Tag: ibm_champions

Amazon Alexa Meets IBM Domino

I had the honor of becoming a contributor for the outstanding NotesIn9 Video Podcast produced by David Leedy. In this show, I demonstrate how I built and Amazon Alexa Skill for the IBM Domino based IdeaJam app. If you have any questions, please let me know. I would be more than happy to answer them! Thank you, David, for having me on. More videos on building Alexa Skills coming soon.

They are the Champions: Part 1

Last week IBM announced a new class of champions for 2014. This blog post is the first in a series highlighting the great work of some of them. Here I go:

David Leedy

I first met David in New York City in October 2009 at the Tri-LUG user group meeting. While we had perviously met virtually, this was the first time we met in person. We shared a few beers and dinner and at that time he had given to Gayle and I an awesome set of all things Elguji branded coasters that he and his wife Becky made. It was truly an awesome gift. David and I have developed a very rewarding friendship. I can talk to David about anything and he is always there to listen.

As many of you may already know, David is the producer of the very successful NotesIn9 Screencast. Not only has David produced over 130 shows. While the screencast focusses primarily on IBM XPage technology, it also includes other topics including mobile app development, source control and much more.

David is also a strong and vocal advocate for IBM XPages technology. He is like no one else in this regard. David has published several versions of the XPages Cheatsheet.

David, thank you for all you do in this world. You are not only an IBM Champion but a personal hero of mine.

Julian Robichaux

It’s been a little over ten years since I first met Julian. We met at a blogger meet-up in Orland, Florida. I remember telling Julian I really liked the design of his NSF Tools website. The NSF Tools site was one of my favorite go-to reference site for advanced Notes and Domino code. It was truly a great privilege and honor to have met Julian. I felt as I was in the presence of one of the greatest coders I had ever known. This still holds true today.

It wasn’t until November of 2006 that I approached Julian to do a podcast. Thinking back, I had no idea why I approached Julian specifically to do this. Long story short, we started the Taking Notes podcast in 2006 and recorded 177 episodes. While we haven’t recorded any episodes since March 2013, the podcast is in temporary hiatus.

I am very grateful to call Julian a friend and to have had the honor of working with him on Taking Notes, several OpenNTF projects and application development projects for Elguji.

Thank you Joyce Davis

I wanted to take this opportunity to personally thank IBM’s Joyce Davis for her tenure as the IBM Collaboration Solutions Community Manager. I have learned so many things from Joyce over the years that it would be impossible to list them all however, the one thing that I have learned from her more than anything is to always look at the bright side of an issue or a person. Always focus on the overall good, rather than a moment of dissatisfaction.

Being a community manager can’t be an easy job. We the ICS Community have gone through several transitional times, both good, bad and even unfortunately ugly. Joyce has been there to ensure that the community as a whole remained even keeled. She provided us with the occasional “sanity check” that was sometimes needed. Joyce is “real” and she sometimes tells you things you didn’t want to hear.

All the best to Joyce in her new role in the IBM CIO’s office. You and the leadership you gave us will be missed.