For all of you in the Chicago area, I would like to invite you to an event: One of the philanthropy activities I do is to be part of the Field Associates, the young professionals group of The Field Museum. I am the co-chairman of the Communications Committee. We are having a great event on July 15th at Martini Park. Come and join us for free food, drinks, and learn about The Field Associates and the museum from the Field Associates board of directors and John McCarter, Field Museum President. If you are interested in attending please RVSP in one of the following ways: Email fieldassociates@fieldmuseum.org Call 312-665-7145 Respond to the Evite here I look forward to seeing people there!

Taking Notes Podcast Episode 83 - XPages and Yellow Water" border="0" src="listen-to-me-on-the-taking-notes-podcast-episode-83-xpages-and-yellow-water/content/M2?OpenElement" / Rob McDonagh, Bruce Elgort, Julian Robichaux and myself talk about XPages on Episode 83 of The Taking Notes Podcast. Check it out!

After weeks of speculation, Diablo 3 has been announced. Here is a bunch of videos you need to go watch now Teaser Trailer GamePlay Movie Witch Doctor (new class) Movie Barbarian Movie Artwork Trailer I am impressed that Blizzard did not turn D3 into another MMO. If you all think World of Warcraft is huge, Diablo 3 as a monthly subscription would be a far bigger cash cow for Blizzard than WoW. Blizzard decided to stick to the same gameplay with major leaps in story and graphics and design. Bravo.

As Paul Mooney blogs, the evaluations for ILUG 2008 are in and we have the session results: My session slides info again for anyone who missed it the first time: | View | Upload your own and a link to my Lotusphere 2008 session BP215: Integration of IBM Lotus Notes 8 with IBM Lotus Symphony and OpenOffice.org which has all the samples So tied for 9th with the IdeaJam session. Not bad at all. 87.41% means I have room to improve. I appreciated the folks who made comments. I got those from Paul and will take those suggestions to heart and make some updates. This was an interesting session for me. In 60 minutes, I covered Lotus Symphony from three perspectives: The executive, the user, and the developer. I have been remiss on not making any comments about my experience at ILUG 2008. I am not sure words can accurately describe the work that the ILUG team does. Paul, Eileen, Bill, Warren, Kitty, Matt, Julian, Tom, and Rob run a conference as good as any of the 500 person

PSC was mentioned in the June 16th, 2008 Chicago Sun-Times in an article about Accertify, the fraud protection firm that PSC is involved in. Recognizing a sky-high business opportunity, last year the 43-year-old Geneva native started Schaumburg-based fraud prevention company Accertify. Founded with two former Orbitz colleagues and two principals at IT consultancy PSC Group -- the firm hired by Orbitz in 2001 to implement fraud prevention systems -- Accertify's customers include Southwest Airlines and RealScoop.com. While Accertify will hire additional sales and technical talent with the Intel money, the company will also continue to partner with neighbor and stakeholder PSC Group and the firm's approximately 120-person staff. "We have been able to use them and have the resources of a much larger company with the cash burn of a much smaller company," Liesendahl said. Nice article. Congrats to the Accertify and PSC folks!

So Bruce Elgort wrote a blog entry about Domino 8.5, XPages, and the issue of backwards compatibility. He brings up some excellent points. Personally, I believe we will see Domino 8.5 adoption be one of the fastest of any prior release. Why? 1. Domino Attachment Object Services (DAOS). We have seen a 50% reduction in database sizes. It works beautifully. Very well designed with some minor beta bugs I am sure will be gone by 8.5.0 2. ID Vault. This will change the way that user IDs are dealt with. It is also the precursor to id-less Notes client use in a future version 3. Updates to the router, disk I/O, and document compression will have significant impact on server performance 4. Domino Configuration Tuner (DCT) will provide some great info about servers 5. XPages All of those, plus the rest of the features of Domino 8.5 (Auto Groups, Policy Updates, etc) will really provide a very easy to sell to management server upgrade. Serves are far easier to upgrade than clients. But Bruce,

