IBM Lotus

Mar 21, 2013

The Ongoing Notes “Legacy” problem {26}

On an IBM WebcastLast week I was honored to part of a webcast that announced the worldwide launch of IBM Notes 9 Social edition.  I was able to speak about how our company uses custom applications built on XPages and Domino to run our business.  I also spoke as to how Traveler has helped our workforce be more connected, and how we are looking forward to integrating Connections into our Notes investment via Activity Streams and embedded experiences.

As the Director of IT for our company, I’m always trying to work with the best technologies to meet our needs.  Those are not always IBM technologies.  We use vendors like Microsoft, EMC, GoToMeeting, Salesforce.com, Basecamp and Box.com.  I tend to choose the best platform to fit our specific needs, whatever they may be.  I’m not simply an IBM fanboy.

That said, we’ve built the software that runs our business on XPages and Domino because it’s a great platform.  We can’t buy off the shelf software to manage our business, it simply doesn’t exist.  We could buy project management and warehousing programs, but it would be very hard to bend them to work the way we need.  That’s why Domino is such a strong platform.  I have a very small staff of very skilled developers who have built amazing applications that our business relies on to manage every bit of work we do. We have built it to fit our business processes exactly, and we can add in features at a very rapid pace.  We integrate everything including our Microsoft ERP system, and I couldn’t be happier.

So why am I writing a blog post mentioning “legacy” on the day the brand new IBM Notes 9 Social Edition is released?  Well, it’s because the market still sees it as legacy.  There has really been no discernible marketing to the contrary.  I’ll give you three quick examples that have all happened in the last couple of weeks.  All were manageable, but I can’t believe I even have to deal with them.

First, a client of ours had been auditing our warehousing software.  A German IT Auditor questioned (with much disdain) why were were using Lotus Notes instead of a “pro” warehousing system, and stated that the fact that we used Notes was a red flag.  This was from a very large, very well known organization, yet this IT Auditor considered Notes legacy and worthy of disdain.  It was even insinuated that nobody used Notes anymore.

I explained our reasoning for using Notes and Domino much like I did above, and then touted a brand new release of the product as well and over 100 million users worldwide, yet I feel that it fell on deaf ears.

The second one was an executive asking one of my employees what our “exit strategy for Notes” was?  When the exec was talking with people from other companies, and some of our clients, the general consensus was that Notes was dead and people couldn’t believe we were still on it.  So the executive assumed we had to be moving off of it soon.

Part of that is on me, and I need to continue to do a better job of internal marketing, but the reason I HAVE to do so much in the way of internal marketing is because there is little to no external marketing.  You really don’t know that Notes exists unless you deal with IBM on a regular basis.

The last thing that happened was a simple offhanded comment on the This Week In Tech podcast.  I don’t remember the context but the host Leo Laporte stated how he hated Notes and would never use it again.  Granted, this man hadn’t touched the software in over seven years, but he was still attacking it.  I’m sure he has no idea how nice the new client is, or how good the development environment is in XPages.  Yet, he still made that statement that was heard as fact by tens of thousands of listeners.

Those of you that know me, and have read this blog for nearly a decade know that I will take IBM to task when it’s warranted, and I will give credit where credit is due.  Obviously I believe wholeheartedly in Domino as a platform.  I wouldn’t use it otherwise, and I wouldn’t take time out of my busy schedule to record customer testimonials or get interviewed for quotes for press releases.  I am very publicly on record with the fact that Notes and Domino is the platform from which our business is run.

Today is a watershed moment.  IBM Notes and Domino 9 Social Edition has been launched and it’s the best the product has ever been.  It’s truly a great piece of software with so much potential in the right hands.  It would be really nice if the tech universe starting seeing it that way. I would just like the perception of Notes to get better in the marketplace, because right now perception doesn’t match reality, and hopefully IBM can work on changing that.

By Category: IBM Lotus, Software, Technology Tags: , , ,

IBM Connect 2013 Recap – The People

Feb 19, 2013

IBM Connect 2013 Recap – The People {3}

In my last post, I spoke of the IBM Connect show itself, and what it meant from a show and technology perspective for me.  That’s only part of the story.  The real value in Lotusphere for me has always been the people.  The business networking is invaluable, but the enduring friendships are what truly stand out.  These folks have become family over the years and this conference has always been our family reunion.

