Well, it’s once again time to start planning for the IOD. It was worth every penny last year, and I am certain it will only be better this year. The IOD is a great place to connect with other IBM business partners and customers. Where else can you talk with people from Boeing and Costco while eating breakfast? One of my most memorable moments was waiting for the flight back, talking to a woman from the Miami-Dade police on the way they use Cognos and BI to catch criminals.
The sessions are broken out by tracks of interest. Each track can have multiple sessions at the same time. To my despair, it’s impossible to attend more than one simultaneously. In addition to the sessions, there are hands on workshops about what you can do with the latest technology. The people manning the workshops are knowledgeable and will very cheerfully talk about how their tools work.
The early bird special ends June 28 for customers (September 13 for business partners), so I recommend registering earlier rather than later. You may want to contact your Cognos business partner of choice to find out if they have a promo code this year. So far I am aware of only three companies that are offering early bird registration specials, The following list is informational, they are in alphabetical order and I am not endorsing any one company over another, more will be added as more companies come out with deals. Feel free to leave a comment if you know of any others that should be mentioned.
- BSP – G13BSPSOFT
- Ironside – G13IRONSDE
- Motio – G13MOTIO
- PerformanceG2 – G13PERFG2
I’m holding off registering until IBM let’s me know if my session proposal has been accepted (I hear that they received over 2500 sessions proposals this year, so chances are slim).
Obviously, I am planning on going this year, and I have an offer. If any company wants to sponsor my trip (partially or fully) I will very happily give their products a completely biased review and will randomly tell people how awesome my sponsors’ products are. (Or I could do work for them, or something. I’m open to suggestions.)
And remember – PerformanceG2 for all your training needs!
Hi Paul,
PerformanceG2 will sponsor your trip to IOD. We can figure out what you can do in return later. I’m thinking maybe write some guest blogs for us on our website.
BTW – Our code is G13PERFG2 for the discount ☺
Thanks,
Kirk
Kirk, you just won the Internet. Also, thanks to this I was introduced to PerformanceG2, and had a very educating stroll through your website. So a hat tip to you, sir.
Paul, was your session approved? I’d love to hear what you have to say about pretty much any topic. Also, I’d like to meet you some time at the conference so that I can put a face with this fantastic blog.
Unfortunately my session wasn’t accepted. It looks like they’re focusing more on customer use stories. I’d be happy to meet you! At the conference there is a mechanism for setting up meetings with other attendees. There’s an old photo of me floating around with a red Mohawk. But that’s really old – it’s blue now.