Beyond The Yellow Bubble

A few months ago I blogged about one of my clients, Summit Entertainment.  I commented on the small, but important role that Lotus Notes had played to help one of the smaller players in the Entertainment industry achieve the all-time box office single day gross for any movie with The Twilight Saga: New Moon.  At this year's Lotusphere OGS, William Shatner outlined the important role collaboration plays in the world of movies so it is perhaps surprising that more of the major players in this industry do not take advantage of the power of the Lotus product suite.
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But their loss is Summit's gain.  The Twilight Saga: New Moon did not receive any nominations for this weekend's Academy Awards, but another one of Summit Entertainment's movies, The Hurt Locker, did.  Over the past few months we have seen a very positive reaction at Summit to the introduction of Lotus Traveler.  So it is a fair bet as news and congratulations started to spread for Hurt Locker's success that Lotus Traveller was delivering this news to iPods across the company.  In total The Hurt Locker won six Oscars, including the first win by a female director and Best Movie.  Yes, Avatar had many things going for it as a movie, but Lotus was not one of them!  It just goes to show Lotus Knows How To Win Oscars.

As project Vulcan starts to roll out over the coming years (possibly in 2011) life as a Notes Developer is almost certainly going to change.  Classic Lotus Notes development using Forms, Views, Framesets, Outlines, Agents and LotusScript will continue to exist much in the same way that Notes R5 and Notes 6 can still be found in some organizations.  But a new style of development is likely emerge.  Like Vulcan itself, many of these new approaches to programming are here already.  Its just that many of us are not focusing on these things as much as we soon will.  The following are a few random thoughts about what life as Lotus Notes developer may look like when we make the switch and start living on Planet Vulcan....
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The first change is that many of use will probably stop being Lotus Notes developers and start becoming Lotus developers.  As the products start to integrate the role of a developer of collaborative solutions will focus less on stand-alone Notes applications and more on integrating applications using a Services Oriented Architecture feed the Vulcan eco-system.   It is likely that as programmers we will soon start speaking a new Vulcan language where terms such as APIs, RESTful services, ATOM feeds, managed beans, iWidgets, plug-ins, portals, SaaS, and On-Pemise v Cloud will be used even more than they are today.  (yes, its scary to think we might soon all start to sound like Nathan T Freeman)
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The Emergence Of Lotus Connections
I expect more and more Lotus Notes developers (oops Lotus developers!) will be paying more and more attention to Lotus Connections.  At Lotusphere the only Lotus product in which Analytics was ever mentioned was Lotus Connections.  It make sense that this part of Vulcan be implemented as a service in Lotus Connection as the high volumes of data the analytics engine will process is better suited to the Websphere Application Server, DB2, and Oracle infrastructure Lotus Connections supports.   So it is likely that applications we develop will either be pushing information to Lotus Connections and/or we will set up our applications in such a way that Lotus Connections can pull.   A public API has been promised on day one for Vulcan and Lotus Connections already provides support for REST APIs.  Similar capabilities will be coming to Notes/Domino in 8.5.2.  Feeds also represent a potential major player in the transfer of information and Lotus Foundations has well developed support for ATOM feeds.  SOAP-based web services cannot be discounted, especially as Lotus Notes now supports this protocol with Web Service Providers (Notes 7.0) and Web Service Consumers (Notes 8.0).  One of the first steps in becoming a Lotus Developer will be to develop a thorough understanding of REST, ATOM, and (perhaps) SOAP/WSDL.  Where possible I would be looking at how applications can publish or consume data using a Services Oriented Architecture (using web services and feeds).  As a Domino Administrator I might be tempted to strengthen my skills administering Lotus Connections servers as I expect companies wishing to get the most out of Vulcan will have a growing number of Lotus Connections servers.  If you are like me there is a lot to learn about Lotus Connections in the coming months.  So far my only contact has been via bleedyellow.com.
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The Future of Quickr?
I have seen others speculate about the future of Lotus Quickr.  I too am starting to wonder if this product has a long term role as a stand-alone product or whether it may ultimately make more sense to role this product into Lotus Connections.  I don't see this happening soon, so part of the transition to being a Lotus Developer should include adding Lotus Quickr to your toolkit (where possible).  As things stand today Lotus Quickr is needed to offer a complete collaborative solution that can stand up against (and beat) Micro$oft $harepoint.
