Engage 2026, the Year of AI and my session

 There were 11 AI sessions out of about 70, not including roadmap or sponsor/commercial sessions.

I figure in a year or 2 we won't be saying AI and just, look what I built.

Thank you to everyone who messaged me asking where I was hiding. It wasn't my intention to miss the event, but I did not make it.

Instead, I was live from my apartment, doing my session. What may have been a first for Engage, a solo session done remotely!

Due to my flight travel plans being interrupted and changed a few times, it became clear I may not even get to Engage until after my session would have started, and have to stay a day later, but leave much earlier, and this caused quite a few issues, which I discussed with Kris and reluctantly had to give up trying to attend.

Kris said he would hold my space in case things changed for the better, but alas, that was not the case.

However, he said we could try to do it remotely. Webinar mode basically. 

Thanks, Kris and Tom, for the chance and possibility!

I agreed we could try it, not expecting much or even how we would do it, so I labored on with my slides.

I asked the OpennNTF Board, which I am part of, if we could use our webinar meeting app and if someone could connect everything in Ghent.

The Board agreed, and it was game on.

Roberto was very helpful in getting it all set up, Thank you Roberto! I had presumed I would lose 5-10 minutes with setup and adjusted my session accordingly. It was only 7 minutes.

My next thought was, why would anyone come to my session, knowing I wasn't there to give it?

Turns out, about 15-20 people ventured into the room, and I think they were surprised by what they saw and heard.

Full deck is here: https://speakerdeck.com/kbmsg/ai-making-admin-and-users-lives-better

My session was supposed to be on AI tools/apps that anyone had created to help users and admins. To get people thinking more practically about what could be done.

Along the way, I discussed why citizen developers who leverage AI, or anything, don't exist as they did 25 or even 10 years ago.

With locked down browsers and IT blocking changes to applications, let alone updates, and the lack of a Domino Designer client installed (even though it is no longer an extra charge), it is just not easy for users, or even shadow it, to create anything, let alone use it. You can read more about this on page 8 of my slides.

But we admins and developers are not as constrained, aside from browser lockdowns.

I had hoped, had I been at Engage, to go to the Monday HCL workshop on vibe coding. There was also Bernd's session on Tuesday around the advances his company has made, which I looked forward to for his insights. Then there was Dominic's session on Wednesday, also aimed at Admins and AI, which, if I had read all the sessions in advance, I would have tried to compare notes earlier. To be fair, I often don't get around to reviewing the agenda until the week before the event.

I work with some entities that I am not allowed to post about, which explains my dearth of blog posts. But that doesn't stop me from creating things I need to work with in their environments.

My main point of the session was to show a script(LotusScript, server commands, Java, and formulas) building tool for Domino admins. I am not a developer, although I can edit existing code and make things do what I want. When it comes to doing it from scratch, I am useless.

Enter AI, and I said, " I bet I could create something to make my life and other admins ' lives better".

I give you my Domino Script AI Tool.

You can go use it here: https://kbmsg.github.io/domino-scripts/

Or pull it from my GitHub: https://github.com/kbmsg/domino-scripts

The slide deck discusses some of the templates and what it does; the GitHub site provides more details and how to start using it.

I built it to work with Claude.ai, and feedback already asked that I let Ollama be used too.

I started the ollama config, but it is not quite working. If you see it say v66 or newer and followed by Ollama works, like it says just now, you are good to go!

Domino Script AI v64

This will be posted to https://OpenNTF.org as well.

AI vibe coding is literally like building your parachute after you jump out of a plane. Sure, you get most of it right, but that last 10% is the problem, and it takes time.

But, and this is a huge but, if I tried to do this from scratch, it would take me days and days. While I am on iteration 65 or so, all together it took only a few hours to get here, but stretched out over a few days, giving time, resources, and work.

If you have ideas for me to include, feel free to comment here or via GitHub or the OpenNTF Discord channels. 

PS - If you are in a licensing situation and need to sort the CCB vs CCX people, you may want to try the Dump ACL to CSV template. As discussed on page 16 in my slides.

My IQ has gone up thanks to Engage

Engage just finished. The first one is under new management, and it is in safe hands.

I don't think I have ever seen Theo so happy with a big grin on his face the whole time. Tom and Kris did really well for their first time out. And they told us next year Engage will be in Belgium.

I had to miss last year's due to the timing and circumstances of the war at home, so it was great to talk to everyone. Thank you all for asking about the situation and the family. It means a lot.

