In May of 2010 I blogged the following posts about a business technology resources survey that PSC commissioned in the spring of this year: PSC Business Technology Resources Survey Part 1: Technology Pain Points? PSC Business Technology Resources Survey Part 2: Top 2010 priorities PSC Business Technology Resources Survey Part 3: Top Information Sources PSC Business Technology Resources Survey Part 4: Trusted Sources PSC Business Technology Resources Survey Part 5: Top Applications Used to Research Technology Purchases PSC Business Technology Resources Survey Part 6: Research Influence on Decision Making As promised, here is the complete report posted as a PDF. You might even find a few questions and results that I did not cover in my blogs in the full report. PSC Group, LLC Business Technology Resources SurveyView more documents from John Head.

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies 13 Ghosts Of Scooby-Doo, The: The Complete Series America's Test Kitchen: Season #10 Back Up Plan Basilisk: The Complete Series Ben 10: Alien Force: Season #1: Volume 6 Ben 10: Alien Force: Season #1: Volume 7 Closer, The: Season #5 Crazies, The Creation Eureka: Season #3.5 Everlasting Moments: The Criterion Collection Fist Of The North Star: The Complete Series Collection: Volume 1 Green Zone Hoarders: Season #1 Hot Tub Time Machine How The Earth Was Made: Season #2 Leave It To Beaver: The Complete Series (#1 in the DVDPS Top 40) Mad About You: Season #4 Man From Laramie/ The Desperadoes (Double Features) Mystery Train: The Criterion Collection Naruto: Season #3: Volume 1 (Uncut) Night Train To Munich: The Criterion Collection Paranormal Cops: Season #1 Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (Blu-Ray) (#35 in the DVDPS Top 40) Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief Predator: Ultimate Hunter Edition (Blu-Ray

Last week, I presented at a LinkedIN Lunch & Learn at the Metropolitan Club of Chicago with Mark Carter. Here are the slides. It was most a talk vs slideware, but figured I would share the slides anyways. Enjoy. LinkedIN Lunch & Learn - June 23rd, 2010View more presentations from John Head.

PSC continues to grow and we are looking for new members of our team. We have job openings in the following areas: JavaScript with EXT.JS / Sencha experience Java Developer with J2EE experience There are multiple openings in both categories. These jobs are in the Chicagoland area and you must be able to be on-site at the customer. We are looking to grow our team and hire, so at this time we are not looking for contractors. You can apply on-line (each job description on our website has an "Apply Here" link) or you can contact me directly.

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies Cadillac Records Close-Up: The Criterion Collection Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (3D) (Blu-Ray) Entourage: Season #6 Heroic Age: The Complete Series Hung: Season #1 Mystery Train: The Criterion Collection Night Train To Munich: The Criterion Collection Red Desert: The Criterion Collection Riverworld Star Is Born, A (Blu-Ray) Star Is Born, A: Deluxe Edition White Ribbon Wolf Moon Computer Games Transformers: War for Cybertron ( Xbox 360) Ear Force DSS 7.1 Channel Dolby Surround Sound Processor ( Windows Vista / 7 / XP, Mac OS X, PLAYSTATION 3, Xbox 360) Field & Stream: Outdoorsman Challenge ( Xbox 360) WipeOut ( Nintendo Wii) Thinksmart: Family ( Nintendo Wii) Transformers: Cybertron Adventures ( Nintendo Wii) Monster Trucks Mayhem with Racing Wheel ( Nintendo Wii) Puzzle Quest 2 (Nintendo DS) Mahjong Mysteries: Ancient Egypt ( Nintendo DS) Wipeout ( Nintendo DS) Transformers: War for Cybertron - Autobots ( Nintendo DS) Transfor

With all the chatter about an 'App Store' for Lotus Notes, I am really starting to get a bit testy when I hear IBMer's call the Lotus Solutions Catalog anything along the lines of 'app store like' - and here is why. It's on Greenhouse. Until it has a url of www.lotus.com/apps or www.ibm.com/notesapps or even www.ibm.com/lotusapps its just part of a R&D website. Get it off Greenhouse - RIGHT FREAKING NOW! Until I can purchase a product with a credit card and have it install directly into my notes client (or download the .ntf directly) it is not an app store. It is a website that lists first and third party applications. Since this would be an App Store from IBM, no reason the IBM cert couldn't be used to bypass the client policy lock down of plug-ins. We all trusted the "Lotus Notes Template Development/Lotus Notes" for our Notes/Domino templates for years. Do the same for the store so end users can actually install stuff. Until it is available from within the Notes client itself