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The Continuing Push to Web Development
The focus for Vulcan appears to be based around the use of Web-based technologies.  We have already seen announcements that HTML 5 and CSS 3 will be a part of Vulcan.  Associated with that I would expect application development to become even more focused on XPages.  There will most likely be a role for Notes Classic applications in a Vulcan world but these applications are going to start looking more and more like legacy applications with each passing day.  Notes development will still exist for the Notes client but this too will probably move to XPages as part of a push to make application portable across a wide range of platforms and devices.  One way or another it is going to become necessary for Lotus developers to acquire strong skills in HTML, CSS, Themes, and JavaScript.  For XPages this is almost mandatory, but opportunities exist to expand skills in this area NOW with standard Domino Web development and even Notes client development itself (yes Forms do support limited amounts of JavaScript and CSS).
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Where To With The Notes Client?
One part of IBM's strategy that puzzles me is their thick client strategy.  For years the Notes client has been one of the best working examples of thick client development and a cornerstone on which so many Notes applications have been developed and deployed so quickly.  With XPages we seem to be seeing application development treating the Notes client as nothing more than a Web browser.  The only thing that makes sense to me is that the Notes client is evolving into an Eclipse client and that its future will depend on targeting all Eclipse developers to develop applications for this client.  There seems to be plenty of room for such a client on Vulcan.  Rich client controls, composite applications, off-line access, embedded Web browser, and the sidebar as a host for plug-ins and widgets.  To become a Lotus developer the knowledge we have acquired for the Notes client will need to be replaced with a detailed working knowledge of Eclipse.
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Yes, LotusScript is Dead!
For almost all Lotus Notes developers, life today consists of Forms, Views, Outlines, Simple Actions, and @Formulas,  For a great many it's these things plus lots of LotusScript.  When we arrive on  Vulcan we are going to enter a world with a new programming landscape.  Sure some of the landmarks will be identifiable to Notes developers.  But we are going to encounter a great many things we may not have encountered before.  It is likely that the Vulcan surface will not sustain LotusScript code for an extended period of time.   People who are already fluent in both JavaScript and Java are more likely to become successful in their Vulcan endeavors.   As Notes developers we can either choose to set up camp in a Lotus-Notes (LotusScript) ghetto or we can embrace the new community and assimilate.  Yes, by sticking with our own kind we can retain our existing culture and continue to talk to fellow members in our original native tongues.  We may feel safe in our LotusScript cocoon.  But make no mistake, the world around us on Vulcan will continue to change and evolve.  If we wish to be part of the new landscape and enjoy the wide range of new exciting capabilities Vulcan has to offer we will need to evolve as developers.  To become a true Lotus developer we will need to expand our skills so that we can talk in these new Vulcan languages.  The first step down that road is to XPages, JavaScript, and SSJS (plus CSS and Themes).  In many ways it feels like going back to kindergarten (without any text books!) and spending moments feeling completely inadequate as a developer.  For experienced LotusScript developers like me this is both difficult and frustrating.  And the worst part is that after you get over that hurdle you may start to find that even that is not enough.  Emerging on the horizon next is the potential need to also master Java.  Eclipse is based on Java,  Lotus Connections is based on Java.  And I suspect Java will soon have a larger role to play in Lotus Notes development (just a hunch).
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Some of you are probably better prepared than others for our arrival on Planet Vulcan.  For those of us that do chose to make the journey there is a mind-boggling amount of new information we must start to acquire.  There are so many new technologies and languages to learn and master that the 18-24 months preparation time we have may not be enough.  My advice is not to wait until your organization lands on Planet Vulcan before you start preparing.  It may be too late.  The challenge must be to find ways NOW to make these new technologies relevant to your current projects so that you can stop writing next year's legacy applications and start creating the building blocks for a long-term home on Vulcan.  The skills acquired may pay enormous dividends for both you and your employer.  After all, it just might be you end up retiring on Vulcan so you better start making it feel like home ASAP.

