SpeedGeeking 2015 "How to Manage Exchange Admins (and their servers) with Domino"

Speedgeeking was awesome, as usual. We hope you enjoyed it, learned something, and of course drank, ate and had fun.

For those that ask, here are my slides up in SlideShare, these are the clean editions, if you were there, you will understand.

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.

Why I am NOT Changing My Moniker

This post is being written in the Dolphin hotel, where everyone in Orlando is gathered for the annual Collaboration lovefest called Connect 2013, formerly known as Lotusphere.

Some people may make fun of us, they may think it is out dated, they may believe there is nothing else to do, or care about this or just don't get it. Sure I speak in a bubble that has it's own terms, acronyms and quirks like any other solution out there, but it is one which I believe in very strongly.

As I sit here writing this, I am listening, watching the great video the Connect 2013 team provided everyone with the history of past Lotusphere events, most of which I have attended (I hope there is some Lotusphere Europe bits in there too). The great speakers, the executives, the cheers, the parties, the legendary "things that stay at Lotusphere", and more, that gave us great highs and few lows.

Many people this year asked me if I was dropping or changing my Twitter/Skype and other monikers that use Lotusevangelist. The answer is no, it stays, and will stay for however long I continue to do what I love.

There is no one pushing me to change the name, although I had thought about it this year, one of the sessions at Connect reminded me why I chose this title to leverage.

The session done by my evangelist idols, Luis Suarez, Louis Richardson and Luis Benitez brought to me what is important. My brand. My world, my readers, my friends and our greater good we could create.

Perhaps changing my moniker would be accepted, but that would deny what I am, what I believe and what I do.

My role, so to speak, as an IBM Champion for ICS and Websphere is to be a brand ambassador. Maybe this is idea of not changing my moniker is not inline with some people, but if you Get Social and understand it, you understand that your personal brand is very important to you. You work hard to grow your social influence, but without being a thought leader or technically competent, it is luck if you get anywhere. I am not that intelligent, plenty of great speakers this week cover and covered many topics, most likely better than I. However, when you need to explain solutions and work with management that may not understand the social imperative or the open business (Luis Suarez used this line tonight) direction this will lead your company, who would you prefer to put in front of that client? Someone who not only sells it and works on it, but also uses it and leverages it across products and geographies or someone who you can't even find on Linkedin?

There is nothing like IBM Domino and Notes, Sametime or Quickr out there that really does so much and in so many ways and with IBM Connections you get even more embedded into a realm that was started 20 or so years ago.

None of this is new, so what does this have to do with My Brand? One becomes connected, some say too much, but I don't think so because how can you get across and truly be authentic, when your name changes everywhere each year because of what the industry analysts decide to rename so they can sell more subscriptions?

Walking the halls here and people recognizing me and following me because they have that hope, the view, that I bring them hope or guidance to do what they may not have thought they could.

I want open business, not partially open business. My blog is public and open, anyone can read it and search and find it easily. It brings in business and if IBM did not have an issue naming me an IBM Champion or a Redbooks thought leader, who am I to argue with what works for me.

As Michael J. Fox said last year at Lotusphere 2012 on stage, "A lady gave birth in a tree, what have you got?"

When I believe in something strongly enough, I encourage others to do so as well. I encourage admins to see their lives through their boss or their bosses boss. I ask developers to think about the junior devs or admins like me that are weak on development skills when they share information. I help marketing people recognize there are more people out there they never even thought would use their products. I bring a global view that crosses cultures and is not bounded by geography, sales compensation plans or personal biases. I blog because I care about tomorrow and the person working on a problem or an idea at 3 AM and they need inspiration or support.

And I renew this belief every year I come to Orlando for the conference formerly known as Lotusphere that has graduated to be called Connect.

IBM Customers, Want to Speak at Lotusphere 2012?

