I did not miss a single second, folks. What you read is what we saw! Lotus took a big chance by letting us bloggers take a nice comfy seat down in front at the OGS. Lotus – it worked. This year I was so engaged. I was following, and getting caught up in the energy. I did not miss a thing. It was because I was so close to the action, and so comfortable that I had no other distractions. Thank you so much. This blog entry is so much better for everyone now because I am here so close. Thank you for the opportunity, it truly was an honor.

OGS – The theme is RESONANCE.

Blue Man Group is onstage now.

Doing awesome percussion on a…. dryer hose pipe?

Rock band in the background. It doesn't sound as good as the dryer hose, though.  Great acoustics in the hall.

BMG is going over the "Rock Concert Movements", including #8, "raise your hands in the air like you just don't care."

A few more dryer hose songs and they are off the stage.

Bob Picciano is on stage now. Apparently is wife is a Lotus Notes Developer *applause*. He begins by acknowledging that a huge fan and a big advocate of the software, and she sits across the dinner table from him.

16 Consecutive quarters of growth for IBM.  12,236 new customers *applause*.

Apparently BMG wasn't the opening speaker – it's Dan Aykroyd. Very energetic! He's offering "humble insights" into collaboration. Dan mentions that not all his movies are classics. Ha! His insights into collaboration are related to how many people are actually involved in making a motion picture. He has great respect for the film crew, telling a story how he had to tell off a stuffy actor by saying, "did you know

that Stacker here worked on Animal House? And Stuffy has a patent invention??" *Dan actually slipped into a heavy accent here, it sounds a little too comfortable so we know he is truly showing his reverence for these people.

Dan ends with "Do we want to be irritants or good collaborators?"

Back to Bob P.

Lotusphere attendance is up 2% from last year.

Ha! Resonance will shatter a window *Windows Logo shatters on screen, applause*

Coca Cola company will join Bob onstage. CIO Jean Michael Ayers (sp) of Coca Cola company is onstage now. After

vital Coca Cola stats, he is talking about their business process and systems. They use Blackberry, SAP and Lotus

Notes. Offstage now.

Next up: NetJets (fractional private jet ownership), John Dunning, VP. He needs software to handle complex

logistical issues such as over 5,000 customers worldwide with over 800 jets of all makes and models. They have

strict regulatory issues, and must be ready to fly with a pilot in a matter of hours. That's not withstanding

weather issues, airport regulations and more. They use Lotus Notes. Offstage now.

(Just reading twitter. Andrew Kelly is twittering that Dan Aykroyd just sat down next to him to watch the rest of

the OGS. )

HSBC Bank up now, with Ian Haynes (missed his title). Must have all global employees collaborate seamlessly to

offer one service to customers, wherever they may be. They use Lotus Notes, Connections, and Websphere (missed one

other). Offstage now.

CEO of Research in Motion onstage now, Jim Balsillie. Blackberry was launched 10 years ago. Blackberry works very

closely with IBM Lotus to merge collaboration, with all Blackberry devices to all Lotus collaboration products.

Announcement –
Blackberry Client for Lotus Connections to fully support all Connections services *applause*.
Blackberry Client for Lotus Sametime to support all multimedia, attachments, etc.
Support for Designer development on XPages for Blackberry.

Stop by Blackberry at booth 511 at the showcase. Offstage now.

Bob P. back onstage.

Announcement: Bluehouse is now LotusLive. (www.lotuslive.com).

Now onstage, Alistair Rennie. Resonance is a very powerful force. It's the tendency of an object to vibrate at a

certain frequency. It can be destructive for a bridge, but magical for a musical industry. In IT, it can amplify

overall value. Nice analogy.

Notes is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2009 *applause*.

Kevin Cavinaugh on stage now. Notes is a 20 year old rebel, ignoring traditional standards. 20-year olds are all

about their friends, particularly disruptive friends. However, unlike a 20 year old, Notes can save you money

*laughs*.

Over 200,000 deployments of Symphony. Microsoft Office is being uninstalled. More are evaluating now. Symphony is

winning awards.

Announcement: IBM/SAP Atlantic is now called  Alloy.Alloy will ship this quarter, and will be customizable via

Designer. Ron Sebastian onstage now to demo. (He is so comfortable with the software, sometimes I actually pick up

usability shortcuts that I didn't know existed until I watch him fly through screens.) His demo is getting applause

(dragging multiple Sametime contacts into a mail window).

iNotes has a new look, that looks exactly like the Notes 8 mail. You can now access Google Calendar right in

iNotes. Notes widgets are in iNotes.