So far I have tracked down a total of 23 presentations Given at Lotusphere in which the speakers have kindly published their presentations.  Thanks to all for making the effort to make their great presentations available to those unable to attend Lotusphere.  Links the to these and a great many other presentations are available at Yellowverse.com (Under Library) or can also be accessed by my Project Klingon prototype.  I have also provided a summary below for the benefit of those that may not have tracked down them all... 
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Please let me know if there are other presentations out there and I will update my Web site accordingly.
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• BOOT102 The A-Z of Domino Security    Andrew Pollack
  Gabriella Davis    The IBM Lotus Domino environment has very rich set of security features and tools. From the basics to the most advanced new features, we'll show you how you can you increase security while reducing the time and cost of administration and making things easier for your users. We'll cover everything from ACL's to Xpages, including the latest tools for ID management, single sign-on, web application security, desktop policies, and considerations for DAOS. You'll get advice from two industry leading experts with real world experience planning, implementing, and and managing secure enterprise Domino environments. This session is fast paced and packed with content you can take home and put in practice.
• BOOT103 Running with Scissors: Sharpen Your Skills for a Pain-free IBM Lotus Domino 8.5 Upgrade    Gabriella Davis Marie Scott
  Franziska Tanner    Client and server upgrades to Lotus Domino 8.5 don't have to sting! Join us as we share our cutting-edge techniques for a successful upgrade - beginning to end. In this session, we'll snip through proven methods for your client upgrade with the pros and cons of basic or standard clients; building smarter SmartUpgrade kits; and managing strategically implemented policies. But our shears wonÔÇÖt stop there as we cut thru the most efficient steps for upgrading your servers and your Lotus Domino Directory; leveraging your servers to take advantage of Lotus Domino 8.5 performance improvements; and time and space savings via DAOS and ID Vault! YouÔÇÖll walk away with your own ever-sharp skill set for your most comprehensive, and pain-free upgrade yet.
• BP102 Adminblast 2010: Over 60 Tips in 60 Minutes!    Paul Mooney    Buckle-up and get ready for this explosion of "from-the-trenches" advice on almost every facet of Lotus Domino administration. This fast-paced, energizing session provides you with the critical insight into day-to-day tasks that every administrator needs to have, as well as little-known tips and tricks that can only make your job easier. Walk away with links to important resources, as well as a full description of over 60 tips on Lotus Domino 8.x configuration, clustering, HTTP, AdminP, IBM Lotus iNotes, performance, and much, much more.
• BP103 "Top Chefs" Share Recipes for Avoiding Everyday Server Disasters    Marie Scott Franziska Tanner    Do you have the right recipe for securing and performance tuning your servers? Are you dealing with mail fidelity issues, routing or replication bottlenecks? And if you're got all that right, how about ACL's, ECL's, policies and client management? Come watch three seasoned chefs resolve real-world scenarios that could otherwise spell disaster if allowed to flare-up in your domain. Demystify transaction logging and get great tips on managing ids, preventative server maintenance, essential Notes.ini settings and must-have monitoring tools. Whether you're a "Top Chef" or a "Swedish Chef", you won't want to miss this smorgasbord of a session, full of solutions you can take home and use.
• BP105 Running Your IBM Lotus Domino Server on Linux    Andrew Pollack    Linux can be an outstanding server platform for IBM Lotus Domino. Don`t let the "geek factor" keep you trapped on another platform. Even if you`ve never used Linux at all, you`ll come away with enough understanding to set up, maintain, and troubleshoot your Linux-based Lotus Domino server. We`ll demystify the command line, the networking, the file system, the security, and the process management. When you get home, you`ll be ready to go -- to go to Linux!
• BP108 Worst Practices 4.0: "Orlando, We Have a Problem"    Paul Mooney Bill Buchan    After a brief vacation last year, the Worst Practices session is back! With a collection of all new, true (and horrible) stories, we'll review 10 "unbelievable but true" case studies, covering technical disasters, identifying the cause, most importantly, explaining how they could have been prevented. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you may even hide your head in shame, but you'll leave more informed and ready for your own "worse case" scenarios.