I don't guarantee you a slot, I have zero say in the matter as a non-IBMer, unless you are a client of mine then I try my best, but this may help you in case you want the chance and are not my client. It isn't perfect or straight from anyone just my thoughts on how to populate Lotusphere with customers.

At The View Admin 2011 show I discussed in my sessions how customers have chances to speak at Lotusphere. The View shows are really about customers, not so many Business Partners attend sessions. And my job as a speaker and Lotus Evangelist is to encourage everyone's participation in getting the good word out and hopefully customer reference stories.

If you can, try to do a session for a local LUG if there is one near you. It gives you some live people to get feedback and helps you get used to speaking if you have never done it previously.
.

As a client speaking at Lotusphere there comes perks that your company will enjoy like over 5,000 people knowing/hearing your company name everywhere for a week plus other email, newsletters and PR opportunities.

You most likely receive a pass to Lotusphere of some sort (IBM's discretion of course) which should make your boss happy and finance happier.

Naturally you should get introductions to IBMers at many levels you would not easily find if you were on your own. Many of these people will be Product Managers or higher executives because they want to know more about you and how you are using the products. This is your time to shine and give great feedback, even about things you may not like, just be constructive. It helps if you want to later be nominated as an IBM Champion for Collaborative Solutions as IBM values your contributions as a client.

There are of course other benefits but those vary year to year(special sessions/roundtables, private executive meetings, dinners, outings of various types and of course a coveted Lotusphere backpack) but suffice it to say you will be very busy and be treated well by IBM. If you get accepted to speak.


So how do you get the ball rolling?

1) If your IBM rep or Business Partner hasn't told you before or started yet, ASK THEM. Yes, asking is the first step, just make sure you say you want to be a Business/Customer Session. You see there is a protocol involved that the IBM rep or BP has to go through. They ask their manager who asks theirs who eventually asks the Leaders of Lotusphere how to set it up for this year. You can of course submit abstracts like the rest of us when the window opens for them but this is about your company not you per se.

2) They will ask what do you want to speak about. Have some ideas, 2-3 topics, the IBM rep will eventually get a whif of what this year's theme will be and may steer you to a session in line with it. OR you may have some great application which would be amazing to tell everyone about. Either way think about the ideas from the perspective of "What session, as a customer, would you be interested in hearing about?" If you use Quickr and have 1,000's of sites and manage it well(kudos to you it isn't easy) suggest it. As long as it uses the products and has a good ROI or other metric that would help, try it.

3)Now you need to do some things in parallel. One is approach legal and get approval. Second is approach marketing/PR/advertising and let them know you are thinking about doing this and would they like it if you were accepted. Remember 5,000+ people a day for almost a week is a lot of people and just what they like to hear. Not legal, they tend to be rather conservative but without their approval you are wasting your time.

4) Your manager should be told after all the above, unless you are friends with them.Many reasons for this but if your boss is from Dilbert you get the picture.







5) Sit and wait. Maybe you will get accepted. Maybe you won't. The benefit is you will now get more respect to your IBM rep from inside IBM, I think it's on their goals for the year to get customers to speak and attend Lotusphere but I have no idea really, which should help your need as well. You help them, they help you and everyone is happy right?

If you get accepted, now what?

The sessions are either 20 minutes, 45 or an hour or more so you need to plan for it all at some point. But you can pull pieces out or add in later.

You should briefly describe your company with some company info/history to set the expectation about you especially if you are not as well known as GE for example.
Discuss the size of the environment and how mnay admins/devs/apps/mail files etc and OS types, basically anything that sets a picture of your environment.

Then discuss the topic, briefly, so everyone knows the minimum about the tool/solution/app before you get to the good stuff.

Then get to what you want to say about your topic.

Wrap it up with what you found, pro/con style so others are aware that it may not be 100% simple. There are always gotchas and people desperately want to know about them before starting a new project.

Finish with why Domino/IBM is so key to the company and going forward any plans you have to extend it.

Again, I have no connection to Lotusphere these days that influences anything but I do want to see IBM get more customers requesting to speak than abstracts for the rest of Lotusphere.

