Today has been one of those incredibly hectic days with all sorts of things happening in various fronts. One of them I am hoping to be able to blog about in the next day or two. We shall see. It’s been rather interesting and exciting (Apart from very thought-provoking at times!) at the same time. But more on that later..

For now, I just want to share with you folks a video clip that one of my fellow IBM colleagues shared internally and which, to say the least, will make you think twice about the things you and I care. Yes!, another one of those blog posts where it’s the small things that matter… And here it is why:

After watching through that I am sure that one gets to learn a thing or two on putting the right things into the right perspective, don’t you think?

Tags: Life, Priorities, Work, Money, Perspectives, Small Things, Small Things That Matter, What Really Matters, Economy, Poverty, Richness, Wealth

I am sure you would all remember how excited I was about making my full transition from my Windows notebook to my recently acquired MacBook Pro with the installation, and successful setup!, from the IBM Lotus Notes 8.5 Beta client for the Mac. So far things have been running pretty smooth and I can certainly confirm that the user experience is just from another world! It simply works! Well, to add further up into the excitement, here I am putting together this blog post where I am sharing what, to me, was the last collaboration tool I needed to have it in my Mac to completely move away from the Windows environment. And never come back! Yes, I am talking about IBM’s Lotus Sametime 8!

Up till not so long ago I was actually using Adium to connect to our internal Sametime server(s) and must confess that the user experience was not as good, probably because of how much I have gotten used to other Sametime related real-time collaboration tools, like Notesbuddy, IBM Community Tools and lately Sametime 7.5.1. The cons have been so numerous that all along it felt kind of crippled, blind, numb, so restricted, in short, such a sense of not getting the most out of it all.

So when today I had the chance to finally manage to connect my Lotus Sametime 8 to our internal Sametime server(s), I was just ecstatic! And big time!! I am back in business! And enjoying every minute of it with one IM client that expands further and beyond around the concept of Instant Messaging, real-time collaboration and social networking across teams and communities. I am sure that during the course of Lotusphere 2008 you had a chance to get some exposure on the huge buzz around what is happening in this space with Sametime 8. Well, not to worry, as time goes by, I am hoping to be able to blog some more about it so that you folks get a chance to see what I meant when I said, I am back in business!!

For now, here is a lovely screen shot I took today with Skitch (Whoooaaahhh, do I love this massive productivity tool quite a bit or what?!?!)  of Sametime 8 running quite happily on my MacBook Pro (Contact list not showing to protect the privacy from people, by the way, in case you are wondering why it is showing empty):

Rock on!!

Tags: IBM, Apple, Microsoft, Windows, Mac, MacBook Pro, Lotus, Lotus Notes 8, Notes 8.5, Notes 8.5 Beta, Lotus Sametime, Sametime, Sametime 8, Sametime 7.5.1, Adium, Notesbuddy, IBM Community Tools, ICT, Lotusphere2008, Skitch, Productivity Tools, Collaboration, Online Collaboration, Real-Time Collaboration, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Software, Plugins, Eclipse

If last week I created a blog post on an upcoming conference event I would be rather interested in attending, but which in the end I will not be able to, since I have got other commitments, here I am again writing about another event that has passed through me without noticing and that I also wanted to blog about: Open Enterprise 2.0 Mashup Summit: Expanding Customer Value Networks, which already took place on February 1st. Bummer!!

Yes, indeed, double bummer! I first got a couple of notices from various resources about the upcoming event and although I knew I was not going to be able to make it, I still wanted to blog about it ahead of time to give folks a chance to potentially be share & share their thoughts with us. But you know how it goes, time flies when you are having fun and just today I realised the event took place already over a week ago! OUCH!!!

Would probably need to ensure it doesn’t happen any more, as I always find quite interesting such events where they are trying to do something that very few folks have ventured into at this point in time: mashups. That is right! You may have heard all over the place, and for years!, about traditional knowledge sharing and collaboration. You may have heard about social software and the impact it’s currently having within the corporate firewall. However, there isn’t, just yet, in my opinion, quite a buzz built up on what I think is what is going to make social networking click for the enterprise out there and big time in the end!; i.e. merging the best of the traditional knowledge sharing & collaboration with social computing: mashups!

If you take a look into the actual agenda you would agree with me that it is a rather impressive one, to say the least, and quite a few of the topics do actually indicate an initial trend of how social computing should not be focusing on substituting what’s already out there, but, on the contrary, enhance and augment what’s been used for years and which continues to be used! That challenge of mixing up successfully both traditional knowledge sharing & collaboration with social computing is what makes mashups such a fascinating topic at the moment. Still to be thoroughly absorbed by us all.

That’s one of the reasons why I was seriously looking forward to finding out whether folks, who may have been attending the event, will be sharing their insights on what actually happened and the outcome of the summit. So, did you make it to the event? Did you actually blog it? It looks like not many people have ventured into sharing their experiences just yet… Thus what are you waiting for? … We are all eager to find out some more on the next challenge for the Enterprise …

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Mashups, Composite Applications, Collaboration, Value Networks, VNA, Value Networks Analysis, Conference Events, KM Events, Summit, Mashup, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Web 2.0, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Social Networks

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you would remember how there have been a few times a couple of different conference events around the subject of social computing and knowledge sharing that always seem to have slipped through my fingers and in the end I couldn’t make it to either of them. Well, this year, it looks like the trend is changing a bit, at least, partially.

Yes, that is right. It looks like this year I am finally going to be able to make it to one of the conferences I have been looking forward to for a long while: The Enterprise 2.0 Conference - Lead the Evolution, In Boston June 2008. Finally!! As the time goes by, I’ll certainly be blogging a whole lot more about it. No doubt, since it is probably as good as it gets to talk and deal with various different topics around the subject of Enterprise 2.0.

However, there is one other conference event that I have been interested in attending for a little while ago and that time and time again, I never manage to be able to make it! And that is the one organised by the folks over at Unicom called Web 2.0 and Beyond: Applying Social and Collaborative Tools to Business, which this year is going to be held in London - March 5th to 6th 2008.

Once again, the timing for me is the wrong one, but it surely is one of those interesting events that, if you are around, you cannot miss! You would be able to find some more details about it over here, as well as under the Programme & Schedule. In this particular occasion the topics are rather spot on on what I would love to talk about for hours and hours and hours (i.e. Social Tools Hit the Mainstream; Social Computing and the Knowledgepowered Enterprise; Facilitating Open Innovation in a Distributed Community Using Free Social Software Tools; Technology Brings Power to the People; How we got here with Web 2.0; KM goes Social: From KM 1.0 to KM2.0; Case Study: Deploying, Measuring, Succeeding with Social Software, etc.).

