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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 by Deborah Corcoran

Yes, this year at Lotusphere I am actively recruiting independent consultants who want to jump start their career in 2012 by working on cutting edge IBM projects! I will be looking for WEF Developers, WebSphere Portal Administrators, Architects and Developers, plus DB2 folks, and Domino gurus!

As Dave Jacob blogged previously…“what a difference a year makes….The  growth of contracting opportunities in the WEF space and other IBM software technoligies,  has enabled us to become a Tier 1 provider directly to IBM/ISSL”…

So, be sure to stop by the Davalen booth # 312,  I look forward to discussing the opportunities with you, hearing about your skills sets, and your availability to make a great career move in 2012.

Don’t forget, Davalen  authored the WEF Top Gun training materials for IBM, so we will also train you in the technology and keep your career moving forward.

Stop by Davalen Booth#312 at Lotusphere and meet with Deborah Corcoran, Davalen’s Resource Deployment Manager, for new Career Opportunities!

Give your career and skills a shot of excitement!
Davalen is currently looking to hire corp-corp (1099) consultants with the following IBM software skill expertise:

• IBM WebSphere Architects, Administrators and Developers
•  IBM Web Experience Factory Developers (Formerly known as IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory)
• Senior level IBM Lotus Domino Architect, Administrators, and Developers specializing in Lotus Notes Connections, Quickr and QuickrJ, and Lotus Notes Mobile applications

Do you want to start working on cutting edge engagements with high profile nationally known companies? Then here’s your chance to make an exciting change to Davalen, LLC, a, a Premier core Business Partner to IBM Software Services.

Come to Booth #312 at Lotusphere 2012 to learn more about exciting career opportunities with Davalen. If you are not attending Lotusphere this year, please send your resume to: dcorcoran@davalen.com. 

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With only days until the main event, here are the team members who are lucky enough to represent Davalen at Lotusphere 2011. Between sessions, events, booth space and meetings, make sure you meet these talented folks! You can schedule a formal meeting by emailing Ruth Jarvis at rjarvis@davalen.com or just stop by Booth #221.

Len Barker

Len Barker, Managing Partner, Lotus Practice

About Len: Len spent 15 years in the nuclear industry managing complex, multiple system projects before founding Davalen’s predecessor, Barker Consulting in 1998. His understanding of business comes from 10 years of running his own business and in plant manager, project manager and business development positions in the corporate world. He is a certified IBM instructor and is well versed in web technologies, system administration, and collaborative technologies.

Dave Jacob

Dave Jacob, Managing Partner, WebSphere Practice

About Dave: Dave is listed in “Who’s Who In America”, and is a frequent contributor to technical publications on technology initiatives. He held a number of key management positions with EDS and Data General and founded Jacob Solutions, Inc. (JSI) in 1993 and merged JSI with Barker Consulting to form Davalen, LLC in 2006. Dave is certified by IBM as a architect/consultant/trainer in most development technologies in IBM including RAD, Domino and Portlet Factory and has worked with various languages including FORTRAN, IBM assembler, COBOL, Lotus Notes, LotuScript and Java.

Deborah Corcoran

Deborah Corcoran, Staffing Services

About Deborah: Deborah brings with her significant experience in sales, marketing and consulting services for enterprise accounts across the U.S. and internationally. Prior to joining Davalen, she supported the IBM Software Services teams across all the IBM Software portfolios, in addition to working on numerous IBM dedicated vendor teams building and managing strong, long-term relationships. Using a consultative sales approach to articulate IT consulting services and solutions product offerings to Fortune 500 -1000 companies, she successfully grew her sales territory in yearly revenue specific to IBM Software Services for the Lotus and WebSphere brands.

Ruth Jarvis

Ruth Jarvis, Marketing, Social Media & Events

About Ruth: Ruth  joined Davalen in 2002 and took charge of the Marketing Department in 2007. She is responsible for Davalen’s presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube and is the face behind Davalen’s monthly email newsletter: The Tech Connection, website, blog, webinars, and conferences. She also handles our public, press and analyst relations as well as case study development, white paper creation, press releases writing, and outreach to clients for joint media related initiatives. If you need information about Davalen, she’s the woman to see!