Prove the world wrong that not everyone uses Microsoft or Google but does use IBM and loves it.

So you 400 or so from The View conference start thinking about ideas, Lotusphere starts January 15, 2012 a mere 192 days from now! Good Luck!

Product-> Solution Selling-> Transformation

Many people at Lotusphere seem to be scratching their head saying, hey where is the product? Why doesn't anyone say we use LotusLive/Connections/Domino to do x, y or z?  It could be Microsoft up there.

In truth, you are all correct. But IBM at Lotusphere is not selling a product per se. (You Smart Planet love/hate people, I have another post coming on that)

Look at it this way:
Years ago we sold products
Then came Solution Selling
Now its Transformation Selling

Yes a bad acronym unless your last name is Eliot.

Imagine talking to CEOs, not CIOs, not Line of Business execs but people who have a job that is to steer their company.
Bring them a direction, an angle, an idea for them to think about and other ways to expand their business. Think big, as Donald Trump says. It doesn't have to be expensive either. Let me use one example.

Think about when Mars, the owners of M&M's, set out to find a new color? The voting created huge loyalty and a major increase in sales and it cost them next to nothing. Read about this in this book.

So you say, how does this help IBM make money? There's no technology play there? (I have no idea if they used an IBM product, but this is not about ANY IBM product, this is about business discussions)

Not true at all, how did M&Ms stay in contact with the world? How do they today? How do they know when a great idea has been submitted? How do they find out?

This is Transformation in an industry that has a hard enough time bringing a new product to market.

You can do this for anyone...but I am not sure your average Business Partner has the right connections to make this happen.

But a number of issues come up:
1) Executives today are near retirement age and have no reason to start massive change
2) Idealism is great, but you need the Executive people to champion it....and believe it and do it as well, especially if you want others to have social businesses
3) Transformation is not an easy sale or a short sale, it requires the right person, providing a vision(not necessarily the right one) and having someone on the other side who can see it and help it and fulfill it.

9 Rules to Live by When Building Demo's

If you followed my twitter stream you would see I had started this, but figured I would post, add your own pieces to this as well.
Some of these are for small demo's, others would be for larger ones or hardware demos.

#9 - Like The Beatles said on the White album, #9, #9, #9 (ok, it was a sound technician at EMI) it's all about testing your demo and make sure it works, even after rebooting, dropping a LAN connection and logging in a someone else.

#8 - Documentation of login/DNS/IP information couldn't hurt...the alternative REALLY hurts

#7 - Backup your demo, not once, but 5 times, email it to yourself at an accessible email address NOT on Gmail, a USB device, an extra time on your hard drive, and put a copy in Gmail. What is all that extra memory space for anyway?

#6 - Drink heavily AFTER the Deno, or in the case of Lotusphere, drink regularly in moderation until Kimono's/ESPN/Jelly Rolls.

#5 - If you will be showing a demo in a language you are not too familiar with, get advice from someone that speaks the language.

#4 - If your demo is too long, you lose them, if your demo is too short you went too fast, if it was easy everyone would be doing it, so lighten up and have some fun.

#3 - Always use the same demo login/passwords, it helps so you don't have to scrap it all 1/2 way through.

#2 - Plug in the LAN Connection for devices that aren't wireless. It helps when you can't see the server doesn't it?

#1 - Make sure if you use TRIALWARE you have enough days left to use it. DOH!

Name the DomCube and Provide Advice

Naturally I can not use the term Lotus and Domcube doesn't really roll off the tongue so I ask everyone to submit a name for it, a REAL name.(edited after Turtle's Tweets)
We have some ideas as well and the winner will get something yellow in return.
Cubino was nixed already
Cubomino or Cudomino maybe?
Domcubus?

These are being built for backup, development, portability, exhibitions, showcases, conferences, schools, training exercises and more.

