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Back from Lotusphere 2012

I am back from Lotusphere 2012 and I must say it was all that it was hyped up to be

The OGS was very good this year, IBM actually listened to the audience from last year. Opened with a band (OK-GO), then Michael J Fox who gave a very inspirational speach on the use of community around PD, then product demos – and they were good demos, the awards – Champions den whopped when anyone we knew won an award – especially the Applicable one – some great talks from the execs, the IBM champions got a shout out (which is always nice) and to finish the fantastic Doctor – with his stories of how being social is helping to save childrens lives.

I spent a very rewarding 3 hours in the User Experience lab

There was a lot going on in the UX Lab this year – I spent a good bit of time giving somefeedback on the new IBM docs feature (formally known as lotuslive symphony) – like google docs IBM docs enables mutliple collaborators to work on a document, assign a block for an author to work on – infact it is a great tool. As well as being available in the cloud, IBM docs will be embeded into Connections to allow online file collaboration and viewing. This will enable users to view files without downloading and to edit on line with multiple authors – exactly some of the feed back we have been recieving in the connections user community

I also spent a good bit of time discussing some of the look and feel and metrics around Connections. Ethan Perry the lead on the connections 4 design was in the lab gathering feedback on metrics, the homepage and communities sections – I know Ethan well and sat with him and two other guys from the community to discuss some of the ideas the UX lab have. I hope to continue wotking with the UX design team to help provide quality feed back.

 

 

 

 

As well as all the great connections sessions which i will blog about later – there was some fantastic sessions on sametime, lotus notes, lotuslive (smart cloud for social business as its now called) and some great BOFs (Birds of a feather sessions) – I tried to fit in as many sessions as i could as well as attending the Champion events, being a social host in the social cafe and generally wandering around the conference with my Applicable polo shirts with the huge @Appl1cable on the back (thanks Elaine they were awesome 😉 )

 

 

 

 

I was lucky enough to be part of a great BOF with Simon Vaughan from Cardiff University and our friend Stuart McIntyre of CollaborationMatters around Connections Enhancements – we have the community in the lotus greenhouse (mentioned above) – Connections Users – we were lucky enough to be joined by product manager Luis Benitez, Mike Roache who is chief architect and Fred Raguillat solutions architect both from the dublin lab – to answer any questions relating to the direction of the product. It was a packed room, standing room only and a great discussion was had by all – the feedback will be going back to the product team. It was well worth getting up at 6am to start at 7am for.

I am shocked at the amount of people who leave Wednesday night at Lotusphere – Thursday has so many good things, sessions, we recorded a This Week in Lotus podcast live, then went on to gurupalooza where everyone that presented was on stage for an hour to answer questions – which is brave of them after a late Wednesday night party. Then Ask the Product managers and Ask the Developer sessions are fantastic.

 

After the Closing General Session which was an experience – a seperate blog enty is required – the annual blogger photo was taken for all the bloggers who are on planet lotus (planetlotus.org) – fantastic to be included this year and to stand beside so many experts many of which I am now friends with. On that note it was also good to catch up with all my community friends – experts in different parts the ICS world from TDI, to Lotus Notes, Sametime, Connections, iSeries and Power systems through to running IBM/Lotus software on Linux platforms.

Thanks Mark for sending me and I hope I can get a session and speak next year – that would be as good seeing my picture on the main screen in the OGS with my fellow IBM champions 🙂

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What is a BOF and why should I attend one?

A Lotusphere BOF – is a Birds of a Feather Session

“Ok” I hear you say “What is all that about”

Well, a birds of a feather session or BOF as they are most commonly referred to – are sessions that have no presentations, slides or hand outs.

These sessions are informal, interactive discussion groups for like-minded attendees to share ideas and experiences in a small group, open forum setting.

The usual tools involved (other than the attendees) is coffee, a white board / flip chart, some marker pens and some enthusiasm for the topic, for the early morning ones – there is even sometimes breakfast (if not some kind sole may scuttle up to the breakfast room and fetch some 😉 ).

The sessions run for an hour either early morning or early evening – and the early ones really are early (7 – 8am) but they will get you fired up and ready for the day. The evening ones tend to be one of the last sessions of the day and are a nice way to wind down with a bit of discussion before you have to force yourself to eat canapes, drink and socialize or have that dinner with your customer / supplier / business partner / IBM rep (delete not applicable)  🙂

Basically everyone should try to get to at least one BOF.

The BOF schedule is currently listed on the ideation blog on the Lotusphere greenhouse community – this is to allow you to vote on the ones you are most interested in, or would be likely to attend. All the BOFs listed are scheduled and the voting is purely to see how popular the topics are and there are a wide range of topics – take a look and see if there is something that you fancy having some input on.

