Here is a video of me breaking 6 blocks or about 12″ of concrete. I used to break them in front of my daughter’s boyfriends so they would know I was serious about not messing with her. From what I heard, most of them didn’t want to mess with me, I was ok with that.

I did this break at my 2nd degree Black Belt test.

Michael Cote interviewed me at RSDC about these topics as we (and a lot of other analysts and A/R firms) connect with each other via Social Computing.

I didn’t give it much thought at the time, as it was just a discussion about how we do the work, but it has made the rounds enough that I re-thought the relevancy. I had fun doing it and thank Cote for putting up with me.

Here is the original post

SageCircle then picked it up, thanks Carter for saying for one of the few times in my life that it is interesting and worth watching.

Today, Cote pinged me that Lighthouse Analyst Relations picked it up also, thanks guys.

In fairness, all the links are the same video, so just pick one.

For those that wonder what I do for a living, this should shed some light on it, or not.

Here is a really cool video of Sam the man at the BPLC conference. One very cool feature is the annotations that Frank puts in like the warning to Salesforce.com….look out App Exchange. Thanks Frank

Click on the Link to the video of Sam.

Here is the link to the entire blog where Frank discusses IBM’s Blue Business Platform. Watch out SaaS marketplace, this one comes with Partners, a Server, Lotus support, GBS Services….and it’s SMB focused.

Why does this matter for analyst relations? We started talking to Frank more than eight months before this got posted, so you can see the cycle of behind the scenes talks that go on about what we are doing and why the analysts know IBM so well.

One of the things we tried to do to influence analyst relations is to add new tools.  Now I readily admit that video is not a new tool, but using it is another bullet in the gun, so a tool that is expanding in our A/R arsenal at events.

Special thanks to Cote of RedMonk who did all the work here.  At the bottom is his interview of me, so have at it, I can take a joke.

Jamie Thomas on RSDC

Grady Booch on Multi Core UML

Scott Hebner on Rational Team Concert, SaaS and Jazz thinking

Laura Bennett on alphaWorks and developerWorks

Telelogic

Ashok Reddy on Rational jazz

Mike Orourke on Rational Team Concert

Dave Klavon on Testing

John Simonds, yes yours truly on Blogs, Tags, and Twitter in Analyst Relations

I was 20 miles from El Diablo himself Hugo Chavez off the coast of Venezuela. The stench of sulfur was still burning in my nose from his presence. While there, I was depleting the ocean of Kingfish, Tuna, YellowTail and Bonita (all pictured here except for one tuna that I caught).

Here is a video of my son fighting a kingfish and landing it in the boat. Done with only a flip camera.

Click here to watch the short video.

I wasn’t.  By the way, Ya’ll is a perfectly good word.  If you are a elitist and want to disagree, here’s a quarter call someone who cares.

With GREAT Thanks to all the purchasers of Lenovo products, the family and I are freeloading the Lenovo CEO’s/President’s club for the top sales persons in Aruba. Since a member of my family is running it and another is a top salesperson, here we are.

I suffered through a day of riding the pool slide, working out at the Hotel Gym, swimming about a mile just for fun and to stay in shape, plus eating well. Tomorrow, more suffering with deep sea fishing and more pool/ocean activities.

Here are the locals hanging around the place.

When I get back, I’ll get to some real analyst relations work, like the Forrester Partner Report where IBM’s Partner Programs took best in class in 27 of 31 categories, beating the likes of Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and Salesforce.com. Being modest I’d like to say it was due to great programs and great Analyst Relations work, but I won’t ;-). I’ll let the results speak for themselves.

For those waiting to hear about the report I worked on earlier in the year, this is it. More on it when I return.

I didn’t realize how much I needed a vacation, and I did.

I’m reading wonderful books like Groundswell, that I’m reviewing and Return with Honor, by Captain Scott O’Grady. Captain O’Grady was the guest speaker to motivate the Lenovoites to sell more.

This may sound like nyah, nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah, but we all need to get away. Even typing that I’m on vacation feels good, you should try it.

As I told you before, if you hadn’t let them explore Ceti Alpha 5, you wouldn’t have had to deal with Khan Ballmer again.  Next time, no exile, set phasers to Rational Jazz and you’ll be done with the problem.

First things first, it is my parents Anniversary. They would have been married 55 years today. It is the first June 14th that has passed that both of them are gone.

Today is also Flag Day. Unlike the bitter half of one of our candidates, I’ve always been proud of my country.

And of course, the greatest moment in Flag Saving History, Rick Monday Saves a Flag from being burned.

Birth of the Army - In 1775, this was the birth of the Army, thank you George Washington. The only thing the government has done consistently right is to defend our country. I hope the next president keeps that in mind

Fathers day - Tomorrow is Father’s Day. My Dad isn’t around any more. If yours is, appreciate the time you have left. In honor of him, I drove his car, on the curvyest road I could find. His car was meant for the turns.

Today was also the start of the 24 Hours of LeMans. I used to go to races with my Dad, in the car pictured above. So I’m melancholy today. In honor of our memories, I bought a grille badge on eBay.

So I thought about my parents, the country…and while I was exceeding the speed limit, enjoying the curves.

In case you missed it at the show (or weren’t there), here are the links to the presentations:

RSDC 2008 IBM TV channel

Direct links to keynote slides

Day1
Keynote
Colleen Arnold
Danny Sabbah
Scott Hebner

Day2
Keynote
Grady Booch
Steve Mills
Scott Hebner

Day3
Keynote

As the years go by, we seem to remember less and less about the hero’s that fell that day in Normandy to keep the Free World Free. It’s a similar struggle today, but it seems our will was greater back then in total. While it is popular to diss the current war on Terrorism, in one day 10,000 lives were given by many on the foreign soil on the coast of France, 2.5 times more than the 7 year war in the Iraq/Afganistan…think about it. And we are now fighting to keep the nukes out of the hands of fanatics who can’t want to die, and take others with them. We should fight with the tenacity of D-Day.

Here is the round up.

Jennifer Rubin of Commentary - who mentions that the Battle of the Bulge lost 19,000.

Michelle Malkin posts Ronald Reagans speech and how our loser/quitter/slanted media would cover it today.

Atlas Shrugs posts the actual letter from the Supreme Headquarters note on D-Day.

Roundup Coverage from Stop the ACLU.

Blackfive has the President’s D-Day Prayer.