But if there would be anything that would be of interest to me as well, it would actually be the folks who are initially going there and who will be presenting. What a fine line-up! David Gurteen, Ian Hughes, Ian McNairn, Lee Bryant, John Davies, etc. are some of the folks who would be there and although I have been following most of them for quite a while, it would surely be rather nice to be able to make it and catch up with them in person!

Alas, I guess that will have to be at another time, because, like I said, the timing has been rather bad for me once again and I will not be able to make it, but if you are planning on going, don’t hesitate to let us all know about it and, much more importantly, share your insights with us through your blog(s)! I am sure we would be able to learn a thing or two from such a fantastic bunch of speakers! Sigh … Suppose it will be another time…

Are you going to be in London from the 5th to the 6th of March 2008 and don’t have any plans? Well, not to worry, here is a blog post where I am sharing the details from a very interesting conference happening during that time: "Web 2.0 and Beyond: Applying Social and Collaborative Tools to Business". Wish I would be able to go …

Tags: Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, KM, Knowledge Management, Knowledge Sharing, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Communities, Learning, Unicom, London, KM Events, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise2conf, Boston, David Gurteen, Ian Hughes, Ian McNairn, Lee Bryant, John Davies

I am sure you would remember the lengthy (Hopefully insighful, too!) blog posts I put together with some of the highlights from the IBM Lotusphere 2008 I attended a couple of weeks back, right? Well, here is something for you that will make things shorter this time around… The IBM Lotusphere 2008 Opening General Session … in 60 Seconds (heh):

Ha! That puts to shame all of the twittering I did all along throughout that session!! Too funny! Next time I will save you all of that hassle and point you to the afterwards shorter video version of it

Tags: IBM, Lotusphere, Lotusphere2008, Opening General Session, OGS, Collaboration, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Computing, Communities, Social Media, Learning, Innovation, Knowledge Management, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Notes 8, Domino 8, iPhone, Apple, Mac, Notes 8.5 Beta, Atlantic, Lotus Sametime, Sametime Advanced, Lotus Symphony, Lotus Foundations, Lotus "Bluehouse", Lotus Mashups, WebSphere Portal, Atlas, Social Networks, Lotus Connections, Connections

For a good number of months I have always been a big fan from Stewart Mader, author of the fine Blog on Wiki Patterns, and who recently published Wikipatterns (A book I just managed to get my hands on and which I will start reading shortly - so review coming up soon as well!), where he gets to put together a how-to guide for growing wiki use in organisations with practical advice and plenty of helpful tips!! Now, I have never met Stewart face to face, and I am surely hoping to be able to do so at some point soon. However, having read through his blog for so long, I do feel like I know him for a little while now and realise that he has always been on to something really amazing: spreading the word on how you can make effective use of wikis within organisations in order to improve knowledge sharing and collaboration amongst knowledge workers.

And he is at it again, folks! If you head over to Blog on Wiki Patterns, he has just gotten started with a series of blog posts that are surely going to get plenty of attention, specially from those folks who may be wanting to know more on how they can deploy wikis within their businesses.

Yes, indeed, check out 21 Days of Wiki Adoption, where over the course of 21 days Stewart will get together a number of videocasts, where he would be sharing with us all plenty of helpful tips on how to deploy successfully wikis within the enterprise. Just brilliant!

I have always been a big fan of wikis, for a good number of years I have been contributing to various different online wiki spaces and even though I have been involved with them for a long while now, must say that he has already gotten himself into a very solid, helpful, educational and enlightening start, with an Intro episode on what the series would cover, along with what to expect and what you will learn out it. Very informative! From there onwards, the couple of videos he has shared already will grab your attention just as much, if not more! The one on Day 1: Grassroots is Best is just superb and so spot on!! Talking about the damage that command-and-control has been having throughout all of these years and how grassroots efforts and wiki evangelising will eventually get you there!

But it gets better. Check out Day 2: Wiki vs. Email! WOW! Did I enjoy that episode or what?!?! The entire episode reminded me quite strongly of the vodcast / screencast "Wikis in Plain Englis" by Sachi & Lee LeFever. Very simple, very effective, straight to the point on why e-mail may potentially be a good communication tool, but an incredibly lousy collaborative one! Worth while watching to say the least! And stay tuned because very shortly I am going to expand further myself on that one sharing with you my new approach to work related e-mail. Those who know me for a while now would love it… The other ones would probably want me to be fired!! Stay tuned…

So there you have it. If you don’t have anything better to do over the next 21 days stay tuned and check out Stewart Mader’s series on 21 Days of Wiki Adoption. I bet, I know, I am sure of it, that after watching through the entire show with the different episodes, you would be more than ready to start deploying those wikis within your organisation. And if not time will tell… Get ready to learn some more tips from Stewart on wiki adoption and let’s keep spreading the word around! Wikis are here to stay and whether people like it or not, knowledge workers do have a say on how they would want to collaborate and share their knowledge. And probably wikis are as good as it gets!

(Oh, and just like Martin Koser has been mentioning over at his blog post on the topic, over the next few days I am going to probably link to those videos that Stewart would be putting together where I can help contribute into the overall conversation, so this would not be the last time that I actually get to talk about it…)

Tags: Wikis, Wiki Adoption, Stewart Mader, Wiki Patterns, Wikipatterns, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Learning, Innovation, Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, Vodcasts, Videocasts, Screencasts, Grassroots, Wiki Evangelising, Early Adopters, Emerging Technologies, E-Mail, Communication, Plain English, Sachi LeFever, Lee LeFever, Martin Koser, Frogpond

Today has been one of those days where my regular social networking activities in general have been rather light and slow, more than anything else because of a rather hectic day with meetings and conference calls, along with one other special event I was invited to participate in and which I couldn’t ignore just like that. One of my fellow IBM colleagues came to me a few weeks back and asked me whether it would be possible for me to come and participate today in a special community event, as one of the speakers, where I could spend around 30 minutes talking about communities and the impact of social computing in helping improve collaboration and knowledge sharing to bring innovation into a new level. And all of that through those very same communities.

Like I said, I just couldn’t turned down such an offer and decided to block my calendar for a good chunk of the afternoon to ensure I was all prepared and ready to go. This was a special event on its own as we had a full agenda with various different topics and taking place not only in real life, through a standard audio conference, but also in one of the most popular virtual worlds around: Second Life.

Yes, that is right. To me, it was the first time I was ever on a Second Life virtual event at the same time that it was conducted through the traditional teleconference. More than anything else to try to accommodate the high demand from an extensive list of participants. And on top of that a few Instant Messaging chats going on. In short, multi-tasking took a new form for me today! And I loved it!

During the course of 30 minutes I actually shared with the audience some of the reasons as to why social computing is shifting the way we connect and collaborate in communities. We are no longer working with smaller teams in a same location. Quite the opposite. Most of us are all distributed not only within the same country, but also within the same geographies and timezones, which makes it a bit more difficult to connect and collaborate than ever before. This is one of the reasons why communities and their usage of social software is very important. If not crucial.