Do you know who the Big Four are? If you answered that the Big Four were the top four bands in thrash, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax, you would be right. And for the first time ever, all four bands are playing on the same concert bill! Europe is getting this amazing line-up - we never get the good concerts here in the states - but someone got smart. Take those high end movie theaters and show this live! $20 bucks for 4 hours of music. Totally worth it - and maybe a once in a lifetime experience. This takes place tomorrow, June 22nd, 2010 - so if you interested, get your tickets. I will be seeing this downtown Chicago and can not wait!

I have stayed very quiet in this weeks blogging explosion that has happened within the Lotus bubble. I reached out to jonvon personally and made a comment on both Gab's and Ed's posts. Nothing really serious and definitely not bringing my voice and opinion into this discussion. For right now - I am going to stay clear of the specific discussion on what IBM can do. Ed's blog post is the beginning of what should be a bigger conversation IBM has with the community - in whatever form or shape that turns into. Andrew is writing some good posts to get the discussion going. We will see everyone put forth their thoughts on what IBM should do - and with good cause. I certainly see both sides of the conversation. What makes it more interesting for me is PSC has always had multiple practices around different technologies. We have had a thriving Microsoft practice for a couple years. I have been doing work with Microsoft since 1995. I branched out three years ago to start a Document Generation p

Here is my twitter stream (laptop battery was struggling) from the session that Kevin Cavanaugh and Chris Crummey gave yesterday at Enterprise 2.0: in the IBM #lotusknows session at #e2conf with @lbenitez @edbrill @elsua and many more oh @ccrummey on stage with @kevincavanaugh at IBM #lotusknows session at #e2conf @ccrummey is demoing Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 3 at #e2conf - showing off Live Text with @edbrill name - searching connections profiles @ccrummey showing off an IBM templates addin for Lotus Symphony 3 - why this isnt public I have no idea! #lotusknows #e2conf #lotusknows that @ccrummey is showing off Project "Concord" live - first I have seen since Lotusphere2010 #e2conf IBM Project Concord looks great - except for 3 rows of toolbars. edit the UI please :-) IBM Project Concord is about collaborative editing - its not just another web based document editor #e2conf #lotusknows IBM Project Concord has sections that can be assigned and co-authored #e2conf #lotusknows RT lbenitez

Here are the notes I took from the panel "Enterprise 2.0, Real World Edition: Microsoft customers and partners sharing real world stories and advice" yesterday at Enterprise 2.0: Moderator: Christian Finn Director of Product Management SharePoint Microsoft Corporation Panelists: Dan Pontefract - TELUS Brad Bagley - World Vision Canada Brian Kellner - Newsgator Eric Raarup - Intetium Andy McLoughlin - Huddle Shannon Ryan - non-linear creations inc. Chris Slemp - Microsoft - internal program manager - internal social computing program manager What convinced you to choose sharepoint as part of your social strategy? 1. Integration with existing CMS 2. Leverage existing investment 3. Integration with osc + livemeeting + office + sharepoint 4. 2010 - tighter integration with office apps & search What capability in SP2010 are you most excited about? 1. Run third party app as managed service application and integration with the moss standard featur

One of the many things PSC Group, LLC does is develop iPhone applications for our clients thru our Mobile practice. Our most popular application on the iPhone is the Crain's Chicago Golf application. The application got a bunch of updates for the 2010 golf season. Congrats to the PSC Team for another year of this great application and partnership.