You will need a greenhouse account to access the Lotusphere Community – it takes approximately 5 mins to sign up for one and it is well worth the effort – hope to see you either at Lotusphere or on the Community 🙂

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Social Connections II a grand day out

It’s taken me a while to post this – mainly becuase I am still recovering from the ‘Zombie Flu’ – aka the hideuos cold and chest infection which is now on week number 4!!

Social Connections II was in a not so sunny Cardiff Wales and my adventure started when I picked Ms Lisa Duke up at Gatwick airport very early the day before the conference.

To cut a long story short,  5 trains, a quick lunch, much social and work related brain storming, a very wet walk in some ‘angry rain’ and much cussing the googlemaps mobile app, we arrived in Cardiff.

We had a great afternoon / evening on thrusday – finalising a few things at the venue, finishing off the badges and then off out for a meal at a fish resturant in Cardiff centre.

 

Friday AM we were all go, reception desk to set up, badges to sort, signs etc … the catering appeared at the correct time and so did most of the speakers (Mr Paul Mason from my own company Applicable was coming at lunchtime), and virtually all the attendees appeared when they were supposed to – so all in all a good start.

We had a few minor issues with the streaming sorted out very quickly – and judging from the #soccnx has tag on twitter we had lots of people watching and interested.

All the session slides will be available shortly as well as the video’s – please watch the Social Connections site for details.

Highlights for me:

  • Finally getting to meet mr Louis Richardson – what a top man, he was engaged through the entire day and it will be fantastic to catch up with him again at lotusphere
  • John Scott and Joe Nicholls presentation on students and social – it was brilliant and I am looking forward to watching that back
  • Meeting many new people, the social interaction was fantastic – many questions at the end of sessions, good two way diaglog and conversations inbetween sessions, over coffee and lunch and at the after conference dinner.

I would personally like to thank Mark, Gary and the boys from the Salvation Army who did a fantastic job of the videoing again – they are superb. Thanks guys you are amazing 🙂

Claire from Cardiff Uni who assisted on the reception desk and generally helped throughout the day – thank you xx

and to Lisa Duke for not only being an awesome friend, pod casting queen and social media “finder-outer”, but she was my able bodied assistant for the day as I was completely disabled by the “zombie flu”

So thanks guys from me and Stuart and Simon .. and here is to the next one 🙂

 

 

 

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Pre LS12 fun

No ICS / Lotus Community members were harmed during the production of this video 🙂

 

Although – Cole was reduced to tears

 

Thanks to all involved for being good sports .. enjoy 🙂

 

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Well it is official … I am off to LS12

It’s official now – I am possibly to be the sole representative of Applicable at Lotusphere 2012 (watch this space for more news on that)  – so no pressure on gathering information then !!!

Hotel and Flight are all booked, just waiting for the session announcements coming  early December to see if I will be presenting or not.

I would love to present to give back some of the knowledge I have back to the community – but if I don’t get a session I think I will cope 🙂

I am planning on attending as many sessions as possible, to interview as many people as possible too as when I am back from LS12 I will be presenting to my colleges at Applicable  and later on in the month to customers in our own mini LS comes to you session.

If you would be happy for me to interview at LS12 can you let me know ?

I am very excited – Lotusphere was fantastic last year – and if the grape vine is to be believed this year is going to be awesome..

So if you see little ole Social shazza wandering around – come and say hi 🙂

 

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Joined Up Thinking In Identity & Access Management: WebSEAL and WebSphere Portal – An Integration Pattern

Fantstic new post from the Identity Management Guru (ans all round lovely bloke) – Mr Stephen Swann

Joined Up Thinking In Identity & Access Management: WebSEAL and WebSphere Portal – An Integration Pattern

Very well put together post on Securing Portal with Tivoli Access Manager (TAM), with some sensible suggestions for approach and useful gotchas.

Stephen is a legend when it comes to this kind of thing, be sure to look him up if you need any assistance and tell him I said Hi.

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I made the Lotusphere podcast

Today I was asked by Mr Stuart McIntyre to record an episode of the Lotusphere Podcast, which I was more than happy to do.

In episode 27, Stuart McIntyre speaks with Sharon Bellamy of Applicable Limited(a British IBM partner), about her experiences of Lotusphere 2011, her tips for newcomers, hopes for this year and more…

 

Download as an MP3 or OGG file.

If you would like to share your Lotusphere story – please drop the Lotusphere podcast a note – they would love to hear from you 🙂

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No Email Day

Friday 11th of November 2011. In the spirit of trying to be social and stay current with what is going on in my technical world, I attempted a day without email.

