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Lotusphere 2008 Top 100!

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OK time for some fun.  Here's the idea, I want to see if we can get up to 100 top things you liked about Lotusphere 2008, they can be fun, serious whatever you want, just make a comment and see how long it takes us to get to 100, only rule, you cannot post two in a row, someone must post a top item before you can post another one.

I'll start:

The top thing I saw at Lotusphere was...

1. The Sametime Unyte folks still had SmartSuite installed on their PCs.

Comments

Gravatar Image1 - LiveText. We are all underestimating where this will lead in the next two versions.

Gravatar Image2 - Jellyrolls....

Gravatar Image3 - Hosting Lotusphere Idol. Great fun!

Gravatar Image4 - A belief and passion from IBMers/Loti in what they're working on.

Gravatar Image5 - The Canada Night Party

Gravatar Image6 - The Closing Session -- Ill never be able to think of "replication" in the same way, ever again.

Gravatar Image7 - Being a contestant on Lotusphere Idol! Emoticon

Gravatar Image8 - The Violin Player in the first Key Note..Amazing Emoticon

Gravatar Image9 - Getting to interview LUG members, they are always my favorite people to meet because they are so different. And they are Lotus users, so naturally they are fun. Emoticon

Gravatar Image10 - Mike Rhodin pulling a Foundations server out of a DHL envelope Steve-Jobs style.

Gravatar Image11 - XPages

Gravatar Image12 - The sheer positiveness exuded
The booth babes
DD in Eclipse (go Maureen)
Bob C ***** who?
A few disappointing sessions (where presenters were underprepared)
Some GREAT sessions - content and presentation
The hiking to the lunch tent
The hiking
The pretty seamless organisation
The crappy CLP lounge
The Blizzard Beach parking (wastes an hour a day, there must be a better way)
Closing session (dont know who he was but it was entertaining)
Not so much Websphere and more focus on Lotus
The 2015 announcement - cool

no particular order..

Gravatar Image13 - oh gawd, the band and THE violin player..

Gravatar Image14 - Seeing IdeaJam getting well deserved recognition.

Gravatar Image15 - One location for all the breakfast/lunch dining.

Gravatar Image16 - More leg room/breathing room in the new location for the Cert Prep/Test Labs. (However, having these labs closed all day Thursday makes my "Bottom 100 List").

Gravatar Image17 - Kashmir played by The Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. Very powerful and intense.

Gravatar Image18 - All the previews of Domino Designer 8.5.

And Carousel? Emoticon

Gravatar Image19 - Being a Lotusphere Idol.

Gravatar Image20 - Meeting some of my favorite bloggers!

Gravatar Image21 - Bumping into Carl Tyler Emoticon

Gravatar Image22 - Attending virtually by watching the OGS as a webcast 2 days after (would have been nice to watch it live streamed!)

Gravatar Image23 - Watching Ed Brill avoid Sara Radacatti at the press dinner! Emoticon

Gravatar Image24 - The Bloggers BOF.

Very interesting for a newbie like myself!

Oh - and Will Bill's 10 year old Ardberg ... oh my!

Gravatar Image25 - The whole college reunion with fellow Loti, Iri, IBMers, BPs, and the loyal customer base w/o whom we would not have the best conference and products on the Planet Lotus ;^ )

Gravatar Image26 - Nathan's hair! Emoticon

Gravatar Image27 - Paul and Bill getting roasted by Duffbert at their own session "Worst Practices".

Gravatar Image28 - The bleedyellow.com tearing claws t-shirts.

Gravatar Image29 - Seeing Redbox Panic at the House of Blues.
If the software thing doesn't work out they have something else they can do. Suburbanites from Westford rocking out, who knew?

Gravatar Image30 - Swashbucklers on lake Dolphin

Gravatar Image31 - Drinks in the Dolphin rotunda... at 4:00 AM...