In addition and more importantly what price range would be most appropriate for a solution which included:
1)Portability (sell for DRP into SMB)
2)Quad Core or at least Dual-Core Processor of the latest Speed (other requests?)
3)4GB Ram minimum, Motherboard will do 8GB, we can go to 16GB for you extreme people
4)2 Hard Drives, base is 250GB SATA2 but will go up to 1TB each right now.
5)Video is motherboard based only, its a server, what did you expect?
6)DVD burner with Lightscribe and Dual side DVD burning
7) Yellow primary box, but red, blue are available too should you want a development or stage server too.
8) Yellow Keyboard and Mouse Optional and red or blue
9) Depending on configuration RAID capability will be available as well
10) Wireless cards can be included as an option as well

OS Choices:
1)DOS....just kidding
2) No OS - Some other Linux version perhaps down the road?
3) Windows Server 2003 or 2008
4) Lotus Foundations

Lotus Choices:
We will preload your Lotus Domino, Sametime, Quickr needs on the box if you desire or if you need servers built for clients for additional fees.

Of course if you want one for Lotusphere, let me know and it will be built and shipped within 7-10 days of ordering.

Lotusphere 2009 and my surprise

It seems my hotel which I have stayed at the last few years, and has always had excellent Wi-FI and very low rates, went WAY upscale. Yes, I'm talking to you, Best Western.
Not funny that a room rate 50% higher than last year is available...as the cheapest option!
And who decided a Sunday stay should get $45 MORE compared to the other nights?

In the past the Swan and Dolphin always seemed to be so expensive, but being on site is priceless.

This year I lucked out and got a reservation at the Dolphin...and the Best Western.
Unsure which way it will turn out, but for those who think I am hoarding rooms, well, better to have an option than not(waiting lists abound). And also this way I can provide shelter for those Spherians who have no where else to sleep.

And in case you are wondering I submitted abstracts for each track(except appdev) and a Birds of a feather session too.

Now who has the knowledge about the Blogger's Lounge as I line up sponsors?

Lotusphere Bloggers Lounge

Yes, that's right, a lounge just for us and other bloggers known or unknown to Planetlotus.org.
If someone from Lotus or the Lotusphere team would like to discuss plans for it with me, please contact me.
Some of us met last year or in year's gone by.
Some of us never met.

What if we had a room/space dedicated for our usage, similar to the media room but with better furntiure, desks, lamps, couches, drinks, tech toys(sponsors love us) and other amenities?

We could arrange various times to be open or have set hours when one or more of us is live there. Hard I know when we are either mannign a pedestal, in sessions, speaking, meeting with customers, but something we could all use for sure.
Especially those of us, like me, not staying on the swan or dolphin site.

Or open to anything which you think makes sense as well. Mini sessions from each of us on the future? Press opps?

Input is expected and encouraged from all of you.

Lotusphere 2009 is under 150 days away

Seems like an eternity, but no, it will pass faster than your kids summer break.

As we get closer to the ever popular hotel stake outs for space, submissions for sessions and BOFs(who doeesn't like 7am BOFs) and the extremely popular yet oddly registered hands on sessions lest us not forget there will be new people who may not want to go and you should encourage and help them best way you can so they see the light.

A la Visa....

Full conf pass: Under $2,000 (at most)
Swan/Dolphin Hotel: $1,500 (at least)
Airfare: EXPENSIVE
Car Rental: Never mind take a taxi you drunken mortals and save on Parking too
Food, er Beverages: $250
Week away from the office, kids, wife, inlaws, cats, dogs, fish, snow, help desk, trouble tickets and spending it with your friends and new PlanetLotus Blog friends you haven't met yet:

PRICELESS

But seriously, keep in mind everyone sometimes needs some help, maybe you have a spare pass, or your room has a pull out couch or you fly in the same place as someone, collaboration is your personal life and your professional life.
Not sure where we can post these things, maybe the Gonzo Lotusphere site or some place else.

Now when do session submissions start and will they tell us if we are in before the price raises this year?

