IBM InterConnect 2017 day 4: Step by step

23 March, 2017
Jacobo Gonzalez Camarena
IBM

Wednesday at InterConnect 2017 was all about learning in the excellent breakout sessions. In fact, there were still 2,278 sessions to choose from! Not to mention all of the people to meet, social media channels to update, phones to charge (I’ve had to charge my phone 3 times every day!), coffee to drink, and more booths and demos in the Concourse to discover. Here are some of my highlights from that busy day:

The Onion

When you spot a news story in your Facebook feed that’s just too weird or hilarious to be real, you’ve most likely come across satire from The Onion, or as they refer to themselves: America’s Finest News Source. Its founder and CEO, Mike McAvoy, came to speak at Mandalay Bay and filled every seat in the room for his session, “Fake News, Filter Bubbles, and Social Media.”

He talked for about 45 minutes – and not about technology. He talked about another concept: Using fake news as a way to find the truth hiding behind it, and how to leverage satire to make people reach conclusions they wouldn’t be able to get to if it wasn’t for satire.

Technology meets music

Remember when IBM created musical case studies using IT infrastructure with RemixIT? Music can be a powerful way to connect us all together. On Wednesday Grammy-winning composer and conductor Eric Whitacre mesmerized his audience showing bits and pieces of his creative process, and talked about how technology inspires his work.

He created a “virtual choir” – he records himself conducting one of his songs, so people can watch it on YouTube, learn it, record themselves singing it and post it online. Whitacre takes those videos and creates a single track. So far he’s gathered almost 6,000 singers across 73 countries, and he just finished the fourth iteration of his project.

Eric also had this to say about leadership:

Live performances

InterConnect always goes out with a bang, and this year we had the pleasure of partying with Andy Grammer and Zac Brown Band. Aside from getting to party with these awesome musicians, we also learned something new: Andy Grammer used to work at IBM himself! Following up, Zac Brown Band wowed the crowd with everything from their signature red dirt country to covers of Led Zeppelin and Metallica.

Andy Grammer

Zac Brown Band

Live coverage during InterConnect

If you’re on Snapchat and you follow IBM, you probably saw the IBM Systems team take things over to provide updates in real time. If you missed the 24-hour window, here’s a sample of what that looked like:

We also utilized Facebook Live, showing all of the demos, products and activations at the IBM Systems booth. You can watch the replay here.

On the Concourse, we did something new, capturing the faces of everyone using the hashtag #SystemsInsider. We turned them into something pretty awesome!

Architecting the future

According to my Fitbit I walked 41,276 steps in the last 3 days, but I have done so much more than that. I learned more about advances in hybrid cloud and about how our clients are working to solve real-world issues. I also learned about how our teammates are helping to improve quality of life for everyone from Girls Who Code to the victims of conflict diamond mining in our partnership with Everledger.

I hope you join us at InterConnect next year and discover the magic for yourself!

Read our recaps of days 1-3 here, here and here.

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