At the same time I mentioned how through the usage of social networking communities have got the opportunity to bring forward conversations that will help share informal knowledge, i.e. the know-how, the tacit knowledge most community members have, in such a way that knowledge that before was not being captured, now has got the perfect chance of being spread around and shared across the board. And all of that thanks to social software!

From there onwards I mention how perhaps one of the most key and fundamental success factors from the adoption of social software by communities is how they help knowledge workers build up their skills and trust levels in such a way that people get to share more with those who they trust (We have always been doing / saying that!), which means that one of the strongest selling points from social computing is actually its capability of helping you, and your community members, enrich and empower your social capital skills, perhaps one of the most neglected areas from Knowledge Management for the last 10 years!

And, finally, in the last few minutes of the conversation I shared a few tips on how to get started from a community perspective with the adoption of social software, going from starting small pilots, helping community members try and test out a number of different tools, after providing some training, education and facilitation, and getting a critical mass of early adopters figuring out which one(s) the community is going to stick around with for a while.

We did have the chance to go through some Q&A with some interesting comments, and from there onwards, now that the keynote speaker and speaker sessions were done, we all wandered off to a good number of poster sessions that were very much related to communities and community building activities in general.

And from there onwards, given the special occasion we were all celebrating the organisers of the event decided to throw together a lovely Mardi Grass party where we could all hang out, have a (Virtual) drink or two, with plenty of dancing with various types of music, and some lovely conversations. Just like in real life! What a better way of spending our time in improving our social capital skills than hanging out at the party!! Look at that, as a result of today’s event and the party afterwards, I am going to be involved with a couple of communities providing them with some extensively education and resources on various social computing tools.

Ha! And then they say there isn’t value in using social networking and virtual worlds in a business environment to help drive new revenue. Well, you may need to think again…

Either way, I just wanted to share with you now some some of the photos that were taken during the Mardi Grass party. There were plenty more, but I just couldn’t get the heads up to share them over here just yet. But from those that I could, I have already uploaded the pictures into my Flickr account:

I told you, I mentioned a little while ago I was going to become much more active this year around the virtual worlds space, mainly Second Life, and all along I knew there was a reason. Today I saw it. Today I saw the way community members can connect with one another much easier and establish the right level of conversations and get to know one another and trust each other to collaborate and share their knowledge more with one another. And all that thanks to virtual worlds, like Second Life! … Social computing at its best!

Tags: IBM, Communities, Learning, Collaboration, Social Computing, Social Learning, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Software, Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Virtual Worlds, Second Life, Mardi Grass, Party, Social Capital, Trust, Flickr, Remote Collaboration, Tacit Knowledge, Explicit Knowledge, Know-How, Business Value

Over the last few days you would remember how I have been putting together a number of different blog posts to detail what have been some of the major highlights I have gone through while attending IBM’s Lotusphere 2008 event: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 and Day 5. Overall the experience has been incredible, to say the least! Weeks before going there I had a huge amount of very high expectations from hearing and reading all over the place what kind of a special event it surely was, and as time got closer to the final date, my excitement grew likewise as well!

I attended some really good keynote and speaker sessions, hanged about at the Innovation, User Experience and Meet the Developers Labs, met a whole bunch of new folks and, much more importantly, I got to meet up with a whole bunch of good old friends with whom I have been spending a good amount of time nurturing our relationships within various social networking tools. And, of course, we had plenty of good fun with whatever other activities were planned throughout the entire event.

It was a remarkably wonderful experience to be able to connect with those folks, meet some new, brilliant and talented people very passionate about social computing in general and Enterprise 2.0, in particular, although most of them didn’t realise about it (Which is a good thing!) and also I had the unique opportunity to meet up on site my entire new team, where I am the only one working overseas. Just brilliant!!

However, as I got back and started to get immersed into reading more and more what actually happened throughout the event I realised that I should prepare better for next year’s, so that I have got the chance to improve the overall experience from the blast it’s been this year so far. Thus with that spirit, here you have got 10 things I would be working on differently over the next few months to help me prepare for Lotusphere 2009!

1. Plan ahead better which sessions I’d be attending: That basically means getting my hands on the super nifty Notes database put together by the Genii Software folks as soon as I possibly can, so that I can peek through those various presentations I’d be interested in ahead of time. There were so many great sessions put together that one had the constant feeling of having missed something! (Thank goodness, most of the decks are available online for download / replay!)

2. Ensure at all costs I got the hotel room booked at The Swan Hotel in Orlando: That worked out beautifully this year, so I need to ensure I am registered soon enough to book myself for the same hotel.

3. Perhaps go with some carry-on luggage instead of the regular suitcase: Yes, indeed, I am not ready to lose, yet again, my luggage just before getting there! It’s happened a couple of times already, not willing to let it go once more!

4. Get easy on late nights and alcohol: Yeah, I know, I said that! This year I basically missed all of the BOFs sessions in the morning, because there was no way I was going to get up at 6am to attend one of them at 7am. It’s just not going to happen! Perhaps they should move them towards the end of the day … hint, hint, and let us get some good night sleep!!

5. Be prepared to walk & take an extra pair of shoes: Stuart McIntyre, from Collaboration Matters, mentioned to me in a Skype conversation, before just heading to Lotusphere 2008, that I should go and listen to The Taking Notes Podcast’s episode #74, as I was bound to find everything I needed to enjoy the event as a first time attendee. Of course, I listened to the fine show put together and one of the comments was that every day we would be walking quite a bit in between hotels, sessions, Labs, evening activities, etc. etc. Well, that is just so true! I literally burnt out a pair of shoes just from walking!! (Thank goodness I always take a spare one with me!)

6. Hang out more at the bar(s): Like usual, and this is something I have learned over time myself, all of the best social networking is just happening right there, right then: The bar(s)!! And there are plenty of them, so I need to go to them much more often than what I already did this year! I know, hard to combine with #4!!

7. Trust the network more: IBM’s Lotusphere 2008 has probably been the first one, from all of the different IBM and non-IBM conferences,  I have attended where the wireless network has just been amazingly brilliant and reliable throughout the entire event, even when it was all finished and done with! I need to make a conscious effort to do some more live con-blogging, twittering, shooting photos / videos, etc. etc. The network will be just fine!!