 

Inspired by No Email Day, a number of my techy friends that were also attempting this and Mr Luis Suarez himself, who has been free for almost 4 years now – I wondered,  just how difficult it would be?

 

I set my out of office message – explaing no email day and how I could be contacted instead, my email footer has the company website, my contact number and twitter id on it anyway and an internal out of office told my colleges I would be available on the company Sametime server.

After announcing on twitter I was attempting a day with no mail I started the day. I was suprised as just how receptive people were to contacting me by other meens. I am normally on skype through the working day monitoring the community chats and I spoke to a few people via a chat, plenty of sametime messages to different members of the Applicable team and full backing from my boss. Who after emailing me a message instantly sent me a twitter DM instead 🙂

All was going fantastically, until we noticed an issue with the internal connections server (which actually turned out to be a db2 process that had got stuck), we managed a priority one incident with only 3 email (none sent by me) – but the communication between the support teams and incident manager were all handled over sametime.

I am so impressed I managed a day without mail.

I don’t expect to be getting rid of email anytime soon as its a tool which I do find I need, but I am already cutting back – I try not to send attachments anymore. If I have something to share with-in the company it goes in Connections in someway, file, video, link etc. I blog interested things or put them in a wiki and point people to that these days.

I try to share with the community on my blog, in the Lotusgreen house etc. Skype and Sametime are my weapons of choice for real time communication or I even make a phone call everynow and then 🙂

Maybe every Friday should be a no email day – I can cope with that – could you ?

 

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Back to word press – blogger migration and merging sites

I have decided to move back to using a word press blog again as you can see 🙂

The first task has been moving my old blogger blog over here – easy I thought .. hmmm actually although it should be, it did prove to be a slight pain in the bum.

Firstly the import tool doesn’t work too good, but after a little trial and error I managed to get to it work thanks to some awesome googleness for finding me the info I needed.

Step one:
Export the blogger blog to and XML file – super easy, log on to the blogger dashboard and export it

Step two:
Convert that xml to a format that word press 3.x.x can read – I found this page on the wordpressites.net site which will convert the XML file to the correct format for you.

Step three:
Import the newly created WXR file and tidy up the content – I added some new categories etc. This tool worked brilliantly – imported comments, attachments etc 🙂

Step four:
Set your blogger site to redirect to the new wordpress site. This page was fantastic – has some very simple instructions to generate a blogger template to redirect the blogger site to wordpress.

My second task has been merging my Disney related blog over, seemed a bit daft having multiple blogs. I have merged my Disney realted wordpress one to this site too. Created some Disney pages, categories and tags, allowing me to have one site for multiple topics. I was thinking at least that way people can filter the Disney out if they want to.

The third task will be moving the domino blog over here – not sure how long that will take, I am hoping that the mighty Stuart McIntyre will come up with something snazzy or I may need to chat up my friends in the Lotus community. At some point 3 blogs become one – hopefully very soon.

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JustNudge Twitter widget is just fantastic

Michael Ransley from JustNudge has released a fantastic twitter widget to extend the connections profile.

The IBM® Connections Twitter widget allows a user to share their twitter feed from within their profile.
The widget uses a profile extension to capture the twitter username and then calls the twitter API when a user clicks on the widget.

It is very straight forward to deploy

Here are the steps:

Check out the profiles-config.xml file

Add a new profile extention attribute

Create a new profile extension field under the “contactInformation” section of the definition:

Check the file back in

Create resource bundle

Create a properties file in < connections shared data > /customization/strings and is called com.justnudge.resources.properties.

The contents of this file are as follows:

label.contactInformation.extattr.twitterName = Twitter Name

Register the resource bundle in the LotusConnections-config.xml file:

Check LotusConnections-config.xml file out

Add the following line of code into theelement block to register the resource bundle:

Install the Widget application

The widget is delivered as a J2EE ear file and takes approx 5 minsutes to deploy. It must be deployed into the same cluster / server that rund the Connections profile application.

Once complete synch all nodes and regenerate and propagate the plugin file for the web server.

The final step is to place the widget onto the profile so that it is displayed

Once the widget-config.xml file is checked out the following modifications need to be performed:

The widget definition needs to be defined:

add it to the end of the widget definition section just before the closing tag

i.e.

Finally the widget instance needs to be defined – ensure that this is in the “profilesView” page:

i.e


…
Check the widget file back in

Synch all nodes

restart the profile server / cluster

Here is how it looks :

An additional twitter tab is added to the user profile

A new profile extention is added to hold the Twitter name

The new tab is populated with the tweets

Full details can be found here on the Just Nudge site:

twitter widget for IBM Connections