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Disconnecting

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IBM Connect (formerly Lotusphere) starts next weekend in sunny Orlando, Florida.  This is a tech conference I’ve attended every January for nearly the last 20 years.  I’ve attended as a developer, an admin, a speaker, the press, a blogger, and as a pointy haired boss.disconnecting

This past week has been filled with throwback photo apps showing me pictures of this day and that day in history, and every one has been brimming with pictures of this awesome yearly pilgrimage.  So many memories of really wonderful times.

This conference has meant an awful lot to me all these years.  I’ve met people from all over the world whom I will consider friends for the rest of my life.  I’ve been able to hire and work with people who were part of this community.  I’ve experienced bachelor parties, and cigar meet ups, and random dinners with folks who happened to be in the same town as me at the same time. It’s a special thing, this community.  And I’ve been thrilled to be such a part of it over the last 20 years.

So why am I not officially attending this year?  Well it really comes down to the technology.  We’re moving to Outlook and Office 365.  We will also be replacing our HR and ERP systems, and with it, some of our Domino development. Quite frankly a lot of the choices make sense, and we’ll probably have a better environment because of it.

So as IBM Technologies are fading within my place of business, so too are any valid reasons for attending Connect.

Unless I have an abrupt career change (which I’m not anticipating) I will be starting a relatively new chapter in my technology career.  It’s going to be weird, but the yellow bubble is like Hotel California.  I can check out, but I can never leave.

Nor do I want to.  I’ll still be on Twitter, Facebook, and here and I’m even taking a family vacation during Connect this year so I can stop by and see everyone.  I would miss you all if I couldn’t.

So, since my time in the bubble is coming to an end, I figure I’ll lay this out there for posterity.  It kinda seems like tooting my own horn, but it’s more for me to remember all the stuff I’ve accomplished with this technology.  I loved this tech, and it is what gave me an IT career and for that I will be forever grateful.

  • I started as a trainer, training 1700 users of a bank how to use Lotus Notes (version 3 to 4 I believe)
  • I became an admin and help desk for those 1700 users, supporting the software for everyone.
  • I became a consultant and was trained as a developer, and did work on Fortune 500 accounts
  • That same consultant gig lead me to admin work for a tech services company
  • So I was back to being an admin, and doing some dev work, and helping run an IT org
  • Then I went to my current company as an admin of all the collaboration services
  • 4 years later I took over as Manager of IT
  • The next year I became Director of IT and have been doing that for the last 7 years

In the same time span

  • I wrote professionally for Intranet Journal for 3.5 years on how to use Lotus technologies in your intranet.
  • I was a board member of Granite, the Chicago Lotus user group
  • I’ve blogged here about IBM/Lotus for over a decade
  • I had a white paper I wrote given away by a vendor at their booth at Lotusphere
  • I had a picture I took appear in every Lotusphere giveaway bag
  • I’ve spoken at Lotusphere
  • I’ve spoken at IBM Edge
  • I’ve been the official photographer of IAMLUG
  • I helped our company become a member sponsor of OpenNTF
  • I’ve been a part of several official IBM whitepapers, including writing one with John Head
  • I was one of the customer interviews for the worldwide webcast launch of Notes 9
  • I’ve had the privilege of managing and being teammates with the absolute best private company group of X-Pages developers on the market.

And as much as I have championed the technology, I wasn’t a total fanboy.  I made sure to use software that was always best for the job, not just because it had IBM branding.  A look back through my blog will attest to that.  Workplace Services Express is a very good example 🙂

That said, I owe IBM and Lotus an immense debt of gratitude.  Those companies are really responsible for me having a career and two decades full of wonderful memories and friendships. 

So thank you IBM, thank you Lotus, and thanks to all of you reading.  I hope everyone really enjoys IBM Connect this year, and I hope it goes on for decades to come.  It’s time for other people to enjoy the kind of things I have.

Anyway, I’ll still be around.  Don’t be a stranger.

ConnectED: The Good Stuff

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Okay, I know the last post seemed completely down on IBM, and mainly it was because of logistics and cheaping out on basic stuff.  It’s just that such a high bar had been set by Lotusphere in the past.  I was there when 10,000 attendees took over everything, and comparing this year to even prior down years was pretty bad.

