The IBM Information On Demand conference in Las Vegas, which ran from October 23 - 28, was pouring over the sides with valuable content and opening new opportunities.  The entire conference consisted of over 700 technical education sessions, industry-focused business & IT Leadership sessions, session content featuring software, hardware and services solutions, 110 hands on labs, 300 Customer speakers, IBM's largest EXPO, complimentary certification testing, IBM and industry-renowned speakers, and more than 10,000 attendees.  So out of all of this, what managed to stick?

Top 3 Take Aways

1. IBM Netezza 1000: It's hardware, its software, it's a data warehouse appliance, and it’s a storage appliance ... it's all of the above!  Because the IBM Netezza 1000 data warehouse appliance comes with preconfigured software and hardware it greatly reduces the amount of effort for a company to initiate its Business Intelligence initiatives.  This system can be put in within just days rather than months, and it just runs with very little hands on tinkering required.  Check it out on netezza.com (http://www.netezza.com/data-warehouse-appliance-products/twinfin.aspx). I almost forgot the best part, it comes in three colours!

2. IBM SPSS Statistics 20: Always wanted to be a fortune teller as a kid?  With predictive analytics in your organization and expertise in IBM SPSS you'll be the resident gypsy.  IBM SPSS is based on sophisticated statistical algorithms that have been about 30 years in the making, using similar technology to that used in IBM Watson for pattern recognition, allowing the models to "learn" from the source data.  IBM SPSS can be used for predicting future revenues, production levels, consumer satisfaction levels, or detecting fraud as it happens. http://www-01.ibm.com/software/analytics/spss

3. Jeff Jonas Key Note: Check out Jeff's presentation here, fast foward to the 20:00 mark:  http://www.livestream.com/ibmsoftware/video?clipId=pla_7c1b7dd6-feed-4352-9cb4-2abdea9c9751&utm_source=lslibrary&utm_medium=ui-thumb.  Great puzzle analogy of how business analytics and statistical analysis can be used to mess with your kids.

In addition to the education sessions IOD was a great opportunity to network with current and potential clients, IBMers and business partners alike.  Raven Bay hosted a Cognos roundtable for a small group of organizations to get together where they could talk about their own issues, challenges and successes with their business intelligence initiatives.  Representatives from a broad spectrum of industries were in attendance including oil and gas, commercial airline, energy, agri-business, and online payment processing.  Representatives brought perspectives to the table from the Sr. Analyst level to IT Director level.  For an overview of the experiences provided by Petrobank Energy and Resources Ltd have a look at their recent success story, http://www-01.ibm.com/software/success/cssdb.nsf/cs/STRD-8MXGJR.  The roundtable session went over really well with lots of great feedback.  Some very useful connections were made between clients in the Calgary area as a result.

Information On Demand was a great conference with loads of applicable content, some great presenters (some not so great, but there's always a few of those), and ample opportunity to build our skill set when it comes to Cognos and business intelligence in general.