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Think! – Back to the Future

Think is over and man that was full on.

To say this conference was massive doesn’t actually do it justice. The show floor and think park took most of the ground floor of the Mandalay Bay conference centre. A wander around the show floor could easily take an hour without stopping by any booths.

It really was an amalgamation of all the major IBM Conferences in one and other than a few hickups at the begining of the week, the IBM Events team actually pulled it off! Yes there were issues as there always is going to be when trying something for the first time but, lessons were learned, feedback (possitive and contsructive critism) was given and will be listened to.

Listening is something IBM hasn’t been historically good at from an ICS perspective, but they are listening now and it feels good.

The start of the Think week kicked off on sunday with Champion and Community day – a new thing that the conference team hadn’t tried before.

  • We had a keynote around champions, community and a taste of what the week will be like
  • Break outs and round tables about champions, user groups, and other interesting subjects
  • ICS specific sessions for the champions to feed back around
    • Domino, Sametime and Verse
    • Watson workspace and the new zoom partnership
    • Connections 6 and pink, on-prem and cloud
  • Reception for Champions and Community members to get to know people in other diciplines and brands

LOVED Community day – Really hope that IBM continue it going forward. It was also announced that a new site is being launched: community.ibm.com as a hub for users of IBM software. Its already populated with some brand/software communities with more being added as time goes on. It is fantastic that IBM have recognised the power of the user community.

Monday was presenting day for me and Roberto, and the session went well, positive feedback  and I am already thinking about ways to improve it. Thanks to all that attended and the slides can be downloaded from here. Monday was also chaotic, due to the showfloor and think park not being open. There was a little bit of congestion in the hallways and reports of people not making sessions, this appeared to be becuase of the lack of show floor as there was no where for people to go. Luckily I did make a couple of sessions and they were very well presented and well attended.

The General Session with Ginni Rometty on Tuesday morning was very interesting. Strategy and the overall picture of where IBM are going with Watson, Blockchain and other IBM technologies. It was a very strong message.

Chairman’s Address – Join IBM Chairman, President and CEO, Ginni Rometty and distinguished guests for a can’t miss address bringing together some of the world’s top CEOs and business thinkers who are building the future today by putting smart to work.

 

Another session that was interesting was Collaboration in the age of disruption with Geoffrey Moore and Bob Schultz. Discussing real world problems and solutions. I really enjoyed this and it did hit home, especially the section on Collaboration culture which sums up our Community. Well worth the watch.

 

Keynote – Join renown author Geoffrey Moore and Bob Schultz, IBM’s General Manager of Watson Talent and Collaboration for a lively discussion about the future of work and the powerful role that AI and collaboration technologies provide in improving efficiency, work-flows, and teamwork processes.

 

 

Every Domino session was absolutely overflowing and every one was rediculously enthusiastic.The Domino back to the future session with Andrew Manby and Richard Jefts was amazingly well attended, the session was standing room only and spilled out into the hallway. The same for the Domino on iPad sessions and the What’s new / comining in V10 session with Gab and Ram (Slides can be found on Gab’s blog here). All excellent sessions with plenty of content and news and REAL working code.


Domino Back to the Future

 

The community is buzzing with an energy and excitement I have never seen before and I like it. At the ICS day on Wednesday morning the message was reiterated that Connections pink/ next is coming and being worked on, Watson workspace will be THE place for on demand collaboration and now with the added bonus of zoom integration for on demand meetings too – It really will be a game changer. Domino 10 is coming later this year and a new client and sametime will follow but the emphasis is on making the Domino server backend the priority for the first phase of the 10 release.

Marketing is something that has always been a bit of a joke inside the ICS community as there hasn’t been any – until now. Yup, marketing … it is happening and there will be campaigns around Domino and ICS. The new team are a bunch of really cool and enthusiastic people.

The ICS brand is a small fish in the big IBM pond, and although the other brands have their own communities none are as passionate and collaborative as ours. The IBM Champions program has really helped in cementing the ICS community as the one other brands are looking to. There is no other community that is so passionate and positive, #ICSProud was the hash tag we were using and I am proud to be a member of this community and to be an IBM Champion for Collaboration. Thank you Libby and Alan and the whole Champion team for looking after us so well.