That said there were some excellent things that came out of ConnectED.

IBM Verse

The main one is IBM Verse.  For the first time in a long time IBM has something sexy to sell, and they are actually marketing it, by name, on TV.  It’s been a long long time since that has happened, so that in and of itself is huge news.

By using analytics and Watson, they are really trying to differentiate this offering from other email systems on the market.  I think they will succeed, and hopefully this can be used to move those unhappy with Notes to the browser-based Verse.

I’ve been to a lot of briefings leading up to ConnectED, and my biggest concern all along has been the lack of support for on premises installations of Verse.  Well in Scott Souder’s session on Verse he asked the audience how many would like it on-prem, and damn near the entire audiences hands went up.  The demand is there, and they said it will happen the second half of the year.  That said, I’ll believe it when we have the code up and running in Development.

IBM also announced that they will be putting out a “freemium” model of Verse so normal consumers can use it as well.  This is going directly against the likes of Gmail, and I think it’s a pretty bold move. Not sure it will get a huge uptake, but you never know.

As excited as we all are, we do have to remember that it’s still just a browser based email client.  So I’m tempering my enthusiasm a bit, but still looking forward to getting my hands on it.

Fighting to Win

The next huge thing for me, was a story from Steve McDonagh.  Mr. McDonagh’s company was contemplating moving 40,000 users to Google Apps.  In order to avoid that, IBM had to combat Google on price, features and functionality.  Apparently IBM really stepped up to the plate and fought for it, and in the end, won.  Now it was a SmartCloud play, which is where IBM really wants you to go, so I can see why they fought so hard.  That said, it’s still heartening to see IBM really fight.

Would they fight just as hard for my 600 on premises users?  Not sure, but I’ll give them credit in this case.

The technical sessions… were technical

Even though some of them ended up full and having to turn away attendees, the consensus is that the technical content was much better than years past and had much less fluff.  Room size and scheduling were still an issue, but if you wanted good deep technical content, you could find it.  It wasn’t ALL marketing and HR speak.  I would have like liked to see a little more on the admin side but I’ll still take it.

Thanks as always to the particular track managers who fight for good content.  You know who you are.

There ARE IBMers who get it

I spoke to many truly passionate IBMers who feel the same way we do.  They hate the lack of focus on the core products, they disliked the cheap direction this years conference took, want to see IBM Verse on premises, and really want to do the right thing.  They exist and they are wonderful people, OUR people.  Hopefully they survive job cuts and can continue to fight for us.

I’ll even give props to Jeff Schick who has said many of the right things at the conference.  I just hope he can do some of them before he’s rotated out to some other division as happens all too often.

A Community Re-Energized

Some folks have talked about the energy at the conference, and it WAS really palpable.  I’m not sure if it was just everyone trying to enjoy what might be the last hurrah or what, but it was there and it was real.

That’s the thing.  I’ve been to other IBM conferences and have talked to others who attend them all the time, and I always hear and see the same thing.  There is NO other IBM community out there quite like ours.  We are actually the most social, in both the sense that we are all over social media AND all meet in the bar until it closes down.

If the OGS is bad, you’ll know immediately by the snark on Twitter.  What did people take away from the show? Read their posts on Facebook and their blogs.  Did people enjoy themselves?  Look at all the pictures on flickr and Google+.

I hope IBM sees this somehow, and actually realizes that this group of users who have grown up on Groupware, knowledge management and now social business are really the ones doing the most with the products.  Give us this type of conference, and talk about our software (Notes, Domino, Connections, Sametime, Verse etc.) and we will come, and we will spread the word.

We have ALWAYS been social, and we have always meant business.

ConnectED: Lowering the bar

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I’ve seen a lot of folks who have written up their thoughts on ConnectED, and most are fairly positive.  Me, not so much.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some good things, and I’ll get to those in another post, but my thoughts can be summed up in something I said all week.

“I came in and set the bar low, and IBM limboed right under it.”

Let’s do this as a list as well shall we?

