Tag: champion

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Thanks for making me a HCL Master

On the 16th December I received the news that I am an HCL Master – which pleased me greatly.

HCL Masters help the community and HCL to respond quickly to partners and customers demands and deliver a higher level of support and service to everyone.

For those of you that don’t know being a HCL Master is similar to being an IBM Champion. I am continuing my “Winning streak” as I have been awarded the Champion/Master title since the program started in 2011.

I am over the moon at being a Master, I will continue to share my knowledge, and blog and tweet and champion the products and solutions.

Thanks HCL and congratulations to my fellow masters – see you at Engage in March 🙂

#communityrocks

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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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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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Issues with IBM Connections 5 / 5.5 and Chrome 60

There is a known issue with Connections 5 CR4 and all versions of Connections 5.5 when using Chrome version 60.

It affects events not being displayed and errors relating to events in the UI. It has also been reported that comments can be affected also.

After multiple BP’s and Customers reported this IBM Support have come up with a fix very quickly.

The fix you need is IFLO92844 – currently it is only available from IBM support – not sure how long it will be until it is available on fix central.

Open a PMR with IBM and reference these 3 PMR numbers: 76364,082,000 – 76379,082,000 – 38309,756,000 and ask for IFLO92844. You will need to specify the Connections version and CR.

The fix updates the Common app and takes about 10 mins to deploy.

Thank you IBM Connections Support / Dev for resolving this so quickly

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6 years a Champion !!

I recieved an email yesterday – just before I joined a live stream to watch the IBM Champions for ICS be announced.

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On behalf of IBM, it is my great pleasure to recognize you as a returning IBM Champion in 2017. Congratulations!

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I am so honoured to be amongst a great group of champions again. I have been an ICS IBM Champion since the program began in 2011.

Being an IBM Champion is all about being part of a great extended  community, sharing knowledge, giving feed back and constructive critism and helping IBM with what ever they will let us help them with – from documentation to ideas about Connect.

In my 6 years of being an IBM Champion .. I have made some great friends and been introduced to some great IBMers (who I now class as great friends), helped influence some products, given a lot of honest feed back, and assited with my favourite thing – Documentation 🙂 It really has been a blast .. and I would still continue to do these things If I wasn’t a Champion 🙂

Being an IBM Champion doesn’t mean you have to be a *yes man/woman* – It just means you are passionate about what you do and have the right attitude – that doesn’t mean agreeing to everything, being constructive, giving feed back and ideas is part of being a champion which is why I love it.

 

So thank you once again IBM and especially to Amanda and Libby for everything they do for us Champions .. and I hope to be worthy of this title for the next year 🙂

 

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A fix for the Chrome header issue

Stuart blogged back in January about a known issue with downloading files from the files application using Chrome.

chromeIssue

IBM do not officially support Chrome with Connections 3.0.1 – but our good friend & IBM Champion Sjaak Ursinus has devised a work around.

Header edit Content-Disposition ^(.*)creation-date=(.*);\smodification-date=(.*);$ “$1creation-date=\”$2\”; modification-date=\”$3\”;”

ensure the mod_header module is uncommented httpd.conf

save and close the file.

Restart the HTTP server to pick up the change

Sjaak’s full explanation can be found on the Connections Forum