Actually the planning has been going on for months, but since I came to the show just early enough to wet a line before I geek out. BTW, this picture is for you Stephen O’Grady. A spotted trout got unlucky enough to wind up on my hook. I went fishing with a good friend and we saw dolphins outfishing us, a beautiful sunrise and nature at it’s best.

Things On My RSDC Agenda

Help with Video by Redmonk of the developerWorks Director, as a company we are going to do more video this year, so i have to pull my weight. Click on the developerWorks link to see what folks want to ask the executives…

More relationship building with both the Rational and dW teams.

Discuss the future of developers with some of the top minds.

Compete with Microsoft, who is holding their developer conference right down the street from us (talk about envy).

Get William Shatner’s autograph, yes I’m not only a trekkie, I’m a country music lover and he’s a star in some country video’s (this one is about myspace).

Find the biggest geek at the show.

Shoot some video of my own for posting

Catch up with my IBM comm’s friends (too many to list here, but the whole Rational A/R and P/R team, plus my favorite P/R person from IDR)

Click on cartoon for a full screen version of this hilarity.

Up until now, I use any number of instant messaging (IM) products. Of course I use Sametime (also known as Sam Time for those who work at the top of the company) to reach IBM’rs. I dabble in Trillian, AOL, Yahoo and others depending on who is on the other end.

For the most part, they are all functional and there are times during an analyst briefing where I have Sametime going with the speakers and AOL going with the analysts. By the way, I view this as a best practice as you never know how a meeting is going to go, north or south.

Instant messaging has spawned a new almost language, certainly grammar and shorthand, phone texting has solidified that. Wht r u dng? c u l8r, what’s 4 eats. u’r my bff…and so on.

I’ve been selected to participate in our company’s test pilot for video instant messaging. All you need is a camera and headset and you can talk on screen. Like all technologies, there are social and technological issues to be dealt with.

Techno Issues

Before we had Satellite communications, back in the day, we used to hear an echo on overseas calls. At first, they weren’t even bi-directional and there was cross talk. Well, it’s the same right now for the video texting. You have to wait until the other person is finished or you walk on their conversation and trying to be polite, there is a pregnant pause.

Additionally, not unlike the delay in radio, there is a delay in camera and voice time, so it’s better to watch the other person, not yourself or yoouuu’llll bbeee eecchhooiinngg wwhhiillee yyoouu ttaallkk….

There are some other operational issues, but fortunately, Kevin Mclarnon is a great guy and has helped me through the process. I also found out he lives “out in the sticks” like me so we have connection issues in common.

Social issues

As I have stated, I work from home, which means if you are hygienically challenged time wise (started a conference call right after the gym), no one knew, until now. Also, I’ve never thought of my self as middle aged, although I am, and it sure shows me the truth on screen. There is a quick work around with the half suit. No one can see above the shoulders anyway….if you zoom your camera in just right.

(Humor begins here) Here’s a situation you don’t want to be in on a video call.

Then there are video call pranks, here is a snippet, but click on the link for a list of pranks.

Video Conference Pranks:

• Arrange with everyone in the room to freeze and quit talking all at the same moment.
• Look directly into the camera and move your lips as if speaking, but make no noise.
• Have someone off-camera talk while someone of the opposite sex lip-syncs on-camera.

I’ll likely have some fun with this.

Kevin also explained that when a bunch of folks get on the call, it’s like looking at the Hollywood squares.

One also must be aware of being on camera, so no nose picking or preening without pulling down the camera shade. I imagine hiccups with camera delay would be a hoot.

(end of humor)

When the pilot has discovered the bugs and then we add enough people I work with, this will turn into a good tool. You can share your screen if needed so there are lots of possibilities.

For now, I’m always a geek and am glad to be in on the early stages of this. I’ll leave some green justification for working at home and video conferencing….It might give us all a reason to use Sametime from IBM, unless you are camera shy, or pick your nose.

Click on image to see full version.

The annual Black Belt meeting and picture. The “better” picture will be at the main website.

Now, can you spot the IBMr’s? There are more than one (hint: there are 3 standing right next to each other).

Click on the picture for a larger view, it’s easier to spot those in question.

Can you spot the A/R geek, there is only one.

Bob Costas was the guest speaker. What was impressive was his ability to present impromptu….I was watching his teleprompter and he had relatively no text, just keywords like Bonds-Ruth/Steroids, Olympics broad strokes…something left to the professionals.

Claim to fame was Bob Uecker, a comedy transition. He mentioned a Sox fan who predicted a World Series win in ‘92 as Sox win the world series after a Russian revolution. He said Patriots might be the single best team in history. His job is to highlight and separate what is important from the barrage of information. He gets reams of information which are just facts prior to a broadcast, old school tools, but are not that helpful, just information…like hard copy encyclopedia.

Insight and interpretation have lasting value, those are good old school tools. Relevant facts are teams that beat winners are significant like this years Pats. He pointed out that my team the 72 Dolphins, the only other perfect team didn’t have as tough a schedule, but they were still my team. Loyalty is important.

Here’s one example, steroids make inauthentic stats of today’s home run records.

He transitioned to Lotus - lots of information is out there, but when you look for a fact, are you just going to get a fact, or knowledge, truth, context, insight and information.

On what he’s going to say about the Olympics? Human rights abuse of Chinese were exposed by the internet….The Chinese took his comments at the 1996 Olympics as representative of the US Government, as the media is controlled by the state in China.. The key question, are these Olympics a postive force to showing the world that they have come a long way, or does it embolden them to be not as happy and productive as the rest of the world. He will time this into his comments during his interpretation of the Olympics. That is why he is like what Lotus does.