Gravatar Image32 - Free Black and Tans (Guinness and Bass) at the Universal Islands of Adventure party. Emoticon

Gravatar Image33 - Paul Mooney's face when riding the Hulk at Islands of Adventure. Emoticon

Gravatar Image34 - Alton Brown giving Nathan shit ... I must have that on video

Gravatar Image35 - Being a judge for Lotusphere Idol

Gravatar Image36 - Alan Lepofsky's face when learning that he could have won an iPod playing Canadian Jepordy if he had been just a little bit faster.

Gravatar Image37 - Mmmmmmmmmmm.....iPhone....

Gravatar Image38 - CHOCOLATE
as in... Matt Hatem's demo of changingthe Notes 8 tabs to the color "chocolate"....

Gravatar Image39 - Catching up with good friends and meeting new ones!

Gravatar Image40 - @36 LMAO! "Who sings, Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald? Buzzzz. Gordon Lightfoot"! Grrrrr.

Anyway... Riding the Bleedsyellow bus back from the Islands of Adventure.

Gravatar Image41 - Almost 100,000 hits to my blog in a week's time (direct, not including RSS).

Re the violin player, as Nathan blogged, she's featured in a 90-second video from the OGS here:
{ Link }

Gravatar Image42 - Dojo Dojo Dojo !!

Gravatar Image43 - JamFest on a real stage.

Gravatar Image44 - I liked the theme: Emergence

With that, I can't seem to get the Beatles song out of my head, "Here comes the sun... it's all right"

Gravatar Image45 - How about just being in the warm while it was -45 back home?? This would never happen without the amazing organization of that event.. Hats up! (Please tell me they did not use an Excel Spreadsheet to sort all this... And! Will we see ALL The presentations slides made on Symphony next year?? Emoticon Jacques

Gravatar Image46 - seeing a whole lot of old friends I haven't seen in four years

Gravatar Image47 - @46 - It was great to see you Tony, glad you could make it.

The 103" plasma TV in the product showcase, showing Sametime Unyte meetings. Almost everyone I asked did not know it was a plasma, they just assumed it was a projector! Emoticon

Gravatar Image48 - The 103" plasma TV in the product showcase, showing the Pats playoff game on Sunday while we were setting up the booth right across the aisle! Emoticon

Gravatar Image49 - Gabby rescuing me from trying to answer Rocky's loaded question at the start of Gurupalooza, pulling me from the lake of colleagues shouting "sales pitch!!!" I owe her a bottle of something for that.

Gravatar Image50 - Seeing the Stratton's new baby.

Gravatar Image51 - I have to echo Carl.... Zoe was DEFINITELY on the top 100 things at Lotusphere 2008!!!

Gravatar Image52 - The LotusUserGroup reception at Il Mulino in the Swan. Excellent location, fantastic people, outstanding conversation.

Gravatar Image53 - Being poolside at the reception party freezing while watching the Giants Packards game . . . just like being there. And in the aftermath someone predicting that the Patriots would lose to the Giants.

Gravatar Image54 - Corporate response: valuable content gained in every waking moment Emoticon

My response: great sessions, friends, parties, ESPN, and Jellyrolls Emoticon

Gravatar Image55 - The blogger Q&A with Mike Rhodin.

And Ed and Alan reading my mind at the blogger Q&A with Mike Rhodin. OK, I'm pretty transparent! Emoticon

Gravatar Image56 - Being able to give a welcomed foot-rub to a long-suffering IBMer who shall remain nameless. Singing Johnny Mathis' "Chances Are" at Kimono's. Doing a week of raps on "Got My Mojo Workin'." Seeing Danny Soares for the first time since DevCon 2001. The French woman in the fishnets and heels in the Rotunda on Wednesday. Lack of busted-pretzel cookies.

Gravatar Image57 - For me, just being there (being a first timer and all that).

Adding to that - Putting faces to names (most people whom I had "met" via email and blog only)

Gravatar Image58 - LiveText + Widgets in the Notes client: very powerful combination. That AND composite apps ... the mind boggles.

Gravatar Image59 - The pirates - Julian Robichaux and Rob McDonagh in BP206!

Gravatar Image60 - The poolparty after the swedish dinner.

Big hopes for Lotus Protector.