  • Having one hotel at $299 a night, with no official alternatives and no shuttles sucked for those who might not be able to spring for $299 for a hotel.
  • Getting drink tickets with my badge was the first huge red flag that this was cost cutting in the highest degree.  They relented, only after so many people, including myself, decried the choice all over social media.
  • No pen or notepad in the bag.
  • The Sunday night reception was pathetic. They packed everyone into a small space to give the illusion of a packed house.  All we got was long lines, crappy food, and claustrophobia.  And they couldn’t spring for some standup heaters outside… ugh.
  • Having excellent technical sessions in the smallest rooms, and then turning away people once those rooms were full with no overflow and few repeats sucked. Especially when there were IBM sessions in big rooms with little to no audience.
  • There was no ConnectED signage on the speaker podiums which just seemed weird.
  • Going to an IBM presentation on the “future” of Domino only to have the first 50 minutes be rehashing what we already know doesn’t bode well for any actual future of the product.  Hell, put a bullet in the head of the Notes client for all I care, but you should really keep Domino.
  • While the OGS was better than some, there was still really no mention of the core products at all.  Sure Verse runs on an NSF and they briefly showed Connections Next, but once again I want to know more about the core.  They’ve been so bullish on Connections in the past, and now that we finally run it in house, it disappears.
  • The Tuesday night party.  I can see not being able to afford a park, and while that sucks, I thought having it at the beach might have been nice.  Winds forced it into the Dolphin N. Hemisphere Ballrooms (where lunch was held) and as a good friend of mine tweeted “It was lunch with bad lighting.”  The tables meant that people splintered into groups instead of mingling, the band was so loud when they were playing that it was hard to talk, and the food choices were minimal.  I thought the Sunday night party was bad until I went to this.
  • Scheduling still wasn’t great.  I know that’s hard to do, but there were several slots where I wanted to see multiple things, and others where there was absolutely nothing of interest.  In the past, more repeats made this an easier thing to deal with.
  • Showing up to an 8AM session where the room was still configured as a lunch room with round tables.  It had to be torn down and reconfigured, which meant a crowd standing around outside twiddling our thumbs for 15 minutes.  Then once getting in, the AV guy had a hard time getting things on the screen.  So another 15 minutes goes by.  It was brutal.  Did they not know the schedule?  I mean, it was printed on my conference guide.
  • And by the way, I missed the old conference guide that fit in the old badge holder.
  • Oh, and the snacks one afternoon were M&M’s and gummy bears in large bowls.  Apparently when they went to Staple’s for the drink tickets, they went next door to Walmart for the large bags of candy.
  • There was no IBM store that I could find.  No place to buy books, or swag or anything else.  Isn’t that something they MAKE money on?
  • The product showcase just felt so cramped to me, but it may have been better for vendors.  I’ll leave them to say what they think.
  • And yes, as petty as it is, the lack of a Pretzel Cookie was like kicking us while we were already down.  It was just a final reminder that this conference was an afterthought, a contractual obligation.

So yeah, maybe I sound all doom and gloom, but when I pay that much for a conference, and pay that much for a hotel, I have some expectations.  And to me, a lot of those really just fell short.  There WERE some good things, and I’ll talk to those in another post.

I guess it comes down to this.  As another friend said “If you are going to do this conference, do it right, or make it something else.”  I agree.  It can be something else, and somewhere else, as long as I can meet once a year with the people I love in this community.  Despite the IBM blunders, I did enjoy myself and learned quite a bit.  More on that soon.

Lotusphere: Thanks for the Memories

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theendmediumOn my last day in Orlando this week, I took a walk around the lake, the boardwalk, the beach and the Dolphin and Swan hotels.  I just wanted to take it all in again, one last time.

Myself and many of my friends have been migrating south every January for nearly twenty years to gather as a community, learn, network, and see each other in real life.  It’s been an awesome ride, but Lotusphere as we know it in Orlando, is probably finished.  Since that’s the case, that walk brought back a ton of memories, and so I thought I would share many of them, in no particular order.