Me? I get to drive up from Boca, about 2.5 hours with the top down :-) Might have a passenger this year too as I figured he might like a ride.

Lotus Cube Update

Previously, I showed this.
I know many of you have been asking and eagerly awaiting the Lotus Cube.
And really we want to give it to you as well.

However, due to some internal reorganziations which have been brewing this has had to be put on hold for a short while.

Without a doubt we will have it at Lotusphere but nothing I can commit to sooner.

As news I can post becomes public you may understand better.

So until then, I leave you another view of it.

Lotusphere Comes to You - Miami and Tampa

Not likely to get any hits on this aside from the few in Florida but it needs to get out.
April 29th is Miami and May 6th in tampa.
Lotus911 guys stole it from me(actually IBM never gave me a chance). In truth with the holiday coming I owuld never have been able to do it properly so it is for the best.
Maybe next year.
Want to see us top 50 people at the events.
Miami is at the IBM Office on Blue Lagoon by Miami Airport.
You can register and find out more from the Lotus website for LCTY.
See you there, for more information email me or IM me on the Bleedyellow.com Sametime server.

In Lotus I trust, but friends are better

Someone came to my rescue so I can play with a certain piece of software which I have been trying to get for about 2 weeks now.
He knows I am greatly in his debt and can't thank him enough.

This may never have happenned if 3 things had not taken place, well 4 but I won't go into it.

1) Lotusphere(s) whether I met him there or not, it is the start of a great friendship, some known, some to be known.

2) This blog or blogging in general and commenting at other sites. I could post all I want in the forum but it's not the same and in this case was facilitated by #3.

3) Bleedyellow.com - Lotus911's website, or more specifically their Sametime server which, for the life of me I am not sure why Lotus hasn't done this in the 10 years since Sametime came out, is available for anyone to login to and use(presumably within reason).

The guys at Lotus911 deserve the credit for doing what any of us could have done, but never did. They even beat me to it with a BP I was working with, so now I have to find something different.

The idea that all Lotus people could be connected in one way and find each other is just amazing, from a business perspective or just from a there he/she is! type moment.

Thank you again and drinks are on me in Orlando or your city which ever we get to first.

Ls08: Oh the Bloggers you'll meet!

Where to begin, so many people, and we all are in this together.

But until you put a face/voice/body to the person, well how do you know they even exist?

What if Alan and Ed really are the same person?
Will the Schwartz be with you?
When would Paul Mooney stop repeating, go enter it in Ideajam.net
Who would answer if the gutter will return sometime to a Notes client if not Mary Beth Raven?
Coding faster or better than Julian?
How about Podcasts being IBM coverups if Bruce didn't materialize.
Or if Declan Lynch of Blogsphere, is the real Declan Lynch?
Perhaps finding out Chris Byrne really worked with Bob Costas?
And Chris "I don't code, really I don't" Whissonant playing at Jamfest
Or Nathan "Lotushead" Freeman really dyed his hair yellow for the Sphere?

So really they all do exist, it's no figment of your imagination and once a year you can see many of them gather in one place for that special occasion known as Lotusphere.

My apologies to anyone I left out, I blame the bartenders at il Mulino who REALLY know how to take care of their guests.

And to all a good night, there's still 2 days left!

The Opening Session and Bluehouse vs. Foundations

Caution: This is my perception of the announcements and if I am wrong, please let me know.
I am writing this as a Business Partner(BP) thinking and customer 2nd.
Good stuff smushed up at the end which should have been reversed and more time spent on them, and um, less on portal server(IMHO).
Not that the other parts were not great either, 801 has some great pieces added, widgets, conference number in meeting, the ability to create an on the fly sametime meeting(no idea if you need advanced server for it), 8.5 domino premiers and has cool designer usage, the DWA advances which make it look like the Standard R8 client, including widgets/quickr/sametime and then the 'lightweight" on bandwidth and processing which is a HUGE bonus. Can't wait for it or 801!