The star attraction was Domino IQ, which adds AI to the core product. As an Admin, all I can say about this is that you will need to spend time building this out properly if you want to move beyond the basic regurgitation of your knowledge base or other internal documents. Also, IQ needs some extra hardware and configuration, so be prepared and read the what's new and requirements docs. Your developers will be busy.

It will be available starting with v14.5, which is coming out June 17! IQ is part of your license if you are under CCB Term(I believe). If you are a perpetual license org, this is your incentive to change licensing plans.

I was happy to see friends from past Engage shows, and in some cases people I hadn't seen in many years. Yes, we all got older, but we still have fun together.

There was a tease of Notes.Next but it is far from prime time ready so don't ask about it yet.

Roadmap sessions were broad with partial timelines for new items.

One thing that also stood out is the added accessibility to all the products which need to be up to certain laws soon and so that is taking over a lot of dev time.

As an Admin, I want to let everyone know to go get Cormac's slides from his session. His session was filled with great ideas and details about cleaning up your administrative items, and as he said, even old admins can learn something new, which I did about SMTP failover routing.

His blog is here, and hopefully, he will post his slides there or at the Engage website.

Lastly, the Lotus brand might return for at least one product. Or not. While this was from Richard Jefts' opening keynote, later on, other HClers implied the name may not stay.
I will leave the debate about the brand to others, as both sides of the argument have their validity.

I was also in some partner/ambassador/HCL Roundtable sessions, which I can't say much about, but there are plans that will help the partners in the long run, which in turn will help you, the customers.

I think my own session scared a lot of people, but I hope it also helped them rethink how they and their teams interact with upper management and budget committees. My slides will not be posted, and I don't publish my Competitive Intelligence info. I will probably make a second blog post about it over the weekend.

Safe travels home everyone, talk to you soon or see you, at least virtually, some time soon.

Engage Recap

I can't even begin to tell you all the things we saw and learned, and that was before Engage even started,

Highlights include:

Forgot to add this: Restyle. It will update your old Domino applications appearance and give it a modern look in minutes! Totally cool!

1. Project Keep is back
2. R13.0 is a 2024 thing, with 12.02 being out by Q4-22 and 12.03(or maybe 13 if they change their mind) in 2023.
3. The designer client is getting redone(no idea what that means) for the 2023 time frame,
4. When I asked about the admin client, it was missing from Barry Rosen's slide. I got some interesting answers, so something is brewing, but no date is planned, so think R13. For that keeping score, Tim Clark is PM for Admin client.
5. 12.02 I think they said they will have Busytime lookups for O365 invitees, maybe 12.03, either way, this is great and needed by everyone.
6. More DKIM and SPF, and DMARC parts are coming soon.
7. Verse 3.0 is out soon(June). Less iNotes more purposeful built things in it. Read the Read me file as Agnes said, Beta for Verse means something is included but not default turned on. So check it out and RTFM.
8. HCL VOLT MX GO was announced to help customers connect more parts of their world to Domino and vice versa. Jason Gary did a pitch about the name at Engage. If you remember the 90s/00s when we had Domino Go Server and similar things, you get what this is about.
9. Verse mobile is the Traveler client. Confusing? Yes, is it going to be changed? No.
10. In my session, half the room was already on R12, and I would think many of the customers that attended were as well.
11. Sametime 12 is available. It only runs in a container.
12. HCL is pushing out ALL the 3 tiers of languages on the GA dates, unlike IBM, which made everyone wat 30/60/90 days. 
13. Certifications and HCL Training are coming back, Luis Guirigay's slides should be reviewed for more details. Engage will be posting the slide decks shortly.
14. Talk about having a by default ODS update built into the client when you install it.
15. The ability to swap who is sending the email is getting enhanced further. 
16. Just a reminder, 12.01 had a names.nsf template update you want to use, especially if you are working on a TOTP plan.
17. Nomad will not require Safelinx any longer, thanks to the dev team that said "we can do this" and they did!
18. Chocolate is good, free chocolate is better, but free beer is the best.

I went into the event relatively neutral but left very upbeat and impressed by HCL and what they are saying and showing. While I may disagree with the dev first mentality, I am, after all, a long-time (29 years?!) messaging and an admin person.

If you do not go to these types of events, where everyone from Richard Jefts down to the sales and tech staff is accessible, you are missing out on having yourself heard.

My time with Richard, was really insightful. Then again, so were my discussions with Barry, Andrew, Scott, Michael, Luis, and many more people, even the great Gareth Cook of the iNotes Redirector fame.

Thank you to Theo and Hilde for once again putting on a great event and making everyone feel comfortable and happy to be part of the extended Yellowverse family.

