IBM’s Lotusphere 2010: Getting the Most out of It (Virtually)

Yesterday I mentioned how the last couple of days I have been preparing, and getting everything ready, too!, for my first business trip of the year, which happens to be the first conference event as well. IBM’s Lotusphere 2010 is just around the corner (Starting next week already!) and there are lots of things to take care of. This year will be my third consecutive time I will be going there and, like every single time, the excitement is piling up rather quick! Yes, indeed, I can’t wait for it to get started!

A bunch of the folks I usually interact with online through various different social networking tools are going to be there and it’s going to be great seeing them again and continue, face-to-face, with the various conversations that we have been covering on line for the last few months. However, some other folks have reached out to me and mentioned that they won’t be able to make it this year, yet they would want to know what online spaces they would need to keep on eye on in order to get a glimpse of what the event will be all about…

Well, this is one of those blog posts that will try to address some of that. This is also one of those entries that will try to cover a little bit where all the hot action of event will be taking place for those folks who may be attending the event live. Lotusphere, as most folks who may have attended it already would know, is a huge event. So, if you’re not well prepared, there is plenty of the stuff that will go by without you not knowing much about it all. So this post is an attempt to help folks channel through some of their attention into what may well be some of the most relevant resources available out there.

By all means this is my list of suggestions; definitely, not the most exhaustive and comprehensive that you will be finding out there, but certainly it could well be a good start for those folks who may be interested, especially, in the area of social computing, knowledge sharing, learning and collaboration. Basically, most of the stuff I would be interested in myself. Yes, that’s right, this is going to be an article where I will be sharing with you folks the list of online resources that I will be paying attention to while I am of the Lotusphere event in Orlando starting to January 17th.

If you think that I may have missed a key important online resource that we should all be paying attention to, don’t be shy, go ahead and leave a comment below and let us know about it. The more comprehensive that list of online resources is, the better it will be for all of us. So go ahead and let us know what will you be paying attention to while Lotusphere takes place in the next few days…

So here is the list of online spaces that I will be checking on a regular basis during the course of the Lotusphere event:

• The Lotusphere Agenda: which you can find at the main Lotusphere Web site, but that this year comes together in a whole bunch of lovely formats. Going from IntraVision’s lovely mobile Lotusphere Web site, to Turtle’s super nifty iPhone application (Available at the Apple Store for free) or Genii Software’s helpful Lotus Notes database, amongst several other options. Really nice, don’t you think?
• Planet Lotus: for those folks who may be looking into what the blogosphere may be saying about the overall event I can certainly recommend Planet Lotus; that incredibly powerful online resource where several hundred bloggers, I’m sure, will keep (live) blogging away non stop from the beginning to the end of the event. A special mention will be going as well to my good friend, and fellow IBM colleague, Ed Brill, who, another year, I’m sure would continue to channel through plenty of that energy from the overall "yellow" blogosphere.
• Another blog worthwhile taking a a look at, and which also gets a special mention from me, is the Lotusphere Blog, for obvious reasons, but don’t forget to also keep an eye on Lotus Knows itself, because I’m sure is going to thrive with plenty of activity as well, as well as plenty of goodies!
• Ok, now, if you didn’t have enough with those various links I just mentioned above to keep you going, let’s have a look into what I think it is going to be really hot this year at Lotusphere… Twitter, of course!

  Yes, indeed, last year Twitter was used already quite a bit, but I have a feeling that this year is going to go crazy, more than anything else because of the sheer increase in the number of twitterers attending the event, as well as plenty of them wanting to share plenty of the excitement as they have become more and more comfortable with the medium. So, to start off, I will keep an eye on the hash tag #ls10; at the same time I would also check out the tweets coming through from Planet Lotus, @Lotusphere, @LotusKnows and all of the various Lotus related Twitter IDs.

• As you will see, apart from all the blogging and micro-blogging/-sharing that would be taking place, there will also be a Posterous Web site that anyone can post items to, as well as a couple of Facebook groups and a LinkedIn one that people can drop by to see what’s happening, and a specific space over at Slideshare where people can share their own presentations used while at Lotusphere.

Not too bad, eh? Well, those are the main online spaces that I will keep an eye on over the next few days to try to get a glimpse of what’s going to happen before, during and after Lotusphere 2010. Like I have mentioned above, I am pretty sure that there are plenty of other good, and worthwhile reading, resources that can help you complete that overview I just try to share with you folks in this post. So if you think I have missed any, feel free to comment away and let us know. We would greatly appreciate it.

For now though, I am going to leave this blog post here and finalise another one I’m working on, where I will share some further insights on what I plan to do, and use, myself in order to relate most of what I would be exposed to, including hanging out virtually, as well as face to face, with those folks I usually hang out with already and who I know will be there as well. Oh, this upcoming blog post will be a rather interesting one as well, because it would introduce the one other experiment I just started for  2010, and which I have mentioned briefly in a couple of articles already … Thus stay tuned for some more!

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