Now the Foundation is another story. I went in search of IBMers in the know, well they were at the stand, and the discussion ensued about using this mini server running Linux and Domino which is supposed ot replace an SMB MS small business server. Now maybe it will and maybe it won't. I fail to see, aside from the obvious move from MS, why eithwer a client would want this or why I as a BP would want to install it.
It is NOT a hosted solution, so I was told, but is meant to be onsite, naturally because of the file/print functions of the Linux server. It can do much more so it is an interesting idea as i said in theory.
If the ONLY reason is to get people off windows, well, perhaps this is an answer. Will let you know after I demo it since they promised to add me and one of my clients to play with it.

Bluehouse was also confusing to me, as a BP that is. IBM wants to host "something"(the ibmers at the stand words) and not just any infrastrcuture app like Domino, Quickr, Sametime or Connections.
OK, so what will it host? Some suggested a salesforce.com similarity, maybe, not sure.
As a BP, my question is..where is the money? IBM hosts it, and the app and manages the solution and probably the client, so what do we as BPs get from it?
I am looking into more on this as Ed pointed out in his blog:

"The notion of software-as-a-service has become more dominant in the industry, and today IBM is announcing Lotus "Bluehouse" (codename), to provide extranet collaboration tools. "Bluehouse" expands on IBM's introduction of Sametime Unyte, a hosted e-meetings service, which is now incorporated into the "Bluehouse" environment. "

So now it is semi-Sametime like and some yet to be determined other code.
OK, it's in beta, cut it some slack, but I was left pondering what to do with it and why we would use it over the existing SaaS moddel for products(aside from cost) or who will do the application development and get comped or who will keep the intelectual capital created as an application.

Or as Alan says it in his blog which sounds like Quickr, which depending on how you view hosted(Quickr is a web based solution so in my mind it is/can be a hosted solution, licensing notwithstanding) applications is more confusing to me.

But I look forward to more details to come out on both of these as they are in line with my business plans for the year so maybe IBM IS on to something, but the fog needs to get lifted a little.

LS08 BD DAY: Microsoft's Software Assurance

From what I learned and revisited in Lotusphere today.

I've written a few times about the Exchange side of the equation and even Sharepoint but I learned more today.
And now so will you.

Here's the premise:
Microsoft has offerred you or your client Sharepoint and Exchange for free.
And your client wants the same from IBM to stay with Lotus.

The reason is because they want to put you into an enterprise agreement which has Software Assurance(still an oxymoron). Software Assurance, if you do not know, allows for a company to receive "free" upgrades on their licenses IF new software comes out in the next 3 years or however long you commit to int he agreement.
You can also do this if you know you will be updating soon.
Of course you pay for this benefit...each year of the agreement.
And the cost for SA is about 1/3 of the total licensing cost. So not a small chunk of change.

So let's look at all the companies that bought into it in 2003 for example.
Name one product which you paid for an upgrade that materialized from the "Desktop Professional" or "Professional Desktop" or even the "Enterprise Desktop".

Windows upgrade from XP, nope.... Vista came out in 2007
Office upgrade from Office 2003, nope......office 2007 came out in 2007
Exchange upgrade from Exchange 2003, nope....Exchange 2007
Outlook upgrade from Outlook 2003, nope......Outlook 2007

So what did you pay all that money for in the first place?
Well, MAYBE you were on 2000 and you expected to move to 2003 someday. Fair enough.
What if you bought this in 2004? Same problem. 2005? You start to see a pattern of course.

If your company continues to do this, as one company admin told me today theirs does, not only are you wasting money, you are perpetuating the Microsoft arms in your company.
If you convinced your company to review the policy, you would see a huge reduction in licensing to MS.
Your company SHOULD care and reward you for saving them money. If your boss doesn't, go to his boss. Someone wants to pocket that budget money, trust me.

