Thursday, April 16, 2009

Impact 2009

Impact 2009 is fast approaching, just a few weeks away at this point. The complete list of sessions is posted along with details about all of the customers that will be presenting. Customer list is amazing – with over 300 customers sharing details on their successes. I’ve been to quite a few conferences, don’t recall ever seeing so many customers presenting. Provides all of us with a great opportunity to hear about the many ways in which people have leveraged SOA to solve real world problems – along with the challenges they had to overcome along the way. What worked well? What didn’t? What unique and interesting problems did that tackle with SOA? What innovative ideas did they bring to bear? Its amazing the solutions that we come up with as real world constraints are put in place and we need to find solutions that no else has yet come up with. And what better way for us to figure out our next solution, than to learn from the experiences of others?

In this economy, having such large customer participation speaks volumes to the success that people are achieving with SOA.

In regards to the sessions, whether looking for bleeding edge, leading edge or mainstream solutions – the list of topics covered is impressive. Best practices, experts, real world experiences – covering the range of topics – SOA, Cloud, BPM, Web2.0, Mashups, REST, Governance, Reuse, Connectivity, Integration, Patterns, and the list goes on.

Also, the Tech Zones, sound like a great way to dig into the details behind SOA, CICS, Java-Web 2.0, Messaging, and Business Process Management. Meet some of the product managers, architects and other tech leaders in these areas. If you get a chance to spend some time with one of the STSMs, DEs or other technical leaders – grab it. To earn these designations within IBM, the criteria are stringent and the people that achieve these ranks are not only impressive in terms of background, but usually great people in general.

The other big attraction for me is the networking. Meeting up with some of the Tech leaders from IBM is something that I look forward to. As mentioned, they usually all not only have great insights and experiences to share, but are great people as well. And of course, I’m looking forward to meeting more of our customers. Sitting in on the customer sessions will be interesting – but it’s always a better to be able to have informal chats about what’s going on and where things are headed.

I look forward to bumping into many at the conference. At a minimum, I’ll be working the Smart Work pedestal at the Solution Center during the week. If you get a chance, stop by and say hello.

If you haven’t yet registered, better hurry, time’s running out.