This year's experience at my 2nd Lotusphere was very different from my first Lotusphere last year. Last year, I was regularly stopped by IBMers who just wanted to say hi and thank me for internal blog. Last year, I ditched my politically oriented external blog and created a new one. In my new external blog, I wanted to share with the external world the same things that I was already sharing with IBMers.
Looking back, it was probably all the feedback that I got from IBMers at Lotusphere 2008 that motivated me to share more with the external world. And I think it paid off. At this year's Lotusphere, it was mostly business partners and customers who looked for me and said hi.
Also, this year I missed some of my teammates that had been hit by Resource Actions last year. Now on to a quick summary:
- I live blogged the Opening General Session and the Social Software Keynote
- Met with the great majority of business partners that I'd been working with last year through Twitter and the discussion forums
- Had several customer meetings
- Met the Director of Microsoft Sharepoint. Actually, he introduced himself after the Birds of a Feather session I did with Stuart McIntyre and Luis Suarez. I noticed that he went to a lot of the Lotus Connections sessions. I think it's interesting how they send "spies" over, but I'm pretty sure we do the same thing
- Created a deeper relationship with the Lotus Connections Development team
- Organized the Lotus Social Software Meetup and handed out all the give-aways! Got some good feedback from the community members
- Got to learn a bunch of tricks on how to more effectively use Notes 8.5 on my Mac (more on this later)
- Saw some cool stuff at the Innovation and Meet the Developer labs such as: Voyage/Sojourn, Sametime on the iPhone, and Microsoft Sharepoint web parts for Lotus Connections (more on this later)
- Learned more about Lotus Foundations; that's a really nice/cool product! I need to sell it more in Puerto Rico
- I got certified as a Lotus Connections v2 Administrator. I need to send some feedback to the CertFx people though
- Had some great conversations on social software adoption and ROI
- Got to see a preview of Sametime v8.5 on the Mac -- application sharing will soon be here! And Notes 8.5.1 will have deeper integration with the Mac
- After missing him in previous trips, I finally was able to catch up with Ed Brill
- I missed the Blogger Open and the Closing General Session, but I plan to attend those next year!
- I tried using BrighKite to locate other people, but it was too confusing. Even using Twitter and text messages wasn't too helpful.
- Didn't get to meet everyone I wanted, but I hope I do next year
One of the best moments was when Suzanne Minassian gave me a backstage tour of the Opening General Session hall. I could not believe all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. I hate my BlackBerry for not having a camera. I would have loved to take some pictures.
Oh and it was VERY cold on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Anyway, from what I've been able to gather from the Blogosphere the reaction has been mostly positive. I need to keep going through my feed reader now to see what else happened while I was away. Here's hoping that I get to see you all at Lotusphere 2010!