Where to start….

I should have done a proper blog after IBM Connect 2016, but its been so busy I did not make time, however a number of the points here that were just supposition at Connect have now been turned into facts.

Engage the Event

Theo Heselmans who for all intents and purposes IS Engage, managed to do the impossible and top last years conference, firmly establishing Engage as the best event after Connect, with a huge array of varied content and no subject taboo, all that is required is that the content is GOOD!!, there were a number of times when I really would have liked to be in two places at the same time and that has not happened at a conference in ages.

The venue was the crazy Evoluon in Eindhoven which seemed custom built for such event (if they could get a grip on the wifi)

In a cheeky moment Theo did a backpack give away (because Connect did not this year for the first time)

LDC Via

We went live with LDC Via one year ago at the last Engage so it holds a special place for us, in that year a lot has happened and we have delivered tons more, but we got a lot more attention this year and found that we even have some competition, in this last year we have become established in peoples minds and people realise we offer a great product, all 4 of us were there and did not seem to have a quiet second, as always the speed sponsoring was exhausting and Julian did a great job on the 30 second new speed sponsoring to the whole conference, Matt White was bogged down with cold but still fought his way through the conference and drove us both there and back while at the same time giving his flipping cold to the rest of us.

This years give away “Colin” did sterling work and won the unofficial “best conference give-away” from a number of sources.

We tried a different tack with the sponsor session, showing how many ways you could integrate LDC Via into different frameworks (slide deck below)

IBM and Champions

Well bugger me… Inhi Cho Suh really impressed us all, from the little we saw of her at Connect (she was only introduced to the community right at the end of the conference) we guessed that she might not only be sane but sane and HUMAN and it turned out that she was!!, far more than we had all dared to hope, no “two tassel talk”¹, she had fresh new ideas and had already started acting on them (such as moving Connect to San Francisco in 2017), we had a proper round table event where she dealt well with the hysterical gibbering we blasted her with and left us feeling that it might actually be possible to finally turn things around and start IBM ICS again (somebody pinch me)

On that note being a champion meant something at Engage and made me really think that I must buck my ideas up and start delivering far more.

The Community

Sadly I was doing another round of late night work while I was there so missed out on the parties and such (hence no photos), but judging from the state of my fellow LDC Via colleagues, the events and evenings were great fun and even members who were no longer in the IBM world turned up to revive past glories.

I got happy gifts from friends, Carl Tyler played mule for the amazing vegan mayonnaise that I cant get in Europe, and Rene Winkelmeyer got me the most amazing energy drink

Gabriella Davis got me this totally apt t-shirt (which has since been pinched by my wife)

Me

The session I luckily got accepted for was with Paul Mooney and was on Salesforce, a relatively new skill set for me and we were standing room only (mainly due to Paul), but people liked it and we were asked lots of good questions.

Other than that, it was mayhem, I had terrible client overflow and was running around all over the place stressing every second, but frankly I would not change it for the world. roll on next year.

1. “two tassel talk” : This is the long stream of corporate platitudes (sort of the corporate version of what politicians say) that you get off senior managers that are just marking time in their current role before they hope to be promoted away.[↩]

As we ramp up for Connect 2016, we decided to do a quick introduction to LDC Via. this means that if you see something you want to ask questions about or a feature that is a must have we can sit down over a drink at Connect and see if we can solve them.

So come join us and listen to Matts dulcet tones (as well as Julian)

One of the main differences in going truly freelance* is having to have a consistent formula for calculating quotes and pricing for jobs, as for most things this basically comes down to a time and materials calculation, but the time part has a load of variables in its own right, So far these seem to me to break down into the following

“Basic” = This is the hourly rate you would pay for a permanent member of staff who could do the job to the competency you require.

This is our baseline, it represents the ultimate “bulk buy” and so offers the cheapest rate but is the least disposable.