• BP112 Twelve Things Your Mother Never Told You About Installing IBM Lotus Connections    Rob Wunderlich Stuart McIntyre    It's a classic case of the bark is worse than the bite.  Installing Lotus Connections admittedly is a complex process, with many pre-requisites to be met, environment-specific decisions to be taken and almost endless opportunities for customization and integration. It might appear daunting at first; but don't fret just yet. This session will make it a whole lot easier! We'll use our in-depth real-world experience of installing Lotus Connections at many organizations in the US and Europe to explore a dozen lesser-known details of the installation process that are key to successful deployment. WeÔÇÖll show tips and tricks, cheat sheets, install checklists and share the stuff that isn't in the manual. Priceless resources! Stuff even Mom never told you!
• BP114 IBM Lotus Domino Server & Application Performance in the Real World    Andrew Pollack    When it comes to performance, there are dozens of small choices made in configuration and design strategy that can really make a big difference. The best hardware won't keep up if you make the wrong combination of choices; but even inexpensive hardware can handle a large application if you make the right choices. This session includes real world examples and techniques that you can take home and implement immediately. Most of these tips are very low cost and low risk changes that can start making a difference right away. Some sites have reported up to four times more users per server without major design changes, Come and learn how for yourself!
• BP115 Performing Your Own IBM Lotus Domino Security Review    Andrew Pollack    Learn how to objectively and methodically evaluate the security practices and configuration in your Lotus Domino environment. Think like a penetration tester and you'll lower support costs, reduce risk, and keep the audit department happy. The session has technical, management, and business process-focused details. Stop putting big new locks on rusty chains: learn to think about security in a broad context from an expert.
• BP208 Manipulating Time and Space: Adding C&S Functionality to Your Applications    Kevin Pettitt Susan Bulloch    Users often request Calendaring and Scheduling (C&S) functionality in their applications, or need little "extras" added to the built-in C&S functionality already in Lotus Notes. In other cases, it can be a challenge just getting users to abandon their "email for everything" habit and embrace these features at all. We will present techniques, tools and free code to help you provide your demanding users with what they need now (and in the future), and help the stragglers put bad habits in the past where they belong. Come learn how to bend (meeting) times, add (conference room) spaces, fold C&S functionality into your custom applications, and build user-friendly interfaces for creating complex meetings with repeated ease.
• BP211 IBM Lotus Quickr Development Grows Up: Now This Changes Things    Troy Reimer Viktor Krantz    For years we've been showing you top-notch development methods, tips and tricks for making the most out of Lotus Quickr and its predecessors. With some major architectural changes in Lotus Quickr 8.2 for Domino, there are some amazing things you can do that were impossible (or really expensive!) before. Learn how to leverage the new REST API, server extensions and Lotus Quickr hooks to build and extend absolutely stunning Lotus Quickr applications, or just make Quickr "your" application.
• BP212 Delivering IBM Lotus Domino to Mobile Devices: Top 10 Mobile Browser Dev Tricks - and More!    Rob Wunderlich John Wargo    "Im a little bit iPhone he's a little bit BlackBerry." Starting with "Top 10 Mobile Browser Dev Tricks," you'll learn how to tweak virtually any Lotus Domino database to work just right on mobile devices. Yes, Virginia, you can get more than just your mail and calendar to work wonderfully on any mobile browser! Two mobile experts will walk you through best practices for delivering mobile applications via mobile browsers -- with lots of examples used in real life. We'll reveal secrets (heard about the '<div> tag trick?' that will save you many dev hours. We'll talk sync versus browse, consider device differences and even show the 'native app' side of the story.
• BP214 IBM Lotus Symphony: Finally, a Developer's Friend!  John Head    With Lotus Notes 8.5.1 and Lotus Symphony 1.3, developers can rejoice with the new Lotus Script and Java APIs and the new Symphony Container for Composite Applications. This session will showcase these new APIs and tools and show you how to use them to build great applications. From using LotusScript to create spreadsheets from a Lotus Notes application to building a Notes sidebar application that surfaces Lotus Notes data for reuse within Lotus Symphony, this session will open your eyes to the new capabilities, probably for the first time!
