Ed Brill

Very excited about three upcoming opportunities where I will be talking social business and Opting In with three very different audiences:

• On March 26, here in Chicago I'll be part of a panel discussion at the Social Media Club of Chicago. We're going to be talking social in the context of this week's SXSW conference. Honestly, one of the challenges of having a worldwide responsibility at IBM is that I don't do enough local area networking, so a Chicago event gets me out of my home office and meeting like-minded people here in town.  My presence on the panel also happened because of a Foursquare mayorship fight over my dentist's office, so there's a story right there. (NB: I'm not really using Foursquare much anymore. Not sure why.)
• On March 29, I'm participating in a webinar with the Association of International Product Marketing and Management, "Becoming the 'Social Product Manager'." This discussion is 100% based on my book Opting In, and the AIPMM audience is exactly who I had hoped to reach in writing a book about social business for the business leader. It's at 12 noon ET and is free to join. Registration link is on the AIPMM site. The host for the event, Cindy Solomon, has been very engaging and supportive; I'm really looking forward to this webinar.
• In April, I am participating in the Social Media Strategies Summit, also here in Chicago, on April 23 and 24. Here, my pre-conference workshop takes on the format of a case study of IBM using social business.

I'll also be covering IBM's MobileFirst strategy at some events very soon, starting next week with BLUG in Leuven, Belgium! Space is still available to attend BLUG, with a couple dozen amazing speakers all at no charge. On Thursday the 21st next week, I will also be at the IBM Business Connect event in Paris for some of the day, though not in a speaking capacity.

Last, I should start mentioning IBM's Impact conference at the end of April more regularly, April 28 to May 2. This is a Lotusphere/Connect-equivalent conference (actually significantly bigger) where we will have 35+ sessions on IBM MobileFirst. The website features a session preview tool and details of many of the event components, including the unconference, hackathon, and oh, Matchbox 20.

Hope to see you (or "see" you) soon!