Liquid Tension Experiment brought their 10 anniversary reunion tour to Chicago on 6.26.2008 - last night. This is one of those concerts I have been waiting for a long time ... they only did a handful of shows when they released their 2 jam releases. I have seen Dream Theater many times, and Iron Maiden did a great show this year, but I would have given up both just to see LTE. The show starts. The for guys, Mike Portnoy, John Petrucci, Jordan Rudess, and Tony Levin, start jamming. They play about 60 minutes. They ripped out some killer LTE tunes, such as: Acid Rain Kindred Spirits Another Dimension Paradigm Shift Freedom of Speech Universal Mind John and Jordan did something from their "An Evening With ..." CD and we got something I did not know. All of a sudden, Jordan stops playing his keyboard. He walks over to Mike, says something, and then heads off stage. Mike goes on to tell us Jordan is having keyboard problems. So Mike, John, and Tony start jamming. And jammin

Yesterday, I had an idea hit me between the eyes as I was thinking about XPages. Some background ... Last week, while out to dinner with the XPages group in Westford, Nathan Freeman and I were talking about possible ideas for submitting sessions at Lotusphere. Yeah, I know, a bit early, but not really. Nathan and I have talked about doing a session together ... and if we both survive working with each other, it might be a killer experience :-) So I called Nathan, told him about my idea .. and it ties almost perfectly into something he is working on. When I talked thru the entire idea, Nathan finally saw the end game. I think he is jazzed about it. As he said, if we hit our "500 million" goal, this could be a major application we build. So I am not going to reveal what it is ... I know, I hate that too. Sorry. But you will hear about it as the work to see if we can do this transpires. Hopefully this will push others to go out there and totally geek out on XPages. What a fun time the

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies 'Til Death Do Us Part: Season #1 10,000 BC Before The Rain: Criterion Collection Big Easy, The: Season #1 Bright Lights, Big City: 20th Anniversary Edition Classe Tous Risques: Criterion Collection Definitely, Maybe (Widescreen) Dogfights: Season #2 Early Edition: Season #1 Emma: A Victorian Romance: Season #1 Furies, The: Criterion Collection Futurama: Beast With A Billion Backs (#6 in the DVDPS Top 40) My Boys: Season #1 Oscar Wilde Collection, The Persepolis Real McCoys: Season #3 Spiderwick Chronicles, The: SE Tattooist, The Vice, The: Season #2 Xanadu: Magical Music Edition Computer Games Guitar Hero Aerosmith ( Nintendo Wii) Battlefield: Bad Company ( Xbox 360) Battlefield: Bad Company Gold Edition ( Xbox 360) Battlefield: Bad Company ( PLAYSTATION 3) More... Music Saints of Los Angeles ~ Mötley Crüe Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust ~ Sigur Rós Last Days At the Lodge ~ Amos Lee Live from Texas ~ ZZ Top Back to Ba

This is an open comment to IBM ... After seeing XPages kick major ass in Westford this week, IBM has some work to do. First, they need to get the LotusScript editor done in DDE. They know this, and I trust it will get done and in a reasonable time. But with the sex appeal of XPages, people doing anything with LotusScript are going to be jealous. They need to see that their toolset is expanding. The pressure is on to make this rock. Second, DXL round-trip import and export is even more important. At least for the design element side. DXL is going to be an important part of our toolkit when it comes to making XPages apps that get resold by the BP and ISV community. Last, the moment that XPages works in the client, the explosion of XPages applications will begin. And, it will help protect the Notes mail shops in ways like never before. If they do it right, it could also be the push to make Composite Applications and Expeditor apps really take off. IBM has done outstanding work taking

Everyone should remember the date of 6.17.2008. And not because the Celtics beat the snot out of the Lakers to claim the NBA title. Why should you remember that date? XPages came of age that day. I was one of the folks invited to Westford by IBM to get some XPages training. IBM thought they had something 'special' (to use Bill Hume's word) in XPages, but you could tell they were a bit scared that the Design Partners, Managed Beta, and general beta users were not noticing. I told a group of folks Monday night that I had not had my "ah ha" moment with XPages yet, and that is why I was going to the training. Talk about an 'ah ha' moment! More like a major ass kicking on why XPages are the future! So, before I give you my thoughts, let me recap what other people there thought: Andrew Pollack: So a bunch of Notes guys walk into a bar..... XPages continues to impress the heck out of me Tabs, tabs, tabs, tabs ....wonderful tabs... -- Will most XPages sites use tabbed navigation? A s

