Conference Season is Picking Up

I have been a bit out of the loop the last 4-6 weeks but for those who have been in the know, there are many conferences, especially IBM ones, over the next few months.

Some are asking for abstracts. Hint, hint.

MWLUG in Grand Rapids NEXT WEEK, August 27-29

ICON UK September 12th in London

Social Connections VII in Stockholm November 13-14 (abstracts due by end of August)

DanNotes November 20-21 in Korsør (abstracts due by end of August)

2015

Lotusphere/IBM Connect/ IBM ConnectED in Orlando January 25-28 (Abstracts not open yet)

IBM Impulse/IBM Innovate/IBM Pulse/ IBM Interconnect in Las Vegas February 22-26 (Abstracts due by Sept 26)

No doubt I missed a few but feel free to let me know and I will add them.

See you out there...somewhere...soon.

MWLUG Report

It has been 2 years since I attended and presented at MWLUG and I have missed it. The core group of about 200 customers that can just drive over for the event and the vendors and partners and IBMers that fly in all come for the same reason, the community and knowledge.

And beer.

Beer is a big part of MWLUG and always has been, probably because the idea was hatched while the founders were having one. Isn't that when the best ideas are devised?

The event location was the old Union Station filled with beautiful architectural reminders of an era long gone. The stained glass window is from the North facing window of the main room which used to be the entrance to the station.

Sadly, I missed the opportunity to go to the Indianapolis Speedway tour but waved to everyone from my flight above the track.

Saw friends, both near and far, and even some customers who knew me when they were business partners and consultants.

The first day I got in late and missed the classes going on but did pop in to fellow IBM Champion  Bill Malchilsky's session on Linux enablement which if you want Linux or need it or are thinking about it, Bill is your man.

We made our way to the first evening event, the microbrew tasting. Which knowing some of the people involved would produce some interesting ideas. You can see the mix of offerrings from this picture I took.

The winner turned out to be a distributor of someone else's finest but that did not stop everyone from having a great time.

We then moved to the main room where we had the event sponsors peddling their wares and we had time to chat up customers and friends.

Thursday morning found us eagerly awaiting the OGS where we heard from Josh Bleill, the Indianapolis Colts Community Spokesperson. Josh just wowed everyone with his determination and positive outlook on life. Nothing is insurmountable.

After Josh, Scott Souder, Program Director, Messaging and Collaboration Solutions for IBM provided some sneak peaks at what is coming in the future. Notes/Domino 9.0.1 due out late October. Scott talked about how at this point of the year IBM already has more renewals from customers that have not renewed in prior years than they did last year. In other words, customers are upgrading again and there is business for all of us Business Partners!

Scott also brought some secret things to share like Project Hawthorn, more on this in a different post, and a new unnamed product which will knock the socks off you when it comes out. Come to Connect 2014 for more details is all he said we could say about it. Scott also introduced everyone to Kramer Reeves who is his boss. Kramer is Director of Product Management, ICS and has plans to help not just customers but business partners as well to sell and support everyone the way they need it.

After the morning sessions off to lunch and then the daily sessions.

I was working on my own demo and session but sat in on Chris Miller's excellent session on the web, social life and privacy. Get his slides and think about it, hopefully he posted them someplace. Of the people in the room only a few do everything and there is much to think about. Save your wallet and headache and go get his session.

My session, The Boss is Anti-Social ..HELP! which I already posted the slides here, had at the core of it people who work in a non-social atmosphere or have managers that do not understand them. The session was a mix of older thoughts and information coupled with literally the night before ROI cases that I received via email that highlight the sales benefits of being more social in business. All links are included in the slides so enjoy. No matter what your industry is, you can be social on the outside and interactive with your customers and vendors. Yes, some will complain, but they just want your love otherwise they will just leave and you will never hear from them again.

The evening event was spent in a brewery and billiard hall where everyone could focus their time and get to know each other better. Questions about certification, Sametime, Connections, Notes and Domino, competitive information and more all took place.

Friday saw Karl Lawall, an IBM Program Director for Collaboration Solutions, Social Communications and Sametime Worldwide Sales showing off Sametime 9 which will be coming out shortly. The video integration and revised mobile clients and device functionality will make life so much better for the A/V jet setting people. 

And then I had to go home which was an all day journey it seemed, sorry I had to leave early on Friday.

Thanks to Richard Moy, Sam Bridegroom, Gregg Eldred (sadly was held back from attending),  and Ray Bilyk for a great event and I hope everyone returns for next year when it is in Grand Rapids, Michigan. For all my friends and customers always nice to see you and let's meet up again in Orlando in January 26-30 at Connect 2014 if not sooner.

Hyper Smash

MY MWLUG Presentation on Anti_Social Management

My session, The Boss is Anti-Social...HELP! was a grand time for everyone and if you want the slides here is the link to them:

I am happy to help anyone that needs to make a pitch or provide more details to their management.

It was a great time and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Free Competitive Discussions at MWLUG

It was 3 years ago when I last posted this on my blog. and the conversations we had then went well into the night and days. Sadly due to scheduling conflicts I had to miss out on the last 2 years. But I am back and looking to see everyone again.

