In my opinion, we learned from our past and made the 2009 Pulse Conference much better. I think there was much better content overall, lots of sessions, tons of BoFs and a way better solutions demo area.
While the overall feel was that of “sales and marketing”, I think there were adequate sessions and opportunities for the lower level technical teams in attendance to get what they needed. There were lots of hands of labs and the “Meet the Experts” section was conveniently located off the demo floor.
I also sensed that there were far more heritage Maximo folks there. There were certainly many more business partners who focused in that area than heritage Tivoli. Where are all the heritage Tivoli/Micromuse Business Partners? I counted maybe six with booths.
There was much interest in the Cloud Computing messaging but I got the feeling it was pretty isolated and in it’s own world from the rest of the tracks and solutions demos. I just didn’t hear much noise about it outside of the analysts and press folks there. I’d bet we follow this up with some sort of Cloud Computing World Tour to put some oomph behind the initial kick off in more intimate meetings with clients worldwide.
The Smarter Planet and Dynamic Infrastructure message rang loud and clear in all of the general sessions. While this is great for executive level folks, I think we needed to drive this message into consumable and actionable things that lower level technical attendees could take back to their companies. They may be the ones who need to execute and show how previous or planned investments could help their company become smarter and more dynamic.
I was very happy to hear the GTS executive talk about how critically important focusing on the culture, people and politics will be for success with Smarter Planet and Dynamic Infrastructure. Nearly every main tent session also mentioned breaking down the silos.
What will the next generation IT and business organizational structure look like to enable a Smarter Planet and Dynamic Infrastructure? What should Tivoli do to help you here directly? Are you willing to change from the status quo if you choose to adopt the things IBM and Tivoli are talking about? Can you expect different results if you don’t change? Do you need help?
Lots of exciting messages, new product and solution plans, but lots of work to be done! The Business Service Management (BSM) message is applicable in everything we do and spans any and all of these exciting initiatives. Don’t forget to include BSM in your strategy for change in the years to come!
Tiffany Winman has posted lots of video highlights on YouTube and pictures on Flickr.
Check out the twitter stream using the #ibmpulse hashtag. Check out mine here. I need to trademark some of these!
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Doug – thanks for the recap for all of us who had to attend Pulse virtually this year! Great marketing pitch for the event here (kind of hard to get away from it – that’s what sells the widgets).
There were more Maximo folks? (I thought there were a lot last year.) What’s going on with the supply and demand situation for Tivoli? Is IBM making the proper BP courting maneuvers?
Looking forward to the promise of a cloud tour – should be a big deal when it arrives. Looks like IBM is jumping in with its “Blue Cloud” division that just rolled out.
Tiffany Winman did do an excellent job of keeping the virtual event followers up to date this year. You neglected to mention the spot she snagged in Paul McDougall’s column in Information Week – nice marketing for Pulse! (there it is again…)
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/02/michael_phelps.html
Looking forward to next year already. Chicago?
Jeff