Cinderella SHALL go to the ball

Be part of a social experiment: share the IBM Innovate hallway conversations.

IBM Innovate is soon to be underway, running from 1-5 June 2014. This year I didn’t get the Golden Ticket, so I am changing my name to Cinderella and staying home. I realized that I didn’t have to let a little thing like ‘not being there’ from preventing my participation, so I am running an experiment.

Conferences are great, especially large ones like IBM Innovate. There are so many people and so many really interesting chance conversations in the hallways. There are scheduled sessions too, but the icing on the cake is the conversations in the coffee breaks (often with cake!).

Back to the experiment. I would like to capture some of those really good hallway conversations; the ones where people tell their IBM story. Almost everyone at the event has at least one story to tell. Even if you are present for the whole week and actively seeking out conversations, you will miss out on most of the hallway conversations; you can’t be everywhere at once.

We are already doing this to some extent, by encouraging a few people to create blogs or YouTube videos, and then they are Tweeted with #ibmstory. There are some suggestions on this blog entry – don’t worry that it is DevOps specific, the only real difference is the tags.

During a busy conference schedule is not the ideal time to make a YouTube video, so use any format that you have available, I list a few at the end. I will be monitoring Twitter for the combination of #ibmstory #ibminnovate. If I find both tags on a post, I will go to the link and add it to my Pinterest board. I will also be looking at developerWorks for blogs or status updates that have both tags (ibmstory, ibminnovate), and I will tweet the links. If you are the live Innovate event, then signing up for developerWorks will be easy, you should find a team there who will be able to help you, and tell you all about it; they should be in the Pit Stop. Wherever you create your story, if you put a link on Twitter or developerWorks with the tags, then I should find it.

I want to share in advance so that I stand a better chance of meeting the right people at the event.

Go right ahead! I will start pinning and collating on Monday June 2, but if you Tweet a link with the tags, everyone has a chance to see it straight away. I will pick up all the stories, even if you post today.

I didn’t have time during the event, but I really want to share

I will keep collating the stories for at least a week after the event, longer if there is a steady stream. When you get back to the reality of normal life, take your time and create your story.

I am not going to Innovate, can I still join in?

Of course! Tell your story and share. Make sure you till tag it with both #ibmstory and #ibminnovate so it goes into the stream with all of the others. Just because we are not in Florida, doesn’t mean we can’t join in the conversations and be a part of the event.

How do I find all the stories?

Everything should be on Twitter

Everything should be on my Pinterest board

The RSS Feed for my Pinterest board.

Where can I share?

Like I said earlier, developerWorks or Twitter and use the tags #ibminnovate, #ibmstory (just as tags not hashtags for developerWorks blog entries). You can link to content from any public website, for instance:

• YouTube: make a video with your phone and post it.
• Google Hangout: record a Google hangout session and post to YouTube.
• Slideshare: create a video or a few slides and share through Slideshare.
• Your blog: if you have a blog, then post there.
• Google Plus post (don’t forget to make it public).
• Buy a domain and create a web page – ok, so you won’t do that, but anything you can create a link to will be good.

Don’t forget to tweet, or add it to your developerWorks profile. If you don’t have a Twitter account, see someone in the developerWorks area (Pit Stop) and ask them to socialize it for you.

For everyone attending the event; your feet have my sympathy, why not sit down for a few minutes and share your #ibminnovate #ibmstory with those of us who can’t attend?

Now , where are my ballgown and glass slippers?