Of course Sharepoint(MOSS) is free to you, because Microsoft gets you to buy licenses for:
SQL(server and CAL)
Communications Server(server and CAL)
Groove
and if you used advanced options in MOSS you also need
Office 2007!
And more pieces I can't even remember.

Don't forget you also MUST be on Windows 2003 server and updated AD and Exchange 2007 which requires 64bit code and thus 64bit Windows Server.
PLUS the new hardware.

So Sharepoint being free is like when you buy a dining set and get the choice of seat cushion color for free.

If it's free it's for me, but in this case it isn't free and really isn't for me....or you.

You always have other options....think about it and look into it.

Live Blogging from the Sphere, MS Pricing

I probably can't publicly write this up but I am in the session on Microsoft pricing, competitive practices.
If you think you need to discount your offerring, you need to come here andlisten to this or ask me later how to deal with it.

your customers need to udnerstand just how much the Sharepoint solution will cost. I will try to post a detailed discussion(without pricing) to understand the layers of confusion.
All I can say is WOW! Percy go get them!

Business Partner Day

Registered, got my backpack, id cards, which general session to go to.
Running into many, many people, trying to get some more meetings set.
Saw Ed Brill already and he filled me in on his new management capacity, but i will let him make it public.
In a session on IBM's advertising for the next year. Some good things from IBM if you are a BP, but way too many in my opinion for a BP to be focused.
One thing I am surprised to see they are not pushing Sametime8 and its excellent mobile client, in the slides they said they are leading people to ST 7.5. Tim K. was there so hopefully he will make note of it.
Show some Lotusphere ads (people aslepp on a couch)which I never saw which is unusual as a BP, but a cool ad.
Just found out registration is higher than 2007.
Way to go everyone!
Missed posters from opening session, bummer!

Lotusphere parties, business and where's the Poker game?

4-6 nights of nonstop parties(depending on when you are coming or going).
One night I have 3 to go to and one of them is NOT even related to Lotusphere!
I think most nights there are at least 2 that I am aware of, except Wen night, every0one wants to go to Universal, must check parking fees for those of us driving.

Last year someone sponsored a Poker tournament which I was unable to attend, as I have not seen anythign about one this year, although a few of us did want to set one up, if there is one out there, someone let me know where/when.

Now partying is all very nice, and you should never do it alone, so make sure before you are sloshed or worse you spend some time on business.
Meet everyone, trade cards, beam them, synch phones or do whatever you must do but business comes first.
Ok, maybe after the 1st beer.

1 week a year to meet and find most of the Lotus companies, don't waste it on free beer and food the whole time.

Training is Done! What did we learn?

I hope the people I trained over the last 2 days retain some of what we discussed. Sure they have the books and notes but will they make changes?
I tried to impress upon them that they, and their manager, can change the world. But it gets done in a process one step at a time. Can't do everything in a day.
What was interesting was the feeling from them that they are just the IT guys and have no input to the workings of business, even if they may know h0w to perform many of the non-IT jobs in the company.
If they decided to propose a solution to something to the proper(and listening) executives they would probably get further in their careers. I hope they follow this path, it leads to great rewards and at least a Lotus Exige(MSRP $56,990) in their future like the one we saw at lunch.

It's a shame when good people can't see their future.
Many of us have this, we can't see how we can make a difference or produce more revenue, sell more tickets/seats/cars/licenses.
Few have the ability to see the open seas amid the storm, find the correct route and lead a course to a better life or way of working.
Still others are perfectly content in their livelihood or place in life and that works as well.

As we edge closer to Lotusphere, my thoughts are of course on business development and you can't gain clients in Orlando if you just have the feeling your "just a Lotus guy or girl."

Open up your mind and see the Evangelist inside and realize everyone you meet is also and that is a bond which does not come easy in many other software brands. You are your companies evangelist, gather your knowledge!

Lastly, for all those that complain there is no corporate solution for iPhones....
Lotus gets hip again by being on the iPhones as a corporate solution, this should get interesting very quickly now.