Why Jam?

  • A Jam breaks the rules.

    It’s a worldwide brainstorm that occurs in ways a typical conference never could. In a matter of 60 hours, thousands of people—researchers, scholars, students, thought leaders, executives—will unite in a unique virtual environment to find solutions. Discussion forums moderated by expert guests engage participants across the globe to share knowledge and prompt research on a compelling subject—in this case, the future of business education.

    The name “jam” comes from the tradition of musicians coming together for a jam session. There, they play unprepared music that has often led to some of the most memorable songs in history. A jam session is about bouncing ideas, skills, and styles off your fellow members to expand and be inspired. It’s a community of growth that has the ability to ignite an influential future—just like a Jam.

  • Your participation, your way

    Participants can log in from any mobile device, from anywhere, at anytime. You’ll collaborate with people you might not have met at an in-person conference.

    Join a conversation on your morning commute, during your lunch break, or when you get home from work. The Jam is ongoing over three days, making it flexible for all kinds of lifestyles. As VIP guests come onboard, we’ll keep you updated with a schedule of when and where they’ll be logging on. This is your chance to flex your intelligence and creativity with some of today’s greatest business minds.

  • Not your typical conference

    You’re not held to the schedule and location of a conference, workshop, or seminar. And that’s because the Jam isn’t any one of those things. It isn’t confined by space or time so that your ideas aren’t confined by space or time. You won’t simply sit in a room and listen to a lecture. A successful Jam needs your active participation to envision a brighter future.

  • Just the beginning

    The Jam is a massive convergence of ideas, concepts, and collaborations that are a launching point for building the next generation of innovation. It’s the first spark. What you contribute will be published for the world and will have the potential to become influential realities.

How It Works

The Jam starts with you doing a quick registration. When it’s time for the Jam you will login with your username and password. Feel free to customize your profile too. After logging in a jam homepage will show you the ten forums as well as upcoming conversations, VIP guests, content you’ve created so you can pick up conversations, and emerging hot topics.

Pick the forum you want to explore and you’ll be taken to a page with the main question, top tags, hottest posts, and a complete list of all threads under this discussion.

The Jam is a lot like a chat room—you can post a comment or respond to one and people can respond to you. You’ll be able to see everyone else’s comments from the whole jam so you don’t miss out. Posts and their responses are grouped so it’s easy to keep track of conversations even when they go off topic a bit or very deep. You always have the option to tag your content according to what area/topic it fits. Tagging allows you to search and filter to a specific interest area and pull similar information together so we recommend tagging your posts.

In the forums there will be identifiers to show topics and areas that are hot so you know which have the most robust conversation already.

There will be occasional polls where everyone will be asked a question and the results will be put into charts and graphs.

Anyone can join any conversation at anytime. Conversations are managed by facilitators who work three-four hour shifts and then hand off information to the next facilitator so there is continuity throughout the discussion to help make connections from the entire conversation even though participants come and go.

KNOWING WHAT’S GOING ON

Once you’re logged into the Jam platform there will be alerts that let you know when a VIP guest joins so you can participate in that conversation if you want. There will be emails and communication during the jam to let everyone know what’s happened so far and what the most exciting upcoming things are.

BEHIND THE SCENES

During the Jam a lot of data is being collected- about which topics rise to the top, new ideas, polls, engagement levels on different topic etc. after the jam IBM will use their system to sift through all of this data and provide us with a report for us to analyze and identify key takeaways.

FORUMS

Each main discussion in a forum is a thread and you can reply to the original thread comment/question. You can also start a thread. Replies to either the original forum question or a thread is a post. You can also respond to a post.