Monday, January 31, 2011

Lotusphere 2011 OGS

Good morning fellow spherians, Lotus enthusiasts, social geeks, and everyone else who is here.  For those not here in body, the energy in the room is high and you are here with us in spirit.  The theme is Get Social. Do Business.

As people pour into the Dolphin Hemisphere, we are being greeted with stats that IBM has collected related to social marketing, or social behaviors.  Apparently, if you are not married, you could join the ranks of the 1 in 8 couples who meet via a social network.  (Who knew??)

The stage has a spinning sphere of drums, revolving table of drums, guitar… the band is cool as hell.  Rockin’ LS11 at 8 am.  Clear out the cobwebs, if you had any!  That has got to be the largest harp I have ever seen!  That is how to start a session!

Alistair just took the stage. After a shout out to GM about their Volt (which sports an impressive amount of technology), he moved on to thank the collection of college students who are attending thanks to Group.

The special guest this year is… Kevin Spacey!  I had no idea he was so good at “Bill Clinton”.  Hilarious!  Kevin attributes his career and success to those who took chance and risk on him, the movies he was a part of, and all projects he has done.  With beginnings in theater and stage, he ultimately decided in 1992 to break into film.  After a twelve year stint in film, he took over the role of artistic director at the Old Vic.  Success he found, raised the security and protection required.  This created a sense of disconnection from young talent.  This bothered Kevin, and he turned to the internet.  He created the site (triggerstreet.com) to give film makers and writers a community and outlet for finding these immerging talents.  Started in 2002, this was one of the first social networks created in the internet.  This is his way to give back, give the opportunities he had to others to break into this rewarding business.  He gave a wonderful bit of wisdom… “If you have been successful in life, it is our job to send the elevator back down.”  It is our duty to reach back and help those desiring to grow and achieve what you have done.  After relating the story of how he came to “The Social Network”, relayed the successes of the movie, and pointed out just how dramatic the real story is behind the film is.  After a comedic interlude… we were left with a statement of inspiration and hammered the point of being open, listening, and being social.

Alistair Rennie returned to the stage, and discussed the shift in how companies drive value with collaboration and socialization.  Reminding us that we (the Lotus community) are positioned perfectly to take this immerging market by storm.  There was a challenge to us to be leaders of our companies as the social revolution reaches our individual companies.  We have to show business with business results just how effective the social business can be.  The long list of references and underscored successes of the social revolution reached a point of obvious value in that social businesses have the ability to always be on, available, and listening to the world around them.  This gives them the ability to be nimble and successful beyond their competitors.  The earlier adopters are making this trend obvious.  Alistair continued to point out that every emerging technology is often extremely underestimated.  As we lead this revolution in business, we need to remind the naysayers of this. 

Business is about people.  Start with the results businesses need and work backwards to the systems they need to achieve that.  He makes a statement of commitment to open standards as the development of these social platforms continue to grow.  Ignoring open standards ignores the crux of being an open company in the first place.  Elegance and simplicity are the over-arching themes behind the drive to make these platforms extensible and standards based.

Happy 100th Birthday, IBM!

He brought out Jim Balsillie of RIM.  He discussed the PlayBook.  Highlighted the performance, rich web experience, and security of the platform.  After a demo video, they explored the rich website a bit deeper.  Complete flash support in the browser on the PlayBook.  It sounds like their message is “You don’t need an app for that!”.  The plan behind the PlayBook was to bring standard and open technologies to a browser on a tablet device.  The native browser made light work of Connections and the Blackberry Bridge feature directly connects the PlayBook to your Blackberry handheld via secure bluetooth for mail/pim sync.  In May at Blackberry world, RIM will promote the top 25 apps submitted by Lotus developers (IBM affiliates) and give them a PlayBook/press release/ and possibly more.