• INV107 An Oral History of IBM Lotus Notes: The First Twenty Years  Ed Brill   Scott Souder  Lotus Notes V1 shipped in December, 1989. Twenty years later, Notes has one of the most successful and longest-running track records of any desktop software. In this session, we will look back at the history of Notes -- the milestones, the innovations, and the speed bumps. Stories never-before told in public will surface, and nostalgia will be ever-present. The session will conclude with predictions for the next twenty years of Notes and Domino.
  
• JMP102 The Top Things All New IBM Lotus Domino Developers Need To Know    Thomas Duff Kathy Brown    Are you a newbie developer? Are you just getting started in the world of Lotus Notes and Domino? Do you wish you had someone to tell you the top mistakes to avoid? What about the top tips you need to know to create successful applications? Join us as we show you the important things all beginning developers need to know. We'll explain what they are and why you need to know them. We'll also share some stories of their past pain and mistakes and how they learned these tips the hard way --- so you don' have to!
• JMP106 “Kum Bah Yah” Meets “Let's Kick Butt”: The Integration of IBM Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino with Microsoft Office, .NET, and IBM Lotus Symphony    John Head
  Alex Kassabov    Welcome to 2010, where Lotus Notes and Domino are just part of your corporate toolset. This session will introduce you to integration of Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5 with Microsoft Office, .NET technologies, OpenOffice.org, & Lotus Symphony. We'll start with the basics and build up to mail merge, exporting to a spreadsheet, charting, presentations, and integration on the Web. Advanced topics such as Visual Studio Tools for Office, advanced development with C#, and integration with Lotus Domino Web Services are included. Integration with Xpages, Google Docs, Sharepoint, ODF, OOXML, and Windows Explorer will highlight the options available. Every sample is new or updated, so even past attendees will get something from this session.
•  SHOW101 Step by Step: Install, Manage and configure DAOS and ID Vault    Gabriella Davis Paul Mooney    Lotus Domino 8.5x has big changes in store for admin weenies, including two long-awaited new features: the Lotus Notes ID Vault and DAOS. Lotus Notes ID Vault stores user IDs on a server where they are automatically downloaded to the client should the local ID be missing, and enables users to request password changes that can be made "on the fly" by admins with no direct ID file access. The Domino Attachment Object Store is a radical change in the attachment management method on Lotus Domino servers. In this step by step, session, we'll setup Notes ID Vault and DAOS from scratch in a test environment and take you through their configuration and management.
•  SHOW102 Using IBM Lotus Domino 8.5 Policies to Manage Your Clients    Darren Duke    Smart administrators can alleviate much end user administration and increase their own efficiency by utilizing policies and assigning them to users and/or groups. You can have settings automatically sent to clients, set default preferences that users will never find on their own, populate client Notes.ini settings and other ÔÇ£hard to doÔÇØ features. Beginning with Lotus Domino 8.5, these policies have been enhanced beyond belief and now give Lotus Domino administrators a truly awesome tool.
• SHOW106 Configuring the Tivoli Directory Integrator for IBM Lotus Domino and Active Directory    Thomas Duff  Marie Scott    Did you ever want a tool that would allow you to connect Lotus Domino to external directories ÔÇô LDAP or AD? What about synchronizing a Lotus Domino application with data from a relational data source? If so, then have we got the tool for you and it's free! Join us as we introduce you to Tivoli Directory Integrator (TDI) and step through the installation and setup. We'll cover both simple and complex data transformation, event triggers, and change logging. Not only will you leave with the knowledge about how to set up TDI, youÔÇÖll have the skills to start using it immediately in your own environment ÔÇô as an administrator or a developer. So why not leverage the best free tool for Lotus Domino youÔÇÖve never heard about?
• SHOW201 Installation and Setup of IBM Lotus Sametime 8.5: From "Zero to Hero" in Just Two Hours    Volker Juergensen Frank Altenburg    IBM Lotus Sametime setup can be fast, smooth and easy when you know what you are doing. 120 minutes is all it takes -- and we'll show you how. The new server architecture of Lotus Sametime 8.5 offers so many more options to deploy that it is not easy to know where to start. In this session, we want to prove that it is possible to create a "proof of concept" setup very quickly. We'll install all the new Lotus Sametime 8.5 components: Lotus Sametime System Console, Community Server, Proxy Server, Meeting Server, Media Server and the new Lotus Sametime Connect client. At the end of the session, you can experience how to maintain and administer the whole environment just out of the new Lotus Sametime System Console.