8. Walk even more than this year: Not only would it prove to be a very very healthy activity, but it would also give me the opportunity to check out more extensively the fantastic Product Case area where lots of the hottest action was happening! Yeah, can you believe that I only returned with one (Not lousy!) t-shirt?!?!? Yes, I know. Sad

9. Talk to more people: Well, I guess I can’t have enough of it, can I? To me, it’s what makes every single event a great success!! Meeting new people who you may share a passion with for whatever the subject, introduce yourself to most of them (Even if you do not know them!), show off with one of your lovely MOO cards, and start talking! Believe me, in my experience this year, people are very willing to find out more about who you are, what you do and what brought you to Lotusphere … and bingo! A new connection has been born! Time then to nurture it!

10. And, finally, my favourite tip for next year; Let serendipity do its magic; Over and over again! Serendipity is a wonderful thing, we all know that, but you would be amazed at the huge volume of really stunning conversations I had throughout the conference event due to one or another of those serendipitous encounters. I am surely going to let it do its magic much more often than what actually happen this year?

How? Well, walk, walk, walk and walk all over the place!! That’s how I met the folks I wanted to meet up with in the first place. And I only got to see about half of them!! So next year I need to walk twice as much as this year so that I can keep bumping into several folks I would really want to meet up with, but also letting that magic work for those folks who I don’t know anything about just yet and who are just waiting to make that connection. Like I said, let serendipity do its magic. After all, it’s just the perfect place, don’t you think?

Well, that would be it, folks. That’s the final blog post from my reviews of one of the most superb events I have ever attended. Ever! I mean it. I am surely looking forward to next year’s and put into practice all of the tips I have mentioned above. But how about you? If you were there this year, what would be your tip(s) for next year? What would you do different next year to enjoy the overall experience ever so much more? Tell us … We are all ears!

Tags: IBM, Lotus, Lotusphere2008, Lotusphere, Collaboration, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Computing, Communities, Social Media, Learning, Innovation, Knowledge Management, Knowledge Sharing, KM, User Experience, Meet the Developers, Labs, Emerging-Technologies, Genii Software, Lotusphere2009, Tips, Orlando, The Swan Hotel, Luggage, Suitcase, Travelling, Stuart McIntyre, Collaboration Matters, The Taking Notes Podcast, Bars, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Dialogue, BOFs, MOO Cards, MOO, Serendipity, Magic

Remember when not long ago I created a blog post where I was mentioning that one of the things I was really looking forward to from the IBM Lotusphere 2008 event was getting my hands on the new Lotus Notes 8.5 Beta for the Mac? Well, things have moved on from the time where I was mentioning I was having a couple of issues with it and over the weekend I have just managed to fix them by simply doing a replace of the mail file template with the latest release of the v8 mail file template. And now… it works!!

Actually, it rocks, because, as you would be able to see from the screen shot, I have reached Inbox zero on top of it and it surely looks rather nice being able to play with a very solid release, even though it is still beta, and getting rid of all of the e-mail that may have come over the weekend. Oh, and at the same time check out some of the nifty features that are coming along, like the embedded RSS / Atom feed reader client that, although simplistic, it sees to be the only one keeping up with the heavy update of Web sites like Twitter.

W00t!! Yes, indeed, can you imagine? My mail box running hand in hand next to my Twitter feed? How cool is that? And that is just the beginning, because I am surely going to enjoy this beta release before we move into the next one. First, time now to explore all of the different capabilities, like installing plugins, hacking the Welcome / Home page, etc. etc.

Who said that Mondays couldn’t be fun? Well, mine is so far…

Tags: IBM, Lotus, Lotus Notes, Notes, Notes 8, Notes 8.5, Notes 8.5 Beta, Mac, MacBook Pro, Apple, Notes Client, Productivity Tools, Performance, Eclipse, Lotusphere, Lotusphere2008, Twitter, Syndication, Inbox Zero

Here we go with one more blog post detailing some of the highlights from the last day at the IBM Lotusphere event that took place last week. We are already on the last day of the conference, and what a conference!! One of the most re-energising and refreshing events I’ve attended in a long while! And the main highlight from me so far; like usual: the people!! The incredible talent put together jamming away for a few days talking about what drives their passion. Mine is social computing. So during those five days I just couldn’t stop bumping into people I knew for quite some time, and some others I was introduced to, who help me gain lot of experience and first hand insights on how other folks are adopting social software.

Later on, I will create another blog post, probably the last one from the series, where I will be sharing with you folks what I have learned from the entire event itself, and what I should have done to even take much more advantage from the conference itself. Yes, I had a great time, but there were a few things I think I should have done different in order to get even more out of it. But that is the subject for another blog post…

Waking-up late

Yes, I know, I am guilty of that one. Perhaps because it was the last day of the conference. Perhaps because I stayed up with the Lotus Connections folks till very early in the morning. Whatever it was, I eventually missed out the first couple of hours of speaker sessions. I just couldn’t. So I decided to recover and make some time to spend the rest of the day attending what was left from the event itself, which then proved to be rather interesting as well, to say the least.

GURUpalooza Session

To start with, I attended one session called GURUpalooza, which, to me, was quite an interesting session, since it was the first time I ever saw something similar. So here we have got a bunch of gurus on IBM Lotus offerings sitting on stage waiting to be hammered with questions from the audience on how to get the most out of those various applications. Anything goes. All questions get answered or, at least, it is tried. The session was moderated by Rocky Oliver, who I had the pleasure of briefly introducing myself to during lunch and which I wish I would have had more time to talk some more. Perhaps next time!

Although I couldn’t twitter as much as I would have hoped (For a few minutes the wireless connection was not up to speed) I did eventually get some twittering going on to share some of what it was like. And what I found remarkably interesting was the fact that there were plenty of various different questions and only one around the area of social computing. Yes, only one, when I would be expecting quite a few of them, specially around the area of why bother with social software? What are the business benefits? How do I get started within my organisation? Why should I care / listen to social computing? etc. etc. You know what I mean, the usual stuff you get asked about quite a bit from time to time.

Yet, it didn’t happen during that particular session, which makes me wonder whether people are already getting involved and still haven’t come up with those questions (Or they already know the answers) or, rather, that they are not bothered at this point in time and things are still very much at the beginning. Some food for thought… (We shall see what happens next year…)

Lunch Break

From there onwards we all went for lunch and although it was a rather informal and light lunch, it was one that I enjoyed quite a bit, since it gave me the opportunity to meet up other folks I have been working with for a while, but that I never got the change to meet in person. Well, I finally got it done! Here are some photos we took:

Ask the Developers Session

Right after lunch we went for what is supposed to be a classic from Lotusphere, which is the session Ask the Developers, where some of the top notch developers from Lotus products get on stage and over the course of one hour they get asked plenty of questions from the audience, most of them of a technical nature. Yes, this is the session where apparently you can tell the developers what you like, and don’t like, about a specific product, application, feature, etc. etc.

And after having attended it, I think I know why it is so popular! It is a complete buzz with plenty of people from various different companies sharing their ideas and experiences from using IBM Lotus products and providing some instant feedback on what works, what doesn’t and what they would like to see improved! Social networking face to face at its best!! Listening to feedback and reacting to it to help improve your products! It cannot get better than that!