Jeff Schick took the stage next, after a video about better work experiences built on social tools.  He brought out a panel of leaders from BASF, KBC, CSC, and AT&T to discuss taking their organizations social.  They relayed their individual experiences and successes with their social business models.

After the panel, Sandy Carter relayed IBM’s success as a social business.  They utilize social tools internally, and have for years, with the intention of being a mentor to other companies endeavoring to be social them selves.  A great part of her message was to just get started.  Emerging social technology is evolving so rapidly, you can not necessarily wait for the formal 5yr plan.  Jump in and get started.

Larry Bowden then welcomed another panel of speakers to the stage.  They discussed the exceptional web experience.  Australian Football League, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and RBC were on the panel discussing their focused web efforts to change their web experiences for their customers/stake holders/fans.  They each relayed the importance of social tools, mobile experience, and personalization as key elements of transforming their web experiences to leading status.

Finally!!! DEMO TIME!

Notes Next will bring activity stream into the dashboard, LotusLive capabilities, and Connections Files into the sidebar.  Social media interaction will be directly inline.  Embedded experience with analytics and social media.  We finally will have a true shared calendar experience in Notes Next.

Notes Traveler will have a widget based custom home page.  And a plug for BES Express was dropped into the demos.  Traveler Next also bring a mobile view into the users activity streams just like the client and works to bring a more embedded experience with media.  xPages will be extended to support mobile devices as well.

Plug for Plantronics bluetooth head set with embedded Sametime awareness updater based on the proximity sensing technology in the headset.

Notes/Domino Next beta will be available in the second half of this year.  They will also make it available on LotusLive.  The Social Business Toolkit is being updated to support these new features and embedded capabilities of the Notes Next features and the Activity Stream.

Connections 3.0 brings wonderful analytics to the table.  The addition of analytics brings more relevant suggestions to users.  Communities will see the addition of idea blogs and media sharing for video and pictures.  This is on top of the sub-community functionality we have today.  Connections Profiles has more functionality in the directory searching capability with name type ahead and the analytics suggested connections makes for a very mature user experience.

Sametime Next will bring a zero client A/V experience to the web meeting experience.  It will also extend the mobile experience and make it more complete.  YYYAAAYYY!!!

Near the end, it was announced that IBM is strategically intending to bring Connections integration into Microsoft Exchange and

Thank you to everyone and all of their hard work that went into the OGS.  It was a good way to kick off the day.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

NouvEON’s Social Solution…

Preview the application that has been nominated by IBM.  Here is a video of our award nominated solution @LS11.  Check out how NouvEON brings true business value to organizations with Connections.

Sunday @ LS11

The morning started with a bus ride to the Dolphin, check-in, and an underwhelming breakfast.  (RANT: Why can’t they ever offer vanilla yogurt?!?  WHY!!)  The saving grace of the morning was the familiar smell of Starbucks as the nectar of life hit the bottom of my paper cup.  Ahhhh.

For being 7:15, the Dolphin’s food hall is quite abuzz.  This year’s conference is still too early to classify, but not a bad beginning.  Today has in store for me:

SHOW102 – Statistics and Events

JMP206 – How I Went Beyond… (long title)

JMP205 – Connections 3.0 Administration

SHOW203 – Connections3.0 – Enterprise Integration for Admins

If you see me in any session, say hi, share your thoughts, whatever.  To my fellow attendees, enjoy the conference!

Friday, January 28, 2011

Guess the LS11 Speaker

Sponsored by LUG… you could win a $100 gift card.  If you haven’t submitted your guess yet, get to it!

http://www.lotususergroup.org/guesswho2011

Exciting News… Team NouvEON

Tweeted today:

IBM Premier Business Partner NouvEON Named Finalist for 2011 IBM Lotus Awards – “Demonstration of Business Value through Social Business”

While I have known about this, I have been trying to keep the lid on it… although I am sure I put something about this in a previous post.  The team at NouvEON has really worked hard to build a phenomenal social business tool for a major IBM distributor on top of Lotus Connections.  Projected go live, first half of Feb.