  • Hating the Wild World of Sports as a closing party, but LOVING the Brian Setzer Orchestra
  • Going to the first several Lotuspheres not knowing anyone and keeping to myself.
  • Finally engaging online at Scott “The Turtle” Wenzel’s Totally Gonzo Unofficial Lotusphere page, and talking with a lot of folks online.
  • Going to that first ESPN party and meeting Scott in person and having him introduce me to many folks including Wes Morgan and Bill Buchan.
  • On that fateful night, matching my friend Bill drink for drink.  The next morning I had one of the worst hangovers of my life.  Vomiting, dry heaves, splitting headache.  When I finally was well enough to hit the Sunday afternoon sessions, I ran into Bill, and he was just peachy.  In tip top shape.  I learned my lesson to never try to match him again.
  • Meeting John Head for the first time when he saved a seat in the front row for me to attend one of his sessions.
  • Meeting this young Irish lad who had built the template everyone was running their blog on, Blogsphere.  His name was Declan Lynch and to this day he is an incredible friend, and for some time now, also an incredible coworker.
  • Being introduced to Jaegermeister and Red Bull by Ms. Terri Sciolla.
  • Meeting and partying with Devin Olson, only to sit next to him the next day and not recognizing him because he had shaved off the full beard he had the night before.
  • Enjoying the birthdays during the event of Liz (Olsen) Novak, Wild Bill, Terri Sciolla and most recently Dr. Marky Roden.
  • Having people like Andrew Kelly and Sean (and Rhonda) Harris appear for the week of Lotusphere only to disappear again until the following year.
  • Having Paul Mooney talk a pretty, young SeaWorld employee out of her lighted nightstick by offering her a kiss, and then having my wife hide it in her clothing as an accomplice to get it out of the park.  Then seeing Paul use it the next day during his session.
  • The epic mini-bar theft incident
  • All of the BALD dinners.
  • Singing karaoke for the first time in my life at Kimono’s with a bunch of support from my friends, including Julian Robichaux who sat at my feet like a groupie.  I sang Desperado by the Eagles.
  • Seeing Matt “White Chocolate” Stratton belt out Rapper’s Delight and other songs with ease on stage.
  • Never being able to finish a duet on stage with Jess Stratton because we would always break out laughing.
  • Meeting Jess for the first time and we were both wearing our “I’m blogging this” t-shirts.
  • Doing “Summer Loving” with Kristina “U-Turn” Festa.
  • Singing “If I Had $1,000,000” with Rob McDonagh or Ray Bilyk every year.
  • Hanging out with Rob, and the super hero duo of Genelle “Lady Buttcheeks” Hung and U-Turn.
  • Bonding over our love of cigars with John “Angry Johnny” Noltensmeyer, Rob and Francie.
  • Way too much sake with Paul Mooney and Devin Olson.
  • Closing Kimono’s, continuing to drink in Paul’s room until about 6 in morning, then all going directly to a 7:30AM blogger BOF while still drunk.  I honestly have no recollection of going, but I was told I spoke, was coherent, and made good points.
  • Covering Lotusphere as press.
  • Asking my friend Volker for advice on how to properly act as press at the event.  He imparted a lot of knowledge on me, and for that I am grateful. 
  • Covering the event as one of the blogging community.  Including the one year with yellow beanbag chairs.
  • Speaking at Lotusphere will always be a highlight.
  • The year a certain analyst was there and we all wore our “I’m a Sicko” badges and let her know it every time she turned around.
  • Dancing and playing pool at the old Copa Banana.  This is also where I first met Mr. Chris Miller.
  • Being in awe at the expertise of Gab Davis and Andrew Pollack.  I used to think I knew administration, and watching their sessions made me know I had a lot more to learn.
  • Meeting, hanging out with, and now being able to call both Gab and Andrew friends.
  • Seeing Worst Practices for the first time.
  • Walking out of my hotel room and walking directly into the chest of John Cleese. 
  • Meeting Stephen Wright in between the Dolphin and the Swan and getting a selfie with him (before anyone called them selfies)
  • Seeing Francis Ford Coppola, Walter Cronkite, Neil Armstrong, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Alton Brown, William Shatner, Kevin Spacey, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Jim Gaffigan, OK Go, American Authors, They Might Be Giants, Blue Man Group and others over the years.
  • All of the Sunday night reception parties around the beach.
  • Having an entire Disney or Universal park to ourselves each Wednesday night party.
  • Mat Newman hugs
  • The alcoholic milkshakes at the Penumbra social.
  • The Great Geek Challenge
  • The very personal and moving Spark talks put on by the nerd girls.
  • The year of ten thousand attendees and people selling badges on EBay for exorbitant amounts.
  • Having the NFL playoffs happen during the conference for several years, and seeing my friends Mitch and Rob very happy as a result.
  • The first community photo.
  • The first time we were allowed to take that photo on the main stage.
  • Meeting so many excellent Loti/IBMers who truly got the platform and what social meant.  Sorry that IBM didn’t quite share your passion.
  • Hanging out with Paul Steel, and seeing the Blackberry Playbook before anyone knew what it was.  Over cigars, on the beach, of course.
  • The Swan boat races.
  • Closing down Kimono’s, Closing down the Dolphin bar, and hanging out in the Dolphin rotunda until far too early in the morning.
  • UK Night.  And having to get by the bouncers of Big Tone and Carl.
  • Hanging out with Julian Woodward.  We are far too alike and get into far too much trouble when together.  It’s probably safer for mankind that for most of the year, there is an ocean between us.
  • Going to Las Vegas immediately after Lotusphere for Project Drunken Leprechaun.
  • Never winning a thing in the damn product showcase 🙂
  • Mai Tai Night put on my Joe and Bill (and hosted by Dec and Terri for the last few years)
  • The awesome Lotus Developer Co-Op giveaways from the likes of Mark, Julian, Matt and Ben.
  • Seeing my close friend Kathy Brown go from hiding in her hotel room to being one of the most respected speakers around, and an IBM Champion.
  • Seeing my coworker Mike McGarel start to bloom at Lotusphere Idol.  He’s now spoken, helps to put together MWLUG, and is also an IBM Champion!
  • JamFest and rocking out on stage with so many talented musicians including Red Box.
  • Getting to meet so many people I interact with online in person.  Too many people to name, and I’m sure I’ll forget some folks, so know that if you are reading this, you are on the list.
  • The first time someone recognized me from this blog.  It floors me every single time, and happened several times this year, although this year was mainly due to Twitter.
  • Sitting out on the lawn with out boxed lunch on the final day, and enjoying the sun with our friends for the final time that week.
  • Yes, the pretzel cookie.