Gravatar Image61 - Viewing DWA(lite) on my iTouch's Safari Emoticon

(& #2, echo @57 - my first time as an IBMer, meeting lots of IBMers I'd only met 'virtually' before), and a few old customers from a past life...

Gravatar Image62 - Butternut squash bisque at the Penumbra Group annual dinner on Saturday night at Wolfgang Puck's

Gravatar Image63 - Notes lives and rules - in spite of the impression created by the competitors - Notes was declared dead

Gravatar Image64 - session "best of worst" - the lack of courage of me to raise my hand a second time when Paul Mooney ask if there were "end users in the room Emoticon

Gravatar Image65 - Having a good friend call me and sit through the entire opening session with his cell phone in the air, so I could hear it, since I was at the airport having to go home at that time Emoticon

Gravatar Image66 - @41 - dude lose the ego.

Gravatar Image67 - Recharging for another year. LSphere is the one week that we in support/development--who are usually conditioned to hear only negatives, since you guys never open "You guys ROCK!" tickets--are completely immersed in the good, the bad and the ugly for days on end. Replication topologies at 2 am, network architectures over beers (did I really recommend a carrier pigeon link between Stockholm and Oslo?), someone walking up to say, "that thing you told me last year worked like a charm"...ahhhhh.

Hearing folks describe some implementation or integration that we never considered, or seeing someone's pride in describing their own code/hack/whatever...

That's why my motto for Sphere Week is "It's all good."

Gravatar Image68 - Hearing Nathan and Tom talk about an idea for a dating service built with Connections titled "Lotus Hookups", and hearing Tom say, "Powered by Lotus Mashups!"

@50, @51, I love you guys! Sniff, Emoticon
I loved "sneaking" Zoƫ around everywhere so her first Lotusphere was the true experience.

Gravatar Image69 - Meeting Yancy Lent, the creator of Planetlotus.org.

Gravatar Image70 - Being able to walk into a Hands-On Session 10 minutes before it started and sit right down in my reserved spot (as opposed to wasting an hour or more of my time waiting in line, only to be turned away at the last minute, as in prior years)

Gravatar Image71 - Discovering I'm not the only Notes client only developer out there. (Thanks Jess and Phil)

John - if you get the video from the closing session could you send it my way? I *must* have that, and not just to give Nathan a ration of shit. Emoticon

Gravatar Image72 - As someone else said, "the violin player - even though I wasn't even there" Emoticon

@33 - Photographic evidence would be much appreciated! Emoticon

@71 - Surely there is no other way to develop Notes applications? Emoticon Emoticon

Gravatar Image73 - Finally meeting great friends in person... Charles and Duffbert to name a couple!
Emoticon

Gravatar Image74 - Passing the V8 AppDev Upgrade test, with my lowest score ever and then meeting one of the test authors and finding out they are making the tests harder and harder; one of his friends failed twice.

(And yeah! The violin player in the OGS)

Gravatar Image75 - The Lotus Connections announcement (and talking to the Netix folks, and watching thier demos in the showcase). IBM finally realizing that small business is "Under 100" employees, not "Under 1000"

Gravatar Image76 - Sake

Gravatar Image77 - Filming the "Dev vs. Admin" commercial with Paul and Bill. { Link }

Gravatar Image78 - @66 allow me to rephrase: The interest in Lotus' story drove 100K hits to my blog! I would say the same about lotus.com, videos on youtube, flickr streams, etc.

Thanks, Stevie.

Gravatar Image79 - Talking to the researchers in the innovation lab.

Gravatar Image80 - The violinist. Obviously. Anyone who says different is either neutered or female. Emoticon

Gravatar Image81 - The vastly improved WIFI connectivity in the Dolphin and Swan. There were only a couple occasions when I wasn't able to connect and/or obtain an IP address, but this is a dramatic improvement over past years.

Gravatar Image82 - Alton Brown for the best CGS I have attended, and getting to meet all of my new colleagues from a recent acquisition...and of course all you guys and gals.