Deborah Corcoran

by Deborah Corcoran, National Practice Manager for Resource Deployment Services to IBM

In closing out 2010, Davalen had a huge uptick in resource staffing requests across the board in all IBM software applications – everything from upgrades to new application integrations. Despite the international economic challenges, IT staffing held strong.  Davalen customers know that we are the “go to” Business Partner for all things IBM, especially when it comes to our highly skilled and IBM certified consultants.

Q1 is starting out very strong and trending toward more staffing opportunities that are longer in term. The contracting resource requests coming across are for projects that are much more expanded in length than in previous years, especially for Q1/Q2. Customers have started to focus on projects that were set to launch in Q4, but didn’t seem to either get the funding or time ran out due to holiday schedules.

The big push so far is for Lotus Notes Connections installs and integrations with various other IBM software applications such as WebSphere. The WebSphere space seems to be really taking the lead in Q1 as is Portlet Factory.  More and more of our customers are inquiring about our Portlet Factory practice and how they can integrate this application into their current environment.

Our New Years momentum brings us right into our countdown for Lotusphere 2011! Davalen will be exhibiting for the 4th year in a row at Booth # 221. Lotusphere is always such a great venue to share stories and gain important industry information, so please stop by and say “hello.”

As always, please don’t hesitate to contact us for of your IT Staffing requirements and I look forward to seeing you at Lotusphere!

From Deborah Corcoran, National Practice Manager for Resource Deployment Services to IBM

This month’s eNewsletter highlights Davalen’s Staffing Services Practice.

First, I want to thank our clients who contacted us regarding our “mini” Domino assessments and upgrades; what a tremendous response!

Over the last few months, in addition to the requests mentioned above, Davalen clients have utilized our pool of technology resources as a seamless extension to their IT departments. Clients who have “additional IT projects” or pain in areas that require immediate attention, find that our technologists are the perfect relief. By utilizing Davalen senior consultants on a time and material basis, customers are able to fill in the gaps where needed, without having to go through an expensive and time-consuming new-hire process. Our “just in time” recruiting model allows you to make the most of your internal staff by balancing critical need times with slower time periods. All of our technologists are familiar and able to solve critical need problems and all have experience in the latest versions of IBM software.

So, before you start your next project, give us call to discuss how Davalen time and materials professionals can assist your IT team.

Please call (800) 827-8451 or email me at to discuss your critical business needs.

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This article is from our monthly resource E-Newsletter. Did you miss our monthly eNewsletter? Click here for a full version (only live for 30 days prior to original date) and if you want to begin receiving our monthly newsletter write to Ruth Jarvis and request to be added to our E-Newsletter list.

From Deborah Corcoran, National Practice Manager for Resource Deployment Services to IBM

Put Davalen on your calendar now!

In Q1, our Davalen technologist’s calendars were extremely full, Monday – Friday, as they were performing Davalen mini Messaging Environment Assessments (MEA) at customer sites.

Many customers have upgraded to Notes 8.5.1. due to all of the new social networking applications, which are part of this latest release. Clients are making sure they start with a “clean and updated” environment.

Clients were pretty excited about reviewing the results of the assessment, and finding out what was going on within their Domino infrastructure. Many interesting items came up, such as orphaned emails, dead email boxes, legacy apps that were no longer being used and that could be possibly slowing down their systems, etc.

So if you haven’t scheduled with us, give us a call to set up an informal, yet informational discussion with our folks and to schedule a “mini MEA.”

And of course, if you are finding that you may require some technical staffing assistance to help bridge your work load gap, please give me a buzz and we can discuss various “just in time” staffing options for your business.

Schedule your own mini-MEA today by calling 1.800.827.8451.