I’ve been very very longwinded with this post, and I could probably go on for many pages more and name so many additional people.  I truly love this community, and I love you people.  This community has helped me put food on the table, and progress my career in ways I could have never imagined.

Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for sharing these memories with me.  They are deeply ingrained part of me and always will be.  And even though this particular event may not live on, we will cross paths again, I guarantee it.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

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We’re the subject of an IBM Whitepaper

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It’s been a long time in the making, but myself and the company I work for are the subject of an IBM Whitepaper: IBM Notes and Domino Applications: A Road Map for Modernization using IBM XPages.  I’d like to thank John Head and PSC Group for their work on this whitepaper as well, and thanks to IBM for getting us involved.

Lastly, I’d like to thank my development team at work.  They are some of the best in the business, and their hard work is what drives us.  It’s easy to look good when you have an excellent team.  Thank You.

BoxWorks 2014 Recap

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BoxWorks iPhone AppAs a person who has worked for a long time in the IBM Software space, I’ve been to a ton of IBM conferences. This past week, I decided to get out of my comfort zone and go to BoxWorks, the conference for box.com.

For those unfamiliar, box.com is a cloud-based secure enterprise file sharing and collaboration service. It’s a new hip company that’s been kind of an analyst darling as of late. I brought it into our organization a couple years ago now, and usage has grown quicker than anything else I’ve ever worked with. My rep has been bugging me to go to the conference for the last couple years, so I finally said yes and made the trip along with 5800 others to Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Out of the gate BoxWorks felt very techie. I walked in the door and was pointed to a bank of iPads. I entered my email address and they printed my badge on-demand. I was just handed the badge and lanyard. It included a very brief printed schedule and $100 worth of credit in the Box store.

