Genii Weblog


Civility in critiquing the ideas of others is no vice. Rudeness in defending your own ideas is no virtue.


Sat 21 Jan 2012, 11:22 AM
As some of you know, I got the "zombie flu" that Mat Newman and others had at Lotusphere 2012. By some miracle, I made it through my session on Thursday morning, though I imagine some people probably noticed that I was visibly gripping the podium so as not to fall over. At least I didn't have coughing fits, and Tim Davis did a great job entertaining and enlightening the audience by building a mobile app on the fly using the session data and XPages Mobile Controls.

I was supposed to leave Friday, but was in no condition to travel. In addition, Cleveland was under a snow advisory, and I thought that if I got stranded in an airport, I might never see another Lotusphere. So, I changed my flight to Sunday, the next available flight,, and have been sleeping and groaning and coughing ever since. The hardest part has been that the hotel has so many little Disney Princesses wandering around. Adorable little girls with doting parents. I look at them having a wonderful vacation, and I am deathly afraid of giving this plague to them, which makes it take forever to get to my room on the 5th floor, as I have to try hard not to ride up with anybody. At breakfast, I make sure to sit in a distant corner and look menacing, but little kids never find me menacing, and I keep having to shoo them away. Even when I give them my best Get off my lawn! snarly look, they laugh and try to play. Fortunately, their parents usually catch sight and whisk them off, but it is difficult to avoid breathing or coughing while they are close.

Anyway, a forced extra two days in Florida is not all bad, as I can stumble down to sit outside by the pool, which is blessedly empty when all the families are at the parks. One of the oddest endings to a Lotusphere that I've ever had, but overall, it was a very good week. When I come out of my haze, I hope I remember enough to do a wrap up.

Copyright © 2012 Genii Software Ltd.

Fri 13 Jan 2012, 04:02 PM
Last year, a number of people took advantage of the Lotusphere Sessions database bookstore, finding books that related to topics and ordering them directly from the database. This year, we have added new books, but also added links to the Kindle versions of books where that is available. For example, the well known Guy Kawasaki is going to be giving a keynote address at IBM Connect 2012. His books are available in the Lotusphere Sessions db, but you don't have to wait for them to show up at your house or office, or carry them in your luggage. Instead, you can buy them and have them delivered instantly to your Kindle or other mobile device. Below is the page for Guy's latest book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions.

When you find a session you find particularly relevant, open it up in the Sessions db and see what related resources are show. There may be books on that topic or written by one of the speakers that you can order right then and there, in print or digitally.

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Copyright © 2012 Genii Software Ltd.

Thu 12 Jan 2012, 11:01 AM
As I have mentioned (incessantly), I have been adding social details into the Lotusphere 2012 Sessions db. Now, from inside the database, click an action to request your name and social details be included (see below). Or, click on the image below to go to the form directly. Get social at Lotusphere! Encourage your friends to do so as well.

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Copyright © 2012 Genii Software Ltd.

Tue 10 Jan 2012, 03:20 PM
There's more to come, but just a few tidbits you might notice if you download the Lotusphere 2012 Sessions db V1.1 or replicate the latest changes.

First, inside a session there is now a bit more information than before about the speakers. Their names are linked to their profile, and they have little icons which indicate some things about the speaker. For example, below is a screen capture from BP103, given by Tim Clark and Matt White. By glancing at the icons after their names, we can see that Tim Clark has a Twitter id, and that Matt White is an IBM Champion (the star!), and has both Twitter and Google+ ids.

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Now, if we click on the link for Matt White, we get to his profile. Some of the new features in the profile are pointed at by elegant red arrows, including links to his social network ids and a photo so that you can recognize Matt if you see him wandering around Lotusphere.

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Of course, it isn't only speakers who want to stay connected. Your social ids are welcome as well, and a photo can help people recognize you. Here's how:

Either send your photo (no more than 200px, optimal is 200x200) or let me know where I can get it. I have taken some from Google+, as it happens to use 200x200. As for adding your social ids, here is how:

On Google+, go to the Lotusphere Sessions G+ page and add the page to your circles. For some annoying reason, just +1ing the page doesn't give me access to your name and id.

On Facebook, go to the Lotusphere Sessions FB page and Like the page itself (not the post inside).

On Twitter, tweet your name and id to @blanghinrichs.

I still enter the photos and ids manually, so it isn't instantaneous, but this helps a great deal in getting accurate and timely information. Encourage your friends as well.  The more people who use it, the more other people will know to look for it.  

Copyright © 2012 Genii Software Ltd.

Mon 9 Jan 2012, 08:50 PM
It's a social world. IBM knows it. You know it.

Your customers know it.

If you want to be part of the action, you need to start by getting your social ids and photo in the Lotusphere Sessions database. Do you think Carl Kriger or Carl Tyler is going to get noticed? See the bottom of this post for a reminder of how to get into the database.

Dude, where's your face? 


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Either send your photo (no more than 200px, optimal is 200x200) or let me know where I can get it. I have taken some from Google+, as it happens to use 200x200. As for adding your social ids, here is how:

On Google+, go to the Lotusphere Sessions G+ page and add the page to your circles. For some annoying reason, just +1ing the page doesn't give me access to your name and id.

On Facebook, go to the Lotusphere Sessions FB page and Like the page itself (not the post inside).

On Twitter, tweet your name and id to @blanghinrichs.

I still enter the photos and ids manually, so it isn't instantaneous, but this helps a great deal in getting accurate and timely information. Encourage your friends as well.  The more people who use it, the more other people will know to look for it.  

Copyright © 2012 Genii Software Ltd.

Mon 9 Jan 2012, 09:08 AM
Chris Toohey and Nathan Freeman both work in the same company. Both have blogs. Both are active in the community, and have been for years. I know that both of them are aggressively approachable people who interact with others, share their knowledge and would by most definitions fall into the "social networker" category.

I know that. You probably know that. But if a Lotusphere newbie looked into the Lotusphere Sessions db, these would be the two profiles they would see, and they would not know that. I do not say this in any way to criticize Nathan, whom I have known for years, but simply to point out that a fair number of you reading this post have a profile more like the second and less like the first. Below the image, I include (again) the ways you can have a profile more like Chris Toohey has (albeit with a less scary expression perhaps).

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Either send your photo (no more than 200px, optimal is 200x200) or let me know where I can get it. I have taken some from Google+, as it happens to use 200x200. As for adding your social ids, here is how:

On Google+, go to the Lotusphere Sessions G+ page and add the page to your circles. For some annoying reason, just +1ing the page doesn't give me access to your name and id.

On Facebook, go to the Lotusphere Sessions FB page and Like the page itself (not the post inside).

On Twitter, tweet your name and id to @blanghinrichs.

I still enter the photos and ids manually, so it isn't instantaneous, but this helps a great deal in getting accurate and timely information. Encourage your friends as well.  The more people who use it, the more other people will know to look for it.

Copyright © 2012 Genii Software Ltd.