Mike Rhodin - today’s tools are revolutionary, not evolutionary. Facebook is out in the open as a tool. If we don’t provide the tools, the world will seek out collaboration tools. Profitable growth via cost savings is harder.

It is easier to bend systems to people than people to systems, like the Blackberry announcement with RIM…it’s flexible, adaptable and open…..and not in my pocket. Unfortunately, it now works on the iPhone, which is in my future…looks like they got me either way.

SAP Atlantic announcement, having Lotus software work together for contact management, management tools and other extensions. Levels of detail from non notes applications and subscriptions are now integrated into the user experience. This is big, btw SAP is a Partner

Notes is on Linux, Ubuntu and Mac…Security, reduction in bandwith, storage and cpu consumption…and starts 46% faster….at a lower cost per user.

Widgets are now drag and drop,,,,,I love this new stuff.

Notes 8.5 had much I didn’t understand, but 35% reduction in attachments and storage management, and anti spam and anti virus did resonate to me. The other announcements were administrator specific….and got the only real claps and shouts in the crowd

I will note a Web 2.0 (bingo Ed Brill, and Rob Novak) is in the new Domino.

Here’s what I liked, lots of partners are onboard.

Sametime Entry now works with outlook….they have everything covered. Including secure public IM…take that politicians.

Sametime unified telephony can figure out how contact you, I might as well surrender to the crackberry now…except I love the iPhone and Mac capability.

Oh, and since it also covered Symphony, there was a symphony with one of my favorites…The Barber of Seville here at YouTube.

But here was the best talent of the show. Click to see this larger.  Here is a good video of her from Dailymotion in full performance prior to the keynote.

What is very interesting is that I’m conversing with Judith Hurwitz electronically while I’m blogging about the show, she’s somewhere in the audience ….both of us are liveblogging as is Ed Brill and others.

Ok, I want one of these.  This and an iPhone, and look out Dilbert, I could out geek you.

Go to the site and take the test.

Hat tip to Beatrice Adams.

1. You can’t remember the last time you wrote an entire paragraph using a pen and paper.
2. You consider Internet a basic utility.
3. Between your Internet and your TV, you would rather lose your TV.
4. Between your Internet and your phoneline, you would rather lose your phoneline.
5. The Internet IS your phoneline.
6. You carry a flash drive in your purse or pocket.
7. You carry a laptop with you wherever you go-or you wish you could.
8. You have a callous on your right wrist, where you rest your hand when you use your mouse.
9. Your “diary” is not protected with a lock and key, but with a username and password - and it is open to be read by anybody in the world.
10. You’ve joined an online forum and regularly post messages on it.
11. You are - or have been - a member of a Yahoo group.
12. You’ve watched 1,500 orange-clad prisoners dancing “Thriller” on YouTube.
13. You know the meaning of the word “google” - and if you don’t, you simply Google it.
14. When you hear the word “spam,” you don’t think of food.
15. You’ve bought and sold things on eBay.
16. You’ve had an online love affair.
17. Half your friends only know you by your username.
18. The other half know your real name AND your username.
19. You’ve mastered computing the time in several different time zones because of all those online meetings you schedule with your Internet friends.
20. You no longer buy greeting cards; you get them free online and send them through email.
21. You no longer buy newspapers; your morning news is regularly sent to your inbox.
22. You no longer buy calendars; you use the one in your email reader or taskbar.
23. If your wall clock suddenly disappeared, you wouldn’t miss it very much either.
24. You don’t keep pictures of your kids in your wallet, but you set them as your wallpaper and screen saver.
25. You need a computer to view your children’s photos.

My inner geek comes out again

I like to use this shield on some people I know.  Maybe this would detour the Iranians from nuclear holocost?

A desktop USB catapult.  Good for cubicle warfare.

16GB of chip storage,  imagine that for a phone, iPod or combination?

And for the Coup de Grace, a 103 inch plasma TV.

One of my favorite shows ever was Star Trek. The chemistry of Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty laid the groundwork for the other series which live on as shows with the most passionate viewers (geeks like me). The Sci-Fi phenomena can be traced to Star Trek as much as any other show. They had wireless communicaitons, bluetooth devices, laser weapons, all of which were portrayed on TV before they exisisted in real life.

Sadly, we’ve seen the passing of both McCoy and James Doohan, or Scotty. It seems only fitting that his ashes should be sent to space, the final frontier. Here is the link to the Space.com article.

“Scotty” will go up to his final resting ground with Gordon Cooper, pioneer of the NASA space program and was one of the original 7 Mercury astronauts. They’ll join Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, who’s remains were shot into space previously.

God speed Scotty, Live long and prosper.

Update:  Here is a link to the actual launch and ceremony where his remains were launched into space.

I spent the last 2 days at the Evans Developer Conference. I noticed a few things and trends that stood out.

There was more transparancy than any other conference I’d been to. Why this was intriguing was that we were a group of competitors sharing our ways of success. I’ll name a few:

• Giving out direct links to company program offereings, yes they are findable, but this was a bit interesting
• Tactics for a successful developer program, telling everyone how to be a success, also interesting
• How to drive revenue
• How to speak to the developers in developer terms, the art of communication
• Specific Communications process by content
• Global issues
• Price points
• Sales tracking process and opportunity
• Developer mindset

I guess it wasn’t a big deal, every company was clear about what they did.

Here are other things I noticed about the people:

• There were a lot of MacBooks, usually it is Lenovo, Dell or other Wintel machines
• The Ferrari Acer Notebook is way cool
• Developers can’t operate without a Blackberry
• A distinct lack of Wedding rings…too much time developing?
• Much less jeans than I though I would see
• A lack of make up by the ladies
• No sign of Microsoft, Oracle or SAP at a major developer conference? Are they that successful, or don’t they care?

Update: SAP was there, I didn’t get the chance to meet them.