I really liked not being given a bag that I may or may not use. I was able to go to the store and choose from hats, shirts, bluetooth speakers, chargers, books, mugs and pens. It was a nice way to get some swag, but to choose exactly what I wanted. It was different and nice touch.

The schedule was unnecessary because the BoxWorks app was so good. It let you choose your schedule, get push notifications to remind you when sessions were about to start, it gave you info on each speaker, sponsor and more. They did the app right and I lived in it the whole show.

The opening keynote brought CEO and co-founder Aaron Levie on stage. He’s a young, goofy, charismatic leader of the company. He wore a suit, with bright blue tennis shoes and socks with the clouds from Mario Brothers on them. Being a cloud company, it was a funny touch.

The thing that really stood out, is that you know this company is his baby. And he’s passionate about his baby. It’s not like the IBM cycle of putting an executive in “Lotus” purgatory for a couple years before they move them on. Don’t get me wrong, IBM Social Software has had some great leaders over the years, but that post was never a destination for any of them, it was a stepping stone along the way. I think it’s a completely different animal when you have a leader that is so deeply engaged.

He did a great job interviewing Jeffrey Katzenberg of DreamWorks and then academy award winning Jared Leto of movies and music (30 Seconds to Mars) fame. Both claimed to use Box heavily and loved working with the company. Leto even let his Oscar travel through the audience so people up front could get selfies with it. Pretty cool move. I spoke to several folks who said Jared was truly a big fan, and had shown up to several events and even lunch at Box on occasion.

The theme of the interviews were about leading and being entrepreneurial. In fact those were the themes all week. Every single keynote touched on leadership, and with speakers like Andrew McAfee, Jim Collins and Jeff Weiner, they definitely knew what they were talking about. I always came away from those sessions inspired and ready for action. I thought that was an excellent tactic, and something you could tell that Box was really passionate about.

There were technical sessions as well, and those were also very good. That said, as a pointy-haired boss, I connected more with the leadership messages along the way.

Now even though box.com is a huge silicone valley darling right now and I love the product, their new announcements were a tad funny to me. They announced a workflow engine for document routing and approval, and they also announced enhanced metadata.

The metadata were nothing more than forms with drop downs like Notes has had for two decades. And well, workflow was something we’ve done with Notes since its inception too. That said, the crowd loved them. It was like they were the best features ever created. It was, for someone like me, really bizarre.

Here’s the thing though. We’ve known forever how great using forms and workflow is. And box.com is not going to do anything that much better than Notes. The difference is marketing, plain and simple. Box did one thing brilliantly in its secure file sharing and is now adding things to enhance the experience. And they tout each advance, and show how useful it is. You see articles about box.com everywhere, and advertising where it makes sense. And they integrate with everything they possibly can. They play nice. Hell, there’s even a box.com widget for Connections.

They also have salespeople who actively sell it rather than alternatives, but that’s a whole other blog post.

Anyway, what is old is new again. And it makes me wonder what could have been, or what could still be if IBM really put some muscle behind Notes and Domino. But they haven’t, and they won’t, and that’s definitely sad.

It was definitely cool to see how a hip young startup does a conference, and IBM could certainly learn a thing or two. BoxWorks might be on my agenda every year. We’ll see.

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Some other beginning’s end…

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I spent the past week at a conference in Orlando Florida like I have fifteen times prior.  IBM Connect (Lotusphere until last year) is an IT conference that focuses on IBM software and technologies.  It’s been a place where I’ve networked, met lifelong friends, learned all about the software that manages our business, engaged with IBM and had some fun along the way.

I think this might be the last time I’ll make the trip.

Don’t get me wrong, I thought the conference was great this year for the most part.  Having a host (Jay Baer) run the keynotes helped keep things moving.  Online a-lister Veronica Belmont hosted a bunch of events in the social cafe, and that was excellent as well.  American Authors opened the show and rocked the house, Seth Meyers shared some laughs with us, and Scott Adams of Dilbert fame gave a great session as well.  It wrapped up with a really inspiring session from NASA’s Dave Lavery and how the Mars Curiosity Rover came to be.