Lastly,  I want to thank Martin Vogel for presenting with me. It was his first time presenting at Engage and his first time presenting in English. He nailed it. I will be posting our tips over the next few weeks because Slideshare no longer works the way it used to, and some of the tips should be searchable and not hidden in a presentation.

Domino Administration Wizardry - Dark Arts Edition

Here are the slides to my session I just completed at the Engage conference.

This session was and is aimed at junior admins that need to find better, faster ways to do some redundant tasks.

If you have any questions just ask me. The code used is not perfect and alternative options do exist but for an admin with little to no development knowledge, I hope this saves you time and provides reasons for your users, and manager, to love you even more.

Domino Administration Wizardry - Dark Arts Edition from Keith Brooks

Will I See You at Engage for my Session?

For the 3rd time in 3 years I will be presenting at the great Engage conference.

Together with 400 attendees, I will be one of the 38 HCL Masters speaking at the event.

This time I am extending even more Domino Administration fun culled from real life every day client headaches surprises by incorporating some LotusScript code and other bits of development to make your daily admin lives better, faster, easier so you can get to the free beer at Engage quicker.

Tuesday, March 3 13:30 - 14:30 Room G: Knoefzaal

Ad09. Domino Administration Wizardry - Dark Arts Class

Bring your wands(laptops) and let's create some magic (scripts, code) so you can go home a 1st class Wizard. 

ALL code discussed, and shown, will be made available in the slides so even if you are a nascent developer like me, you can do this too, no prior coding knowledge is required, but you will need the Designer Client for some items.

Go signup and attend this annual conference that leaves you wanting more every time. 

If you want need to graduate and need me to issue O.W.L Domino Certificates, let me know in the comments or via social media and I will see what Hermione can conjure up for you so you can prove your completed the course.

HCL Masters for 2020 Unite

Woke up this morning to a message that I was selected to be an HCL Master for 2020, along with over 100 other people around the world that believe in a product line that many think disappeared years ago.

It is alive and looking forward again instead of the rear view mirror.

Thank you to everyone who voted on my behalf, whoever you are, wherever you are, that you thought I was, or am, on the right track.

Guess I need to do some work for 2020.

See you all at Engage 2020 if not sooner in our travels.

Engage 2019, We Came, We Saw, We Heard

I went to Brussels last week for the excellent conference Engage, run by Theo and Hilde with a supporting cast of dozens. Thank you for an excellent event and Dinners!

Not only was I speaking, I was looking forward to the discussions with the HCL team and seeing friends and meeting new ones in person, and learn a few things along the way.

Fitting to have the event at Auto World in Brussels. 100s of cars on display and names you recognize, many you would not, and that amazing smell of leather, wood, oil and gasoline. The same way some brands are long gone, while others have stayed with us for over a 100 years, so it is with Lotus, a part of IBM and now with HCL. Those that find their community, live long, and prosper.

Had to get the Vette photo

Ferrari Featured in my session

I love the Amphibian Cars

Lotus Yellow

Rolls Royce Silver Ghost Internal Technology Awesomeness

I spoke on Wednesday about the need for an affinity to one’s software and/or hardware solutions inside your company. Why does one need such affinity? Because the more we love something the harder it is to let it go. I gave the following example, while it is true many people lease a car and get a different one every 2-3 years, others will do anything they can to get their car of their dreams.

And you know what they do once they get that car?

They never let it go, they don’t exchange it, they keep it for a long time.

And this is where we are today, as we await the handover from IBM to HCL of the Lotus portfolio.

We heard, and saw, at Engage from HCL some details about versions 10 and 11 of Notes, Domino, Sametime, Traveler and updates on Connections and new products like LEAP.

I was in a few Domino administrator sessions, one from IBM Lifetime Champion GabDavis doing the 60 admin tips in 60 minutes and the other to close the show, Ben Menesi of Ytria and Christoph Adler’s (https://www.panagenda.com/) own session "New Domino Admin Features Sure to Spark a Lasting Love Affair with Domino 10 and 11". 

I learned or relearned about some items, no one can know and remember everything.

I strongly suggest you download both presentations once Theo posts them on the Engage.ug site.

My session on Tuesday included this Engage Jeopardy Edition of user complaints and how to deal with them. 

1 slide, the rest was a discussion

The session was not about how to solve the issues but how to work with your customers/users because we, as Business Partners or internal IT staff, are the ones that help shape and work with the affinity I mentioned above. If we do not take the time to spread the love, the end users really will not do it.

