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lotusphere tips site

All the talk of Lotusphere got me thinking (dangerous I know)

Last year I was a Lotusphere virgin – 2011 was my very first Lotusphere and I had no idea what to expect – other than what my good friend Mr Stuart McIntyre had told me and some of the lovely people I follow on twitter.

I,  of course, thought they were exaggerating the long days, the walking, the late nights, the social aspect of it – after all it’s just a tech conference – right ?

O my how I was wrong … It was like no other conference I have ever been to – and it was amazing.

So last year I did a bit of research into Lotusphere before I went. I found a few guides and some tips on the interwebs, but it was all over the place – so this year I have decided to attempt to pull some of that information into one place.

I have made a very simple (so simple it is just flat html) site of  Lotusphere Tips  – which I have put up for the time being on my web space. It may not stay here, but I am all for creating a lotusphere tips and guides place for people to go when they want information about non-technical conference stuff like :

I need to share a cab (Use the @lotuscab twitter account)
Come on why does everyone say get comfortable shoes?
how do I get to Disney from the airport?
what is this Kimono’s place anyway?

I am sure that most of this will end up on the Lotusphere podcast page and maybe in the Community site when we get one – a wiki would be good, then the whole community can add information.

But this is my first stab at it – as I am still a Lotusphere newbie it can be tough not knowing where to go for info and what to expect, just trying to help some fellow newbies out 🙂

If anyone has any tips, guides or info that I can add – give me a shout and I will add it on

Thanks for being an awesome community

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well the lotusphere abstracts are open then

Later than we were expecting the call for the Lotusphere 2012 abstracts are now open :

Lotusphere 2012 – Call for Abstracts

You only have until the application deadline: Sunday, November 6th 2011 so not long at all ..

This years tracks  :

Jump Starts & Master Class Sessions:
Audience: Developers, system administrators and technologists, IT managers of all levels

Track 2: Technology for Collaboration Solutions : Infrastructure & Deployment:
Audience: System administrators, IT managers and integrators of all levels

Track 3: Technology for Collaboration Solutions : Application Development
Audience: Developers, system architects of all levels

Track 4: Best Practices:
Audience: Business leaders and IT managers, application developers, system administrators and integrator

Track 5: Customer case studies
Audience: Business leaders and IT managers

Show ‘n Tell:
Audience: Developers and administrators of all levels

SpeedGeeking!:
Audience: Any and all Lotusphere attendees

Lotusphere IDOL:
Audience: Any and all Lotusphere attendees

Birds of a Feather Sessions:
Audience: Any and all Lotusphere attendees

The Lotus Evangelist Customer Panel:
Audience: Any and all Lotusphere attendees

Business Development Day:
Audience: Business partners
Business Development Day is a one day track all its own exclusively for IBM Business Partners.

IBM Connect 2012:
Audience: Business leaders & Busines-savvy technical leaders
This event is a separate conference that runs in parallel to Lotusphere for two days.

So thinking caps on people and I hope we get some great sessions this time around

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So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Tomorrow is my last day of being an IBM customer working for City University. Monday I move back to the Business Partner world when I start working at  Applicable.

After spending almost 7 years previously at a Business Partner, the past 2 and a half years as a customer has been a real eye opener, but I have reconnected with lots of IBMers, made new connections in the community and some really good friends.

In the time working at City I have had the pleasure of working with some fantastic people, been invited to some exciting events and actually I believe done some good work.

So it’s good bye City University and hello Applicable 🙂

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social connections 2 registration open

SOCIAL CONNECTIONS II NOW SCHEDULED!!

 

The second Social Connections event will take place on 9th December 2011 at Cardiff University in central Cardiff, Wales.

 

We are delighted that our next event is now in the diary and organising the details of the event continues apace.  Registration is open and we are seeking speakers from around the world.

 

For more details of the Social Connections II event, check out the details and then register.  We also have a number of FAQs already answered.  If you have more questions though, please don’t hesitate to ask!

 

If you want to check out how the Social Connections I event went, head over to our Lanyrd page – there’s some great content available!

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Technology is not the problem

Ripping out a software or technology stack is not going to fix the issues of bad project management, lack of collaboration and user engagement.

The technology is not the problem – in a workshop run by world renown Collaboration expert Michael Sampson he explained to the audience that the technology – regardless of the vendor – is only 10% of any kind of user adoption hurdle.

10 % Tech Vs 90% People

Strangely enough 90% of the audience got it – the normal users, the power users the knowledge workers – the real people, the people who count.

The remaining 10% who made all the right noises and then promptly went back to “it’s my way or the highway” approach were what can be best described as “the management”. These are the same people who write articles and tweet about collaborating and being a “social business”.

