70: What’s the link between glaciers and enterprise software?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:39 — 51.1MB)

Episode 70, recorded on Wednesday 21st September 2011.  We discuss enterprise architecture, the role Quickr plays in Social Business, new products from SNAPPS, the release of Notes/Domino 8.5.3 and Rob’s appeal for help with a very critical situation….

Hosts

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

Guests

Paul HobsonPaul Hobson (blog | twitter | company) is an innocent bystander. Former Glaciologist and Earth Observation Scientist who fell in to a world of IT through a single Sunday afternoon installing Slackware from 80 3.5”floppies. Also, he does Enterprise Architecture stuff on occasion.
Rob NovakRob Novak (blog | twitter | company) is President of SNAPPS, an Advanced IBM Partner for 14 years providing products, services, hosting, and business process consulting in the collaboration, enterprise content management, mobilization and business intelligence markets. We’re known for doing Quickr work like customization, support, and templates, although that’s really about 1/4 of what we do – lately we’ve been doing Notes client sidebar apps, working with iPhones and iPads, XPages, the works. Everyone on staff is a 15-20 year Lotus nut. We just did announce our first paid product in seven years (since we tend to give everything else away), some modules for Quickr that really enhance the user experience. Rob has 3.99 business degrees, has spoken at most of the industry conferences and user groups on both technical and business topics, and last but not least we – meaning SNAPPS with the amazing co-producers the Turtles in London – produce Collaboration University.

Topics

Paul has moved away from a big IBM customer to one that is more MS-centric

  • As Director, Enterprise Architecture at a major Canadian Uni, how do you see the social/collaboration landscape?
  • What does an Director of Enterprise Architecture actually do?
  • Do IBM products such as Connections and Quickr fit into the category of Enterprise Architecture, or it just large software platforms such as WebSphere, MQ and Portal?
  • From the outside, in academia the perception seems to be that free (e.g. Google) wins over paid (IBM) is that always true?
  • In your opinion, are large organisations (commercial and academic) getting into Social?

IBM’s focus is on Social Business (and thus Connections?) 

  • Does Lotus Quickr count as Social Business software?
  • How about QuickrJ versus QuickrD?
  • What are the use cases where Quickr is a winner?
  • New products from SNAPPS?
  • Moving back to having the option of ActiveX in new fixpack – how do we feel about this?

Notes/Domino 8.5.3 Release Date set 

Matthew Reimer’s illness 

  • What’s the situation?
  • What can people do to help?

Tips

Darren:
Traveler password security. Test it on your CEO’s device before you force out that 6 character iPhone password to all your users.
Rob:
Wear sunscreen. Brush twice daily. And never, ever try to trick me into thinking you have three Domino servers in a domain when you used three different certifier IDs with the same name. But seriously…FIXPACKS
Paul:
‘Foster the thinking, not the devotion’. It’s actually something I heard from Mike Rollings at Gartner (nee Burton Group)
Stuart:
Link Facebook Chat with new versions of Skype.  So much easier to keep tabs on conversations and contacts in Skype.

[Music this week is by Pomplamoose, taken from the track ‘Centrifuge’.  Get it and more from their site at pomplamoose.com or on iTunes!] 

69: Dude, always mute your labradoodle!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:25 — 40.8MB)

Episode 69, recorded on Thursday 15th September 2011.  We discuss Social Media Week, IBM’s use of social media to market its products and services, the difficulty of finding relevant and accurate technical information on IBM products, the state of the Domino jobs market and more…

Hosts

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

Guests

Colleen BurnsColleen Burns (blog I twitter I company) is the social media strategist for IBM Collaboration Solutions – where she is helping evolve IBM’s strategy around social media as it relates to Social Business. In a previous life, Colleen was a radio host and television news producer in New York.  She currently lives in Windermere, Florida — just minutes from Disney World — with her two children, Ryan and Caroline.  She is training for her first Half Ironman race in late September with the goal of crossing the finish line still smiling and standing on both feet!
Ray BilykRay Bilyk (blog | twitter) is a system administrator, collaboration engineer (and closet application developer) for a banking institution based out of Texas, but with offices in multiple states. He lives in Southgate, Michigan with his lovely wife, Jennifer and his two children, Kiara and Devin. He loves to homebrew, and almost became a radio disk jockey and an actor.

Topics

Next week is Social Media Week 

  • Follow #ibmsocialbiz for conversation re: Social Media Week
  • What is Social Media?
  • What about financial institutions – is SocMed as relevant there?
  • How is IBM (specifically ICS) embracing Social Media?
  • What Social Media efforts are ICS planning?
  • Do we have to move with as the networks change?
  • IBM seems to have a mix of employee/individual and corporate/brand/product accounts on Twitter etc. Is this a good practice we would advise for other orgs?

