Later today I will be traveling up to Cambridge, MA for this years version of LoLA, only it is now renamed to be the Leadership Alliance Conference. The new name doesn’t exactly have the same ring to it (or any songs that work with the title), but I am sure it will be a great event regardless.
The event kicks off tomorrow with individual council meetings, which for me means the GCPC, and the Social Software Council tomorrow before the events Opening session later in the day.
Unfortunately the timing of the event is not great for me, so I will be leaving early Wednesday morning back to NJ and missing the Wednesday and Thursday sessions.
The event itself is under NDA so no live blogging or tweeting of sessions, though I am sure there will be some things that I will be able to talk about.
I picked up my rental car for the drive later today and by coincidence the last 3 letters of the license plate happen to be my initials, hopefully a sign of a good trip ahead.
(No I am not in Kentucky – that just happens to be the car Avis gave me)
A look back at LoLA and some of the events that took place over the last few days. Tuesday morning started with the launch of the Lotus Knows web site, and the launch of Lotus Advertising in the Wall Street Journal and Boston Globe Following the LoLA Opening Session I was invited to attend Bob Picciano’s press briefing. In addition to officially announcing the launch of Lotus Connections 2.5, Bob talked about the Lotus Knows campaign and some of the places where it will start appearing initially Airports – Boston, New York (JFK, & LGA) and Dallas Mass Transit – New York, New Jersey, Chicago and Boston Online, In Flight and others coming soon. This is just the initial launch, they have committed to taking this campaign further both in and out of the US Bob also shared some thoughts on recent comments from Microsoft Executives
“People need to recognize that Kevin Turner and Steve Ballmer have blown a lot of hot wind from Washington and there is not much substance or truth to what they are espousing in the marketplace,” Picciano said. “They were so bold as to say there are entire countries that have migrated off of Notes and that is utterly ridiculous.”
Take your pick you can have this song or this song stuck in your head for the rest of the day….. you are welcome! The Lotus Knows campaign enters it’s next phase today and tomorrow. The Lotus Knows site while available today officially goes live tomorrow, while the advertising campaign kicks off today. Over the next few weeks you should begin to see Lotus Knows advertising in selected airports, trains, and other selected print and online destinations. The Lotus Knows bus has even had it’s first sighting Image via @mcalleran ( I will get my own picture in a few hours when I arrive in Harvard Square) I am currently on my way up to Boston for the LoLA event this week, tomorrow morning I suspect we will hear a lot more about the Lotus Knows campaign at the opening event, and it should be one of the topics this week that I can actually blog about.
If you are in the Boston area next week join us for a Tweetup on Monday September 21. We are meeting at 8 PM In the lobby of The Charles Hotel in Harvard Square. I have never been to the Charles Hotel, but it must be OK because the hotel Tweets! Last week I Tweeted The Next day the Hotel followed me and responded So follow the Charles Hotel on Twitter, and Join us in Boston on Monday night
Image via 
The Next day the Hotel followed me and responded 
So follow the