Lotus Geek :: Lotusphere 2005: Collaboration is in the air...

Category Lotusphere
Bookmark :

I wanted to relate a story that I watched unfold today - and it reminded me of how hard the speakers are working to provide the Lotusphere attendees the best content possible. There are two sessions on object-oriented LotusScript being given this year:

BP107 Best Practices for Object Oriented LotusScript (by "Wild" Bill Buchan)
AD211 Leveraging the Power of Object Oriented Programming in LotusScript (by Jens-B. Augustiny)

Now, many people would think: "Oh, there is going to be a ton of overlap between these two sessions" - and with speakers who didn't care as much as ours, this probably would be the case - heck, even in Lotuspheres past this would be the case. But our speakers really want to do the best job possible for the attendees (as does the Lotusphere staff), and the two speakers responsible for these sessions - who live in different countries and have never even met each other - reached out to each other. These guys not only wanted to make sure that there was no overlap between their sessions, they also have gone as far as to make sure that they use the same or similar terminology, and that their sessions compliment each other to the fullest extent possible. I was CCed during an exchange between these two today - and I watched collaboration happen, across continents. It was a beautiful thing to behold.

Oh, and this is not the only example. I know of another session, BP123 - "Improving Collaboration with Blogs and Wikis in Domino", that is being given by two guys (Rich Schwartz and Declan Lynch) that have also never met - yet they have gone out of their way to work across timezones (Rich is in Boston, Dec is in Ireland) using technologies like IM and Skype to make sure their session is as good as possible.

There are many other examples of exceptional effort - too many to list here - going into the sessions for this Lotusphere. Trust me when I tell you that this will be one of, if not the best Lotusphere, ever.

So, for those of you going - if you like a session you see, take a moment to tell the speaker how much you appreciate it. Admire the time and effort he or she put into preparing and presenting that session for you, and soak up the kewl knowledge being given to you. At a minimum, tell them how much you appreciate it in the session eval - the speakers do read them.

If you're not going (or are undecided), you are going to miss a fantastic show. I haven't been this excited about a Lotusphere since Release 4 was introduced, and Gerstner spoke live in the opening session. You might want to reconsider.

And if you're a speaker feverishly preparing your session for the show, you should know that your efforts are most appreciated.

See you in Orlando - probably in Kimono's :)

Rock
**Run faster. History is a constant race between invention and catastrophe. Education helps but it's never enough. You also must run. (Leto Atreides II)

Comments

1 - I'm with you David. My employer isn't going to take me there and self financing a trip to Florida for an $1800 conference is just well over budget.

Posted by Ben Rose At 02:25:43 PM On 01/05/2005 | - Website - |

2 - I'd like to be a position to reconsider my decision not to attend. I've never been able to even dream of attending except once when it there was a european version and Lotus offered to sponsor me.

Oh well - enjoy it anyway but spare a thought for thousands(?) who'd love to attend but can't.

Posted by David At 06:29:26 AM On 01/04/2005 | - Website - |

3 - Almost sounds like our conversation last week

. I have already begun cross referencing with your material...

Posted by Christopher Byrne At 12:15:17 AM On 01/04/2005 | - Website - |

4 - Chris - yeah, but I'd rather not talk about what I do - I mean, I think I'm supposed to do it. It is more interesting to see what other people are doing - and I wanted to showcase how hard all of the speakers (including you) are working to provide the best content possible.

Hats off to the speakers.