“Contractor” = “Basic” + A pro rata amount representing all the stuff that a permanent would normally get as part of their job e.g. Holiday, Pension, Sickness, Insurance, job security etc etc

In actual fact a contractor tends to cost the same as a permanent in a holistic way, it is just that you see all the costs up front, more expensive but also more disposable than a permanent member of staff

“Consultant” = “Contractor” + Business over heads (such as travel, time lost, project overruns and changes)

Consultant rate is in fact a reverse form of “bulk buy”, you are only paying for people for a short period of time so they have to maintain them selves when you have finished with them before they pick up their next role, consultant rates also tend to cater to sudden client demands and changes, very often when you see a project start to get picky about every change and alteration, it is because the project has been aggressively priced according to “Contractor” rates (either because of rate negotiation or competition) which means every time there is a change it ACTUALLY costs the consultant money

“Jump” = “Consultant” + Cost of Impact to other clients

More properly called “On Call” or “SLA Maintenance” rates, “Jump” rates mean you stop what you are doing and immediately attend to the needs of a client, you see them all the time in the different costs associated with a support contract, you have to consider the impact to other clients if their work is interrupted and if that is not permitted, someone must be constantly waiting for a client to make them “Jump to it” which cost money, of course many large clients expect “Jump” performance for “Contractor” Rates, so you must decided if such business is worth the Loss leader Behaviour that this represents

Of course you can throw all of this out of the window due to a number of reasons e.g. Really Interesting work, Worthy cause or to improve your skill set.

So this is what proper managers do…………

*That is having no one main client but lots of nearly equal clients.

A very hectic Icon UK has just passed in a blur, leaving a hangover and a sense of satisfaction.

Tim Clark put on great display aided by a number of brave souls, with great content and facilities (ignoring the on site WIFI) and amazing after event social times.

As always the IBM community put on its best and came out with a wide variety of vendors and attendees (most of them long time friends that I get to see far too infrequently) all very positive and with fresh new ideas.

But for me the highlight of the conference was the arrival of IBM Marketing’s Penny Hill and the IBM champion manager Amanda Bauman , marketings absence has been a long bug bear and to finally meet someone and be able to offer help to and get help in return was wonderful ( so Penny or Amanda if you are reading this, I was serious about just yelling if there was anything I could do to help and I suspect that applies for a lot of the community.) I also must not forget the none marketing branches of IBM who also came out, took criticism and came back with excellent answers, well done all round.

LDC Via was taken far more seriously by attendees then in previous conferences (well it seemed so to me), with us having the highest turn out of all the vendor sessions, so much so that we ran out of Gin and Pimms (and no we did not tell people before the session that we would be serving drinks) and a good stream of people with serious questions and excellent use case scenarios, leaving use with a ton of leads to follow up and a bunch of new features to go Gold with.

No technical presentations for me this time though I did help with Tim and Femke’s presentation as well as present the Changing technologies with Gab Davis

[Chris Harris](https://twitter.com/chriscwharris) was taking the good pictures this time around and did a great one of the LDCVia team. The proper serious one will appear on the official [LDC Via](http://ldcvia.com/) blog for the event but in the mean time here is one of the silly ones.

This post is WAYYYYY late but never mind (I promise no more false starts or Kale pictures)

Each year we tootle off to the Engage/Blug conference knowing full well that @theoheselmans is not going to be able to top last years awesome conference.

Each year we are wrong…. and this year was no exception, so much so that I forgot to take pictures of a number of the important stuff (including the OGS and the Library at the venue)

This time LDC were there as LDC Via and we went live with our first product on the first day of the conference.

It was great to be a proper sponsor and we had a steady stream of interested people, gave lots of demos and walked away with some good solid leads

Aren’t we a handsome bunch

We were presenting this year and @benpoole was making a return to the stage

He did a marvellous job and we got the biggest turn out for the sponsor sessions

(however he captioned the following 2 pictures himself)

@stickfight “…and then I told @benpoole what a good job he did presenting @ldcvia”

@MattWhite “LOL!”

@stickfight “Are we bringing @benpoole next time?”

@MattWhite “Hmm. Maybe stick to @woowar?”

Frenzied highlight of the conference from a personal point of view was the speed sponsoring where I got to rant madly at the entertained attendees while @MattWhite tried to read my mind to determine which of LDCVia’s feature set he should be demoing at any given second

On none-LDC Via business, a chat with Rene Winkelmeyer gave me a jaw dropping programming tip I simply would have never thought of and the tech sessions were as diverse as they were high quality, I also got to catch up with just about everybody I know as well as meet a bunch of new people.

Vibe wise: Engage was far far more upbeat than the IBM/Domino situation would warrant, but that has always been the case, now that Lotusphere/Connect is gone I rank it as the best conference to go to, and talking with some of my oldest clients who were making their first visit I was not the only one.

Lastly there was Ghent it’s self, a city I have never been to and it looks like I was really missing out, thanks again to @theoheselmans for giving me the chance to see it.