That’s what I would really miss most if I decided not to come.  Not seeing these friends and colleagues in person would cast a definite sadness over my January.  It’s obvious that other friends feel the same way.  There were at least a half a dozen friends who no longer come to the conference who still traveled to Orlando to be able to hang out and see everyone.  For some, like my good friend Tom Duff, it was a very sad experience to call it his final Lotusphere.

But like Tom referenced in his blog post, Volker nailed it:

“Let me tell you something: life is about people, not about technology. Your friends will be your friends. And you will see them again. And again, and again. Technology changes, friendship lasts. In change, there lies opportunity.”

And I know these friendships will endure.  I can go all over Europe, or Australia, or pretty much anywhere in the US and I know someone I want to visit with, have a beer and a good meal with.  You people are special, no matter what color you are wearing or what code compiler you are using, or how pointy my hair gets.  I’m very happy to call you my friends.

I’ve always thought of us as a very welcoming group too.  You can see it in the yearly Blogger photos growing in size year after year.  We love to welcome new people in, and this year I was more encouraged by seeing some younger talent coming around.

It’s not a lot, and maybe not nearly enough, but I spoke with several people who were new to the IBM technologies in the last few years.  That’s a great thing, and we need to encourage more to do the same.  The only way our species can survive is if we breed more of us. :-)

In addition, I was really touched by a post by a new blogger named Monica Mora   who had always wanted to go to the conference, and this year she made it a reality. It’s a great post on the real power of “social” in our community.  I’d love to hear more of these voices in the future.

Speaking of hearing voices, one of the best things to humanize Lotusphere are the Nerd Girl Spark Ideas talks.  If you want to really get to know the kind, caring, artistic folks of our community, this is a wonderful place to start, and it’s not about our technology choices at all.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the week started with a tragedy to our Lotus family.  A Danish gentlemen named Kenneth Kjærbye passed away after a freak accident during the annual motorcycle ride that many of my friends and a co-worker partake in.  By all accounts, everyone from the police, to the motorcycle shop, to IBM were very supportive and responded warmly and wonderfully given the situation.  I could only offer my condolences, hugs and support to all of my friends who were deeply affected. They carried on with brave faces, but I know how much they were hurting.  Once again, this community came together to help however they could, and I’ve heard from the folks affected how much is was appreciated.  My thoughts are with all of you, and especially Kenneth’s family.

These are the extremes of this family.  We grieve together, and we enjoy life to the fullest together, and celebrate everything in between.  These people, you people reading this, are what makes this conference and our community special. Big virtual hugs to you all until we meet again.

By Category: Blogging, IBM Lotus, Personal Life Tags: , , , , ,

Feb 18, 2013

IBM Connect 2013 Recap – The Show {0}

At the end of January I took my annual pilgrimage to Orlando, Florida for the IBM Connect (formerly Lotusphere) conference. It’s something I’ve looked forward to every year for a decade and a half.

This year I approached it with some trepidation. I was afraid that IBM was changing it away from the conference I loved to something… well more corporate. I wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The change was pretty evident in the Opening General Session. IBM did a great job, but was showing off technologies that are more apt to the Fortune 100 than companies like mine.  In fact, I think someone said that the upcoming Notes and Domino 9 only got a total of a 56 second mention during the two plus hours.

For my team, who runs our company on XPages, based on Domino, that was kind of a bummer. However, the real travesty would have been if the technical tracks fell flat, and that couldn’t have been further from the truth. XPages had an incredibly strong showing (40+ sessions.)  The Best Practices track was as valuable as ever, and I think the content was even stronger than years prior.

Outside of the tech content, there were a lot more things offered for the pointy-haired bosses, and HR and Marketing professionals.  They are definitely offering more to bring those folks to Orlando, and that’s fine. They didn’t lose focus on the technical side despite the lack of sessions on some things like Quickr.  It makes sense as they are trying to migrate everyone to Connections, and that product continues to get even more compelling.

The conference in general made reference to Lotuspheres past with a wall of photos and a great video of highlights through the years.  The one thing they also promised to do was have a party to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Lotusphere.  This is the one IBM screwed right in the ear.

You see, our session booklets said this party was to happen on the Product showcase and it was at a time during sessions.  So if you wanted to attend, you had to skip out on content which I did.  I got to the floor and started looking around.  I found lots of other friends doing the same thing.  What did we find?  Nothing.  Well unless you count one thing of balloons and some cupcakes.

