SXSW Interactive at the BlueMix Blast!!!
For the last 5 years I've had the opportunity to attend SXSW in Austin, Texas.
More than 60,000 people annually attend the conference, which is consistently an overwhelmingly impressive display of up-and-coming technologies and inspirational industry thought leaders. This year, the two biggest highlights of the conference were enjoying creative culinary delights such as a burrito cooked by the Institute of Culinary Education chefs at the Watson Food Truck and having an opportunity to spend so much time with developers.
If you had a chance to interact with more than 10,000 developers at once what would you ask them? I spoke with hundreds of developers and asked them to tell me about how they are using cloud, mobile, big data and analytics to innovate, address business pain points or create the next big consumer app. For example, wearable technology such as clothing that uses, sensors to help better manage an individual's health.
During SXSW I first met with designers and front-end developers at our BlueMix Blast! See this amazing team below!
In 2013, IBM unveiled a product design studio in Austin, which has brought together hundreds of designers and front-end developers to focus on how software is designed, developed and consumed by organizations around the globe. Next, I attended IBM's BlueMix Party along with more than 400 developers looking for an opportunity to learn about BlueMix, IBM's new platform-as-service (PaaS) that combines the strength of IBM software, third-party and open technologies.
What is BlueMix?
BlueMix is an open-standards, cloud-based platform for building, managing and running apps of all types (web, mobile, big data, new smart devices). Capabilities include Java, mobile backend development, application monitoring, as well as capabilities from ecosystem partners and open source — all through an as-a-service model in the cloud. When thinking about BlueMix, imagine tapping into DevOps in the cloud -- an open, integrated development experience that scales, helping developers, independent firms and enterprise teams get started to build enterprise applications more quickly and effectively.
If you are curious about how BlueMix can help a business, check out this video conversation I recently had with Michael Garel, CEO and Founder of eyeQ, about customer engagement and how BlueMix allowed them to simplify and improve their development process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7_UT02jVfQ
During my conversation with developers at SXSW three key points on the future of the developer and cloud ecosystem stood out to me:
1. It's all about the tools.
Developers today are always on the look-out to tap into systems and tools that simplify and reduce the time needed to create an application and to provision it so that they can focus on what they do best—innovating and developing top quality applications. By using the right tools that eliminate complexity, developers can quickly turn their ideas into shipped products fast and lower their time-to-market by cutting application development and deployment times from months to days and hours.
2. Keep an open mind when it comes to open standards.
An open, flexible cloud environment connecting the enterprise and born-on-the-web developers using their choice of tools in a scalable model prevents vendor lock-in, accelerates innovation and fosters growth.
3. The developer community keeps growing in size and creativity.
According to Evans Data, there are more than 18 million software developers worldwide yet less than 25 percent are developing for the cloud today. The developer population is expected to grow to 26.4M by 2016 and the parentage of developers expected to develop in the cloud will grow by 44% to 12.5M by 2019.
With new tools, ideas and processes being brought to the table every day, it's an incredibly exciting time for developers to jump into the sandbox of their choice and start creating! To start experimenting with Bluemix today visit: https://www.ibmdw.net/bluemix/
Live from the Watson food truck: video set of key takeaways from SXSW part 2!
The journey into the heart of innovation continues here at SXSW! Let me share with you what has been trending here in Austin.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zbzCEYaTUY&w=560&h=315]
I'd love to hear your feedback!
Innovate like a startup: What Goliath can learn from David! Pulse it UP!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsFbWzuqUOU&feature=youtu.be]
Not Seven of Nine - Eight of Nine! IBM Clear Leader in Social Business according to Experton
Back in 2011, I told you about my trip to Germany and what I learned about German companies adopting social business principles at great rate, companies like Bayer and Sennheiser. Even GAD as on stage to tell their Social Business Success at IBM Connect!
And just today, other amazing news has arrived from Germany! It’s about IBM and about our service and product offering being assessed by an external research, advisory and consulting company alongside over 90 other vendors.
Experton, the European Analyst firm, did this extensive vendor benchmark on Social Business for the German market. They are – at least to my knowledge – the first ones collecting data from Social Business Services up to different software components playing into the Social Business space. Just published early 2014 their study shows 9 different quadrants.
And the results remind me of Star Trek Voyager -- 7 of 9. Why? IBM is in the leader quadrant in 8 of 9 quadrants. The only quadrant not listing IBM as leader is the one for Social CRM. And that’s just because IBM doesn't have an offer in this space...
This is an outstanding and impressive achievement and shows the companies commitment in the Social Business space. You can find more information on the results here including some impressive numbers for the social business market in general.
According to Experton, the market for social business for communication & collaboration (SB4CC) even outpaces cloud computing as IT and business driver with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 50% by 2016!
You want to get a summary of the study? Send a note to Stefan.Pfeiffer@de.ibm.com. He will make sure, that you get the PDF as soon as it’s available.
Happy Valentines! Digital tip of the week –– Organize your Twitter stream by creating lists
When you follow a high number of profiles on Twitter, it is sometimes difficult to get to know the important and useful tweets in between the “noise” of your timeline. Twitter Lists come in handy to keep up with the best tweets from the people you follow and cut the noise in your stream. You can have different categories of lists eg “customers”, “partners” etc to help you sort the content and you can make your lists public or private. Plus, lists are a form of appreciation on Twitter, a gesture of gratitude. And you might get listed back too.
Learn how to create Twitter lists here.
https://support.twitter.com/articles/76460-how-to-use-twitter-lists
Come THROWDOWN your APP!!! Get Exposure at IBM Pulse!
We’re taking the App Throwdown to IBM Pulse 2014!