• SHOW202 How to Customize Lotus Quickr Templates Using HTML, Javascript and CSS    Bob Barber Brian O'Gorman    Learn the inner workings of Lotus Quickr Domino templates. You'll see how to use your HTML, JavaScript and CSS talents to customize Lotus Quickr Domino places. This session will explain the details of Lotus Quickr templates using step-by-step examples involving theme customizations, templates, services, and event hooks. You'll see what you can do today to give Lotus Quickr places your own look and feel.
• SHOW303 Putting *Sparkle* in Your Social Applications! Customization and Branding with the New IBM Lotus Connections 2.5   Adrian Spender  Mitch Cohen  Come and see how Lotus Connections 2.5 can be molded to fit your needs. Don't just take our word for it, but gain the experience of a Lotus Connections customer too! From exploring the data population customizations that allow you to modify and control the information populated on your user's profiles we will move onto practical demonstration of how you can theme Lotus Connections to match your own corporate or organizational brand. We'll also discuss how you can extend the capabilities of the product easily through adding iWidgets to Profiles, Communities and the Home Page of Lotus Connections.
  
• SMART203 Raising the ROI of IT with IBM Client for Smart Work    Antony Satyadas William Malchisky Jr.    We are all smart workers but do you have the best environment to work smart? Are you looking to self fund mission critical initiatives? Would you like to learn what the risks are, how the economics works, what the architecture decisions are to potentially bring your TCO down by 50%? Many of you are already using the IBM Client for Smart Work components. You could execute a "Liberate-Migrate-Virtualize" strategy to potentially raise the ROI of your IT investments. How about drafting your business case during this session and taking it to your CIO?
  

 I suspect many of you may already know this.  But I discovered this by accident today.  I have a client (i.e customer) that has decided to deploy Notes 8.5.1 Basic.  This creates an issue for me as a developer as I must run 8.5.1 Standard in order to use my Designer client.  To test my applications using both the standard and basic clients I can use my Notes Client and my Domino Administrator client.  Because the Domino 8.5.1 Administrator client has not yet been migrated to Eclipse it very conveniently opens the database up using the Basic client even when I am running Notes 8.5.1 Standard.

 For those of you that read my blog about Project Klingon,  the prototype is now available online at http://www.yellowverse.com/Presentations.nsf.  The prototype should evolve over the coming weeks as I use this as a way to demonstrate some of the concepts likely to come next year when Project Vulcan becomes available.

 It is now exactly one week since I arrived home from my first lotusphere.  Over the past week (and the week before) I have given a lot of thought to project Vulcan and the potential it offers to redefine our approach to Notes development, especially for those applications that involve (or could involve) an aspect of knowledge management and/or collaboration.  Prior to Lotusphere I had already been doing some work on developing an idea on how a modern Notes application could "do collaboration".  What Lotusphere (and project Vulcan) provided was some clearer insight into what I have been trying to do.  It also provided the chance to redesign my approach so it could be more consistent with what Project Vulcan promises to deliver.
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I am present;y working to consolidate all these thoughts in the form of a new project I am calling Project Klingon.  I have just published my first YouTube video which demonstrates some of my early thinking on how to build a Notes collaboration application using Notes/Domino 8.5.1 and XPages.  It is not Project Vulcan, only IBM can deliver on something as massive as that.  Project Klingon represents some ideas on things that can be done today to implement some of the ideas contained within the Project Vulcan vision.  Ideas that may allow you to dramatically improve the collaborative capabilities of Notes applications.  It is early days and I am still exploring options of what I may do with Project Klingon.  For now it is the perfect project for me to learn more about XPages and Collaboration.  Your own thoughts, view, and ideas are always most welcome.
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A working example of the prototype should be available on my yellowverse.com Web site soon.  Ultimately it will be the engine that drives the entire site (at least until Project Vulcan arrives).