And I am happy to say I will be doing it again at MWLUG 2013. Which if you are near the area, you should definitely be going to this can't miss event. Where else can you attend a charity brewfest competition featuring your fellow administrators and developers?

I will be enjoying the Crowne Plaza Hotel Downtown Union Station in Indianapolis, Indiana during MWLUG where it all takers place.

If you will be attending MWLUG or are around Wen afternoon or evening we can discuss how to handle objections, executive decisions, political turf and other routes to unrest which may cause you or your organization or clients to question their future directions.


So email me, send me a Tweet, G+ me, Skype me.

I will be around until Friday morning and looking forward to seeing everyone.

MWLUG Belated post

I am ashamed to admit it but I took some time off to just ...not...do...a...thing while in Chicago for work, which also meant blogging.

Weird to "not do anything" but still a great time had by all.

I got to Chicago early on wen. so I could do a webex for a client on migrating from Lotus Teamroom to Lotus Quickr and will repeat it next for the CEO, so it went well. In spite of my having to bypass the IBM firewall and hack a router and some other information. Luckily IBM Chicago is filled with friendly people and very helpful staff so to everyone on the 6th Floor, thanks again for helping me and Donna I didn't tell anyone the code, I promise.

When I arrived I found Alex Kassabov and John Head busy with their pre-MWLUG upgrade sessions which were well attended and equally well appreciated by the attendees.

Shortly helped Gregg Eldred (more posted by greg on his blog) bypass IBM security to be allowed into the building, evidently asking for Ed Brill is not enough. And we proceeded to help Richard Moy (more is posted by Richard on his blog) and team get set up for the next day.

An impressive list of speakers and attendees, about 100-125 people came in the end.

Thursday morning was at IBM after my mile walk to the office and setting up for everyone, I was video taping the keynote from Ed Brill. Due to mechanical difficulty missed the introductions but did get Ed videotaped, look for it to be posted soon.

Ed accepted questions from the crowd and for a person who just arrived from Australia via Hawaii he was in great form and not falling asleep on us at all and even stayed to meet with people afterward.

Then it was off to one of the sessions, I was interested in Kim Greene's session and glad I could make part of it, although my netbook gave me it's 1st BSOD since I owned it. 2 hours to session, not a good thing. As it turns out, it did cause my demo problems.

Over lunch Kim, Bill Machilsky and I discussed some items of technical nature, but also what makes us like what we do and how we do it and how to teach the next generation. More on that in another post.

Then for my session I was prepared to video tape it as outside of my Lotusphere sessions I rarely get myself on video. All set up and ready to go....and the netbook fails me.

I should say the projector in the room and my netbook had words and well, the netbook lost. I had to go to plan B, instead of doing demo's while discussing topics I had to hold everything until the end. It seems there was no good resolution to work with that I could see the URL line so held it off. Plus my Netbook's server seemed to be in a "frozen" mode while swapping between internet documents enabled.

Remember this for Lotusphere, get to A/V check early! I have faith in my abstracts being accepted this year, the power of positive thinking and vision, start with the end in mind.

So we discussed URL's, how exciting I know, but in an SMB URL's and Sametime, Traveler, Quickr, iNotes, Mail Redirection and more gets tricky sometimes. Found a number of people in need of Mail Redirection help, but mostly about clustering maybe an Ideajam is out there on this already. One side of the room was really into the discussion, the other was less zealous in their discussion.

One lucky winner received a R8 nerd hat I had from the LotusUserGroup for pointing out the graphic on the default Domino 8.5 homepage shows 4 people without heads.


After my session we took an open air bus to the boat ride of the architecture of Chicago. Having not been to Chicago before it is very impressive and something New York is not...clean.

Later that night we enjoyed some food and drinks and some of us stayed up to watch the Dolphins beat the Bucs, well I did, the others with me discussed more business and life as we know it. But all good fun and a nice reminder of why we all do what we do and like Lotus so much.

I left early Friday, Thursday was my wife's birthday and had to run.

My thanks to Richard for putting it all together and I understand next year's is in Cleveland and I look forward to it.

I will be speaking at MWLUG in Chicago

Because I am still in the UK I elected not to submit abstracts to IAMLUG and they went instead to MWLUG where I have been granted an opportunity to speak.

I submitted a few sessions to see what the interest was on some topics, as a dry run for LS10, which the Lotusphere site is already updated. Perhaps this will make it to Orlando in one form or another.

My topic is:

Lotus Layers - Making your URL's Play Nicely

With the advances in R8, 8.5 one dilemma facing customers is how to make the Lotus Layers like Traveler, Mail Redirection, Sametime/Quickr, Web site pages and other pieces work in a way that makes life easier for you and your clients. Slides will be available with how to do it all, but this session will be more interactive based on attendees and their experience, issues and interests.

I am looking forward to it, even though I will miss most of the 2 day "pre-event" and the Friday. Due to family and my children's school starting that week I will only be getting in on Wen. afternoon and staying through Friday morning.

So if you want to catch me there let me know early enough to fit everyone in.

PS - I only have 2 weeks to put the slides together, so if I am busy the next 2 weeks you know why.