36: So this should have been a quiet week, right?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 57:52 — 53.0MB)

Episode 36, recorded Thursday 28th January 2011, discussing why Notes is definitely not dead, IBM’s exceptional web experience, LotusLive’s pre-Lotusphere announcements, working at IBM, Lotus advertising, Domino on SSDs and even a few mentions of Lotusphere 2011!

Hosts

Stuart McIntyre (blog | twitter | company) & Darren Duke (blog | twitter | company)

Topics

Notes is definitely not dead!

Does IBM Practice what it preaches?

Lotuslive announcements

Working at IBM

Will we ever see another ad campaign like this?

  • Lots of discussion about advertising vs. marketing
  • Product vs. Brand etc
  • Is it time for a new Lotus Notes/Domino ad campaign?

James Governor: Lotus Gears Up To Embrace The Web, Rebuild its Developer Story, pwn Social Business

  • Is James right?  Is the appdev story the key to IBM success with ‘platforms’like Connections, LotusLive and Quickr?

Domino on SSDs – Erik Brooks marvels at speed of Domino solid state disk

  • NSF versus transaction logging
  • Notes client on SSD

SametimeGuide.com launched by Chris Miller. Sametime admin tutorial videos

  • $199 – special promo offer of $49.99

Connections Files plug-in for Notes released

IBM Social Business Jam, Feb 8-11

Lotusphere 2011

  • People Vowe will miss at LS11
  • The passing of the torch or the end of an era? Great topic!
  • What’s the one standout session?
  • What are we looking forward to?

Tips

Darren

If you’re not going to #LS11, (or even if you are) start working on your boss/significant other/dog/cat to get to #LS12

Stuart

Get on Twitter, Get on LinkedIn, Participate.  Sign up for about.me.

35: Sales and Evangelism at Lotus – The Vice President’s View (with Sandy Carter)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:12:36 — 66.5MB)

Episode 35, recorded Wednesday 20th and Thursday 21st January 2011, discussing Sandy’s new Sales and Evangelism VP roles, plans for 2011, her involvement in Lotusphere and more.  We then move onto a discussion about IBM’s 4Q10 figures, Lotusphere events, the return of the XCast and more…

Hosts

Stuart McIntyre (blog | twitter | company) & Darren Duke (blog | twitter | company)

Guests

Sandy Carter (blog | twitter) is Vice President, Social Business and Collaboration Solutions Sales and Evangelism, where she is responsible for setting the direction for IBM’s Social Business initiative, working with companies who are becoming Social Businesses, and being the evangelist for the concept and best practices around Social Business.

Kathy Mandelstein (twitter) is currently oversees worldwide marketing programs, web and events in IBM Software Group for the Lotus portfolio of collaboration tools designed to empower people to be more effective, responsive and innovative within the context of the work they do. It includes email, calendar, instant messaging, electronic forms, web conferencing, portals, team spaces, business dashboards, document management, and enterprise social software. Previously Kathy led the IBM Rational marketing team focused on the business value of effective software delivery.

Paul Withers (blog | twitter | company) leads the Domino Development Team at Intec Systems Ltd, an IBM Business Partner in UK. Co-presenting session at Lotusphere XPages: Enter The Dojo, Tuesday 3:30pm.

Topics

A two-part episode, first a 20-minute interview with Sandy Carter.  We covered:

New role at IBM – VP IBM Social Business and Social Solutions Sales and Evangelism

  • ‘IBM Social Business and Social Solutions’?  Can you describe what this includes?   
  • Sales and Evangelism?  Wow thats a tough combination…
    • Unusual to see a VP focused on Evangelism?  Will you continue to blog and tweet in the new role?
    • Lotus has seen a good long run of quarterly growth, then a few quarters that have been tough in a generally low market.  How do you see 2011 going? (will not ask you directly about Q4 figures, if you want to mention them then great…)
    • Will we see the yellow boxing gloves return? 😉 (i.e. will you look to take the fight to the competition)
  • Previously (before your role with partners) you were VP  Websphere.  What differences have you found coming across to Lotus?
  • Have you been surprised by the ‘community’aspect of Lotus, or are there similar communities around the other IBM brands?

Lotusphere 2011

  • What are your expectations for Lotusphere 2011?
  • Are you speaking at the OGS or other sessions?
  • Looking forward, If you had a message for the Lotus community as we get into 2011, what would it be?