Adam Gartenberg picked this up first, but I wanted to welcome the Lotus Mashup Team, with the Mix and Match (www.mix-and-mash.com) blog to the PSC blog server. Another IBM product team blogging is a good thing. Nicole, Mark, and the rest of your team ... welcome to the family. And special thanks to Steve Castledine for making such a kick ass blog template that I could change the top bar color from yellow to something more blue without major work. Nice job mate!

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies Be Kind, Rewind Burn Notice: Season #1 Californication: Season #1 Carmen Miranda Collection Classe Tous Risques: Criterion Collection Dynasty: Season #3: Volume 1 ER: Season #9 Fool's Gold (2008) (Widescreen) Jericho: Season #2 Jericho: The Complete Series Jungle Book 2, The: SE Meerkat Manor: Season #3 Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters: Criterion Collection Nude Bomb, The Patriotism: Criterion Collection Popeye & Friends: Volume One Real McCoys: Season #3 Sabrina, The Teenage Witch: Season #4 So I Married An Axe Murderer: Deluxe Edition Sword In The Stone, The: 45th Anniversary Edition Transformers: Animated Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins (Widescreen) Music Viva La Vida ~ Coldplay Pacific Ocean Blue - Legacy Edition ~ Dennis Wilson Live at Royal Albert Hall 1971 ~ The Byrds One of the Boys ~ Katy Perry Nostradamus ~ Judas Priest Camp Rock ~ Original Soundtrack Nostradamus (Deluxe Edition) ~ Judas Priest Stone

This is by far the best post about Father's Day I have seen today, so I steal it with complete credit to The Movie Blog: He may not have been the best example of a father, but he did manage to throw the biggest threat in the galaxy down a big old pit just for the love of his son, so he can’t be all bad right? So International Friends, the Movie Blog wishes all you Daddies a Happy Father’s Day!

Today, I attended a luncheon for the Young Executive's Club of Chicago. The guest speaker was Emily Reynolds, Vice President of Canon. She was a dynamic speaker, but was also an amazing listener at the lunch table. She went out of her way to ask us what we all did and engaged in a great discussion at the table. Thank you Emily! Here are my notes from her talk and the questions following. Two things about Emily were mentioned as she was introduced: 1. Her ability to remember names is astounding (she revealed later that she would study guest lists to make sure she recognized people) 2. "You don't always deliver good news but you have to deliver a positive message" - Emily was great at rallying the troops even when bad news had to be delivered Critical Paths to Success Career Path 1. Building a Career Portfolio Skills Experience Training Knowledge Contacts Goals Review once a Quarter C Level Executive list - this contact list should be a focus for growth for anyone. Knowing C L

This is the third and final part in a three piece thought process that came after the WWDC SteveNote that took place on Monday. To can read my initial thoughts, The Lotus Community Echo Chamber and the Apple iPhone 3G, The Lotus Community Echo Chamber and the Apple iPhone 3G: Part 1 - A hard look at the community, and The Lotus Community Echo Chamber and the Apple iPhone 3G; Part 2 - Who is the real customer? So in a quick recap, I took issue with the community in part one. I took issue with IBM in part 2. To wrap this all up, I want to take the issues talked about and create a community call to action so we can begin to address the issues. That comes in two pieces: 1. Let IBM and Apple know that we want Domino support on the iPhone So Ed Brill and Brent Peters (VP of Development, Lotus) have asked us to contact Apple and ask for Domino support on the iPhone. Great. Here is a collection of the contact points: Apple Feedback on Apple.com: http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.h

