The IBM ConnectED conference (formally known as LotusSphere) was dramatically different this year. It was scaled down to just two hotels and having most sessions in the smaller Swan hotel was a preview of how the size had changed. The opening welcome session was previously a fun event to connect with people and enjoy some good food. This year the welcome session was two very limited food options, long lines, and cramped spaces with loud speakers blaring music so loud nobody could communicate. This was a real disappointment – it was always a great reconnect time and I think they could have scaled it down without making it … painful. If they had just made the space larger with tables to sit at I’d gladly paid for food and drinks.
The opening session was pretty low-key compared to previous years but still had some great demos and the guest speaker was pretty interesting even if not a super star. I guess there was some live music, but I totally missed it.
The first session I attended was the Connections & Mobile update. Lots of good news here but the presentation wasn’t as straightforward compared to last year which was very clearly laid out. Here are some coming items I see of very high value:
- File Subfolders. Long resisted by IBM but implemented by every other tool on the planet. The implementation looks like what a user would expect from their filesystem or tools like DropBox – great news.
- Real Community customization. New templates to control layout of column choices and responsive design where thing can move from left, middle, or right column. Widget titles can finally be changed. We’ve done this forever with our custom widgets, glad it’s finally supported for all. Very impressive but I’m trying to figure out why Mobile won’t be leveraging the hard work community owners do to customize the space.
- New Profile page view – looks great, looks like mobile. Can we change all the applications to just look and work like Mobile on the web?
- Open files in Office (auto locks and edit). Very nice update
- Custom streams. Detail specific people or places you want updates on and get a visual count of what’s new on a new dashboard page.
The next session was on TDI and changes to support external users. The presentation was very clear and well done. A few key items I took away from this:
- Not all areas make sure you know you are sharing externally – desktop tool one example.
- All external users are very limited in sharing and mentioning because they have no directory search options. Really limited to communities they are in.
- TDI work is pretty straightforward. Using another LDAP branch great way to keep things clean.
Next I went to the customer panel on five companies telling their collaboration and social story. Geoff Englemeyer at AT&T did a great job sharing our work!
Last session was on API and Connections Cloud. Pretty interesting how the cloud version can now be customized to your company including themes, apps and other things. Some general API talk but mostly not relevant for on premise usage.
Last part of the day we talked with some of the IBM Docs team about some of the features coming later this year. Sounds like some nice changes to the editor to be more properly paginated and options to upload a new version over the top of an existing version.
Good day with lots of interesting updates.