We then spoke to Kathy and Paul, covering:

IBM/Lotus Q4 results

Lotusphere 2011

TWiL Live at Lotusphere

  • Wednesday 5:45-6:45 in Swan Pelican
  • Guests – Kathy Mandelstein, Mary Beth Raven, Bruce Elgort, Paul Mooney, Alan Lepofsky

RAID Explained via water coolers

The XCast relaunches

  • First new episode up, talking about Lotusphere (what else!) sessions etc.
  • Hosted by David Leedy, Tim Clark and Paul Withers
  • David’s XPages Cheatsheet updated – will be available at Lotusphere
  • XPages book

Lotus UX Team issued 26 patents in 2010

  • You either like patents or you hate them. IBM *loves* them….
  • Hopefully we’ll see some improved UI in Lotus products
  • Visit UX Lab at LS11(Dolphin Asia 4)

Symphony Fix Pack 1 released

  • Unrelated – Quickr Connector for Symphony 3 released
  • Supports QuickrD 8.5, QuickrJ 8.5 and ECM 1.1
  • Supports Symphony 1.3, 3.0 and Notes embedded (8.5.1 and 8.5.2)
  • Win XP, Vista and 7

Connections Administration Tool Now Available

  • Much needed GUI for managing Lotus Connections environments
  • Produced by TimeToAct group

First tranch of Lotus Awards announced

  • Congratulations to winners announced thus far: Silanis, Ascendant, Ascendant, iEnterprises, Trilog Group, Fritz & Macziol, and Polycom; and to finalists Tungle, Applicable, Prolifics, Rigelsoft, Ascendant, GEDYS IntraWare, Brookstone Technologies, EdifiXio, Silanis, GROUP Business Software, iEnterprises, Plantronics, and KMSLab.

Tips

Darren

Buy the books!

Kathy

Use the Lotusphere Social Aggregator!

Paul

EntwicklerCamp, 21st-23rd Feb in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Lots of great speakers, Maureen Leland doing keynote, loads of XPages sessions including two from me (XPages Blast, by kind permission of Matt White and Tim Clark, and XPages from a Difference View-point, updated and extended)

Stuart

Not so much a tip, more a request.  Need a SIM card for the US that gives 3G data (no calls) at decent rates, say by buying a bundle of 2GB etc. Any suggestions?

34: Lotusphere Idol, Gurupalooza, Harry Potter and booth babes – What are you looking forward to at Lotusphere 2011?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:12:09 — 66.2MB)

Episode 34, recorded Thursday 13th January 2011, discussing preparations for Lotusphere 2011, Lotusphere IDOL, Gurupalooza, the Blogger Open, being a booth babe and tips for first-timers…

Hosts

Stuart McIntyre (blog | twitter | company) & Darren Duke (blog | twitter | company)

Guests

Susan Bulloch (blog | twitter) Susan Bulloch has worked for IBM Lotus Software since 2000 in software support and development positions. Susan currently works as a Support Engineer on the Lotus Products SWAT Team, supporting the entire Lotus product line, specializing in Lotus Notes and Domino.  One of her specialities is Calendar & Scheduling. She has worked with Lotus Notes and Domino since 1992 as an administrator, instructor, developer, and architect in banking and utility industries. Susan has a Bachelors degree in engineering and a Master’s degree in Information Technology.  She holds certifications in all current Lotus Notes product releases, and is actively involved in quality testing Beta versions of new IBM products. Susan is a frequent speaker at technical conferences, including Lotusphere, the View Admin conferences and at regional user group conferences worldwide. This year, she’s Track Manager for the Best Practices track at Lotusphere, Host of Gurupalooza, a Judge at IDOL and one of the many Nerd Girls working to produce some interesting activities.

Roy Rumaner (blog | twitter | company ) Roy has been a Lotus Notes Developer since 1994. In that time he has consulted for many of the Fortune 50  companies in and around the Chicago area and across the country. He has been a speaker at Lotus conferences, was the co-author of two Lotus Notes books, is a regular presenter at GRANITE (the Chicago Lotus User Group) and most recently at MWLUG. Roy is the IT Director for The Essential Business Software Group. Roy is also the Director of IT & Training (US) for MyDealerSoft – a fully web enabled Auto Dealer Software suite that covers all business needs, inbound and outbound for Dealerships.

Mikkel Heisterberg (blog | twitter | company) Been working with Notes/Domino, Sametime and Java for the last 17 years and have a strong foundation in the Lotus portfolio. I have written five articles for THE VIEW, spoken at several conferences (Lotusphere, ILUG, DNUG) and I’m a Design Partner for Domino NEXT and Lotus Connections. I am a frequent blogger (http://lekkimworld.com) and I am the author of the open source documentation framework LotusScript.doc and the TwitNotes sidebar plugin for Notes 8.x. I am a partner at IntraVision, a Premier IBM Business Partner from Denmark. IntraVision is the creator of the OnTime suite of products (http://www.ontimesuite.com).