Last night, Iron Maiden played the Allstate Arena in Chicago. Billed as the "Somewhere Back in Time" tour This tour ignores any music written or recorded since 1992. It has music from the albums: Iron Maiden Killers Number of the Beast Piece of Mind PowerSlave Somewhere in Time Seventh Son of a Seventh Son Talk about an Iron Maiden fan boy concert! Here is what they played: Winston Churchill speech into Aces High 2 Minutes to Midnight Revelations The Trooper Wasted Years Number of the Beast Can I Play with Madness Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner Powerslave Heaven Can Wait Run to the Hills Fear of the Dark Iron Maiden - with the Eddie sarcophagus and mummy! Encore Moonchild Clairvoyant - with the 15 foot Somewhere in Time Eddie walking the stage Hallowed be thy Name Talk about a show! I went with one of my best friends Dave and we were thinking. He and I went to our first concert without the parents in March 1990. I had just gotten my license and had ac

This is part two in a three part thought process that came after the WWDC SteveNote that took place on Monday. To can read my initial thoughts, The Lotus Community Echo Chamber and the Apple iPhone 3G, and The Lotus Community Echo Chamber and the Apple iPhone 3G: Part 1 - A hard look at the community. Once we look harshly at the community, it is only fair to turn the same eye on IBM's view of who their Notes customer is. With all of my time working with IBM around the Lotus Notes and Domino product, we have heard so many things about who their customer is. I don't mean user vs developer vs admin vs executive. I mean who is their current customer base and what customers are being targeted for future license sales. IBM says there are a total of 120 million Notes customers over the life of the product. They will also say there are 46,000 active companies on maintenance. Those numbers have been used in so many places, that I do not doubt them. The issue I have is who the listen to. So

Out of all of the discussion yesterday around the Microsoft Exchange support coming for the iPhone and OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) is that Apple is not hearing from IBM customers. For the sake of this post, let's pretend we all agree that is 100% accurate. So if that is the case, how do we make Apple hear us? So the next question we have to ask ourselves is how much communication does Apple need to hear? Let's look at that issue closer. First, there are 266 blogs on PlanetLotus. Since that includes some IBM blog, we get closer to 230 of non-IBM employee blogs. Not a bad number, but who do those blogs represent? As I can thru the list of blogs, at least two-thirds of those are Lotus Business Partners. Those blogs are the important foundation of our on-line community, but do they represent the important voices IBM needs? We all know that PAYING customers are the voice that get things done in the real-world. How many customers are blogging and represented on PlanetLotus? This is not an acc

So yesterday was an interesting day for all of us, was it not? I will not repeat the details of what happened, but I read two thoughts on blogs I want to point out and discuss throughout today: 1. A comment on Ed Brill 's blog by Ed himself I've seen five blog entries on the petition but only 21 signatures so far. Hope this isn't an echo chamber... 2. A comment on John Roling 's blog he made in his last blog post This is the last post I'll make about Lotus Notes / iPhone. After reading both of those, I think we need a harsh reality check and some massive self reflection on our community. And yes, I include myself in that. I have a crazy day, so this will come out in a couple of blog posts across the day. But here are the headlines for the posts to come: 1. A hard look at the community 2. Who is the real customer? 3. A Call to Action - Lotus Notes & Domino and the Apple iPhone Look for the first topic before lunch

I got the email this morning ...

I was quoted today by Colin Steele over at SearchITChannel. We talked about Lotus Symphony last week. Microsoft Office got a new competitor today: IBM Lotus Symphony, a free desktop applications suite based on the Open Document Format (ODF). IBM Lotus Symphony was previously tied to the Lotus Notes/Domino platform but is now available as standalone desktop applications software. Company executives and Lotus partners hope to attract business customers who don't see the need to pay the license and renewal fees for Microsoft Office. "The biggest thing it comes down to is cost," said John Head, frameworks manager for PSC Group, a Lotus partner in Schaumburg, Ill. "Office is expensive. Most users don't need all of Word and all of PowerPoint and all of Excel." The second half of 2008 should be very interesting for Lotus Symphony. PSC is participating with a dedicated Lotus Symphony page on our website. Also, If your company is interested in taking a good look at Lotus Symphony, PSC has

Here are my slides from the ILUG2008 presentation I did on Lotus Symphony. I cover Lotus Symphony from the Executive, User, and Developer perspectives. | View | Upload your own

I am about to board a plane to start my journey to Dublin and ILUG. Hope to see people over there!