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies Air Bud: World Pup: SE American Dad!: Volume 5 Best Years, The: Season #2 Book Of Eli, The Circle Of Pain Everwood: Season #3 Family Guy: Volume 8 Father Knows Best: Season #4 From Paris With Love Happy Tears Hawthorne: Season #1 Here's Lucy: Season #3 I Love Lucy: The Movie And Other Great Rarities Insomnia (Widescreen) Leave It To Beaver: Season #3 Lewis Black: Stark Raving Black MacGyver: The TV Movies My Three Sons: Season #2: Volume 2 Mystery Train: The Criterion Collection Secret Life of the American Teenager: Volume 4 Shutter Island (Blu-Ray) (#14 in the DVDPS Top 40) Shutter Island Unthinkable When In Rome Youth In Revolt Computer Games Toy Story 3 The Video Game ( Xbox 360) Naval Assault: The Killing Tide ( Xbox 360) KONNET Power Pyramid Storage and Charging Station for PS3 and XBox 360 plus Free Bundle with ExpressHD HDMI Cable 150 ( PLAYSTATION 3, Xbox 360) Xbox 360 250GB Elite Console ( Xbox 360) Toy Story 3 The Video Game

What an amazing year of hockey, but it ends with the Blackhawks winning the Stanley Cup! The casr honking, fireworks, and rowdy people were out way past my bed time last night. Parade is on Friday ... should be fun!

To go along with IBM Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 3, IBM has released a bunch of new plug-ins specific to this version: LotusLive Connector : Links you to LotusLive by simple click Mass Convertor : Batch converts MicroSoft Office files into odf format Organization Chart: Generates organization charts in Lotus Symphony Presentations Embedded SharePoint: Manages SharePoint server documents in Lotus Symphony Media Wiki : Lets you write and publish your wiki in Lotus Symphony Wiki Convertor: Converts Lotus Symphony Document to Confluence or Lotus Connections wik Send to Mail: Automatically starts your default mail system to send your current document Spreadsheet to HTML: Converts Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets into HTML files Document to HTML: Converts documents to HTML files Open HTML File: Opens and converts HTML files into Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets FTP Document Management: Manages your FTP server documents in Lotus Symphony Embedded Calculator: Does calculations without leaving Lotus Symphony

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies 41 Year Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall And Felt Superbad About It, The A-Team, The: The Complete Series Bob Hope: Thanks For The Memories Collection Cleaner, The: Complete Series Pack Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season #7 Family Matters: Season #1 Ghostwriter: Season #1 Jim Henson's Dog City: The Movie MacGyver: The TV Movies Nip/Tuck: The Sixth And Final Season Not The Messiah: He's A Very Naughty Boy Oceans Road, The (2009) Shutter Island (Blu-Ray) (#9 in the DVDPS Top 40) Shutter Island Small Town Saturday Night StarStruck: Extended Edition TCM Spotlight: Charlie Chan Collection Tales Of The Gold Monkey: The Complete Series (#21 in the DVDPS Top 40) White Ribbon Z Rock: Season #2 Computer Games Green Day: Rock Band Plus ( Xbox 360) Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 ( Xbox 360) Green Day: Rock Band ( Xbox 360) Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 ( PLAYSTATION 3) Green Day: Rock Band Plus ( PLAYSTATION 3) Green Day: Rock Band ( PLAYSTATION 3) PS3 250 GB

It is a first release within a beta release of Lotus Symphony, so there is a lot of room for improvement. I would like to see: auto-refreshing a cleaner UI the ability to launch to LotusLive directly from the sidebar plugin Type-ahead support for the sharing dialog Group support for the sharing dialog and I think that if IBM really wants to compete with the other tools out there, there needs to be a LotusLive account that is free for users. Let them store documents and then be able to connect up to a paid corporate account. That will be a great solution. IBM has also released an OpenOffice.org add-in that provides LotusLive functionality as well. I think this is a great move on their part - embrace the greater OpenOffice.org community as the same time as deepening the functionality in their own products. Overall, this is a great first step. Lots of polish is needed, but I look forward to how this evolves as the Lotus Symphony 3 Beta continues.

I just recorded this video of the performance of IBM Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 3: So I know my hardware is pretty fast, but these results are still an amazing improvement over Symphony 1.3 and Symphony 3 Beta 2. WOW!

