2012-01-18 15:00:53 | Blog
Do you know how wonderful it is to walk around on a beach outside a hotel in Florida, when it's 24 degrees Celsius outside? No? Well, it is! After having a pretty chilly weather the first few days, it finally felt like Florida again. But this isn't a vacation, so we should move on to the sessions I attended. It was a very busy day, indeed, but I'll keep it shorter than yesterday.
SHOW 115 Socalize Your Applications Using Open Social
The session was ok, and it did show some of the capabilities one gets with the Activity Streams and Socal APIs, but I didn't get that much out of it. It was about how one can connect various services to make dashboards where you get various streams like your inbox, calendar, twitter feed, facebook feed, views in Notes Databases and so on.
In short, itwas a lot of stuff that my company are planning to start using. I'm mostly psyched about mobile applications though.
BP 102 User Blast with Mat Newman
Sometimes I need a reminder about what a great product Lotus Notes really is. I'm serious. Sure, it's a bit unstable at times, like an old lady needing some fine tuning, and I'm looking forward to it becoming lighter, but the productivity one can have in the client is mind blowing.
Newman, with his charming Australian accent, was the perfect speaker. He was jumping up and down and was all over the place, as he demonstrated shortcuts, setups, widgets, policies and everything but the kitchen sink. Even I learned stuff about the Notes client that I didn't know. I was also very inspired on how I should build up my Lotus Notes documentation and learning material when I get back to Norway.
And: Yet another session about the Notes client filled wall to wall with people. Hello, IBM? Are you taking (he he) notes? *chirp chirp*
INV 208 The Intranet Goes Social
A session on how to make the intranet into a social network for sharing, collaboration, education and for mapping knowledge within your organization. I didn't learn anything new and it was basically ideas and thoughts I already have, and are planning to flesh more out, in collaboration with my colleagues.
I then had a few hours until my next session. But did I waste it laying around in the sun? Oh, no. After a good discussion with a bunch of Americans during lunch, I spent quite some time in the showcase area. This is where IBM's partners and other vendors present their solutions and applications.
I did quite a bit of networking and exchanged ideas and email addresses with people. I also tested a few products and I also got a hold of demo versions of a few tools I want to test to see if they can be useful for my company. I also made a list of books that I want to buy. There is a book store here at the conference, where one can buy heavily discounted books.
INV 318 Ready, Set, Go! How IBM Lotus Domino Xpages Became Mobile
Yet another Xpages session. This time we really got to see the opportunities that the extension library gives you when it comes to solutions that run on Iphones and Android phones.
I'm fantasizing about our sales people using their mobile phone to register a sale, or our service technicians using their phone with instead of having to replicate their Notes database before heading out on a ship in the middle of the Pacific. Exciting times ahead.
I also got a free book about Xpages out of it as they forgot to hand it out as the price for the best question from the audience. And since stayed behind while waiting for the next session, they gave it to me. Nice.
INV 318 Synchronize Your Files For Offline Use on Any Mobile Device Like Your Apple Ipad
My boss wanted me to take this session, and it was interesting. It was mostly plugging of a product for the Ipad, Android and Iphone. The product makes it possible to download files from Quickr, Connections or Lotus Notes to work with them offline.
So before travelling to a conference or meeting to make a sales pitch, you can download any material to your device, without having to transfer files via USB sticks and such crude devices.
This means that if you have an attachment in a Lotus Notes Document, you can actually download it directly in to the product on the Ipad, without using a web browser, IBM Traveler or the Lotus Notes client.
That is something we could have use for in my company, and I will try to get a demo of it.
My main conclusion after this day is that I really need an Ipad to be able to test all this for our users, right boss?
After such a long and tiring day I wasn't very tempted to attend the IBM Nordic dinner at the House of Blues in Downtown Disney, but I trudged on and went down to my hotel, got changed, put my hair in a ponytail and went anyway.
And I'm glad I did. It was a very nice evening and I met quite a few interesting people. In addition I finally got to meet our Domino administrator, after only communicating with him via the phone and email.
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