Calling all IBM Business Partners! Come and join us for IBM Pulse (Our Premier CLOUD event!) where we'll be holding an App Throwdown! Compete with your best solution and be highlighted in front of Clients and IBM Sales teams during qualifying rounds. The winner will be on main stage on Day 3 in front of over 8,000 Re-sellers, Clients, and IBM Sellers - giving you the opportunity to reach a new and broad audience!
In addition to sharing your solution with the conference audience, we will be leveraging Mutual Minds to magnify the reach of your company and your solution. For example, during the main stage session of the AppThrowdown at our recent IBM Connect event, social impressions totalled over 21.7M! (read more about it here) and the winner already has more leads than they can handle!
The Details:
Is my solution eligible? Your need to demonstrate your solution's use of our Cloud Solution show how your solution runs on SoftLayer or IBM BlueMix. OR integration with IBM Security or Smarter Infrastructure products.
What do I need to do to apply? Submit a 2-5 minute video demonstration of an application that you have built integrating with the solutions above.
How do I register? Click here to fill out this brief form. We're waiting for your submissions!
Please join me there live!!
We have a winner - IBM's 2014 Global Entrepreneur of the YEAR! Coriell Life Sciences
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zt9QkiTT1k&feature=youtu.be]
The Power of the Entrepreneur and the Ecosystem! IBM Entrepreneur WEEK!
Once upon a time, Silicon Valley was the only place in the world where entrepreneurship seemed to happen through spontaneous combustion. So cities and countries all over tried to copy it–with only modest success.
Well, something strange is happening in the early years of the 21st century. Startup fever is on the move, both within the United States and globally.
The spirit of global entrepreneurship will be on display Feb. 6 in San Francisco, where the IBM SmartCamp program will present its fourth annual Entrepreneur of the Year award. The contestants, boiled down from 1200 applicants, qualified for the finals via a series of regional contests last year. They hail from Brazil, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the Middle East, Australia and Malaysia—as well as a couple of unlikely spots in the United States, Camden, N.J., and Fresno, Calif.
To watch a live stream video of the day’s activities, visit here starting at 9 a.m. US Pacific Time. To participate in a peoples’ choice vote, click here.
This year, IBM SmartCamps are being held as part of IBM’s inaugural Global Entrepreneur Week. All week IBM has been celebrating the great work startups do through a series of events around the globe offering startups and entrepreneurs the tools and expertise needed to innovate, transform and grow using key technologies such as cloud, big data analytics, mobile and cognitive computing.
This globalization of entrepreneurship has been building for a number of years, but now it’s so obvious it hits you upside the head. A signal of the shift came last year when MoDe, a mobile phone top-off payment service founded in Kenya, won the IBM SmartCamp Finals in New York City.
Sure, Silicon Valley and now San Fran are still an incredible engine of innovation and entrepreneurship. But, there are plenty of other tech boomtowns now. According to data from the CrunchBase directory, New York City created 1,438 startups in the past five years; San Francisco, 1,448; London, 1,075; and cities including Berlin, Bangalore, Istanbul, Moscow and New Delhi are revving their own startup engines.
Here's an example of Entrepreneur Day in Tel Aviv! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C20t0UXmf8E&]
While Nairobi, Kenya, only registers in a small way on the directory, dozens of startups like MoDe have emerged there in the past few years—many of them aided by tech startup incubators and entrepreneurship hubs.
One of the IBM SmartCamp finalists, Reengen, which makes an energy-use dashboard for the owners and occupants of buildings, got a helping hand from Girisim Fabrikasi, a tech startup accelerator in its hometown of Istanbul, Turkey.
While incubators are helpful, there are other vital ingredients in a healthy startup ecosystem—among them venture capital, the cooperation of governments and universities, and, often, a stimulating urban culture and support from already established businesses.
It doesn’t hurt that the barriers to entry are collapsing. Startups are aided by the availability of open source software, inexpensive cloud computing services and government tax breaks. In addition, development platforms like Google’s Android and Apple’s IOS power the app economy.
IBM is deeply committed to supporting startups in bringing new technology and customer solutions to market through mentorship, partnership, matchmaking and free access to IBM technology. Most recently, IBM has entered the platform space, with its Watson Developers’ Cloud, which is designed to enable startups to build applications on top of IBM Watson—the technology that beat two grand-champions on the TV quiz show Jeopardy!
To help get startups up and running on the developers’ cloud, IBM is offering support to the entrepreneur and venture communities through workshops and seminars on topics such as development skills, as well as networking opportunities. IBM has also dedicating a $100 million investment to support the seeding and growth of startups and businesses building apps in the IBM Watson Developers Cloud.
It’s amazing what a startup can do when it gets a helping hand from bigger companies. Streetline, a San Francisco-based firm that won the Entrepreneur of the Year award two years ago, subsequently became an IBM business partner. It now ranks as the largest smart parking solutions provider in the world. It has recorded more than 170 million parking events in the US, Germany and the UK.
Another example is Sproxil, which provides a consumer verification service through mobile devices. Since participating in IBM’s Global Entrepreneur program, Sproxil has expanded to 10 industries to help consumers protect themselves from fake or stolen goods and helps brand owners maintain supply chain oversight. Sproxil was also named the best HealthCare startup up by Fast Company for 2013 and the #7 in the overall top startup category.
Who’s next for explosive growth? This year’s SmartCamp finalists include Temando, of Australia; TMC, of Malaysia; Shopa, of the United Kingdom; Reengen, of Turkey; Nova Lumos, of the Middle East; Geekie, of Brazil, and Coriell and OnFarm, of the United States. Fix on those names for a minute. For one or more of them, this could be the start of something big.