Kicking It Off … Lombardi Style!

Kickoff 2010 was hosted by Lombardi February 22nd-26th.  Kickoff is an annual, company-wide conference in Austin, Texas that has been a wonderful tradition at Lombardi since 2004.  This year, not only did we have all world-wide Lombardians come to downtown Austin, but we also had a large number of IBMers attend.  This week-long conference was definitely valuable for the successful integration of Lombardi into the IBM family – we were able to meet, enjoy each other’s company and learn about one another throughout the different meetings and events.

It all started Monday evening at the Austin Music Hall with an interesting presentation by Phil Gilbert at the Opening Reception.  This was followed by the 2010 Lombardi Science Fair, an event that has been at Lombardi for 5 years now and is something we hope IBM will continue well into the future.

Phil's presentation during Science Fair

Science Fair Passport and Program

Science Fair is a place where innovation is really unleashed throughout the company.  This year, 20 creative and talented teams competed for a $1,000 cash prize and the honor of winning the most votes from their colleagues.  The rules are simple - teams of up to 3 people can join forces to build something bigger and better, and projects can be anything that isn’t in our product road-maps for the next 12 months.

Gathering and admiring projects

Matt Howitt placing his vote via iPhone

We all had the chance to vote electronically for whom we thought presented the best new idea.  Voting took place at laptop stations or on smartphones – the electronic voting system was designed using Teamworks of course!  There were definitely a lot of really cool projects to choose from.  Congratulations to this year’s winner – Team BAM (Bryan Campbell, Allison Lura and Morten Moeller).  Hopefully we’ll see their project in a future release of Teamworks, but for now they hold the coveted Golden Beanie.

Science Fair Winners!

The night ended with a fantastic live performance by The Band of Heathens.

The Band of Heathens

The rest of the week, events were  held at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Austin. There were many different sessions including keynotes by:

• Rod Favaron – CEO of Lombardi
• Craig Hayman – GM Application & Integration Middleware at IBM Software Group
• Phil Gilbert – President and CTO of Lombardi

We also had breakout sessions for the whole company, as well as for each division, in which Lombardi and IBM came together as a team to discuss joint strategies moving forward.  In addition, the Networking Cocktail Reception and the Awards Dinner was a great way to unwind, spend time with friends and make some new ones!

Fahad Osmani receiving his award from Rod and Phil

Enjoying the Awards Dinner

Overall, it was an awesome week – one that I’m sure we will all remember.  Thank you to everyone who put Kickoff and Science Fair together, as well as to everyone who attended for making this year’s event truly remarkable.

Todd Plunk receiving his award from Rod

The Golden Beanie.