Don’t get me wrong, the cupcakes were FABULOUS, but that wasn’t really the point.  I expected an homage to the past, and kind of a passing of the torch from Lotusphere to Connect.  I skipped actual content damnit, I wanted my goodbye.  But much like we’ve felt about Notes and Domino over the years, it seemed like IBM just forgot about it.

At least on Twitter we made the “party” seem worth it, what with our piercing stations, the llamas, the live performance by Psy, and the tattoos upon nether regions.

Despite that particular shortcoming, IBM Connect seemed to maintain the things that made Lotusphere great in years past.  I really had gone into this whole process feeling that this could possibly be my last year, but when all the dust settled I felt a lot better about things.  So will I be back next year? I guess we’ll see.  One thing I would really miss is the people, and I’ll talk about that in an upcoming post.

By Category: IBM Lotus Tags: , , , ,

Goodbye Lotusphere Hello Connect

Jan 15, 2013

Goodbye Lotusphere Hello Connect {6}

The end of this month I’ll be attending a yearly technology conference in Orlando, Florida for another time. How long? Well, If I had birthed a child way back when I started attending, that kid would be in high school. It’s a long time to do anything in this world, and as with anything you do this long, change is inevitable.  Up until now, that conference had been called Lotusphere. This year, the moniker has changed to IBM Connect.

For the first time in nearly a decade I’m not working the show as press, or as a technology blogger, or as a speaker.  This year I’m just going as a customer.

It’s actually a nice thing for me.  In the recent past I’ve always had interviews, and press briefings and blogger “nachos and news” events that I had to attend.  I missed a lot of session content and even some parties because I was sequestered away in a back hotel hallway interviewing executives and writing articles and blog posts (sometimes on a deadline.)  Last year, I didn’t have writing responsibilities, but I had to speak on stage twice.

This year I just have to attend sessions and soak up all the information I can.  I still may take as many pictures as always, but I might not even write a word about the event until well after it’s over.  That’s a fairly seismic shift for me, but quite frankly I’m looking forward to it.

The event is obviously changing in other ways too.

Most notable is the fact that the Lotus branding is being deprecated and everything is now true blue IBM.  I agree with the decision on the branding point, but not seeing thousands of bumblebee backpacks will be a sad departure from years past.

In addition the conference has really expanded to include more managerial, strategy and big picture business tracks and the focus isn’t quite as strong on the technical ones any longer.  I’m wondering how this might affect it’s usefulness to myself and my team.

I’ll miss some of the people who will be absent this year too.  Some staples on stage giving sessions, and staples on stage singing karaoke at Kimono’s.  This saddens me for many reasons, not the least being that some of these people no longer make their living based on IBM software.  That means chances to see them in person are far less likely.

Lotusphere has always been a family reunion for me.  Reconnecting with the people who bled yellow and had the same passion for the software that I had.  We would talk tech, network, learn, party and become close friends.  It was the recharge I needed to kick off the year in high gear.  WE were social business long before anyone coined the term.  This year, I’m just not sure it will be the same.

That said, I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt, and reserve judgement until I’ve seen what IBM has to offer.  I just can’t help having a nagging feeling that is my last yearly trip to Orlando.

Here’s hoping I’m wrong.

By Category: IBM Lotus Tags: , ,

Oct 5, 2012

Sharepoint is the next generation of Lotus Notes {9}

I got an email from a sales rep at a company called HexaCorp in Somerset, NJ.  In my role I get emails from vendors trying to get my company’s business all the time.  Most of the time I delete them and move on.  Once in awhile I’ll respond and let them know that either we don’t need their services, or we don’t use the software they are shilling.

So this exec, let’s call her Marilyn (because that’s her name) left me a voicemail and sent me a message stating that they were a Sharepoint partner and if we were planning any Sharepoint implementations or upgrades, that they would like to help.  Instead of just deleting it, I responded so she knew she was barking up the wrong tree.

Thanks for reaching out, but we don’t use Sharepoint and have no plans to.  We are an IBM Lotus partner, and will continue down that path, thanks.

So I figured that was that.  Until I got an email just now, this was the first line:

I discussed your email with my CEO and he told me that Sharepoint is the next generation of Lotus Notes.

Yeah… okay then. First, you had to discuss with your CEO?  And THAT is what he came up with? As you can imagine, my next email wasn’t as pleasant.

Remove me from your list.

That comment shows your ignorance of an entire software industry.

Sometimes the lack of knowledge people have about the industry simply astounds me.  There are a lot of things Notes related I can bitch about, but Sharepoint is definitely not the next generation of Lotus Notes.