I had so much fun with the entire session that I went crazy with Twitter and shared quite a bit of the different questions asked / answered, to give you an idea of the nature of the questions and the reactions provided. Lots of good fun, I tell you!

Closing General Session - Alton Brown

From there onwards, those of us who were still around headed to the main tent session, which was the closing general session where every year there is a guest speaker. This year that speaker was introduced by Marjorie Tenzer and it was no other than Alton Brown.

At the very beginning I wasn’t really sure what the real deal was, since I didn’t know who he was or what he would be talking about. Then after five minutes of him talking, a couple of Web sites surfed, I was completely sold! What a fantastic bloke! Yes, I know, those of you in the US & Canada probably already know about this, but must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it quite a bit. I twittered a little bit about his performance, but when we were getting immersed on what he was doing with food (Think of food & science mixed up together with some spices and lots of good fun!!) I decided to stop twittering and, instead, take pictures!!

And boy, did I get carried away or what? I took a whole lot of them that still need to be tagged, annotated and everything, but you can already find them in my Flickr stream. What a great show!! I could then see why he is such a bit hit in the US. Wish we would be able to watch him over here in Europe without having to pay for expensive sat. T.V. Alas, we would have to content ourselves with the whole bunch of videos on YouTube, which is not too bad (Was surprised to find so many in there!).

And with that we came to the conclusion of a superb conference event over the course of five wonderful days! It was my first time at Lotusphere and I am sure it won’t be the last one. I am *so* going to make it next year. No doubt! But then I will be sharing shortly one final blog post on what I am planning to do in preparation for next year, because there was just so much going on that one needs to be prepared well ahead of time. And that’s what this upcoming blog post will do…

For now, here are some pictures I took during Alton’s closing session:

Oh, and if you are wondering what I did in the evening, I actually went Downtown Disney with half of Ireland to enjoy a couple of pints, have some good dinner, head back to the hotel and enjoy the peace and quiet of hanging out at the Dolphin bar without the massive crowds from the last five days! Priceless!

Tags: IBM, Lotus, Lotusphere, Lotusphere2008, Events, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration, Communities, Lotus Community, Connections, Lotus Connections, GURUpalooza, Rocky Oliver, Twitter, Flickr, Feedback, Conversations, Developers, Ask the Developers, Marjorie Tenzer, Alton Brown, Show, Food, Food Show, YouTube

Yesterday I didn’t get a chance to create a blog post to share with you folks some more highlights from the IBM Lotusphere event that took place last week. Apparently, my Internet connection had other plans for the day. So I am back today with a short blog post where I just wanted to share a few thoughts on what has been one of my favourite gadget experiences from the entire event. It surely wasn’t the amazing Lotus Notes on the iPhone, nor the super fine Lotus Foundations server (That fits quite nicely in an envelope!). Or a whole bunch of other ones. It was just my Nokia N95!!

I knew I made a heck of a purchase a few months back, when I acquired the Nokia N95, but up until the Lotusphere event I didn’t really have the chance to test it out properly in such a massive event as that one. And, boy, was it up to the test or what?!? And big time!! With it I have been taking lots of pictures all over the place. All in all around 300 for the entire event, of which 268 are already in my Flickr account. I have been listening to various different podcasts, both related to the event and non-related. Watched a good number of vodcasts, too! (Gotta love the quality of the image and the sound!). Surfed the Web as much as I could do with the free wireless available throughout the premises, so I could check out what people were blogging about during the event or Twitter here and there about the different places I was or just simply checking out some of the Web sites from the various announcements that went live during the course of those few days.

Of course, I used the N95 quite heavily as well to make plenty of phone calls to meet up with people. Sent a whole bunch of SMS, played a few games while waiting on the hotel lobbies to meet up folks, etc. etc. But if there would be a single reason why I am in love with the Nokia N95 is because of this:

Yes, I know, there are very few words that can describe the quality of the output from those videos for such a tiny little device like the N95, which I now carry with me everywhere I go! Because you never know when it’s going to happen again, right?!?

(Stay tuned because last couple of blog posts with further highlights from Lotusphere are coming up shortly!)

Tags: IBM, Lotus, Lotusphere, Lotusphere2008, New Media, Social Computing, Social Software, Social Networking, Collaboration, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Learning, Podcasts, Vodcasts, Twitter, Nokia, Nokia N95, N95, Apple, iPhone, Lotus Foundations, Lotus Foundations Server, Flickr, Videos, Multi-Media, Multimedia, Blogging, Metablogging

Continuing further with my highlights from the IBM Lotusphere event that took place last week, we now go on to the fourth day of the event, Wednesday 23rd, where a whole bunch of really good stuff happened throughout the entire day! Not only from the perspective of attending some sessions, well, actually one of them, but also from the perspective where I got to meet up a whole lot of people I have been hanging around with for some time already! But let’s get started from the very beginning.

Social Software Keynote with Jeff Schick

First thing in the morning for me was to actually make it to the keynote on Social Software by Jeff Schick, which, I must say, was a rather entertaining show, since we did have our very own Innovation Idol live on stage (More of that in my Flickr stream and throughout this blog post, too!). But apart from that, it surely was one of those very informative keynote sessions where Jeff got on stage a number of folks talking about how their own businesses have been adopting social computing using some of the various IBM Lotus Social Software offerings: Ben Lichtenwalner (From TeachforAmerica), Josh Kimball (From The Bank of New York Mellon) and Mitch Cohen (From Colgate-Palmolive, who, by the way, happens to have quite an interesting blog with some really good stuff in there and he is also twittering! I had the pleasure of talking to him as well, while hanging out at the Meet the Developers Lab, while we both were getting a demo on Lotus Connections v2).

This specific section of the keynote, to me, was of particular interest as we were all able to hear first hand what were some of the main challenges for all of those companies to start adopting social software and how they have overcome them through time. So with great and avid interest I twittered the whole entire thing! Way better than me trying to reproduce it all over here. Very very informative, I tell you, and a clear move that despite some initial hurdles, in the end, it will happen. It does happen.

Going back to Jeff and instead of me telling you all of the stuff he mentioned I would refer you to the same links I shared above from my twitterings and also this specific YouTube video where you can see a good 3 minute show that will give you an idea of what Jeff talked to us about.

From there onwards we went into some really funny Innovation Idol stuff that I think would be very descriptive from the following pictures I took live at the event and which you can find in my Flickr account:

And then, finally, we got to one of the subjects I really wanted to dig in some more, which was going through an extensive demo with one of my fellow IBM colleagues, and good friend, Suzanne Minassian, who shared with us some of the really cool stuff happening with the upcoming release of Lotus Connections v2, providing us with a very thorough demo on some of the new features. At this stage I took a whole bunch of pictures and continued to twitter some more, if you would want to get a glimpse of what’s coming. But not to worry, I am planning on covering this very same topic at a later time since there were a couple of speaker sessions dealing with this very same subject.