Oh and getting to take Sara Radicati's picture at the Press reception (even though Ed would not pose with her...not that I asked him toEmoticon ): { Link }

Gravatar Image83 - The "Oath and Salute" at Paul and Bill's Worst Practices Session
Emoticon

Gravatar Image84 - The renewed and possibly effective focus on the SMB market from Lotus Foundations to seeing one of my best my customer's names on the screen in the OGS. Celina Insurance is a true SMB with 170 people. They have used Domino and Sametime to compete effectively with organizations that have 10x that many people doing IS.

Finally, IBM/Lotus actually recognized a real SMB success story. One that could be applied to, lets say at least, 1,000 insurance companies of similar size throughout the US and who knows how many worldwide.

Newbs

Gravatar Image85 - Meeting Ross Mayfield, and watching how a serial-entrepreneur Silicon Valley-type dealt with the insanity of the Lotus community.

Gravatar Image86 - Five free passes to Lotusphere 2009 for filling out the online evals.

I'm assuming that winners were selected and notified. To my knowledge, a list of the winners was never announced/posted. Anyway, congratulations to whoever won.

Gravatar Image87 - Getting a demo of Carousel at 10pm in Nathans room with his "wife" watching on.

Gravatar Image88 - The Lotusphere Business Partner and Customer Golf event.

Gravatar Image89 - Hearing Jess sing Evanescence at Kimonos. "Best... Karaoke... Ever"

Gravatar Image90 - Finishing second in the Lotusphere Boat Race final. Emoticon

Gravatar Image91 - @87 - Not remembering the next morning that I dragged you in for that demo! Oy!

Gravatar Image92 - Ray and Mussie doing the talk and demo!! Emoticon

Gravatar Image93 - Giving my first public performance in 15 years...breaking out in song at Lotusphere Idol...guess I didn't read the session description.

Emoticon

Gravatar Image94 - Being able to answer Alton Brown's question "What else do you do besides eat and play with computers?" . . . Replicate Emoticon

Gravatar Image95 - @66: NEWBIE ALERT!! Were you actually suggesting that Ed Brill check his ego?? You are talking about someone who concurrently "runs the notes division," "heads sales for all IBM collaboration products," and is the "Senior Notes Executive," all while traveling from international user group to international user group (executive hang out?). Anyone knows how to spell v-a-c-u-u-m!

Gravatar Image96 - Man, when did the trolls come out on this thread?

"heads sales for all IBM collaboration products," -- when did Ed ever say that? I'd like to see a citation.

Gravatar Image97 - @95 Boy I step away for a minute...

OK comments were meant to be about the top things you saw at Lotusphere, if you want to bitch about Ed please go do it on his blog. He can defend himself if he chooses to do so etc. there. The only person that has the right to bitch at Ed on this blog is me, so there.


Gravatar Image98 - on a serious note: being told by an attendee at my booth that his (huge) company was migrating from Exchange to Notes 8.1 (HA!)...
on a fun note: I second Julian- drinking Crown Royal in the Dolphin rotunda at 4am... :)

Gravatar Image99 - Oooh, we're almost at 100. How about: getting to pose for/look at odd pictures of the Lotusphere attendees. For example: { Link }
Emoticon

Gravatar Image100 - Oooh, I guess I'll be the lucky 100!!Emoticon

Anyway, I liked the fact that everyone was able to eat in the Dolphin Dining Hall/Tent instead of shipping a good many attendees over to the Swan tent.

This was great to be able to continue conversations with friends, co-workers, peers, etc. over lunch rather than have to go separate ways because your dining locations didn't match.

Plus, didn't everyone who ever had a "SWAN" dining location on their badge always feel that they somehow got the short end of the stick?

Gravatar Image101 - Just being there.

Gravatar Image102 - Because of the posts that were made as comments here that were not top 100, we're still about two short of the 100 mark, so here's another of my top100.

The Lotuspherelive website having 1200 active participants during the Opening General Session.

Gravatar Image103 - @102, dude lose the ego Emoticon Emoticon

Gravatar Image104 - @103 I wondered who would be first Emoticon

Gravatar Image105 - OK, I'll take the last one!!
Me and Matt have always been big Alton Brown fans, but when he said he had visited the labs, that just floored me!

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