Mike McGarel (blog | twitter | company) Mike has been a Notes/Web developer for over 12 years. He currently works for Czarnowski, a North American exhibit services company, responsible for both intranet and customer extranet applications. He has concentrated on XPages development since last year’s Lotusphere. Mike co-presented (with Roy, of all people) a beginner’s XPages workshop at MWLUG this summer and was a regular speaker at GRANITE, the Chicago-based Lotus user group. Mike was recently voted Vice President of GRANITE for 2011.

Topics

Lotusphere 2011

  • Now just 16 days away!
  • Important coffee news!
  • Making preparations
  • Lotusphere IDOL 2011
  • GURUpalooza
    • Thursday 10AM
    • No Rocky this year!
    • All non-IBM presenters from BP, SNT and JMP sessions on stage for the audience to ask questions of
    • What are the rules?
      • Those breaking the rules must donate to charity
      • Bring your questions – you’ll get honest  maybe too honest answers. 
      • Any Gurus being disagreeable with others will be sent to the side of the stage to dance – either alone or with their nemesis. 
      • This session is for the attendees, so we want to get as much good info out that as we can
  • Also on Thursday the 3rd Annual Blogger Open
    • It’s free miniature golf, open to anyone, not just bloggers.
    • Sponsored by Andrew Pollack’s Northern Collaborative Technologies, Chris Miller’s IDoNotes, and David Leedy at Notes in 9. (Thank you, gentlemen!)
    • The site has links to photos from the previous two events.
    • At 5:30pm after LS11 is all shutdown
    • @bloggeropen on Twitter
    • Registration will open Monday, January 17th. Space is limited so you should sign up quickly if you’re interested. Registration will be simpler this year.  There will be no specific start times for groups — your “team”is whoever is around when it’s time for the next group to start.
  • Booth babes
    • That’s Roy 🙂
    • What are you expecting?
    • Ytria will also be giving away everyone’s favorite Lotusphere goodies – Jelly Beans!
  • TWiL at LS11
  • LotusCab?
    • No really, follow LotusCab on Twitter and find Ride-Share partners to and from the airports, hotels, etc
    • Run by Docova
  • Charity raffle for a very, very good cause the Children’s Cancer Association – “It’s a small Lotus World”
  • Request from Sharon Bellamy – what advice can the panel give for a first timer at Lotusphere?
    • Attend BALD
    • Attend the Turtle’s party (after BALD)
    • Get to the OGS early
    • Attend The Great Geek Challenge on Tuesday
    • Attend Gurupalooza
    • Go to the labs! (bring your PMR numbers)
    • Attend Ask the Developers
    • Attend Ask the Product Managers
    • Attend Research Lab
    • Attend the Blogger Open
    • Go to any BoF that fleets your fancy
      • Mikkels and Bobs on plugin development is of course a must! 🙂
    • Tell everyone you are the “Sharon”that TWiL keeps mentioning 🙂
    • Read Andy Donaldson’s Andy’s Guide to Lotusphere
    • If you see someone you want to meet/talk to/stalk then start talking to them. Some will run away, most won’t
    • Follow the advice in the tips sections
    • Time flies at the Wednesday night party. If there’s a ride you want to go on, get to it quick!
    • Close out LS11 with Lisa, Mike, Stuart and Darren at Kimonos on the last night. At LS10 we were officially the last party there!
      • Let’s start a tradition……
      • The 2nd Annual Lotusphere Thursday Last Call Party!

Other news:
Lotus User Group podcast with Alistair Rennie

The X-Cast returns!

  • XPages related podcast is alive!
  • Now with Tim Clark, David Leedy and Paul Withers
  • The latest podcast features a great rundown of every XPages-related session at Lotusphere. – MM

Blogger of the Year voting is open
Verizon now have the iPhone
SkiLUG

  • SkiLUG is a user group event that combines technical sessions and outdoor winter fun in the U.S. state of Maine. Bill Malchisky is the brains behind it. It takes place soon after Lotusphere from Friday, February 25th through Sunday, February 27th. The URL is http://www.skilug.org.

Tips

Darren

Start your LS11 conversation ice breaker with “Do you listen to This Week In Lotus? Those guys are brilliant/idoits/wasting their time/deserve a GRAMMY”

Mike

Two Lotusphere tips:
1) Talk to the fellow attendees at Lotusphere. At your lunch table, while standing around between sessions, wherever. Technical content at Lotusphere is fantastic, but the relationships you build can be even better.
2) For you XPages developers and wannabe XPages developers, look for the new XPages Cheat Sheet put together by David Leedy. It’s four pages of basic XPages material that is invaluable. I have a review copy and I’ve already referenced it several times. Dave announced it on the most recent XCast and has a blog post about it on Notesin9.com.