Just released today, you can find the release here. The highlights of what is new in Beta 3: What's New in IBM® Lotus® SymphonyTM 3 Beta3? General Quality Improvements Improved ODF file fidelity to better support processing files which were generated by previous versions of Lotus Symphony Fixed key Mac OS specific stability, functional and usability bugs Fixed Lotus Symphony Presentation table functional and usability bugs Improved memory leak issue during long run of Lotus Symphony Fixed additional bugs on general stability, function, usability and Microsoft Office interoperabilityNew Features More VBA APIs are supported Ability to customize toolbar content and layout Enabled Sidebar panel management to show or hide sidebar panels More sidebar pages and sections containing new property controlling Spreadsheet cell appearance, including cell borders Graphic Word processor page settings, including margins More sidebar panels in presentation editor Color palette, eyedropper, image a

As I mentioned before, PSC commissioned Pete Wiltjer Marketing Group to do a Technology Resources Survey. The sixth question we asked technology executives was "What is the importance of gathered research and its influence on decision making?" Here are the results: This question is about hindsight. After the decision is made, how did the research done effect the outcome? Over half of the respondents believed that gathered research was 'absolutely critical' in the decision. As I try to make decisions on what content to produce on my website and in social media, it is good to know that it might help make a decision. Do these findings map to your own thoughts? Do you find yourself This was the last blog post covering the questions in our Technology Resource Survey. The complete report will be posted early next week.

For those of you in the Chicago area, here are two great events at the Metropolitan Club of Chicago: NEGOTIATION SKILLS SEMINAR Thursday, June 3 5:30-7:00 p.m. $15++ Club Board of Governors, Dennis Pauls, is President and CEO of HUB International, the leading insurance brokerage with over 4,700 employees. Pauls will be sharing the techniques he used to accelerate his trip to the top. Get what you want at the conference table or the kitchen table. Come for wine, hors d'oeuvres, networking and valuable information to apply to life. Register with Member Services at 312.876.3200 or online. LINKEDIN LUNCH & LEARN Wednesday, June 23 12:00-1:00 p.m. $15++ LinkedIN is an extremely powerful tool that can be used to promote your business, gain clients and market yourself to potential employers - if you know how to use it. Mark Carter and John Head will take you thru how you can use LinkedIN successful in your business. Join us for lunch and learn how to put LinkedIN to work for you! Space

As I mentioned before, PSC commissioned Pete Wiltjer Marketing Group to do a Technology Resources Survey. The fifth question we asked technology executives was "What are your top media applications used to obtain information for technology purchases?" Here are the results: Here are some further thoughts after breaking down the results: 1. 85% of respondents used more than one application to obtain information for a technology purchase. 2. 39% of those surveyed used between 3 and 5 media applications to obtain such information before making a purchase. Out of all of the survey questions, this is the one I was most surprised about. Webcasts being the number one top media application was not something I would have predicted. The decline of RSS is something reflected in this report. I know for myself, when I got the new laptop, I have not installed FeedDemon. Sure, I use Google Reader a bit, but my RSS reading is way down. I just go directly to websites as needed. What media a

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies Alice In Wonderland (2010) (Blu-Ray + DVD + Digital Copy) (Blu-ray) (#12 in the DVDPS Top 40) Alice In Wonderland (2010) (Blu-Ray) (#9 in the DVDPS Top 40) American Pickers: Season #1 Barbara Stanwyck Collection, The Beck: The Complete Series Burn Notice: Season #3 (#3 in the DVDPS Top 40) Cleaner, The: Complete Series Pack Cleaner, The: Final Season Clint Eastwood: The Man with No Name Trilogy (Blu-Ray) (#18 in the DVDPS Top 40) Dalziel & Pascoe: Season #1 Drop Dead Diva: Season #1 Eastwood Factor, The: Extended Version Elvis: 75th Birthday Collection Essential Eastwood: Action Collection Essential Eastwood: Directors Collection Judge John Deed: Season #1 & Pilot Episode Leverage: Season #2 Life (2009) Life (Narrated By David Attenborough) Mister Ed: Season #3 Peanuts 1970's Collection: Volume 2 Royal Pains: Season #1 Three Stooges Collection, The: 1955-1959: Volume 8 Undisputed III: Redemption White Ribbon Wolfman, The: Unrated D

The award winning application we designed and built for Crain's Chicago Business has been updated for 2010. Get your updated version from www.chicagobusiness.com/golfapp.