2007, a year in review
Category
Man, it seems that everyone is writing up a "year in review post", so I figured I should throw something together. So while sitting in a house in Belfast, on my trusty Macbook, I will try to put down the professional events of the year. I could do the personal stuff, but seriously... you guys would just get bored.
January started in 2007 with Lotusphere. Christ, what an event. By far the busiest one for me yet, and I only managed to attend 2 sessions. On the other hand, I managed to present twice with Bill Buchan, and again with Kathleen McGivney. In addition, I gave a workshop on the"integration of Lotus Domino / Sametime and Websphere Portal server" presentation. It was a lot of work, but was great fun. After that it was Lotusphere comes to you (which Blue Wave will be hosting again in Dublin in 08) with was the biggest one to date in Ireland.
The Scottish Notes User Group got even larger this year, masterfully handled by a great team. Then ILUG kicked off. Eileen, Bill, Warren, Kitty, Duff (not to mention Matt). The event took a lot of effort, but it was a great few days. I am still amazed by the amount of speakers, sponsors and delegates that came along to make it happen, not to mention a team of people that put in a MASSIVE amount of time to get it to work out. We must be insane, as next years' event is now in the making, planned for three days and 450 people. More on that to come along shortly.
Of course, everyone that attended knows that there was a surprise for myself and Eileen at the end. Mine was my little Macbook (btw, I was asked recently why the Mac's name is "Saoirse" Well its a name of my niece and Irish for "Freedom". I was freed from Vista). Since moving to the Mac things have been strange... things just work easier. A great example was my recent taking notes podcast. I was speaking just through the open speakers and mike on the Mac, but Bruce wanted me to put on a headset. I never plugged in my plantronics headset into the Mac before. So... I plugged them in. And. It. Just. Worked. No restart... not even of Skype. Bruce (another Mac user) thought it was amusing that this amazes me.
After ILUG came the Admin conferences in Boston, where I got to present a lot more, and also did more work with Francie Whitlock (an excellent administrator and natural presenter). Then Warren's UKLUG started up. And for the first event, it was packed and full of sessions, content and sponsors. Excellent work done by all. Rob Novak's Collaboration University in London followed, which was a deep dive event, just excellent. Then back to Admin2008 but this time in Barcelona, joined with the acquisition of BE Systems by Blue Wave.
From a Lotus standpoint, in ONE year, we got, Notes/Domino 8, Quickr, Connections, Sametime 751 and much more. The clock is ticking for 801 now, and traveller (which I cannot wait for).
Now, Lotusphere2008 is on the way. And things are as mad as ever. It does look like this will be the biggest event yet, with some announcements we are all waiting for. From my side, getting to meet everyone at all these events is the best part. There are far too many to mention here, and I look forward to seeing them all again in 2008!
Man, it seems that everyone is writing up a "year in review post", so I figured I should throw something together. So while sitting in a house in Belfast, on my trusty Macbook, I will try to put down the professional events of the year. I could do the personal stuff, but seriously... you guys would just get bored.
January started in 2007 with Lotusphere. Christ, what an event. By far the busiest one for me yet, and I only managed to attend 2 sessions. On the other hand, I managed to present twice with Bill Buchan, and again with Kathleen McGivney. In addition, I gave a workshop on the"integration of Lotus Domino / Sametime and Websphere Portal server" presentation. It was a lot of work, but was great fun. After that it was Lotusphere comes to you (which Blue Wave will be hosting again in Dublin in 08) with was the biggest one to date in Ireland.
The Scottish Notes User Group got even larger this year, masterfully handled by a great team. Then ILUG kicked off. Eileen, Bill, Warren, Kitty, Duff (not to mention Matt). The event took a lot of effort, but it was a great few days. I am still amazed by the amount of speakers, sponsors and delegates that came along to make it happen, not to mention a team of people that put in a MASSIVE amount of time to get it to work out. We must be insane, as next years' event is now in the making, planned for three days and 450 people. More on that to come along shortly.
Of course, everyone that attended knows that there was a surprise for myself and Eileen at the end. Mine was my little Macbook (btw, I was asked recently why the Mac's name is "Saoirse" Well its a name of my niece and Irish for "Freedom". I was freed from Vista). Since moving to the Mac things have been strange... things just work easier. A great example was my recent taking notes podcast. I was speaking just through the open speakers and mike on the Mac, but Bruce wanted me to put on a headset. I never plugged in my plantronics headset into the Mac before. So... I plugged them in. And. It. Just. Worked. No restart... not even of Skype. Bruce (another Mac user) thought it was amusing that this amazes me.
After ILUG came the Admin conferences in Boston, where I got to present a lot more, and also did more work with Francie Whitlock (an excellent administrator and natural presenter). Then Warren's UKLUG started up. And for the first event, it was packed and full of sessions, content and sponsors. Excellent work done by all. Rob Novak's Collaboration University in London followed, which was a deep dive event, just excellent. Then back to Admin2008 but this time in Barcelona, joined with the acquisition of BE Systems by Blue Wave.
From a Lotus standpoint, in ONE year, we got, Notes/Domino 8, Quickr, Connections, Sametime 751 and much more. The clock is ticking for 801 now, and traveller (which I cannot wait for).
Now, Lotusphere2008 is on the way. And things are as mad as ever. It does look like this will be the biggest event yet, with some announcements we are all waiting for. From my side, getting to meet everyone at all these events is the best part. There are far too many to mention here, and I look forward to seeing them all again in 2008!
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Comments
Yeah, ST 7.5.1 AND ST 8.0! Fun year indeed - looking forward to '08. See you in a couple of weeks!
Posted by Chris Whisonant At 13:05:58 On 04/01/2008 | - Website - |