IBM Connect 2017 is less than a week away, and I've been furiously prepping for a couple parts of what is promising to be a busy conference.

On Monday, before the official kickoff of the conference, OpenNTF is co-hosting a Hackathon, where attendees will work on one of several potential projects. The goal is to learn about new development methods, work with new people, and hopefully kick off some useful open-source projects to boot.

During the conference proper, I'll be presenting two sessions, both alongside Philippe Riand:

On Wednesday at 10 AM, we'll be discussing IBM Connections integration - specifically, the numerous hooks provided by Connections locally and on the cloud for integrating your application as seamlessly as possible. That will be "IBM Connections Integration: Exploring the Long List of Options" in room 2006.

Then, on Thursday at 9 AM, we'll be discussing Darwino and its role integrating with and extending Domino applications. This should be a particularly-interesting one, covering what Darwino is, how its bidirectional replication with Domino works, and some example scenarios for reporting on and bringing forward Domino apps. That will be "Give a New Life to Your Notes/Domino Applications and Leverage IBM Bluemix, Watson and Connections" in room 2000.

Even with many of our usual community friends unable to make it to the conference or having moved on to other platforms, Connect is shaping up to be a worthwhile conference, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing everyone who is there!