I am very much looking forward to the other user groups this year (and we have some great things planned for ICON UK) to hear the updates from IBM and HCL. Think 2019 will be in San Fransico 12 – 15 February 2019 save the date as I am sure it will be as big and ambitious as this year has been.

 

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Vegas Baby .. IBM Think 2018

After the gruelling 10 hour flight and the inevitable jet lag .. IBM Think has started.

Kicking off with Champion and Community day. This is the first time IBM have run a day like this tacked onto the main conference AND so far its amazing. A full run down will happen tomorrow but thank you IBM for this.

I am really looking forward to this week. Catching up with old friends .. making new friends and getting to know more IBM champions from different brands ..

Exciting times ahead 🙂

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Blog has moved to its new home

(again) .. I finally got round to moving my domain to a decent hoster (thank you one.com) so I have moved my blog entries back to its rightful place.

never fear if you have book marked a post previously you can find it .. thanks to the power of a handy rewrite rule in the htaccess file 🙂

I have a bunch of useful stuff to blog which I will crack on with over the next few weeks before hitting IBM Think!

If you find any issues please let me know 🙂

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You better Think!

Think 2018

It is early February .. and cold in the UK, normally we would be just returning or just preparing to go on the annual ICS exodus to Orlando for the beloved Lotusphere / Connect  conference ..but not this year. This year IBM have boldly gone –  in the way of the Starship Enterprise – to another world for their annual conference this year. BUT not just for us ICS people!

With a  potential 40,000+ attendees this year all the IBM standard conferences – Connect (Lotusphere as was), InterConnect, Amplify, Edge, Vision, World of Watson and PartnerWorld are all merged into what can only be described as a MEGA conference. IBM THINK! Which is in Las Vegas – which is as close to another world as we can get  🙂

Discover what the world is thinking at Think 2018, IBM’s first business event to go beyond IT conference, exploring cloud technology, data analytics & security.


Yes its going to be big, and that can be a little daunting, but I was pleased to see that Collaboration isn’t going to be swallowed in the sea of sessions, keynotes and events that are scheduled. Collaboration Solutions has its own Think Microsite which details sessions, keynotes and all the good stuff that we would expect at Connect or Lotusphere. There is even a handy PDF which details all the collaboration sessions at a glance with a key, making it super easy to find sessions that will interest you without having to wade through the hundreds that are scheduled. 

Also new for this year is the event site. Much better layout than we have seen in previous years, lots of quality information about the event and watson is embedded now to help you find sessions of interest and to make recomendations. HUGE improvement on previous years so thank you IBM for that.

The IBM Champions will have a big part in Think too, as its a mega conference covering all the software brands the IBM Champions will be mega too. There are now almost 650 IBM Champions world wide across the IBM portfolio and many will be at THINK. I am very much looking forward to getting to know some of the Champions from the other brands and see it as a fantastic opportunity.

 

Speaking at Think

If attending Think isn’t exciting enough …. I will also be speaking with my fellow IBM Champion and good friend Roberto Boccadoro. Our session will be covering troubleshooting IBM Connections 6 (and previous versions) and its supporting software and lightly touching on the new Pink technology.

 

A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Troubleshooting IBM Connections

Monday, 12:30 PM – 1:10 PM | Surf B | Session ID: 1409A

 

 

If you want to learn more about Connections Pink troubleshooting you need to be at fellow champion Nico Meisenzahl‘s session – as Nico will be taking you through all the new Pink feature troubleshooting in his amazing session:

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right—Troubleshooting IBM Connections

Monday, 10:30 AM – 11:10 AM | Surf B | Session ID: 1574A

 

Attenting Think? Would you like a discount

Want to attend Think and would like a discount – talk to an IBM Champion

 

I am SO excited about this new big conference – I will be reporting from Think, Tim and I will be hopefully be grabbing some interviews and soundbites for ICONUK – more info coming soon.

If you would like information on BCC’s products and services, be sure to catch up with Tim and I at Think – or schedule a meeting with us. See you there.

 

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IBM Champion and the Domino Jam

Friday the 12th of January was a busy day for me ..