Either way I was completely jazzed up at this point in time, more than anything else because some of the new features put together were things we all wanted to have for some time. And they are now finally happening! W00t!

Meeting with folks for customer meetings on social software

Right after the keynote session finished, and instead of going and attending a couple of breakout sessions, I actually had a meeting with a couple of IBM colleagues I have known for a while through our internal blogosphere to talk around the subject of social computing and some questions that a couple of customers were asking about back home. Really interesting and I am hoping that one day I may be able to blog about it and what happened in the end. Stay tuned for some more to come…

Meet the Developers Lab & Lunch with IBM’s Social Computing Ambassadors

After finishing up that meeting with those colleagues I decided to head down to the Meet the Developers Lab where this time around I hanged out with my good friend Adrian Spender, one of the main developers of Lotus Connections in Dublin, who gave me another hands on demo on Lotus Connections v2 focusing on the main Dashboard coming up very soon. Goodness! There I was again, drooling all over the place, making a mess! heh Like I said, I will be talking some more about it as time goes by, but those who have been playing with Connections would agree that it was a very much needed improvement and what an improvement!

That’s also where I met Mitch Cohen and we talked briefly while he was on his way out. Yeah, I know, I was surprised a bit when he mentioned he is one of my blog readers. Goodness! I didn’t see that one coming! But it felt good! heh (Hi Mitch! Great stuff being able to meet you face to face! Thanks for reading! )

Afterwards I headed down again for another superb lunch with a good bunch of IBM social computing ambassadors from the community I mentioned yesterday and spent quite some time exchanging ideas, sharing our stories on what worked, what didn’t, the challenges we have faced thus far, and overall made it a really really nice lunch where, as usual, I learnt a whole bunch of stuff on how social computing is getting adopted in different countries and geos. Very educational and one of the perks of bringing social networking into a real-live environment!

IBM Adoption of Social Software Booth

From there onwards, it was my turn again, for the last time, to co-host the booth we had and hoped that folks would come over and talk to us, but apparently things were a bit slow that afternoon, probably as plenty of folks were already preparing themselves for the evening party and / or early leave the next morning. Either way, we enjoyed some very very entertaining conversations with David Tebutt, who never stops to amaze me the amount of knowledge he has got around the IT world, and not just social computing. He can keep you entertained for hours no end, and he surely did! Thanks, David, for making a very quiet afternoon rather enjoyable and very enlightening!

Lotusphere 2008 Party: Universal Studios

And, then there was a party! Yeah, baby, one of those parties you know you are going to remember for a while! That’s right. All of those folks who wanted to go headed down to Universal Studios where we had a really good time and where instead of me telling you all about it, I shall just grab some of the pictures I took during that evening and you will see what I mean …

Oh, but that is not all of it … Because on our way back to the hotel I bumped into two really good friends of mine who I have known for years, but that we never managed to meet up face to face: Amy Widmer & Kathryn Everest. Of course, we had to go and celebrate it and we headed down to the Dolphin bar, where the whole Lotus Connections crowd was hanging out, and lo and behold I knew my evening had just gotten started!! … Till the very early morning! And it surely did!! Thanks to very thought-provoking and inspirational conversations (Yes! At that time of the morning!) with folks like Gene Leo, Miguel Estrada or Elias Torres (Oh, by the way, next time you bump into Elias ask him to talk you to about Spectacular! You can then thank me later… heh), along with Amy, I ended up going back to the hotel room very, and I mean very late!!!

Tomorrow, last day of highlights from Lotusphere 2008

Tags: IBM, Lotus, Lotusphere, Lotusphere2008, Collaboration, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Software, Social Media, Knowledge Management, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Communities, Flickr, Photos, Team Building, IBM Software, Twitter, Blogging, Metablogging, Learning, Socialising, Enterprise 2.0, Social Computing Ambassadors, Social Computing Evangelists, Meet the Developers, Labs, Spectacular!, Social Networks, David Tebutt, Jeff Schick, Ben Lichtenwalner, TeachforAmerica, Josh Kimball, The Bank of New York Mellon, Mitch Cohen, Colgate-Palmolive, Lotus Connections, Connections, Connections v2, YouTube, Videos, Innovation Idol, Suzanne Minassian, Adrian Spender, Universal Studios, Amy Widmer, Kathryn Everest, Gene Leo, Miguel Estrada, Elias Torres

Like I have mentioned in another blog post yesterday, this surely was one of the major announcements I was actually really looking forward to during the IBM Lotusphere event… And now that I am back at work, I am just this close to having it fully operational, and running pretty smooth, too, … on the Mac!!

Like someone I know would say … W00t!!!

(I can’t wait to have those issues sorted out and start using Notes 8.5 on the Mac running faster than anything I have seen so far, both on Windows and the Mac!!)

Tags: IBM, Lotus, Lotus Notes, Notes, Notes 8, Notes 8.5, Notes 8.5 Beta, Mac, MacBook Pro, Apple, Windows, Notes Client, Productivity Tools, Performance, Eclipse, Lotusphere, Lotusphere2008

And here we go with another blog post around the IBM Lotusphere event I attended last week. This time around sharing with you folks a few of the highlights from the third day of the conference, well, the second, really, if you skip the pre-event taking place on Sunday. Now if I dedicated the second day to attend the main tent session, some booth duty and then some more speaker sessions in the afternoon, this time around I took a different approach which in the end seemed to be the most productive way for me to enjoy another superb day at Lotusphere.

IBM Adoption of Social Software Booth

I spent most of the morning, till around lunch time, doing my booth duty hanging out at the IBM Village and talking to various folks around the subject of social computing and how IBM has been adopting different social software tools under the Technology Adoption Program, a.k.a. TAP, in order to improve their collaboration skills with other knowledge workers.

What was nice in this particular case how in between talking with various customers around social networking, I had a whole bunch of folks from my various social networks coming over and saying "Hi!" and I just couldn’t help thinking how nice of them to come over and put a face behind all of the different online interactions we have been having for years! Of course, I had to take the opportunity and took a whole bunch of pictures I have already shared in my Flickr stream and some of which I will be sharing over here in this blog post all over the place.

