBM SmartCloud. We will cover user the automation of user creation, changes, and deletions, as well as explain different enrollment and log in methods available to your users.
Hear directly from companies how they’re using social cloud to connect employees to each other, to partners and to customers to energize their work. This customer panel will discuss their experiences in starting their social cloud journey, their insights on how to best use cloud to drive social adoption across diverse workforces globally, and share best practices for what works and what doesn’t. Gain insights on how to be successful using cloud to connect employees so they can be more effective in their daily work and learn where these companies are going next.
Wednesday January 28thÂ
10:30 AM – 11:30 AM Swan 5-6
Gurupalooza is back again this year hosted by Susan Bulloch. Â If you are not familiar with this session it is many of the (non-IBM) speakers on stage, you ask the questions, and in theory you get answers. Â This is always a fun and informative session.