Off to London for the face to face #Domino2025 Jam. I was slightly dubious, not really knowing what to expect but what a worth while experience it was. Approx 35 – 40 of us slip up into teams discussing and prioritising what we would like to see for IBM Domino App dev, mail, apps support and sametime for version 10 and beyond. The teams were split into a good mix of developers, administrators, users and managers and lots of interesting discussion was had, and they were not all ‘the usual suspects’. We talked about what we loved, what drove us crazy and a bunch of small things that could be resolved quickly. There were lots of different opinions and lots of very similar discussions.

The openess of it all was very refreshing, some of the IBM guys who have moved to HCL were there, the UK IBMers were their usual awesome selves (we do have some good ones – you know who you are 😉 ) – the fact there was so much positivity, energy and enthusiasm of it all – from a user of this software I am really looking forward to the roadmap and plans for the future. As an administrator (at least for the Sametime piece of this – as everyone knows I am not a Domino Admin) again there were some very good ideas around admin and the infrastructer that is required – some were quite radical at that .. all in all I am pumped, enthused, insert other excitable words here about it all ..

 

I know that has been a lot of critism about IBM for being slow, behind the curve, too little to late etc .. but I think (and really hope) that all of that is in the past. Things are going to be good. Actually no, things are going to be great .. the momentum has started – we are running downhill, lets not stop or there may be a pile up 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The word on the street is there is going to be lots of news at the IBM Think event in March – if you are thinking about heading to Think talk to me or another IBM Champion for a discount

 

 

 

 

 

Talking of IBM Champions, I also recieved an email Friday morning confirming that I was indeed an IBM Champion again this year.

For those of you who do not know what an IBM Champion is – IBM Champions demonstrate both expertise in and extraordinary support and advocacy for IBM technology, communities, and solutions. The IBM Champion program recognizes these innovative thought leaders in the technical community and rewards these contributions by amplifying their voice and increasing their sphere of influence. IBM Champions are enthusiasts and advocates: IT professionals, business leaders, developers, executives, educators, and influencers who support and mentor others to help them get the most out of IBM software, solutions, and services.  – you can find out more information here.

This is such a big deal for me, I am so honoured to be a part of this amazing group of people .. so thank you IBM , and thanks Libby who heads up the IBM Champion program across all the brands world wide and Alan who has the task of wrangling the collaboration solutions champions inbetween his day job (you legend).

What a great start to 2018 – I work with the most fantastic group of people at BCC, have lots to look forward to this year work wise and I have been elected as an IBM Champion again. Lets do this 😀

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Which version of IBM Docs to I have installed?

This morning, after a bit of attempting to work it out for myself .. I ask my good firiend and co speaker Roberto Boccadoro if there was a simple way to work out what version is installed?

WebSphere, Connections and the HTTP Server / Plugins etc all have command line options to find what version (and fixes) are installed and unfortunately its not so simple with docs ..

If you have kept the install files handy you can check but finding out the iFix version under the install\DocsApp directory where there is a handy file called ifix-version.json.

which gives you the iFix version .. which is just a number, 7, 15 or 25 etc. but how does that collate to which Docs version, CR and iFix you have installed?

Roberto has made a searchable list to make it simple to see what iFix version relates to which Docs version.

See Roberto’s awesome blog post here – and thank you so much my friend for doing this as it will save a bunch of time 🙂

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Connections Engagment Center coming to Connections Cloud

IBM have announced (see announcement here), that Connections Engagement Center will be coming to Connections Cloud from the 30th of Novemember.

Having used CEC On-Premises for sometime I know this is going to be a massive enhancement for Connections Cloud users. As with the On-Premises version it will be a seperately priced add-on for Cloud S1 and S2 subscriptions.

Want to learn more about CEC for Connections Cloud? Register for a webinar run by Alan Hamilton & Thierry Batut which is running on Fri 1 December 2017 at 13:30 – 14:00 GMT

 

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Connections 6 CR1 is now available

As promised by IBM we have got it in November (so thanks Connections Team ) …

The full Fix list can be found in this technote here – IBM Fix List for Connections CR1

You can download it from Fix Central here – IBM Connections 6 CR1 download

Included in CR1 are all the day 1 fixes and the fixpacks from June – along with a bunch of other fixes, enhancements and preperations for Connections Pink

 

Current Status – Patching Dev 🙂 will let you know if i see any issues.