More to come… hopefully lots more!

Lotusphere Update

At pedestal #228, find NouvEON and Arrow.  NouvEON will have two give-away offerings that you can sign up for at LS11.

Lotusphere_Wedge_offerings

Swing by, get scanned, and take advantage of these great offerings.

Also, don’t forget… if you have not found the LS11 social aggregator, it is located here:

http://www-949.ibm.com/social/lotusphere/

New LSMobile Update

If you have not looked recently, there is an updated LSMobile in the apple app store. Update before you are on slow ls11 wifi.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Counting Down

The time is upon us.  I have started packing, finalizing my schedule, and making sure the home front is in order.  For the last several years, I have experienced a string of bad luck whenever I have gone to Lotusphere.  This year will be different!  I have landed @ LS in the past, just to find my identity stolen and credit card frozen.  UGH!  No $ for the week @ LS.  I have received a call right as the plane door was closed from  my wife, informing me that a mouse moved into the basement while I was away.  This year… there will be no issues.  I am traveling to Lotusphere with my new company, NouvEON, and I am sure that besides being a different experience my string of bad luck will be broken.

So now that my lsonline.info profile is up to date, take a moment and connect with me.  You can find me here once you log in.  To everyone else also making the journey this year: travel safe, have fun, and let’s start 2011 better than we did 2010!  Enjoy the conference and if you have a moment, swing by booth #228.  Besides being a finalist for the IBM 'Demonstration of Business Value through Social Business' Award, I hear there will be a nice give-away this year too.

More to come…

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

TripIt Aquired

Announced today:

Hi there,
We’re excited to share some big news with you.
 
TripIt recently signed an agreement to be acquired by Concur (Nasdaq: CNQR) in a $120 million transaction. Concur is a company we’ve long admired for its leadership in providing integrated expense and travel management solutions, and they've been TripIt users and fans for a long time. We're thrilled to be joining forces to accelerate our mission to decrease the chaos and increase the peace for travelers.
 
The innovation and customer service that you've come to expect from TripIt won't change and TripIt will remain free. Continue to use TripIt and TripIt Pro as they are today to organize and manage your travel. If anything, expect the pace of improvements to increase. 
 
We’re grateful for all the support you’ve shown in getting us this far. As we look forward to this next stage in our journey together, we’re delighted you’ll be along for the ride. If you’d like to learn more about the agreement, additional information is available on our blog. 
 
Thanks!
 
Gregg Brockway, Scott Hintz & Andy Denmark
TripIt co-founders

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

It’s Just Like We Have Been Saying…

I was sent this article today and wanted to share.  This is another article in the line of articles published to further substantiate with numerical facts and statistics just how important social media is.  Take a moment to read it.

http://www.techjournalsouth.com/2011/01/social-media-exploding-globally-opening-new-opportunities-for-businesses/

Friday, January 07, 2011

BlogWriter

I purchased BlogWriter from the iTunes store last week, and finally got around to configuring it to work with my blog. The process was not as straight forward as I was expecting, given it supports Blogger/Blogspot out of the box. One immediate shortcoming I have is the app does not rotate to allow me to type with the iPhone sideways, as I prefer to do. We will see how long this $2 app stays on my phone.

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Sametime and Yahoo! Make Nice...

...for a little while, anyway.
I received this today:

Hello Sametime users!

I am pleased to inform you that IBM has signed an agreement  with Yahoo that will  allow customers  to extend the Sametime connection  to Yahoo through mid 2011. This  is for existing gateway customers, already connected. The replacement will be a Sametime Connect client plug in offering to connect to Yahoo using Yahoo IDs to authenticate. IBM will make this plugin available to existing and new customers. The exact release date this summer is not yet finalized, but our intent is to have this released before the Yahoo Gateway access is removed.

Please refer to the Lotus Sametime Support site for updates on this topic.