Some of those folks I have finally been able to meet up face to face were actually members from one IBM internal community I am co-leading with one of my team colleagues that is formed by a bunch of social computing evangelists, or ambassadors (As we call them inside IBM) and which has grown in just a couple of months from zero members to over 170!! So after hanging around at the booth for a little while with them, it was time to go for lunch with them and carry on (Yes, carry on, as opposed to start the conversation… See? That’s what social computing does to you! ) with some of the stuff we have been discussing on how we are planning to drive further the social networking adoption inside IBM and beyond. Not to worry, I am sure there will be a chance for folks out there to get some exposure on what this community is actually doing internally, and perhaps at a later time I may be able to share some further insights on their goals & mission (Which happens to be mine as well!)

Innovation, User Experience & Meet the Developers Labs

It was after that particular lunch I had with my peeps that I decided to change the approach on how to get the most of attending Lotusphere 2008. As you may well know, I am one of those folks who values the most from any conference the actual connecting with people, the knowledge sharing and collaborating going on with them, in short, the learning aspects of meeting folks who you may have known already for a while or, on the contrary, those you have just met. So I decided that instead of attending different breakout sessions for the rest of the afternoon I would be hanging out all over the place meeting people I knew were there or letting serendipity work its magic. And boy, did it do an incredible job or what?!?!

To get things going, I decided to hang out for a few hours at three of the places I knew were going to be a massive success. Yes, indeed, I am talking about the various Labs. I mainly visited the User Experience Lab and the Innovation Lab, and a later time the Meet the Developers Lab. Whooooaaahhhh!! What an exhilarating experience, to say the least!!

To me, all of the Labs were actually quite an amazing experience! Because not only would you be able to hang out with the guys who are driving the hot action in the social computing space at IBM, but you could also share your thoughts and ideas on how those very same tools could be improved further. What a lovely bunch of peeps wanting to listen and learn from their end-users how to get the most out of the tools they are developing! Loved it!

It also gave me the opportunity to meet up some of the people I have been working with remotely for a number of years using rather heavily their social software tools and providing lots of feedback on my overall experience. There is nothing like face to face to do that!!

I am glad as well that with the Innovation Lab being available out there for folks to digest some of the content and tools, I can now share with you folks some more extensive information on the various IBM social software tools I have been using for the last few years. Examples like Beehive (Flagged as IBM’s Corporate Facebook!), Cattail (File-sharing a la Slideshare.net but on steroids!), The Dogear Game & Tag-It! (Bringing gaming into the corporate world to help people understand through games the benefits of social tagging, both on a personal and corporate level), Bluegrass (Bringing virtual worlds into the developers’ world!), Coral (Which nicely integrates concurrent real-time collaboration on documents using Sametime and Lotus Quickr), Speech-to-Text plug-in for Lotus Sametime (Meeting the accessibility needs, but also ideal for generating text transcripts from podcasts which use VoIP), Spectacular! (One of the most impressive approaches towards making online feed reading work rather nicely behind the corporate firewall and now part of my feed reading habits, too!), Atlas (To help visualise your social networks and how they relate to you and how you can tap into their knowledge and expertise to get the job done!), Fringe (And its awesome new release, picking up a few things from Beehive, Spectacular! and Facebook!, along with SONAR) and a whole bunch of other really cool technologies within the space of social computing.

Yes, over the course of the next few days and weeks, and in between here and there, I am actually going to be sharing a number of different blog posts where I will share some further insights on those various social software tools, plus a whole bunch more! That way you would be able to find out where I hang out on a daily basis, at the same time that I will be sharing my experiences on how I am benefiting from social computing @ IBM. Lots to talk about in that area! For sure!

Real - Life Social Networking at its best, team dinner and party at my junior suite room, to avoid all the loud music

Yes, not to worry, it is not the title of one of the speaker sessions, although it could well be. In between hanging out at the different labs meeting all of those people I have been working with for a while, I also got a chance to get together with a bunch of folks (Through Twitter, SMS, phone calls, etc. etc.) who I have been really looking forward to meet up for quite a while!

So, and in no particular order, I got to briefly talk to Bruce Elgort, father of the superbly and nicely done IdeaJam (Whose code, by the way, is now available on its own to be used for other purposes, and not just Lotus products. Nifty!!); Paul Wescott (Vice President Business Development from SocialText); Neil Burston (Technical consultant from Avnet Parner Solutions - whom I incidentally share a good chunk of social networking & KM connections, like Stuart McIntyre and David Gurteen. And we never heard about each other! Doh! … Wish Stuart would have been there, too! heh); Maureen Grey (Who I already met last year in July, but it surely was nice catching up with her again!), Steve Cogan (Who I have met through our internal blogosphere and who I was really looking forward to meeting all along for some time now!); a whole bunch of my new team members (Which you would also be able to find on my Flickr account) and extended social networks from the various business units inside IBM.

However, during that afternoon, there were three major highlights I just cannot ignore and which had a special meaning to me and here is why: The first one was when I had the opportunity to have a couple of beers with Ed Brill, Alan Lepofsky and Ross Mayfield (From SocialText) and have a lovely conversation with a bunch of folks who I felt like I knew forever! Yes, indeed, I have been following all three people with their respective blogs for a number of years and I was incredibly jazzed up that I was finally able to meet them up in person! Oh and they are even nicer when you meet them face to face!!

Then a little while later that same afternoon I also got to meet one of the folks I have been following for quite a while  and from whom I have learned quite a bit around the subject of technology, the Internet and social computing (As in Enterprise 2.0) in general. We both knew we were going to be there, so we had to fiddle around with our schedules and from there we actually met up a couple of times and engaged in some really refreshing and enlightening conversations on all the fuss & hype on social software. Quite fascinating! Yes, I finally met David Tebutt!! That was just awesome! One of the major highlights for me for the entire event. Without a doubt! I am now looking up for the opportunity to go to London some time this year to meet up with him, and a whole bunch of other folks I have been promising one of these days I’ll get there! (So many things to do, yet so little time!)

Oh, oh, and talking about another major highlight from the Lotusphere event and where serendipity did another magical job! On Wednesday afternoon and while a super interesting BOFs session on blogging was going on (Hosted by Alan Lepofsky, by the way) I finally got the opportunity to meet up one of what I consider my KM virtual mentors for a good number of years: Jack Vinson. What an amazing human being!!! We had some really good conversations on KM, social computing, his new job, my new job, how we both were on the same city, attending different conferences and being able to meet up in the end, and so on so forth. Incredibly short time together, or it seemed like it, but I think we both felt like we knew each other forever, so it was, again, just like picking up the conversation just from where we left it!!

From there onwards and way into the early evening already, I actually had a scheduled dinner with my new team at a good restaurant nearby where we could just talk with peace and quiet and build further up our social capital skills with one another! That was just fantastic as well! Specially, when a couple of them suggested to continue with team building activities, heh, at my junior suite hotel room with a couple of bottles of wine, a few beers and some snacks. Music playing in the background, up on the 9th floor, with an amazing view, and just enjoying what we all enjoy doing the most: enjoying the conversations! Just pure awesomeness!!