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Version 10 and beyond – I Aint Dead

You are a Connections / WebSphere admin what do you care about Domino? I hear people ask – well actually I care a lot .. I use these products every day – I can’t do my job with out Domino / Verse / Notes and Sametime.

After what can only be described as a lack of love for the Domino/Notes stack IBM have made a HUGE announcement in partnering with the development team at HCL Technologies to bring a new version to the beloved Domino stack.

IBM signs strategic partnership with HCL Technologies to increase commitment and deliver major release in 2018 

No official press release as such but there is a post over on the IBM Social Business Blog here.

The IBM Team that look after the Domino family will be working closely with the team at HCL to bring us version 10 of the Domino family products as early as the second half of 2018. When I say Domino family it really is the entire stack .. so obviously the server (Domino), but we will also be seeing new versions of the Notes client (yes .. you heard me correctly .. a new client version with new features and things will be fixed), Verse and Sametime .. so it really is the WHOLE family.

Needless to say on the IBM Champions call that I attended last week there was a lot of excitement and questions .. this partnership is for the Domino family so the Connections and Docs development stays with IBM – I see this as a good thing. It’s fair to say for the past few years as the Domino family worked it wasn’t shown a lot of love, but there are things that need attention and IBM didn’t have the resource. Now they have – existing Connections and Docs development can continue at its agressive rate and the Domino family of products will get the development attention it deserves.

Some naysayers may say too little too late – but I can tell you that even though some customers have moved their mail away from Domino on premises to MS, Google or IBMs cloud there are hundreds of thousands of customers who rely on their Domino applications and can not run thier businesses without them.

I for one actually like using my Notes client for mail, I also use verse (both cloud and on premesis) and have a bunch of apps that I need to use both for my employer and customers that are Domino based.

To quote Granny Weatherwax from Terry Prattchet’s Discworld series

 

I Aint Dead

I am looking forward with excitment to what the new partnership is going to bring, improvements to the Domino family and news of the roadmap. This is not just about a version 10 .. this is a long term, forward thinking continuous longevity plan.

There is a video that Ed Brill has published with some information and a jam that you can register for to give feedback, ideas etc in to what you need in any future versions of the product. The jam is entitled Domino2025 and you can register for it here.

Don’t be put off by the name .. that doesn’t mean that it will all end in 2025 – infact IBM have said they could have picked any name – they just selected 2025 , maybe they should have used Domino4ever 😉

We are encouraged to get as many people who care about the future of Domino to sign up for the jam .. you can use the hash tag #domino2025 when talking about it .. This jam will help shape the future and plan the roadmap going forward – I do like it when people ask for feedback and then listen. It has taken IBM as a lumbering beast to get this .. but our ICS community has always got this.

The IBM Champions play a great role in getting feedback to IBM and I am still honoured and humbled to be part of this community and part of this group of awesome people.

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IBM Docs 2 CR3 is here – and with some cool new features

So at last IBM Docs 2 CR3 has been released and with it some awesome new features that the community have been asking for (thank you IBM).

 

What’s new in Docs 2 CR3? LOADS of new features and fixes including …

The most exciting is probably the ability to deploy the Conversion server on linux (finally)!!

  • You can directly deploy Conversion server on Linux when installing IBM Docs.
  • If you already have IBM Docs installed with Conversion server on Windows, you can migrate existing Conversion server from Windows to Linux.

 

A track change feature for the Docs editor which is another feature that has been on the wish list for a while

  • Added Track Change support in Document Editor. People with editing access can use a new view in the sidebar to see what changes were made to the file and when and who. Changes can be filtered by the timeline and editors. File owners can turn Track Change on and off, and clear change history.

 

You can install CR3 straight over Docs 2, no need for the other CRs or iFixes – make sure you run the DB updates though to update the Docs schema.

 

Additional features and full realse notes can be found here: IBM Connections Docs 2 CR3 release notes

Download it now from Fix Central 🙂