From Deborah Corcoran, National Practice Manager for Resource Deployment Services to IBM

As Q1 comes to a close, Davalen’s National Technical Staffing Practice experienced quite an “uptick” in requests for technical services. Moving toward Q2, many of our customers are assessing their Domino environment as they focus on upgrading to 8.5. Davalen provides help during this evaluation process by partnering in several key areas of the decision making process as your trusted Premier IBM Business Partner.

Increasingly, clients are choosing Davalen’s expertise with Lotus products to educate their technical staff on enhanced software capabilities including: Lotus Quickr, Sametime and WebSphere Portlet Factory.

If you are interested in an assessment – please give us a call 1.800.827.8451

by Deborah Corcoran, National Staffing Services

To kick off the first Davalen Newsletter of 2010, we are showcasing an exciting addition to the Davalen portfolio of business, – Technical Staffing Services. Our offerings to you now include:

* Technical Staffing Services to support your various projects
* A-Z Total Solutions for all IBM Software products
* Education/Training and mentoring of those products

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself to everyone and share with you highlights of our new practice area.

A bit of background….my career in Technical Staffing began 15+ years ago, in supporting the IBM account – specifically the Software Services Consulting arm. I began working as Business Partner with Dave Jacob and Len Barker almost 6 years ago, and we all found a tremendous synergy between us. We often discussed my joining Davalen, and as of October 1 2009, it became official!

The Davalen Technical Staffing Practice provides high level senior technologists to support our customer requirements, including IBM’s software consulting arm for their clients, too. Our consultants have years of solid experience along with keeping up with most recent software versions, product certifications, and newest IBM product offerings. Their skills cover all software portfolios i.e.; all things Lotus, WebSphere, Rational and Tivoli. But there is more! We can support almost any client request that falls outside of the IBM Software portfolio too, through our highly experienced technical consultant pool. Over 90% of our Technical consultants have been with me for 10+ years, and some are former IBM’ers – all are extremely pleased to be represented by Davalen.

In 2009, Q4, we were all pleasantly surprised to see a huge uptic in technical services requirements from IBM and our own clients. Fourth quarter, thankfully, had good activity and turned out to be quite busy for us. We supported many of IBM’s clients who were in need of securing highly skilled individuals for myriad of needs. Projects included basic Domino Administration and Development to Notes upgrades to 8.5.1 to Expeditor Widget development, to Lotus Connections, WebSphere and Portlet Factory projects, to OmniFind solutions. We provided services to our direct customers too, who were seeking additional expertise in most of the same areas, including scheduling educational training for their teams on the “latest” releases of various software.

Looking forward to 2010, I am in the process of reaching out to all of you to say a “live” hello, and to discuss any of the projects that you may be thinking of or working on that we could provide you with additional subject matter expertise or support.

Please feel free to reach to me as well.. Let’s make 2010, a great comeback year for all!

Contact Deborah Corcorcan
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This article is from our monthly resource E-Newsletter. Did you miss our monthly eNewsletter? Click here for a full version (only live for 30 days prior to original date) and if you want to begin receiving our monthly newsletter write to Ruth Jarvis and request to be added to our E-Newsletter list.

Deborah Corcoran
National Practice Mgr. for Resource Deployment Services to IBM
dcorcoran@davalen.com

Deborah Corcoran joined Davalen as the National Practice Manager for Resource Deployment Services to IBM.  In this role, Corcoran provides expert consulting resources to support IBM’s customer initiatives.

Corcoran brings with her significant experience in sales, marketing and consulting services for enterprise accounts across the U.S. and internationally. Prior to joining Davalen, she supported the IBM Software Services teams across all the IBM Software portfolios, in addition to working on numerous IBM dedicated vendor teams building and managing strong, long-term relationships. Using a consultative sales approach to articulate IT consulting services and  solutions product offerings to Fortune 500 -1000 companies, she successfully grew her sales territory in yearly revenue specific to IBM Software Services for the Lotus and WebSphere brands. Most recently, she also established the Staff Aug Division at Binary Tree, Inc, where she held the position of Director of IT Staffing focusing on IBM strategic staffing support.