Why Jam?
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.