The Tech Connection

 by Ruth Jarvis

In case you’re buried beneath a rock, ignoring all forms of social media including twitter hashtags, Facebook profiles, LinkedIn updates, and technology based new outlets, Lotusphere this year is pushing Social Business. It’s on signs, badges, videos, and napkins, allowing very few to ignore the statement at the annual Lotus event much to the chagrin of technical based developers and admins hoping to see the latest in the Lotus brand but great for LOB decision makers.

Day one started with Business Development Day (BDD) a full day of sessions, jumpstarts, and discussions for the IBM Business Partner community. Of course, we wanted to jump in and see what the brand has in store for various product bases but most important for us, IBM Web Experience Factory (formerly Portlet Factory). While it didn’t make much discussion during the BDD it did come up as part of the Web Experience Suite and the Intranet Suite discussion at the Opening General Session (OGS).

Speaking of the OGS, what were the big suprises? It started with the viral rock band OK Go, playing live with their fun and low-budget music videos, followed by a special and inspirational special guest, Michael J. Fox discussing how social networking effected how he was able to learn, update, and build a community around Parkinson’s Disease (PD). The last surprises were based on content, in fact for most of the conference, this long standing technical based event has slowly morphed into a joint technical and business conference. This year you could feel it more then ever, as the first hour of the OGS didn’t contain any mention of “Lotus”, “Notes”, or “Domino,” replaced instead by terminology like “social”, “mobile”, and “marketing.”

OK GO at ls12 OGS

MIchael J Fox at ls12 OGS

Notes/Domino Next

I will leave it to my technical Davalen peers to update you on what is happening in the tech-world of the brand as they are much better suited to do such, but I will provide some of my favorite shots from the event thus far, including new shots of my wonderful team: Len Barker, Managing Partner, Dave Jacob, Managing Partner, and my fellow female co-worker, Deborah Corcoran, Resource Deployment Manager.

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Ruth Jarvis

 by Ruth Jarvis

For us, as IBM Premier Business Partners, our day was filled with Business Development Day Sessions and Receptions. We got our booth setup, learned some “embargoed” information that we’re not allowed to comment on yet (don’t worry they’ll discuss most of it in the Opening Session) and got to reconnect with some of our business partners too.

Today is the longest day for us as Dave, Len and I are at the booth from 10am-8pm. Of course we won’t miss the OGS and after the Showcase Reception, which is 6-8pm, we have another Business Partner Reception. A long and exciting day!

At the Business Development Day OS we got to hear from some great speakers. Before they got to the info they had an exciting introduction to the session. The artist, Dan Dunne, created a very contemporary and quickly done version of the Mona Lisa to some techno music in order to bring in the new idea of “the next renaissance.”

After that explosion of color General Manager Bob Picciano did a great job explaining what was to come as well as what happened in 2008. He informed us that IBM has had 16 consecutive months of growth! They are also expanding more with Lotus Foundations, Lotus Notes/Domino 8.5, UC2 and Bluehouse. They also claimed that based on their research with Collaboration Services is the #1 Concern and then #1 Priority for most executives. Therefore, came the focus of Lotus 2009.

After passing out awards, new VP of Marketing and Channels, Kristen Lauria gave a presentation on “yellow.” She spoke about the LCTY events and the idea of “Working Smarter Together” with the Smarter Planet Initiative and Smart Business at ibm.com/smartmarket.

Then gave the always humorous Chris Crummey with the mostly working demos. We learned more about Live Text, Widgets, new calendar overlays with iCal feeds, Bluehouse, Skype, Twitter/Facebook, Bluehouse, Click to Cloud, Lotus Connections and Quickr Share! Phew!

Finally Alistar took us threw a panel with Matthew Flaherty and Mary Beth Raven as each explained what is coming up in their area including Lotus Forms with Symphony, integrating open source technology, consolidation with calendars and To Do’s as well as the options of text analytics which suggests the task to do based on the content in your emails.

Very interesting and can’t wait to see what will come up at the General Opening Session Tomorrow.

 by Michael “Spoon” Witherspoon

Biz Dev day was great as I got to meet a couple of key people with whom I wanted to share who Davalen is and why we’re a strong business partner in the Portlet Factory space.  Being a former Bowstreeter myself, it was great to run into other former Bowstreeters both in the lobby of the hotel and at the Biz Dev cocktail party.

Last night, I went out to dinner with the Davalen crew and we dragged Kevin Wilmeth along with us.  He’s yet another old Bowstreeter and a long-time friend of mine.  It was fun being downtown in Nashville with all of the hootin’ and hollerin’ that goes on down there.  If you haven’t tried it yet, go on out to Broadway and 2nd.  There’s lots of nightlife down there!

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