Sorry Mr 10% but if you don’t listen to your 90% it doesn’t matter if you have a Lotus/IBM solution, Microsoft, Oracle, Jive, Social Text – the list goes on – put in whatever technology you like – if you do not communicate what your goals, strategy and success targets you will go round and around in a vicious circle of vendor bashing.

In turn this will alienate the 90%

Your users don’t resist change – they resist being told they HAVE to change. If the 90% aren’t involved or consulted they will resist. Engage your users, empower them to input ideas and suggestions.

Sell your solution – the magic 90% need to know how their working lives will be improved, how they can collaborate and work more efficiently – keep them in the loop.

Offer Help – training, workshops and sessions where the magic 90% can feedback – have a dynamic plan – things will change when you engage your users.

Discuss and Communicate – two way discussions, frequent (but relevant) communication, ensure you are receiving feedback and process it accordingly (do not ignore the negative feedback), collaborating is the key.

This is not rocket science it is common sense!

So why do so many organisations still blame the technology?

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On the move

I have been a little quiet on the blog of late

In between helping Stuart with the Connections user group and having some family time I have also managed to secure myself a fantastic new job.

In October I will be leaving the world of Higher Education and be heading back to the exciting world of Business Partners 🙂

I am off to Applicable to work with WebSphere, Connections and other WebSphere related collaboration solutions – all the stuff I live, breathe and love to play with – I may even gets some domino and m$ integration thrown in for good measure.

I can’t wait to get stuck in to be honest – but I have a full 9 weeks ahead preparing hand over and documentation at the Uni, so the blog may be a little quiet 🙂

Onward and upward 🙂

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Social Connections 1 – the sessions

The majority of the presentations from Monday are in the Social Connections 1 event on Slideshare, including the following:

Stuart McIntyre’s opening session:

Social Connections 1 – Welcome

Daniel Siddle from Headshift/Dachis Group:

The Why, What, How of Social Business

Jon Mell from IBM:

Things I wish I'd known 5 years ago

Joseph D’Armi from Portal:

I’m too busy to collaborate

Michael Ahern from IBM:

Beyond the Basics: An Overview of User LifeCycle and Managing Users with TDI

Simon Vaughan and Chris Graves from Cardiff University:

Great expectations – students today, employees tomorrow

Claudio Procida from IBM:

IBM Connections – Customizing and Extending

Andy Piper from IBM:

Beyond the Portal: What is WebSphere?

Closing Thoughts:

Social Connections 1 – Closing Thoughts

The remaining sessions will be added ASAP

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Social Connections 1 – the session videos

Here are the recordings of the sessions from Social Connections 1.

Session 1
First morning session, featuring Stuart McIntyre of Collaboration Matters, Daniel Siddle of Headshift and Jon Mell of IBM.


Session 2
Second morning session, featuring Stuart McIntyre, Mike Roche of IBM, Joseph D’Armi of Portal and Michael Ahern of IBM.
(Apologies, this is a lower quality recording than that originally streamed – the higher quality version was corrupted.)


Session 3
First afternoon session, featuring Stuart McIntyre, Mark Calleran of The Salvation Army, Simon Vaughan and Chris Graves of Cardiff University.
(Apologies, Youtube seems incapable of displaying the last hour of this recording (featuring Rebecca Okoroji of Portal and Andy Piper of IBM) – we’re working on it!)


Session 4
Last session of the day, featuring Stuart McIntyre, Claudio Procida of IBM, Daniel Siddle, Jon Mell, Michael Roche, and Sharon Bellamy of City University.

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What ever happens – Lotusphere is still the best name for the conference

I’ve been thinking ….

…… dangerous I know  – but with all the talk of the brands going away and the software group becoming a big happy mish-mash of products and solutions and the much chat around “if there is no Lotus what is Lotusphere going to be called” chat – to be it still makes perfect sense to call the Annual Conference – LOTUSPHERE

So the bit of IBM that was Lotus the brand is now IBM Collaboration Solutions – which kind of makes sense as we have Lotus Domino and Notes, The WebSphere based products like Connections and Portal/WCM and Quickr that can be either and Sametime that uses both – all very Collaborative .. but calling our Annual Conference any thing other than Lotusphere just seems dumb.

Just look at it for a minute … Lotus …. Sphere

LOTUS (web)SPHERE

LOTUSPHERE

Please IBM .. do what you must with Brands, Product names and marketing (ok may be not marketing but we can live in hope eh;) )
 
BUT the conference name is perfect  – everyone knows Lotusphere, what goes on at Lotusphere mostly stays at Lotusphere (and twitter and facebook and youtube) – if it ain’t broke don’t fix it