David Wilkerson

 

Welcome to mobility, IBM? This year IBM acquired Worklight, an interesting product for developing hybrid mobile apps. The tool was widely discussed at the IBM Exceptional Web Experience event in Austin, TX and although I was not able to attend I heard some of the buzz. Intrigued, I decided to develop an iPhone app using Worklight.

 

Let me start with a caveat. I have downloaded hundreds of tools for preview and in almost every case found the documentation to be sadly deficient, the tool to be somewhat buggy, and the features to be less than exciting. The process I am about to describe was exceptional. Of course my app is nothing more than "Hello World," or in this case "Hello Worklight," but contrary to past experience, Worklight was a pleasure to work with.

 

The tool consists of several moving parts and because I wanted to develop the app for an iPhone or an iPad, I needed to work on my Mac. Why? Because the native code for iOS environments can only be manipulated with Apple's SDK.

Visit the download site for instructions to download, install, and configure the parts needed to start developing. You will need your IBM ID to access the page.

 

On the instruction page there are six steps: Read more  

Dave Jacob

 

As IBMer Sandy Carter was evangelizing the power of social, I started thinking about how Social Business has affected Davalen's business as a medium sized, premier IBM Partner.

 

One of the major impacts the power of social has had is on our IBM training delivery. Here is the progression:

 

1. Training used to be featured-based and the instructors were first professional teachers with product knowledge.

Certified instructors could effectively deliver a feature-based course but were not power users of a particular product. In fact, instructors taught a large variety of courses so they were familiar with the features of numerous products but expert at none. When questions arose about applying the products in different ways, they were stuck. The truly good instructors would write down the question, promise to get back to the student with the answer, and then look for a resource after the course completed. If they found an answer, they would email/call the student with what they had learned. Classes were normally run at the Davalen training center and students traveled to the center.

 

2. With the downturn in the economy in 2006, first travel and then training budgets were cut. Read more   

Ruth Jarvis

 

What do IBM, Children's Medical Center, Cigna, TD Bank, John Deere, Prudential, Yum Brands, Fidelity, CVS Caremark, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield all have in common? They each took the time to "Relax @Davalen" at the 2012 IBM Exceptional Web Experience Conference.

 

How did these companies and hundreds of other attendees relax with Davalen at such a busy event? By attending presentations, receptions, mixers, and of course, by taking advantage of the massage chairs and lounge provided in the Solution Expo.

 

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