One of our goals for this year’s BlackBerry Live conference is to integrate mobile technology not just in the discussions, sessions, and resources – but into the actual conference itself to help keep attendees closely plugged into all of the action.

Near Field Communication (NFC)

One of my all-time favorite technologies, Near Field Communication (NFC) will be integrated into BlackBerry Live in a big way. You’ll be able to scan into BlackBerry Live and BlackBerry Jam sessions and interact with aspects of the venue using the BlackBerry Live Conference App, but that’s just the beginning. You’ll also be able to share contact information with sponsors, scoop up links to resources and web sites, and take advantage of all that BlackBerry 10 has to offer when it comes to NFC.

BlackBerry Live Conference App

Shortly before BlackBerry Live the Mobile Conference Guide app will be available in BlackBerry World for you to download. This will be your ultimate conference guide, including a wide range of features:

• Find sessions, speaker, sponsor, and event details
• Receive event update messages
• View the conference agenda and floor plan
• Build and edit your conference schedule
• Scan into sessions using Near Field Communication (NFC)
• Complete conference and session surveys
• Share your information with conference sponsors using NFC

It’s not too late to register for BlackBerry Live!

Head over to www.blackberrylive.com to register for this year’s conference, and don’t forget that if you’ve attended a BlackBerry event in the past, you may be eligible for a $150 discount as part of the Alumni Discount!

Stay tuned for availability in BlackBerry World, and get ready for a seriously mobile conference! See you next week in Orlando.

From an enterprise developer perspective, it’s important to consider how your app will be deployed within an organization. With BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry World for work, apps can be made available to employees for download and installation onto the work perimeter of the smartphone. In this scenario, your app is running in a secure perimeter with a VPN-like connection to corporate servers and data.

How will your app behave in the work perimeter? What do you need to plan for in advance? And, what are the benefits of developing enterprise apps that target the work perimeter? For the full scoop, check out our interview below with John Mutter, Sr. Manager Enterprise Developer Partnerships:

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Check out the BlackBerry Jam Europe 2013 session by RIM’s John Mutter titled “Enterprise BlackBerry World – So You’re Being Deployed within the Corporate Perimeter” to get even more details, tips, and tricks. Sessions can be accessed by registered attendees once the BlackBerry Jam On-Demand portal is launched.

Do you have tips for other BlackBerry developers working on enterprise apps? Share in the comments below.

The BlackBerry Achievement Awards (formerly the Wireless Achievement Awards) are just around the corner! These awards bring together the exceptional business, entrepreneur, and developer communities, and recognize those who have taken advantage of all things BlackBerry. Designed for those using BlackBerry technology to help power innovation, the BlackBerry Achievement Awards celebrate where ideas meet execution.

Award Categories

Along with a brand new name, we’ve expanded the award categories to reflect our diverse BlackBerry customer base:

1. App of the Year
2. Putting Customers First
3. Mobile Innovation of the Year
4. Making the World a Better Place
5. Entrepreneur of the Year

To be considered for one of these awards, submit your entry on the BlackBerry Live (formerly BlackBerry World) conference web site. Consider nominating your business, your app, or send in a nomination for a company that you think we should know about.

Awards and Prizes

Five first place winners will receive, each: 1 plane ticket to BlackBerry Live 2013, accommodations for up to 4 nights, 3 full conference passes to BlackBerry Live 2013, and 5 BlackBerry 10 smartphones. Further details on prizing for the runner up (and prizing in general) can be found on the web site (conditions apply).

The Awards Ceremony will take place in Orlando, Florida during BlackBerry Live 2013.

Questions? Please contact achievementawards@rim.com.

This year’s BlackBerry Live conference is going to be a very exciting event for us here at BlackBerry, our attendees, partners, carriers, and customers. We’re already well underway with the planning, and the timing couldn’t be better on the heels of our launch of BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10.

With the name change of BlackBerry App World to BlackBerry World – since much more than apps will be available to you – we’ve decided to change the name of our BlackBerry World conference to “BlackBerry Live”. We love the new name, and it comes with a hugely positive outlook and a very exciting year for BlackBerry technology.

What can you expect at this year’s BlackBerry Live conference?

BlackBerry Live is our way of showing that we’re just as enthusiastic about your success as you’ve been about ours. This year’s event is all about the latest on BlackBerry 10, deep insights into the technology, ideas for mobile strategies, and inspiration for practical business solutions. The BlackBerry Live conference will also include:

• Road-test the game changing BlackBerry 10 platform to see why everyone is so excited
• Get your toughest technical and business questions answered
• Meet the BlackBerry leaders behind BlackBerry 10
• Accelerate your mobile decision-making with expert advice and services
• Form business relationships to rely on down the road
• Hear what’s next for BlackBerry
• Participate in the mobile ecosystem and help shape the future of BlackBerry

Registration will be open soon, and stay tuned for further details and sneak peeks of what to expect here on the Inside BlackBerry for Business Blog. We hope to see you there in May!

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

BlackBerry Balance changes the game when it comes to using one device for both work and personal aspects of your life. Say goodbye to your second phone – with the separation of work and personal data while retaining a unified experience, administrators don’t need to lock down any of the functionality that you love, and you can utilize incredible business applications to get access to corporate information and files. It boosts productivity and allows your phone to switch gears as quickly as you do on a day-to-day basis.

