IBM Lotusphere 2008 – Highlights from Second Day – Monday 21st

I know I was initially supposed to provide some sort of semi-live con-blogging experience at Lotusphere while I was there, but I must say that with all of the excitement of meeting a bunch of the folks I have been hanging online with for a while and also trying to digest some of the super interesting announcements made there, it didn’t give me much  a chance other than to jot down a few thoughts, which I am then converting into highlights for each of the days from the event itself, hoping to expand further on it as time develops further. So here is the first of a long blog posts detailing some of the major highlights I went through and experience during this past week attending what, to me, has been one of the events of the year! No doubt!!

Here is how I saw it and experienced it …

And here we go with the Second Day highlights, well, Day 1, really, of the IBM Lotusphere event in Orlando that I’m attending this week. As you may have seen already, there have been plenty of different blog posts put together already around the different sessions people have been attending already, so I am just going to continue posting what, to me, have been the highlights of this second, well, first day of the event. I’m not going to provide as many detail as you would have expected, having read other blog posts, more than anything else, because yesterday I decided to share my thoughts directly through my twitterings, from the different sessions I attended, and I think it was good enough with that Twitter storm than just putting everything together.

So without much further ado, here you have got some of my highlights from yesterday’s event. I do realise that most of the presentations are going to be shared online already and will probably be coming back and forth to them and link to them accordingly, but here is how my day went yesterday…

LotuSalon session with Ze Frank, Jane McGonigan and Golan Levin

The day started with a new type of session held at Lotusphere for the first time called LotuSalon, where three panelists gave a little bit of an introduction on what they are doing and then time for some intensive Q&A on a wide range of various topics. As you may have seen from the heading the panelists this time where: the one and only, Ze Frank, where he shared some of superb stuff he has been doing over the course of the years. Of course, he talked about The Show and how the Internet is changing the way people participate and engage in different group activities as part of the various communities they associate themselves with.

Then Golan Levin where he was actually showing a number of the different visualisations he has been doing and which are shown at his own Web site. Some amazing stuff going on in there as well. Check out some of the stuff related to sounds, specially. Really worth while to be honest.

And, finally, the third panelist was Jane McGonigan, who was rather inspirational sharing her insights on how the gaming industry is taking over the corporate world in order to help knowledge workers improve the way they share their knowledge, collaborate and socialise. Some really good stuff in there! I twittered quite a bit about it with some really good quotes from her on how games are changing the workforce for the better. May be referring back to them as I get to blog some more, once I find out where the session will be posted online, if it gets posted.

From there onwards, lots of great questions and interactions from the audience, covering topics such as the role of gaming in helping our kids socialise with their peers, how art is being influenced by the Internet into making it much more participative, wonderfully chaotic and rather stimulating. Also commentary was shared on the lack of life from bloggers … heh I’ll let you figure that one out! 😉 And from there onwards we came to a close of the session, session that was incredibly energising and inspiring and that got us to a superb start of a busy day.

Main Tent Session with Mike Rhodin and Bob Costas

From there onwards, we got off to a quick break and ready for the main tent session. They were actually two main sessions, one after the other, to accommodate the high expectations from everyone attending and must confess that those expectations were met and big time!! Unbelievable show with a wonderful musical start and with plenty of announcements, demos and major news taking place. I’m going to keep it short on this one, since I have twittered extensively about the entire session, but I can honestly say that there have been some massive announcements that I will be touching base on over the next few days… For the time being check out the Twitter storm on the subject or have a look at Ed Brill‘s & Alan Lepofsky‘s takes on it. Oh, and if there is anything from those announcements that you would want me to cover first, by all means, feel free to drop a comment and will cover them as soon as I possibly can.

Stay tuned for plenty more to come up!! Yes, that is right. One of the things that I will be doing from here onwards is that I will be sharing with you folks some more extensive information details on plenty of the different announcements made. So very shortly you will see me talking about the joint partnership with RIM for the mobile workforce, also IBM and SAP’s joint product development called Atlantic, Notes 8.5 on the Mac (Which I am just about to install over the next few hours and something I have been looking forward to big time!), Notes 8 Composite Applications & the integration with Google gadgets, Lotus Symphony, Sametime 8.0 as we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Sametime IM client, Lotus Foundations, Lotus "Bluehouse", Lotus Mashups, Lotus Connections v2.x, Lotus Quickr, and the list goes on and on and on… Yes, I know, plenty of good stuff for me to talk about! 🙂

IBM Adoption of Social Software Booth

After the main tent session and with all of that excitement building up, it was time for me to actually do some work. One of the reasons why I was going to Lotusphere this year was to actually do some booth duty with the rest of my new team talking to various different folks about how IBM is adopting a number of different social software tools, in order to help drive collaboration, knowledge sharing and innovation into a new level.

So for a few hours every day all of us spent some time hanging out on that booth sharing our experiences on how we have been using social software, how our teams and communities in the wider IBM are doing it at the moment. Throughout all of this booth time we actually met quite a few people who were not only interested in social software, but actually asking the right questions about it, which is something that I thought incredibly re-energising as it gives a clear message of how more and more companies are starting to embrace social software and, in quite a few examples, rather successfully as well!

This was actually one of the main highlights from the conference event as it gave me the unique opportunity to get to know my colleagues, who are all over at the other side of the pond, but at the same time it helped me get a good overview of where things are with the adoption of social computing in the corporate world. Looking good so far!