So Marilyn from HexaCorp in Somerset, NJ, and your willfully ignorant CEO.  You may want to do some homework.

By Category: IBM Lotus, Software Tags: , ,

Jan 31, 2012

Lotusphere 2012 Recap {0}

The Swan #ls12
I know that Lotusphere was a couple weeks ago now, but this year I decided to digest it a bit before I put it down on the page here.

The Show

This year was one of the better Lotusphere events in recent memory.  The OGS started with OKGo rocking though three songs and then Michael J Fox was our guest speaker.  The OGS continued on a fast pace with lots of demos and nothing lagging.  It was a huge departure from last year for sure, and very welcome.

The news was all mostly good.  IBM is making everything incrementally better and more connected to each other.  It’s obvious that the Lotus brand is getting sunset (even though next year it’s supposed to still be called Lotusphere) but I think that’s okay in the grand scheme.  IBM has better brand awareness now and Lotus is considered legacy by too many.

For me, the biggest things concerning the whole “social” theme were support for OpenSocial, Embedded Experiences and the Activity Stream.  I’m so used to activity streams in Twitter and Facebook and the like that I’m actually excited by the prospect of this in the business world.  I’m a fairly brutal when it comes to filtering things in real life, and for me I think it will translate well to the business world.  Also, being able to tie into other systems with OAuth and such will be very beneficial.

There were no huge announcements this year, and that’s okay.  The incremental pieces are making everything more usable which is really cool.  The only thing really “out there” was a plug in for Internet Explorer that allows your browser to natively run Lotus Notes apps.  This is fairly amazing.  Too bad it’s windows only, but I still like it.

Me Personally

This year was new for me in a different way.  Since IBM eliminated the blogger program ( how social of them :-) ), this was the first time I wasn’t attending Lotusphere as Press or as a blogger in something like six or seven years.  That means I didn’t have a full schedule of interviews and press conferences to attend.  It was actually really nice as I got to see more of Lotusphere proper than I had in years past.  That said, I did something I had never done at Lotusphere before, and that was speak.

I was on two customer panels.  One was the Customer Evangelist panel and another one was about using Social in the SMB space.  So I didn’t have to prepare like a normal speaker.  In the Evangelist panel I had five slides and five minutes to speak and on the Social panel I just had to answer questions from our panel moderator (Ed Brill) and questions from reporters in the room.

I really enjoyed both, and might actually try my hand at speaking in the future if they’ll have me.  I’ve always loved speaking at events like these, so now I just need to find something compelling enough to talk about.

The essential human element

Some of you will remember the “essential human element” as a past Lotusphere theme.  For me, that’s the theme that has always stuck, because no matter what we are doing in life, it’s our interactions with each other that matter most.  This Lotusphere was no different.  At the end of every day, I gathered with co-workers and friends to relax, talk, smoke cigars and have a few libations.

Kimonos was rather crowded this year, so we didn’t spend as much time there as in previous years, but it was still a good time when we did.  The weather was very cooperative, and sitting outdoors at tables by the Swan and Dolphin pools made for wonderful evenings.

These folks are like family to me, and I know I say that every year, but I really cherish the time I get to spend them.  This is what truly what makes Lotusphere special.  Social?  It’s nothing new.  We’ve been Social for twenty years, I’m just glad IBM finally caught up.

:-)

By Category: IBM Lotus Tags: , , ,

Jan 21, 2012

The yearly Lotusphere Bloggers Photo {0}

Lotusphere12-Bloggers
Many of these folks are like family to me.  Another Lotusphere in the can.  Miss everyone already!

By Category: Blogging, IBM Lotus

Oct 7, 2011

The Good, The Sad and the Meh {0}

This has been a rather interesting week for me from a technology perspective.

First, at the day gig, we are launching a new piece of software that effectively runs our entire business.  It’s a big change, so myself and Declan have been traveling and helping answer questions during training.  It’s the largest software launch that our company has probably ever done, and it’s all written in XPages.  Yes, XPages.

Declan has put together an incredible application and I’m very excited for it to go live.  It requires Lotus Domino 8.5.3 for some of the functionality, and lo and behold, that was released by IBM on Tuesday.