Luis Suarez also of Panagenda, put it quite well in his Community presentation when he said “communities are voluntarily started by people who find a common interest, not because management told someone to create a community” (Sorry Luis, I paraphrased).

Me and some cars from the room I presented my session

As I said in my session on Wednesday, if we do our jobs properly, and encourage people to feel empowered to use these products, we may see the reborn Phoenix rise again.

If we can help end users not see these products as something required by management, but instead tools to help them accomplish and see the great benefits to them individually such as time, data, accountability, and awareness then we have done our jobs well.

A different session I was in, again by Gab Davis, was comparing and contrasting Domino to Exchange. I have no doubt that Gab spent a lot of effort and time to reach a level of that session that was unbiased and educational to those of us that attended it.

A key point she raised was Exchange has many options for the user’s world, while Domino has many options for the Admins world. There were other points raised about the differences in logs and how to read them or find them, along with other areas that portray Domino in a bright light from an Admins view.

The Roundtables I sat in on were related to Verse on Premises, mobile, future template update ideas and the future HCL Masters and Grandmasters program, which is what some of us may become in the future now that we will not be IBM Champions.

Libby Ingrassia was in Brussels as well and reminded us, and I am letting you all know, that we all could be IBM Champions still just in a different area of IBM. Something to keep in mind for those of you that have already extended your wings to cover other solutions.

The sponsors included the usual suspects and I was intrigued by CYONE and their monitoring solution which they are giving a piece of it away for free and I look forward to testing it and possibly leveraging it with clients that I manage.

Lastly, I was the winner of one of the raffle items at the close of Engage. The OnTime team gave away a Bell and Olufsen H9i headphones and they are amazing! Thanks Jens and team! 

By the way, they have a new module out for OnTime that includes catering options for your Rooms and Resources, something which I think everyone would benefit from in their organizations, just ask your Administrative Assistants.

That’s it for me, hope to see some of you at Hogne’s ISBG event in Stockholm in June.

Shout IT Out Loud and The Engage Jeopardy Slide

My session from Engage has been posted to my Slideshare account.

We talked about creating an Affinity for our products with the customers and end users of our customers. It was a continuation of the previous day session I ran on Dealing with End Users

Shout IT Out loud from Keith Brooks

Working with customers we need to keep the end goal in mind, even when they ask any of these questions

Next Week at Engage, Let's Talk About...

Engage is back, after last year's excellent event in Rotterdam, at the SS Rotterdam and my personal highlight, The Pinball Museum, Theo brings us to Brussels to AutoWorld.

I arrive Sunday and stay until Thursday so I am rested up for the event.

I will be looking for the mythical export only Corvette, a few exist, but I digress.

Naturally everyone wants to hear and see from the HCL team what is coming and how the new world will look in a few months. Hint, Yellow is big, HUGE, again.

For the rest of us, business as usual, we have customers, clients and management executives that need help, now, and with that in mind, I have been given the chance to present two sessions aimed at those of you in support or in need of some winning strategies to keep your Domino network.

On Tuesday 1:30-2:30 pm I will present, User Complaints and How to Deal With Them

I have put together a list/chart of the most common complaints and how to handle them. While you may scoff, in watching enough customers hep desk teams upset customers even more, maybe this session is what you need to see, hear and do more of. Just sayin'.

On Wednesday 2-2:30 pm I will present, Shout It out Loud

Guerilla marketing strategies for you to use against your incoming management and immediate manager, especially around annual reviews and "why do we use this Notes thing" commonly said by incoming executives. Theo suggested I provide tequila to encourage attendance, I prefer to think if you like your job, and want to keep it, you will show up. Let me know which is more important in the comments or via social media.

As always I will be available for anyone that wants to have discussions about admin things or how to compete against Microsoft, Google, and SalesForce or if you prefer how to integrate everyone.

Collaborate on a Boat! Come to Engage in Rotterdam With Me

The best way to start your summer vacation is to attend Theo's #1 European Lotus/ICS event. (Click on the picture to go to the website)

As the sign says, I will be speaking at Engage and I hope to see you there.

About my session:

ADM09 - "Pointing Fingers? DDM to the RescueWednesday, May 23 | 09:00 - 10:00 | B. Guadaloupe
Cloud Hybrid? Mixed domains? Gmail, Microsoft and Notes coexisting? Domino DDM (Domino Domain Monitoring) to the rescue. Ok, maybe not rescue, but at least you will know who is down and what service is downBEFORE your users. Old School gets a new lease on life, or for those who never use it, this is your chance to learn about it.

Look forward to seeing you there as well as numerous IBM Champions like myself that are presenting and attending.