Kevin and Suzanne (missed her last name) are talking about Designer 8.5, and how it's the biggest upgrade since

LotusScript arrived in 1995. Make your apps beautiful, social, and young again. He's talking about the reusable custom controls I blogged about earlier.

Kevin is talking about Quickr and how it will soon have XPage support.

He's talking to business partners how. How can we make money from this technology now? IBM had announced SmartMarket earlier for Lotus Partners. Now it is open to all partners to promote, support, and distribute software. It's an application store. It will also hook in with OpenNTF.org. It will make code available there via open source licensing *applause*. Apparently myself and others are not the only ones who are happy seeing OpenNTF

finally getting some official recognition and support from IBM. Well deserved!
www.ibm.com/Smartmarket IBM Foundations getting a mention.

Bruce Morse onstage now talking about Unified Collaboration. He's talking about IBMs vision for communications and collaboration. He's talking about customer case studies, such as a customers reduced turnaround time from seven days to four days with Sametime, by reducing phone calls, faxes, and other processes.

Announcement: Sametime Unified Telephony, to integrate communications into software programs. You will be able to use WIFI to make calls.

Here's Ron Sebastian for another demo! One click to start a conference call between multiple contacts. *big applause*.  The call can be transferred to another device while on a conference call so no one has to know you've switched devices.

Ron gets interrupted by a video call – it's Blue Man Group peering into the screen! *laughter*.

Announcement - Sametime 8.5 with iPhone support coming this year.

Back to Ron for demo. No more Java applets needed to download to make it work *applause*.

Jeff Schick on stage now talking about Social Software.  To be effective for business, social software needs security and features that work out of the box.

Announcement – Lotus Connections 2.5 coming in Q3. Mass of widgets available online, microblogging enabled, also comes with a Wiki.

Suzanne and Ron to demo. You can be notified of new content from people and see those updates in your network, (reminds me of LinkedIn and Facebook).  People can comment on your profile, and can see your social contributions. Wiki pages can be rated and tagged. Rich client on mobile device for Connections looks great.

(OGS is still cruising along, fast-paced with high energy.)

Lotus Quickr demo with integration with ECM systems/FileNet servers.

Lotus Quickr 8.2 for Domino coming. Better performance, reliability and security.

Larry Bowden onstage now, VP Portal and Mashups. Your focus on any business should be your customers. Larry mentions how you should have accessibility to anywhere, "including a jet" (nice backtrack to NetJets.) Portal does that. We are "yellow blooded" attendees – new look for Websphere!

Announcement: New IBM Mashups center. Ephox entitlement for Portal 6.1, giving end users more power to create.
 
Demo time to watch Infosphere Mashup Hub. Very small amount of time dedicated to Portal. This is most likely based on rants/raves from the past (myself guilty also).

*Twitter announcement – OGS is running long, stay for closing piece!* How's THAT for collaboration, when audience members are in touch with OGS backstage?

Alistair Rennie back on stage. LotusLive.com allows any company, no matter how many users, the opportunity to get online and collaborate.

Onstage now, Sean Poulley *missed job title*. People drive business outcomes.

Announcement: LotusLive Engage coming in Q1. Meet instantly, manage projects, and not have to worry about  firewalls. "Ron – Engage!"

Demo with Ron. Two small business owners working on a project together in LotusLive.com. On left sidebar --> activities, charts, instant messaging accessibility. Lots of Star Trek references.

You can instantly "click to cloud" right from the Lotus Notes client into LotusLive, such as a meeting environment.

Ron demo'd a web meeting on a Blackberry device *applause*. There's a big Blackberry presence at the OGS this year.

Announcement: Three new LotusLive partnerships: Salesforce, LinkedIn, and Skype. LotusLive will soon extend to over 400 million people.

Kristen Lauria onstage now, VP Marketing and Channels.

Winner of CTO Award: Elguji Software, Integra, and Synaptris.
Congrats!

Twitter proved very useful this OGS! For those following along with me (Twitter: mattandjess), thanks! There were some periods where I blinked and missed an announcement, but was able to read exactly what I missed from all the other Lotusphere Tweeters. Awesome!

Back to Blue Man Group.

Overall, this was the best-flowing and most high-energied OGS I think I've ever seen. The speakers were confident in their products. The audience loved what it was hearing and seeing. The bloggers, myself included, were ferociously blogging and tweeting. THIS is what Lotusphere is all about. This is what *collaboration* is all about.


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