And with that we come to the end of another wonderful day @ Lotusphere. Here you have got some random pictures I took that day as well …

Tags: IBM, Lotus, Lotusphere, Lotusphere2008, Collaboration, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Software, Social Media, Knowledge Management, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Communities, Flickr, Photos, Team Building, IBM Software, Twitter, Blogging, Metablogging, Learning, Socialising, Ed Brill, Alan Lepofsky, Enterprise 2.0, Technology Adoption Program, TAP, Emerging Technologies, Technology Adoption, Social Computing Ambassadors, Social Computing Evangelists, Innovation, User Experience, Meet the Developers, Labs, Serendipity, Beehive, Cattail, Slideshare, Dogear Game, Dogear, Tag-It!, Bluegrass, Coral, Sametime, Lotus Sametime, Lotus Quickr, Quickr, Spectacular!, Atlas, Social Network Analysis, SNA, Social Networks, Fringe, SONAR, Facebook, Bruce Elgort, IdeaJam, Paul Wescott, Neil Burston, Stuart McIntyre, David Gurteen, Maureen Grey, Steve Cogan, Ross Mayfield, SocialText, David Tebutt, Jack Vinson

Oh, and before I forget, since I already knew that both the audio and the presentation materials would be made available for us to check them out at a later time, it also influenced my non-attendance to a number of  sessions, which over the course of the next few weeks I will be convering, hopefully, sharing the download link and some extended commentary. Thus stay tuned for that to come, too!

I know I was initially supposed to provide some sort of semi-live con-blogging experience at Lotusphere while I was there, but I must say that with all of the excitement of meeting a bunch of the folks I have been hanging online with for a while and also trying to digest some of the super interesting announcements made there, it didn’t give me much  a chance other than to jot down a few thoughts, which I am then converting into highlights for each of the days from the event itself, hoping to expand further on it as time develops further. So here is the first of a long blog posts detailing some of the major highlights I went through and experience during this past week attending what, to me, has been one of the events of the year! No doubt!!

Here is how I saw it and experienced it …

And here we go with the Second Day highlights, well, Day 1, really, of the IBM Lotusphere event in Orlando that I’m attending this week. As you may have seen already, there have been plenty of different blog posts put together already around the different sessions people have been attending already, so I am just going to continue posting what, to me, have been the highlights of this second, well, first day of the event. I’m not going to provide as many detail as you would have expected, having read other blog posts, more than anything else, because yesterday I decided to share my thoughts directly through my twitterings, from the different sessions I attended, and I think it was good enough with that Twitter storm than just putting everything together.

So without much further ado, here you have got some of my highlights from yesterday’s event. I do realise that most of the presentations are going to be shared online already and will probably be coming back and forth to them and link to them accordingly, but here is how my day went yesterday…

LotuSalon session with Ze Frank, Jane McGonigan and Golan Levin

The day started with a new type of session held at Lotusphere for the first time called LotuSalon, where three panelists gave a little bit of an introduction on what they are doing and then time for some intensive Q&A on a wide range of various topics. As you may have seen from the heading the panelists this time where: the one and only, Ze Frank, where he shared some of superb stuff he has been doing over the course of the years. Of course, he talked about The Show and how the Internet is changing the way people participate and engage in different group activities as part of the various communities they associate themselves with.

Then Golan Levin where he was actually showing a number of the different visualisations he has been doing and which are shown at his own Web site. Some amazing stuff going on in there as well. Check out some of the stuff related to sounds, specially. Really worth while to be honest.

And, finally, the third panelist was Jane McGonigan, who was rather inspirational sharing her insights on how the gaming industry is taking over the corporate world in order to help knowledge workers improve the way they share their knowledge, collaborate and socialise. Some really good stuff in there! I twittered quite a bit about it with some really good quotes from her on how games are changing the workforce for the better. May be referring back to them as I get to blog some more, once I find out where the session will be posted online, if it gets posted.

From there onwards, lots of great questions and interactions from the audience, covering topics such as the role of gaming in helping our kids socialise with their peers, how art is being influenced by the Internet into making it much more participative, wonderfully chaotic and rather stimulating. Also commentary was shared on the lack of life from bloggers … heh I’ll let you figure that one out! And from there onwards we came to a close of the session, session that was incredibly energising and inspiring and that got us to a superb start of a busy day.

Main Tent Session with Mike Rhodin and Bob Costas

From there onwards, we got off to a quick break and ready for the main tent session. They were actually two main sessions, one after the other, to accommodate the high expectations from everyone attending and must confess that those expectations were met and big time!! Unbelievable show with a wonderful musical start and with plenty of announcements, demos and major news taking place. I’m going to keep it short on this one, since I have twittered extensively about the entire session, but I can honestly say that there have been some massive announcements that I will be touching base on over the next few days… For the time being check out the Twitter storm on the subject or have a look at Ed Brill’s & Alan Lepofsky’s takes on it. Oh, and if there is anything from those announcements that you would want me to cover first, by all means, feel free to drop a comment and will cover them as soon as I possibly can.

Stay tuned for plenty more to come up!! Yes, that is right. One of the things that I will be doing from here onwards is that I will be sharing with you folks some more extensive information details on plenty of the different announcements made. So very shortly you will see me talking about the joint partnership with RIM for the mobile workforce, also IBM and SAP’s joint product development called Atlantic, Notes 8.5 on the Mac (Which I am just about to install over the next few hours and something I have been looking forward to big time!), Notes 8 Composite Applications & the integration with Google gadgets, Lotus Symphony, Sametime 8.0 as we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Sametime IM client, Lotus Foundations, Lotus "Bluehouse", Lotus Mashups, Lotus Connections v2.x, Lotus Quickr, and the list goes on and on and on… Yes, I know, plenty of good stuff for me to talk about!

IBM Adoption of Social Software Booth

After the main tent session and with all of that excitement building up, it was time for me to actually do some work. One of the reasons why I was going to Lotusphere this year was to actually do some booth duty with the rest of my new team talking to various different folks about how IBM is adopting a number of different social software tools, in order to help drive collaboration, knowledge sharing and innovation into a new level.

So for a few hours every day all of us spent some time hanging out on that booth sharing our experiences on how we have been using social software, how our teams and communities in the wider IBM are doing it at the moment. Throughout all of this booth time we actually met quite a few people who were not only interested in social software, but actually asking the right questions about it, which is something that I thought incredibly re-energising as it gives a clear message of how more and more companies are starting to embrace social software and, in quite a few examples, rather successfully as well!

This was actually one of the main highlights from the conference event as it gave me the unique opportunity to get to know my colleagues, who are all over at the other side of the pond, but at the same time it helped me get a good overview of where things are with the adoption of social computing in the corporate world. Looking good so far!