If you have started packing your bags for IBM Impact, don’t forget your toothbrush. Equally important is your mobile phone.

This year there are more opportunities than ever to use your smart little plastic brick as a networking device.

The developerWorks team has put together a trial mobile web application to pull together conversations and information from across the conference. From this one handy reference point, you can follow the latest updates on Twitter, get the official word from the Impact blog, immerse yourself in Flickr and YouTube and even figure out what session you should attend next using the agenda builder.

This mobile website will work on any device with a Javascript-enabled browser (that covers most modern smartphones), and we recommend saving a bookmark to your phone’s homepage to make it easy to access throughout the conference.

To get started, either point your QR code reader at this:

 

or view the mobile web app here.

That’s it… no downloads or bloatware to get rid of after the event.

For those technical-minded folk out there, we have built this app using JSON and the Sencha Touch HTML5 framework to create an application that mimics the controls and navigation typically found on a native phone app.

This is a newer area for us and we definitely welcome your feedback (either in the comments or @cagedether).

See more about other mobile tools for navigating Impact through Ryan’s post on the Impact Blog.

Remember to tag your content ‘IBMImpact’ (using the ‘#IBMImpact’ hashtag on Twitter) so it can be shared across Impact’s mobile social landscape.

IBM events tend to be huge. Amongst the thousands of people, a large solution hall and events all over the place, it's tough keeping up with everything.

That is where Foursquare comes in. At this year's Impact you can use the geo-location service to keep track of what's going on where and see where like-minded souls have been.
The Impact organizers have done the great job of adding a number of locations including the Solutions Hall and the Unconference.

Once you create a Foursquare account, search for '#IBMImpact' in the Las Vegas area. You should see a list which looks something like this:

You can go ahead and add To-do's for areas that look interesting to you.

You can also go ahead and find friends that may also be on Foursquare by synching with Facebook/Twitter. I'll admit I didn't see the full value in this - especially as many in my networks won't be at Impact. What makes more sense is to look for people who check-in to my places of interest who potentially have something in common. You can also add locations of your own and see who checks in (use '#IBMImpact' in the name to ease discovery).

Overall much more effective than hoping the guy in front of me in the lunch queue happens to be an HTML5 advocate too (although, I'm not suggesting you be anti-social when waiting for meals!)

If you have any particular experiences on Foursquare to share, be sure to comment below.

This year Information on Demand will be held on October 23-27 in Las Vegas. If you have something you would like to share with this premier business analytics forum, the call for speakers is still open for another 2 weeks.
As a speaker, you could potentially receive a free pass to the conference and will receive guaranteed access to the Speaker Lounge.

The call for speakers closes on April 15 and applicants will be notified by June 3 on whether their session proposal has been accepted. 

Full details available here