SOA is hot and people are curious about it. This was clear to me at IBM Impact 2008 conference when I saw more than 6000 people attending the conference. By the way, the next Impact conference - Impact 2009 - will be held in Las Vegas (again) from May 3 through May 8. I have shared my daily experiences at Impact 2008 here, here, here,  here and here.  I have described my overall experience in the following topics: 

Customer focus: There were numerous IBM customers presenting case studies and success stories. IBM seemed highly interested in answering customers' questions and getting feedback from them. As a customer, you could participate in the Birds of the Feather sessions and share your experiences, or ask questions about other customers' experiences. You could participate in feedback sessions and give direct feedback about IBM products to its representatives. You could even participate in the face to face discussions and ask specific questions about any tool or technology. I took advantage of this face to face discussions and asked questions about the future of integration between FileNet and WPS, end-to-end traceability in SOA, defining and using common elements (remember, UML is not enough in the SOA/BPM world) and the future direction around events etc. IBM even contacted me before the conference and offered to arrange a one on one session with an expert of any technology of my choice. SOA ties business and technology. Given the heterogeneity and complexity of IT and business in various organizations, the customer focus is a critical success factor for IBM or any other tool/technology/service vendor in SOA/BPM space. 

Content and coverage: The conference covered areas from web 2.0 to CICS, IT strategy to governance and everything in between. There was something... no, a lot, for everyone. Whether you wanted to learn something new or validate what you were doing, whether you wanted new insight into SOA strategy or explore ways of implementing governance, whether you wanted to see the code or pretty looking power point slides - the conference had it all.

However, I do have some critical feedback on the content and presentations. Most of the lecture style power point presentations disappointed me. The speakers were poor presenters; they knew little beyond their deck of slides and covered the topics at a very high level. The explanations like, "the message will flow from WMQBus, sendQ destination to the remote queue remoteQ of WMQ queue manager, and from there it will go to remote queue on WMQ2. Hence the bus appears as a queue manager to the WebSphere MQ and the queue manager appears as a foreign bus to the WebSphere Application Server SIBUS." don't provide any value. Most of the presentations showed screen shots of the tool, which I can see by going to an article on www.ibm.com/developerworks or simply by opening the tool. The presentations should have focused on business scenarios that warrant a particular solution, why you would pick certain solution, what are the best practices and what are the gotchas - not here is what the screen looks like. As I have explained on Day 2, labs were excellent. Labs focused on 'how-to,' the presentations should have focused on 'why.' 

I also felt that the content around business integration and BPM was too basic but having said that, I understand that the conference has to be catered to the larger audience.

World around IBM: It was great to see that many companies have products and solutions around IBM tools and technologies, which means that many vendors see IBM as the thought leader in BPM/SOA space and are willing to invest money and resources on IBM solutions. I saw vendors with solutions around hardware, software, services and even learning. 

Arrangements and logistics: I liked that every room had a dedicated TV monitor displaying events taking place in that room. A person was present outside the room and distributed feedback and forms and collected them at the end of the session. I would have liked more comfortable chairs and a table in front of every chair so people can take notes, write etc. It was little strange (and rude) when a person stopped me from entering the testing room and asked me to read the sign by the printer. The sign said there was going to be music practice in the evening so there might be some noise in the evening testing sessions. I didn't know why she had to stop me to read that sign in the afternoon but looking around little more, I realized there was another sign on the table (not next to the printer) that said no food or drink allowed in the testing center. I realized then that the person wanted me to read that sign and throw away my coffee. I thought a simple, "Sir, you can't take that coffee with you in the room." would have worked really well.

Missing pieces: I found it surprising that there wasn't much information on becoming an IBM partner. I thought given the growth potential of the SOA/BPM market, IBM would want to utilize every possible channel and every possible opportunity to get its solution to the customers and one very effective way is to use partners. It is possible that the information was available but I couldn't find the right person and location (the conference was huge).

I would have loved to see more practical information on design patterns, best practices and recommended approach around business integration, BPM and SOA - especially around WebSphere Process Server. I would also have liked some kind of solution sessions. These would be similar to the lab sessions but they would be focused on the solution, architecture and design. The sessions could present a business problem and, in a highly interactive environment, come up with the solution. They could even model the solution in the tools and leave it up to the audience to implement it.

May be a future Impact could have some design or implementation challenges. A problem or a set of problems could be posted before the conference and candidates could submit their solutions. The winners could be declared during the conference. 

Overall, the conference was a good experience for me. While the experience wasn't transformational, the conference certainly exposed me to variety of different areas and gave me new food for thought. The experience was encouraging to go next year again.