What a week, it flew by so fast, I can’t believe it was really a whole week. I flew home Friday morning, and slept eleven hours Friday night which probably exceeded my total for the previous week. Here are some random observations from the week
iPhones were everywhere, I was surprised by how many of them I saw over the course of the week
I saw more MacBooks then I expected to, I know they have picked up in popularity, but did not realize how many people are using them.
Sessions in general were packed, especially the “Sametime all the time” room, I only made it to two sessions there, but both were packed and overflowed.
Even Thursday morning sessions were crowded, I attended a 7 AM BOF that had a great turnout considering the time slot.
People got really bent out of shape over the use of RFID technology to track session attendance. Here are some release dates I captured from the week (don’t hold me to them)
Notes/Domino 8.0.1 – March
Quickr 8.1 March
Connections R2 – June
Sametime Advanced – I thought I had written something down on this one – anyone?
Sametime Unified Telephony – I believe this is second half of the year.
“Atlantic” (SAP integration) – Q4 While Mac has definitely become more popular, the announcement that Ubuntu linux support is coming in 8.5 is great news, which even made it to Slashdot, where I rarely see any Notes related articles. Will be interesting to see next year how many more Macs there are, and how many more people will be running Linux. It will definitely be an interesting year as all of the products start to ship, will have to watch and see how the SMB market is won over with the release of Foundations and Bluehouse. I came away from Lotusphere with two products of interest one being Lotus Mashups, and the other being Lotus Forms, I think these two would fit in nicely with all the other products I am already using (Notes/Domino, Sametime, Quickr, Connections). On a personal note, over the course of the week I got to catch up in person with old friends, and meet in person many people who I had previously only been in touch with online. There were other people I really wanted to meet in person, some of them I even know I was in the same room as on different occasions, but never caught up with them. Finally I just want to say thank you to those of you who stopped me and told me you read my blog, and also to those of you who stopped me and told me I did a great job in my speaking, it was really greatly appreciated. Of course there was the one person who threatened to stop reading my blog if it became all about the Giants for the next week :). So one week from now I will be watching the Giants beating the Patriots in the Superbowl, three weeks the Mets report to spring training, and in 357 days Lotusphere 2009 gets underway, see you there. You can find my pictures from the week on Flickr, I will be adding some more this week
Wow…. just like that Lotusphere is over. This is the fourth Lotusphere I have attended, but the first time I ever attended the closing session. I never watch the Food Network, and had not heard of Alton Brown he was very entertaining. Lotusphere next year is January 18-22, and IBM announced that they are now committed to holding Lotusphere at the current location through 2015. It will take me a little time to organize my thoughts and put together a Lotusphere wrap up post, which will probably not happen until the weekend. I knew going in to this week that I had set myself up for a very busy week, but I don’t think I realized just how thin I had spread myself, I really thought I would have blogged more content from Lotusphere, there just turned out to be no time. So now off to find something to do in Orlando this evening, and an early flight home tomorrow
Started this morning at the Lotus Connections Community BOF session, considering this was a 7 AM session following the party at Universal Studios was very well attended. Interesting discussion with the Connections Product and Design team on deployment issues, both technical, and on adoption techniques. Next up was a session on Policies with a look at new features in 8.0 and what is ahead in 8.5. Major impovements in 8 in simplifying the structure of polices, and allowing true lockdown of Notes Client setting that can be enforced. The next session was a Lotus Connections deployment session, which covered deployment scenarios, best practices, and common mistakes. Like many other sessions this week the room was full and overflowed. I am currently sitting in Gurupalooza.
OK So I have lost count which day is this? This is actually the first time I have really sat down in front of a computer in two days (it actually might be the first time I sat down in two days). Tuesday went something like this, first thing in the morning participated in the panel at the UC Keynote. Lunchtime Q & A with analysts, followed by a presentation at “The Customer Speaks – selling Lotus internally”. Before and after the presentations was preparation for this morning Social Computing Keynote. Dinner, and made it to sleep a little after midnight. Another early start today to speak at the Social Computing keynote. I did manage to spend some time at the vendor showcase today, as well as in the meet the developers labs. In the evening I tried to be in two places at once, of course one of the places was the Yacht and Beach Convention Center, and the other was the Swan, not exactly close to each other. I did manage to stop by the Bloggers BOF session for about 20 minutes, wish I could have stayed the whole time, oddly enough at this time I can’t find anyone who blogged the session I suppose that is ironic. Tonight at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure, I rode the Hulk, and even though I really didn’t want to I went on the Spiderman ride again too, it was only fair I dragged John out Boat Racing, so he repaid the favor and dragged me on to Spiderman. Tomorrow (well today) I am going to try something completely different and actually attend a few sessions something I have not done since Monday. I actually have this crazy idea in my head that I will be at a 7 AM BOF at the Swan but I am really going to try. If all goes well and my battery is charged I will live blog from Gurupalooza, and Ask the Developers, which are two of the highlights of the last day of Lotusphere. I have loads of pictures to sort through and upload, and a bunch of other stuff to write about Lotusphere, and will hopefully get to it over the next few days.
I know it has been quiet today here and on the twitter feed, been a very busy day at Lotusphere. Tomorrow the schedule will break a little so hopefully some updates and pictures.
Quick wrap up of day 2 and a look ahead to what will be a busy Tuesday for me. Got a nice early start today in order to get a good spot in the front of the Opening General Session, you can see my photos from the OGS on Flickr. After the OGS I spent some time at the vendor showcase, followed by lunch and boat racing. In the afternoon I attended the following sessions ID501 IBM Lotus Quick Technical and Architecture Overview ID310 Focus on Sametime Integrating IBM Lotus Sametime with Telephony I thought I would live blog from both, but my battery was drained, and while I had found a seat near an outlet, was told it was a fire violation to be plugged in, so no live blogging, and no time to fill in the blanks now. What I can tell you is both sessions were packed, especially the “Sametime all the time” room which seems to be full every session. After the sessions was a meeting with other members of the GCPC, followed by the Mike Rhodin blogger Q&A, IBM Customer Reception, and Jamfest. I have lots more pictures will try to get them on Flickr tomorrow. Tomorrow morning I will be participating in the Unified Communications Keynote I will be featured in a video, and participating live in a panel discussion on Unified Communications. In the afternoon I will be speaking at: More tomorrow, now it is time to get some sleep.
I was invited to attend the blogger Q & A with Mike Rhodin this evening, I was trying to capture all of the Q&A and take pictures, and it was just impossible to keep up. Many good questions and answers, and Chris Miller will be posting it as a podcast. I have not had the chance yet to go back and read my live blog from the OGS this morning, but I suspect when I do I will realize it was a good thing to leave the Q&A to the podcast.
As i had mentioned, myself and Notes calendar designer John Lance teamed up for the Lotusphere Boat Race. I am happy to report that John and I made it to the first buoy and back (yes there were four or five buoys to actually get through. The wind definitely played a factor, though I might have done better if the boat was controlled with a mouse and keyboard. John is pointing where we need to go, the boat had it’s own ideas, at one point we ran ashore and needed a push out. On the left is John and I finally approaching the first buoy, on the right is Terri and Declan who are on their way back already having reached all the buoys. I think that should be a clear picture of the lack of progress John and I made. On the bright side, we don’t have to worry about our schedules Thursday for the finals.