Introduction to Web 2.0: Trends in Collaboration, Innovation, and the Changing Workforce with Carol Jones & Christopher Paul

After my booth duty time was finished, and after having had a superb lunch with one of the most impressive, and fastest growing, social computing ambassadors communities, I decided to spend the rest of the afternoon attending a couple of speaker sessions. Like I mentioned before, my plan was to attend any of those sessions where social computing and Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0 would be part of the main theme. And at this time I had the chance to attend my first one.

And no other than by Carol Jones (IBM Fellow and e-goddess) & Christopher Paul on Web 2.0: Trends in Collaboration, Innovation, and the Changing Workforce. I couldn’t tweet about it quite a lot, since at the time we had a number of different network issues, but I can tell you that it surely was worth it. For those of you who have been reading this blog most of the stuff may have been something you were already familiar with, but for those folks who are still getting into Web 2.0 and try to figure out what the fuss & hype is on social computing it is one of those presentations that certainly helps knowledge workers find out what it’s all about and how to get the most out of it.

In it you would be able to see how popular concepts like blogs, wikis, syndication, social bookmarking, ratings, comments, etc., etc., get mixed with others which are starting to pick up inside of the corporate world, i.e. mashups. Like I said, if you are already familiar with Web 2.0, there may well be not much you would have learned, but if you were new to the whole area of social computing, their presentation was probably as good as it would get. Something like Enterprise 2.0 Basics!

I know that the presentation materials are available for download for those folks attending the event, so it is on a server where folks need to authenticate, so not sure whether I can share it online over here or in Slideshare, but will have a look and see if I can make it available there already. Nevertheless, it was worth it.

Enterprise 2.0: The Future of Enterprise Collaboration is Now with Mike Gotta & Karen Hobert

Right after Carol’s & Chris’ session, there was another one that I surely was looking forward to, way before the event would get started, as one of the speakers is someone I know for quite a while from our blogging activities and I surely took the opportunity to meet them face to face while in there. Yes, I am talking about Mike Gotta (And his colleague Karen Hobert). They did a superb job and as far as I am concerned, it was one of the best sessions from the entire event!

Their presentation was, perhaps, one of the most realistic and straight to the point decks I have seen in months around the subject of Enterprise 2.0 and how the corporate world can start adopting, effectively, social computing. You know, there are folks out there who are very much in favour of Enterprise 2.0, then you have got those others who don’t buy into Enterprise 2.0 as representative enough to change the way things are operating already and then you have got Mike’s & Karen’s session, where they actually tried, and succeeded!, in providing a link, a bridge, between both groups and show in a critical, but constructive manner, how realistic Enterprise 2.0 is and how most companies can get things going.

Like I said, one of my favourite sessions from the entire event and a session that I am surely going to talk about separately, as soon as I can get hold of the slide deck and can share it as well separately. I know that Mike was ok with me sharing the deck, so expect to have it over here shortly. Oh, one other thing you are going to enjoy from that slide deck is how Mike & Karen have provided a really good bunch of tips and techniques on how to adopt successfully within the corporate firewall a number of social software tools: blogs, social bookmarks, syndication feeds, wikis, social networking sites, etc.

At the same time they spent some time talking about the different challenges that Enterprise 2.0 faces and how you can overcome them with a good set of recommendations they shared with us all during the course of one hour. Like I said, indispensable and highly recommended, to say the least! And not to worry, you will get your hands on it shortly, too!

JAMfest

From there onwards we got ready to enjoy the rest of the evening taking part of JAMfest, one of those events that will surely get your feet going for quite a while and make jamming worth it all the way! As you may have noticed already, I took several pictures of the various sessions and events I attended today and some of the folks I got to know during the course of this day and in the spirit of sharing I have scattered around a number of them in this blog post with some of those highlights as well.

Finally, I guess if I were to mention a single highlight from that particular day I think it would have been the networking I surely engaged with from various folks I have been following for a while and whom I finally got the opportunity to meet up and share some more stuff in real life! I have said this many many more times, if there is anything that surely makes it worth while going to whatever event, it’s got to be the networking part of it. And in this particular case it does apply as well to myself and the wonderful day I spent hanging out with the usual suspects, yes, you know who you are. heh

Not going to mention any of them, just in case someone may get offended for not being mentioned! But suffice to say that in my Flickr stream for Lotusphere 2008 you will be able to see who they are. As time goes along I will be annotating each of the pictures and adding some tags. For the time being here you have got some more from that Monday 22nd! As you can see, a day not to forget not only because attending the first day of what it then became a wonderful event, but also because I had finally got the opportunity to meet up and hang out with some of the folks I’ve been wanting to learn some more from all along! Here is to another exciting day the morning afterwards …

Tags: IBM, Lotus, Lotusphere, Lotusphere2008, Collaboration, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Software, Social Media, Knowledge Management, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Communities, Flickr, Photos, Team Building, IBM Software, Ze Frank, Twitter, Blogging, Metablogging, Learning, Jane McGonigan, Golan Levin, Games, Visualisations, Gaming, Socialising, LotuSalon, Mike Rhodin, Bob Costas, Ed Brill, Alan Lepofsky, SAP, Atlantic, Notes 8.5, Lotus Notes, Mac, Apple, Beta, Lotus Symphony, Symphony, Lotus Foundations, Foundations, Lotus "Bluehouse", "Bluehouse", Lotus Mashups, Mashups, Lotus Connections, Connections, Lotus Quickr, Quickr, Carol Jones, e-goddess, Christopher Paul, Innovation, Workforce, Mike Gotta, Karen Hobert, Enterprise 2.0, Adoption, Emerging Technologies, JAMfest