Trying to learn X-Pages …and fail by Christian Tillmanns 

  • Does this post identify a major problem with both wikis and blogs, tough to know the relevance of content to latest releases?
  • Amazing response from the commenters re: resources, many free and community-delivered
  • Matt White’s XPages101 materials, now 60 videos (250 subscribers). $60 discount available
  • Follow up post

Lotus Jobs market 

  • Seeing jobs market picking up in developer segment, particularly around XPages
  • Fewer positions around administration

Tips

Darren:
For the one man or small IT shops it is a real pain when the power goes out as you don’t know about it. Well most higher end UPSes have SNMP card slots. These cards are about $250 each but can be set upi to email you when the UPS goes on to battery (and lots of other things). We have “plumbed”Nagios into it and use SNMP to also provide visibility into the state of the UPSes. Cards are available for Tripp Lite, APC and others are available.
Colleen:
Social Media Week site – check out the list of city events. Follow @ibmsocialbiz
Ray:
When getting prepared for TWiL, whatever time you give yourself to prep… give yourself an additional hour! Also, work closer than an hour from home, especially when you’re on TWiL. (The drive will kill you!)
Stuart:
Zite – my favourite iPad app of them all. ‘Zite is a free, personalized iPad magazine that understands what you like and gets smarter every time you use it. Zite helps you discover what you’ve been missing.’

[Music this week is by Pomplamoose, taken from the track ‘Centrifuge’.  Get it and more from their site at pomplamoose.com or on iTunes!] 

68: Hope is not a strategy!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:19:48 — 73.2MB)

Episode 68, recorded on Friday 9th September 2011.  We discuss memories of 9/11, MWLUG, Social Connections II, the loss of the Lotusphere CULT shirts, two significant departures (Steve Jobs from Apple and Mary Beth Raven from IBM) and more…

Hosts

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

Guests

Lisa DukeLisa Duke (twitter | company) is Business Development Manager for Simplified Technology Solutions, Inc. (also known as STS), an IBM Lotus business partner specializing in collaboration, mobility, and virtualization.  STS also resells IBM System X hardware and related storage.  IBM Champion and friend of Mat Newman.
Sharon BellamySharon Bellamy (blog | twitter | company) is soon to be a Consultant at Applicable, working with Portal/WCM, Quickr, Sametime and Connections implementations. IBM Champion, iSeries fan girl and friend of Mat Newman.

Topics

9/11 – Memories from 10 years ago?

Wrap up from MWLUG & AUSLUG 

Social Connections II announced 

  • Cardiff Uni, Glamorgan Building
  • 9th December
  • Speakers from IBM, partners and customers, plus special guests

Lotusphere just 4 months away… 

  • No more CULT shirts
  • Will it still be Lotusphere?
  • What are our hopes for the conference?
  • Is the atmosphere changing over time as Andrew Pollack suggests?
  • Can Lotusphere serve both technical and business interests?

Steve Jobs leaving Apple 

  • What’s the impact going to be?

Mary Beth Raven leaving IBM 

  • What has MBR done for IBM/Lotus?
  • Will she be missed?
  • What do others need to step forward now she has moved on?
  • Does it put even more pressure of Ed and Joyce?

Tips

Darren:
MIB Browser help make sense of SNMP MIB files and find the OID you need. Great free tool.
Sharon:
IBM innovation centres – all over the world, 2 in the UK for use via business partners or ISVs
Lisa
Other podcasts:  Taking Notes, the 1352 Report, Dogear Nation, Social Geeks and Get Social Do Business.  Also STS events.
Stuart:
LotusLive meetings app for iOS – works great.  But IBM must retire the old 7-digit Sametime Unyte meetings that are incompatible.  Also, needs to offer audio through the app too.

67: Snags, beer and topless karaoke – AusLUG comes to town!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:25 — 40.8MB)

Episode 67, recorded live from Sydney, Australia and over Skype from the UK and Atlanta, Georgia. We discuss AusLUG, recent IBM announcements and more…

Hosts

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

Guests

Mat NewmanMat Newman (blog | twitter | company) is the Director of Educaiton for ISW (an IBM Premier business partner in Australia, and this years winner of the IBM South-East Asis Business Partner of the Year award), Mat is a Lotusphere speaker of repute and renown and owner of the coolest yellow suit around!
Mikkel HeisterbergMikkel 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).
Karen HooperKaren Hooper (company | twitter | linkedin) is an Advanced IBM Certified Instructor in both System Administration and Development. Karen and her husband Steve own and manage Dr Notes Solutions, a Premier IBM Business Partner in Australia. Karen is the author of the IBM Lotus Notes 8.5 User Guide (available on Amazon). Her passion is to empower people so that they increase their productivity and use the tools available to them.
Craig DaviesCraig Davies (twitter) is an Administrator and Developer of Notes since V4, and now a proud member of the AUSLug organising committee.  Works in IT Management for a global organisation.
Paul CalhounPaul Calhoun (twitter) is Director of Enablement at GBS

Topics

A more informal chat than usual, recorded with a live audience… We cover AusLUG highlights, announcements made in the keynote, ‘social’ activities and much more.  Darren and Stuart then continue the discussion, covering MWLUG highlights and how Notes/Domino news seems to be ramping up toward Lotusphere.

Tips

No tips this week, sorry!