Driven by the huge success of last year’s event, ILOG’s premier, customer-driven forum is back!

DIALOG 09 promises to be bigger, better, and more interactive than ever, with over 350 customers and partners from all of ILOG’s software solutions areas — BRMS, Optimization, Visualization and Supply Chain Management applications — expected to attend the three-day event at the Renaissance Resort Hotel at SeaWorld, Orlando, Florida in early February 2009.

DIALOG 09 focuses on real-time business agility and with our “DIABLOG” event blog we hope to bring you insights, previews, and updates to help you plan your attendance at the conference as efficiently as possible.

During the event itself, our blogging team will be reporting directly from the conference floor and soliciting real-time feedback and commentary from attendees and speakers. Check out the videos and blog posts from last year’s event to see some of the expert discussions and product insights that made DIALOG 08 such a success.

The agenda of DIALOG 09 has been strongly influenced by feedback from attendees of last year’s conference. This includes the introduction of best practice workshops, hands-on technical sessions, advisory councils, and role-based Birds of a Feather (BOF) break-out sessions designed to provide even more opportunity for you to share insights, ideas and challenges with peers and ILOG product experts.

Other highlights include the Solutions Hall which will showcase technology and developments from ILOG’s valued partners, as well as daily demonstrations and previews of ILOG products and solutions at the ILOG booth. Don’t miss this chance to “meet the experts” and share your questions, issues or ideas directly with our product teams.

There’s so much more to DIALOG 09, so stay tuned to DIABLOG and we’ll do our best to provide you with some insight into “What’s next.”

With just two days to go before DIALOG 08, I’m pleased to welcome ILOG Web Marketing Manager Daryl Pereira to the DIABLOG team.

This means that, together, we’ll be able to provide broader event coverage and bring you even more in-depth news and feedback direct from the conference floor in Palm Springs. As they say, two heads are better than one!

While we’re on the subject of broader event coverage, I just got confirmation today of the audiovisual arrangements for DIALOG 08. ILOG has hired multimedia company BrainSonic to provide extensive onsite video coverage. All conference keynotes and track sessions will be recorded, and the aim is to have the videos edited, packaged and made available online as soon as possible after the conference.

In addition, Julie Jordan, ILOG Senior Marketing Communications Manager, will be conducting on-site video interviews all day Monday with several of ILOG’s financial services customers and partners. In light of the ongoing challenges facing the financial services sector, who better to explain how ILOG solutions are helping to optimize strategies and operations and enabling organizations to adapt to volatile market conditions?

Even if you’re not able to make it to DIALOG in person, the extensive and in-depth video coverage of the event means that you will still be able follow the conversation. So stay tuned and, rest assured, the discussion is set to continue for a long time after DIALOG!

As a technology trends and innovation expert, Scott Klososky spends a lot of his time predicting the future and helping executive teams around the world to manage speed and change.

In his keynote session at DIALOG 08 (Monday February 25, 9:45 am - 10:30 am), Scott will explain how organizations need to not only get better and faster at predicting the future, but how they need to adopt a whole new business model and corporate culture that capitalizes on the new generations now entering the workforce and maximizes their technology and vision.

Scott wraps all these ideas into a concept he calls “Velocity Leadership.” As a preview of the concept and some of the topics he’ll be discussing, Scott has produced a teaser video for his keynote session. How cool is that? So do YOU have Velocity Leadership? Attend Scott’s keynote at DIALOG 08 to find out!