Podcast: Interview with Alistair Rennie IBM General Manager of Collaboration Solutions

Julian Robichaux and I had the pleasure of interviewing IBM Collaboration Solutions General Manager Alistair Rennie (Twitter), where we talked about:

  • Lotusphere! Specifically, the evolution of Lotus/IBM products we saw demonstrated there last week.
  • What’s driving improvements in the Notes/Domino platform for 2012.
  • Why is “social” so important to businesses right now? What has changed in the past few years to make it relevant?
  • Are traditional desktop applications going away, in favor of mobile and web initiatives?
  • What kind of feedback and takeaways did Alistair get from Lotusphere?
  • And more…

The podcast runs 24:06 and is best listened to while eating one or more pretzel cookies.

Listen now >

Highlights from Lotusphere 2012

Here is a list of some of the highlights from my Lotusphere 2012:

  • Meeting for the first time in person people from my online “social circles” (you know who you are).
  • Seeing lots of first time Lotusphere attendees.
  • Broad based adoption of XPages.
  • Co-presenting with IBM’s Charlie Hill and Phil Riande.
  • Co-presenting with IBM’s Niklas Heidloff.
  • The Great Geek Challenge (our team actually won a round).
  • Having a full-house at the OpenNTF BoF.
  • Meeting so many OpenNTF fans at the OpenNTF pedestal in the Product Showcase and throughout the show.
  • Participating in GBS College Day.
  • Winning a Kindle Fire from GBS.
  • Knowing how to finally read the ICS “tea leaves”.
  • Seeing IBM Connections move front and center of the ICS product portfolio.
  • Participating in “Team Social” spearheaded by Joyce Davis and Colleen Burns.
  • SpeedGeeking was a blast. I also used this as an opportunity to gauge both Taking Notes podcast listenership as well as OpenNTF awareness. I was very pleased that 75% of the participants listened to Taking Notes and 95% knew about OpenNTF (humbled).
  • The Blogger Golf Open (I scored 44).
  • Seeing and hearing about OpenNTF everywhere.
  • Seeing Twitter being used in many sessions including the Ask the Product Managers and Ask the Developers sesssoins for people not in attendance to ask questions.
  • Ed Brill and Brent Peters moderating the Ask the Product Managers and Ask the Developers session respectively.
  • Seeing Elguji Software highlighted in the Opening General Session for their XPages app dev work as well as for being named a Finalist in the 2012 ICS Awards.
  • Knowing that success in the ICS world is getting outside “the bubble” and the Planet Lotus “What’s Hot”.
  • Participating in several ICS Executive briefings (mostly app dev related).

Podcast: Lotusphere Hashtags, Tweetups, Scavenger Hunts, and More!

Earlier this week Julian Robichaux and I spoke with Joyce Davis and Colleen Burns from IBM about the upcoming Lotusphere 2012 and Connect events being held in beautiful sunny Orlando, Florida NEXT week!

We would like to thank Ken “MacOSKen” Ray for the new Taking Notes intro that he graciously produced for us. Ken produces three outstanding Apple focussed podcasts including:

You can also hear Ken on MacBreak Weekly with Leo Laporte on occasion.

We also suggest you follow Ken on Twitter at @macosken.

Topics included:

See you all at Lotusphere in a few days. Oh, and we will be recording several live shows from Orlando.

Listen now >

Lotusphere through the eyes of Instagram

As I mentioned in my last blog entry I will be using the iOS Instagram app to capture photos throughout Lotusphere 2012. If you are an Instagram user you can connect with me using the screen name “belgort”. For those of you not attending Lotusphere who want to see a collection of all Instagram photos tagged with #ls12 you can go to http://elguji.com/instagram.nsf/ls.xsp to see the latest 20 photos being captured. The page auto-updates the photos every 60 seconds.

Special thanks to Serdar Başeğmez for his help with some Dojo magic. We will be making this app available on OpenNTF after Lotusphere.

Enjoy!

P.S. – I also did a similar page for the CES show.

Where you can find me at Lotusphere

On Friday Gayle and I leave for Lotusphere 2012. We will be arriving on Friday evening around 7pm. It seems like just yesterday that we made this pilgrimage down to the show. I believe that this will be my 13th Lotusphere. Julian and I will also be recording numerous Taking Notes podcasts and would love to talk with you about Lotusphere. Be prepared to be interviewed.

I will posting photos via Instagram and you will be able to see them and others tagged with #ls12 here.

So here’s where you can find me (this doesn’t include any session I will be attending):

Friday night:
Looking for friends and food after we arrive at the Dolphin

Saturday:
3:00-6:00PM – B.A.L.D. at the Big River Brewery (see Joe’s post on this)
6:00PM onward – Possibly ESPN but not sure. I have heard rumors that there is some sporting event on Saturday night that may prohibit entrance to ESPN.

Sunday:
Welcome Reception Poolside

Monday-Wednesday:
OpenNTF Product Showcase Pedestal 516

Monday:
8:00PM UK Night

Tuesday:
3:00-4:00PM INV309  (Dolphin N. Hemisphere A-E) – Strategy in Action: Social Business Application Development. I am presenting a few slides in this session.

6:15-7:30PM SpeedGeeking! (Dolphin Pacific Hall)
7:30PM IBM Champion Reception (at least the last 30 minutes of it)
8:00-10:00PM Great Geek Challenge (Fountain Restaurant)

Wednesday:
3:00-4:00PM BP109 (Swan 5-6) – Presenting Apps, Apps, and More Apps: Meet the Very Best Open Source Apps from OpenNTF – The 2012 Edition.
5:45-6:45PM BOF (Swan Toucan 2) – Hosting the OpenNTF Birds-of-a-Feather

Thursday:
10:00-11:00AM Gurupalooza (Swan)