When in the work perimeter of the device, you can access BlackBerry World for Work, which is a version of BlackBerry World designed specifically to allow you manage your installed work applications that have been provisioned by your administrator, or apps that have been recommended by your administrator for optional download.

How would access to both personal and work features on a single device positively impact your daily work and play? Share in the comments below.

YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Is your organization currently using BlackBerry 7 OS devices, or do you have yet to upgrade through the BlackBerry Trade Up program or your IT department? Share your upgrade strategy for the next year in the comments below.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

My favorite recent example of innovation in mobile computing comes from our very own QNX auto team and their recent integration of BlackBerry software into yet another vehicle. If you could make one thing in your life “connected”, what would it be? Share in the comments below.

Attending any conference, especially BlackBerry World, will get you inspired. You see the possibilities, you hear what other organizations are doing with the same technology (and constraints) you have, you meet with integrators and developers that can help you re-engineer your business processes…but come Monday morning, you still have to fill out that TPS report.

So, how do you prioritize the opportunities that are in front of you? How do you capitalize on the conference learnings before the momentum dies down?

I certainly have my own “back to work” challenges – not the least of which is editing nearly 50 videos captured during BlackBerry World! But I also have a list of longer-term ideas that were generated from BlackBerry World customer feedback and session content. I’m curious though as to what you took away from BlackBerry World. To use the Getting Things Done vernacular, what’s your “Next Action”? Here are some possible examples:

• Upgrading your organizations device collection to the current BlackBerry® 7 OS platform:
• Providing access to faster browsing, multiple form factors, WiFi® Calling, BlackBerry® Travel, etc.
• Launching department specific tablet computing pilot projects:
• Using a BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet as a laptop replacement
• Equipping new, previously non-mobile, teams with tablets
• Moving to BlackBerry® Enterprise Server 5.0, perhaps in preparation for:
Deploying BlackBerry® Mobile Fusion, which could then enable BlackBerry® Device Service to manage BlackBerry PlayBook tablets or Universal Device Service for iOS and Android™ devices to address BYOD trends
• Documenting (or creating) your organizations mobile strategy:
• Bring Your Own Device policies and Authorized device preferences
• Defining application access and permission criteria
• User and company rights, responsibilities, and warnings
• Building (and perhaps ‘pushing’ out and managing through BlackBerry Mobile Fusion) your first (or next!) corporate application.

These are just the obvious tasks — there are hundreds of small sub-tasks and niche ideas. Clearly there’s a lot to be done in the coming months, and BlackBerry World has inspired IT leaders from around the world to ‘redefine possible’.

So, what’s on your post-BlackBerry World to-do list? How are you prioritizing these items? How do you make sure things don’t fall off the radar? Not only would your IT peers appreciate your advice, experience, and insight, but right now I could personally use some suggestions before my own project list falls to the wayside! Let us know in the comments.

Morgan Parker of RIM Product Marketing and Jon Wong, Sr. Product Manager, walked us through a scenario of checking sales data using SAP® BusinessObjects Dashboards on the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet mounted on the dash of the Porsche, a well as leveraging the Citrix® Receiver to access a virtual Microsoft® Windows desktop. Check out the video below for the full scoop!

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

What BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet apps would you use in a car like this? Share your ideas in the comments below.

Hey Business Blog readers – quick guest post here from Nadia, who’s bringing a big announcement straight from Florida! Check it out – Ed.

Hello again from BlackBerry World™ in Orlando!

Today we held a very special awards luncheon honoring the winners and finalists of the Wireless Achievement Awards. We were impressed with the many outstanding entries we received from around the world! These are mobility leaders whose BlackBerry solutions are demonstrating innovation in the Public Sector, Private Sector and driving Business Impact. We also got to find out who won the Attendee Choice award – selected by the attendees of BlackBerry World!

Without further ado, your winners:

Innovation in Private Sector

Winner for Innovation in Private Sector: Cablevision S.A. Argentina significantly decreased calls to its support center while improving productivity and service by deploying 3,500 BlackBerry® smartphones equipped with Sensebyte’s Mobile II application to its field technicians.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Innovation in Public Sector

Winner for Innovation in Public Sector: Ministerio de Desarollo Social provides more efficient humanitarian aid and social assistance by improving their field operators’ ability to better capture and share information on critical situations, including natural disasters and health and food-related crises with BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablets

.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Business Impact

Winner for Business Impact: Nomura International plc saves approximately £10,000 monthly on international calling and roaming charges with the BlackBerry® Mobile Voice System.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Attendee Choice Award

Winner for Attendee Choice Award: Venezuelan movie goers can now buy tickets and get news on upcoming features with the click of a button, thanks to Cines Unidos’s app for BlackBerry® smartphones. As well as buying tickets and obtaining receipts and confirmations, the easy-to-use app, developed in partnership with Mobile Media Networks, gives users a 40-minute show-time warning and the ability to share movie schedules with friends and book dates via BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) integration. Cines Unidos makes the app—which now has about 1.5 million users—available for download on the BlackBerry App World™ storefront, or by scanning QR codes in theater lobbies, on posters and popcorn dispensers.

Click here to read more about the 2012 Wireless Achievement Award winners and finalists, and again, congratulations to this year’s winners!