We’ve been testing 8.5.3 for quite some time, and actually wrote this application in all of the betas.  So we’re confident that 8.5.3 is going to work well, and very happy that it finally shipped. :-)   That was the good…

On that same day another company in Cupertino, California announced a product of much speculation.  The general consensus on the iPhone 4S was “meh” but it’s still a pretty damn cool phone.  I’ve already gotten floods of requests for the new device (especially since it is now on Sprint) so that’s going to take off quite a bit I think.

Lastly was the sad news of the death of Steve Jobs.  I know there have been tons of eulogies out on the web, so I don’t have too much to add other than it does make me sad to see such an innovative person leave us so young.  56 IS young folks.  And cancer… well just fuck cancer.

Anyway, think of how profoundly Steve Jobs changed everything about computing.  From creating the first truly “personal” computer to revolutionizing the phone and tablet market.  There was no smart phone market five years ago.  No portable music market ten years ago.  No real tablet market two years ago.  No app stores.  Sure these things existed in small pockets, but no one ever really got them to work, and to take off, and be as wildly successful as Apple made them.

Jobs got the music industry to sell unprotected DRM-free music.  Got movie and TV studios to rent movies digitally.  Got periodicals to create digital versions.  Hell, they even got Adobe to create tons of support for HTML 5.

Let’s not forget his time running Pixar, the most successful digital movie creator in the world.

Steve Jobs was a one of a kind individual.  And one that I admired, and try to emulate on certain levels.  It was a sad day for technology, and a sad day for me personally.

I wore a black turtleneck and jeans today.  My little way of paying homage to someone I admired.  RIP Steve, you’ve made a huge impact on me, and how I compute on a daily basis.  Thank You.

 

By Category: IBM Lotus, Technology

May 24, 2011

SSL Hell {3}

If you’re a long time reader of this blog, you are very aware that I hate the way SSL is implemented on Domino. I mean c’mon, even the logo in the management database still has the old R5 Domino logo.

Anyway, at the day gig, we have a wildcard SSL certificate to handle multiple subdomains within our main domain. That means that each domain in the *.acme.com range uses the same SSL certificate. So X.acme.com and Y.acme.com both use the same cert. Domino handles this a little weirdly itself as you require a specific IP address for each SSL subdomain, but that’s not what I ran into this week.

What happened is that we need to use that same SSL wildcard on an IIS server. So, we simply downloaded it from our registrar and tried to install it within IIS. Problem is, it didn’t work. Searching for Google info on SSL on Domino is a little sparse, so my server admin contacted the registrar to see what they thought. They said we needed to export the certificate from Domino and then import it into IIS. For some reason, you couldn’t just install it on IIS once it was already installed previously on Domino.

So, I go to the SSL database on Domino and opened our keyring for our wildcard certificate. I looked around and couldn’t find an Export function anywhere. It doesn’t exist. In addition, Domino saves your info in a keyring file with a .KYR extension which cannot be read outside of Domino. So now I was at a loss. So once again I started googling info on this and came across this post. Kevin was exporting for use in Apache, but had come across the same problem that I just had.

He found a utility from IBM called iKeyman. This utility allows you to open a Domino .KYR file, and then export it to a PKCS12 (.P12) file. Once you do that, you can use another utility called OpenSSL to convert into whatever other formats you may need. For me, IIS was happy with just the .P12 file so we were able to use that and didn’t need to bother with OpenSSL.

So now, SSL is working on IIS and Domino. A huge thanks to Kevin for his blog post. I wanted to post as well to give a little more Google juice to SSL issues you may run into with Domino, SSL and wildcards.

By Category: IBM Lotus, Technology

Apr 22, 2011

IBM Champion Program {0}

For many years we in the IBM Lotus community have thought that there should be a program that recognizes people in our community akin to the Microsoft MVP program. Well now there is. IBM recently announced the IBM Champion program. Here’s some more info:

The IBM Champion program recognizes exceptional contributors to the technical community — clients and partners who work alongside IBM to build solutions for a smarter planet. An IBM Champion is an individual who leads and mentors his or her peers and motivates them toward IBM solutions and services. Champions can be found running user groups, managing websites, speaking at conferences, answering questions in online forums, writing blogs, submitting wiki articles, sharing how-to videos, and writing technical books. The IBM Champion program recognizes and thanks these innovative thought leaders, amplifying their voice and increasing their sphere of influence in the technical community.

You can read more about it on the User Experience Community blog, or you can go directly to the site and nominate someone you believe deserves the honor. Please do, it will be nice to see some worthy community members get the recognition.

By Category: IBM Lotus

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