All of those things were awesome, but didn’t really speak to my business needs.

The opening general session showed a fake bank increase its fake profits with its fake website.  And while for a demo that’s fine, I would have really liked to have seen something demoed from an actual customer.  Call me crazy, but nothing ever works as well as the pie in the sky demos.  Seeing real world use would have made me happier.

And you could tell the old time Notes and Domino crowd hungered for something more tangible.  Hell, when the loudest cheers came for the brief time Ron Sebastian graced the screen, I don’t think that bodes well for your demo.

Next was yet another re-branding.  We’ve been through this before, and I don’t have a huge problem with it, but I really wish IBM would pick an angle and stick with it.  Changing Sametime’s name back in the day worked out so well, why don’t we try it again?  So it will be Connections Chat, Connections Meetings, Connections Mail… and will Connections be Connections Connections?  Is there a Connections Notes?  A Connections Domino?  It wasn’t as clear as it needed to be, and I bet downloading software from Partnerworld will now be so much easier right?  Right?

Next, let’s get to the technical tracks.  I saw a lot of really great stuff, and two of my team presented this year.  That said, my staff could really teach a lot of the XPages classes themselves, so I’m not sure those help us that much when considering paying again for another year.  I know I’m blessed with a particularly excellent team, so other companies probably get a lot more out of those classes.

In past years, almost every timeslot required a decision as to what session to attend.  Sometimes you could find three or four you wanted to see.  It was much easier last year to choose slots, and this year it was particularly trivial.  Other than a few minor exceptions I only had one session that would really stand out to me.  In fact there were several timeslots that didn’t require my attention at all.  I’m just afraid that the technical classes will continue to dwindle, and the HR, marketing and other Kenexa type stuff will slowly take over.  I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

One of the reasons I doubt it were rumors of long time folks responsible for the show stepping aside after this year.  I also spoke to several speakers who said they were done as well.  And these weren’t small name draws either.  People whose sessions you may have attended for years might not make the trip next year.  I just expect that after this year, there will be a precipitous drop off in the amount of things I want to see.

And you know what, that’s okay.  Things change over time, and I’m not really that upset.  Maybe it’s me growing up, the hair getting pointier, or simply getting old.  But I had a great week, and it seems like a great time to move on.

It’s not that we are moving on from IBM Technologies.  Far from it.  We just put in Connections, and will look to roll that out by mid-summer.  We already have Sametime 9 (Er, Connections Chat) in place.  Our business runs on XPages apps on Domino.  All of our mobile devices connect via Traveler.  I’m really interested in the new IBM Connections mail that was shown off (as soon as it’s available on premises.)  So we’re still very much an IBM shop, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.

All in all, I felt that is was a very nice IBM Connect.  I learned a lot, was entertained and got to hang out with people who are genuinely like family to me.  I love this community of people and always will, but the community isn’t tied to one event, or one location, or one week throughout the year.  These friendships will survive whether or not we all migrate to Orlando once a year.  With all the good memories I’ve had of this conference, I’m going out on a high note, and these sixteen years will always be an awesome memory.

Like Semisonic says “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

Indeed.

*I completely reserve the right to change my mind and go again next year, but I don’t think I will 🙂

#ThanksBruce for your work at OpenNTF

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SaveYourHairToday my good friend Bruce Elgort ends his tenure as president of OpenNTF.  For those not in the Notes community, OpenNTF.org is a repository of open source software solutions for IBM Notes and Domino.  These free software offerings have helped thousands of people and companies implement great solutions, and inspired many developers to learn techniques for programming for the platform.

This community would not be where it is today without Bruce.  His enthusiasm and dedication have really helped keep OpenNTF afloat and in the public eye for many many years.  He deserves every bit of praise he’s getting from all over the world today.

Thanks again for all of the hard work my friend.  Don’t be a stranger 🙂

The Ongoing Notes “Legacy” problem

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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.

bloggerhodgman

IBM Connect 2013 Recap – The People

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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.

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