Susan

Treat your IBM developers well!  A greeting, a drink, a coffee – they are the hardest working people…..

Roy

1) Get lots of sleep a lot before you go. I know everyone says it, but after 15 Lotusphere’s, I can tell you that if you follow his advice and network, you will be up until 2 or 3 in the morning talking to all those new friends, discussing lots of new ideas and then you need to be back up and ready to go to a session or breakfast at 7. And don’t discount the idea that you need to wear comfortable shoes (maybe bring a second pair and switch off each day). Last time I logged my mileage at LS09, I walked well over 15 miles in 4 days. I would even go so far as to recommend buying a couple of pairs of comfortable socks.
2) Leave the backpacks in your room. You really do not need to carry around all that paper they give you. The daily schedule will fit in your pocket and if you really want to take notes or carry a couple of water bottles bring a fanny pack or use your pad or tablet. Just remember to put the Showcase prize forms and punch cards in your pocket Monday morning. Lots of good prizes to be had if you get all the stamps.
3)Last thing, this is a casual show so suits and ties are not required– unless of course your name is Bill Malchisky.

Mikkel

Have two Lotusphere tips and as I’m a developer I have to send people of with a coding tip as well.
For Lotusphere – make sure to come by our booth in the showcase and see the future of group calendaring. We have an all new UI written entirely in Java that will blow your socks right off!! Also be sure to check out our Lotusphere planning app that we discussed earlier.
As for the coding part – when doing LiveText recognizers in Notes the regular expression you specify is case sensitive but if you prefix your regular expression with (?i) it will become case insensitive. Really cool and it makes it a lot easier to write your regular expression. For more info see my blog.

Stuart

1) Don’t ever ever submit an abstract to do a Show and Tell session!
2) Engage, engage, engage.  Put any shyness or ‘English reserve’behind you.  You’re only at Lotusphere for one week a year, so maximise the value you get by taking every opportunity to talk to people – in sessions, in the labs, on the Showcase floor, in Kimonos.
3) Take a stack of business cards!


33: Lotusphere 2011 Business Development Day. Oh, and we discover the location of the Lotusphere Party!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:49 — 46.6MB)

Episode 33, recorded Thursday 6th January 2011, discussing the Lotusphere 2011 Business Development Day, events for partners and get an exclusive on the location of the Lotusphere party!

Hosts

Stuart McIntyre (blog | twitter | company) & Darren Duke (blog | twitter | company)

Guests

Colleen Hayes (email) is program director, Marketing Strategy and Channels for IBM Collaboration Software and is leading the business partner development day for Lotusphere 2011.  Colleen joined IBM in 1994 where she has marketing, sales and strategy positions at regional, national and global levels.  Prior to joining IBM, Colleen spent three years at Mall of America as director of Tourism Marketing and Group Sales, and three years at the St. Paul Convention and Visitor’s Bureau  where she held positions sales and marketing.   Colleen has an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and holds a Bachelors degree in Communications.

Jan Zeuthen (company | twitter) is the CEO and co-founder for Business partner Opus Neo. Opus Neo was founded almost 10 years ago and during that time Jan has been doing development, project management, marketing, sales, administration and got coffee for the developers. Jan is also the idea man behind Neo.Dashboard for Quickr.

Topics

Lotusphere 2011 

  • Now just 23 days away!
  • Lots of buzz around the conference
  • Tweets with #ls11
  • Blog posts re: Lotusphere

Sessions finalised, and applications available 

Business Development Day 

  • What is Business Partner Development Day?
  • What is the agenda for the day?
  • Why should partners attend Business Development Day?
  • Are there any limits on what you can reveal on Sunday?
  • There are certification labs at Lotusphere, right?  Would you encourage partners to take exams whilst onsite?

Why would partners attend Lotusphere as a whole?

  • Are there any special deals for partners that haven’t yet registered?

For the partners

  • What have we gained by being at Lotuspheres past?
  • What are you plans for LS11?
  • Do you genuinely do business at Lotusphere?

Other news

Tips

DarrenDon’t turn on Managed Replicas and “Use Local”in Notes without first ensuring the replica already exists on the local machine.
Colleen1) Wear comfortable shoes, 2) Plan ahead
JanLocal users in Quickr can also use the connector. Just enter the full hierarchy for the local user name as user name in the connector
StuartSkitch – the perfect Mac based screen capture tool. Now out of beta…