The Lotus brand has always been at the forefront of collaboration.  For 20 Years Lotus Notes has lead the way as a Rapid Application Development tool for building collaborative applications.  Lotus Sametime and Lotus Connections are being recognized as the leading collaborative tools in the class.  And now at Lotusphere 2010 IBM introduced its Collaborative Agenda.  Through the vision it has outlined with Project Vulcan, IBM has announced a clear strategy to place the Lotus brand at the forefront of collaboration.  An effort that will be important in servicing the needs of business over the next 20 years as collaboration becomes an integral part of the way applications are built and information is delivered to the desktops of business professionals.  An effort that each and every one of us stands to benefit from greatly.
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This will all be delivered in a relatively short period of time.  This is not a new initiative and many of the building blocks are already in place.  Beta versions of Project Vulcan will be made available via LotusLive later this year.  This time next year Lotusphere 2011 is almost certain to be showing off this technology everywhere attendees choose to look.  And during the course of 2011 new versions of the Lotus product suite will start delivering on this vision.
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So as we the Lotus community get ready to start implementing the next generation of collaborations solutions I would ask the question...  Has our own Lotus community already taken our own collaboration to the next level or does the opportunity/need exist for us to also rise to an even higher level?  How do we gain the trust of government and corporations to build their collaborative agenda if we don't already demonstrate that we '"get it".  When they look at our own development community will they see the same high levels of collaboration at work that we are trying to convince them we can help them build?
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Yes we have a strong community.  A community that is very passionate about the Lotus brand of products.  You don't need to travel to Lotusphere to see that (but it sure does help to get the adrenaline flowing!).  We have a great team of leaders and an amazing group of people who work tirelessly for the community.  When help is needed there is almost always someone there to help.  But do we truly collaborate at a level that sets us apart from other development communities?  I will probably get heaps of hate mail for suggesting otherwise...  But let me outline a few areas where I think we can all seize the opportunity in a way that will better position us all to take advantage of Project Vulcan as the demand grows for us to guide our employers and clients to live the vision...
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Product Development
Lotusphere was an amazing opportunity to interact with products developers and share ideas about the directions our products are going.  What I learnt during the week was that these people were already well tuned in to what we were wanting.  They read our blogs.  Strangely the XPage team even cared about the pains an XPages Kindergarten student coming up to speed with their new technology.  They almost seemed to be begging us to socialize our ideas for product enhancements via IdeaJam.  And that is all great.  But why is it that for four days of the year (if I attend LS) I have almost unlimited access to Lotus developers and then for the balance of the year there is almost no dialog?  Why are we not exploiting the collaboration tools we have at our disposal to allow a dialog to continue all year round?  There are maybe 10 high profile bloggers at IBM, why are there not a whole lot more?  If we have 150 million Lotus Notes users and an estimated 100,000+ full time developers/administrators why is it that no single idea on IdeaJam has yet been able to attract 400 votes of support?  Why is it that when many (but not all) people get elected onto the design partner program is it no longer necessary for them to socialize their ideas via IdeaJam.  What would it take to get just 5% of our community to visit IdeaJam once a week to add ideas, add comments, or just vote on the ideas being posted?
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OpenNTF
OpenNTF has undergone a lot of change over the past 12 months and it was great to see it mentioned by so many presenters at Lotusphere (inside and outside of IBM).  Membership is up, contributions are up.  And again this is all great.  But why is it that most of the projects are submitted by individuals?  What is it that prevents teams of people working together to make great projects even greater?  What can we do to foster more collaboration?  IBM have not only backed OpenNTF they have also started a move to involve the Lotus Community to work jointly on projects.  The first of these is the Discussion NextGen project.  So why is it that next to nobody is willing to get involved with projects like this?  Even if you don't find discussion templates to be sexy any more don't we all want to encourage IBM to work with the Lotus community to build projects this way.  So shouldn't we be doing all we can to encourage IBM to work this way by rolling up our sleeves for a few hours to show we are interested in collaborating?
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Lotusphere/LUG Presentations
I haven't presented at one of these events yet, but I do understand that a lot of time and effort goes into making a great presentation.  Even at Lotusphere, with the number of parallel sessions and so many other things to do, presentations are only ever heard live by a few hundred people at a time.  So rather than leaving it at that, why don't we do a little more to share all that effort with as wide an audience as possible?  Like many others I paid a lot of money to attend Lotusphere and I am disappointed that some presenters (mainly IBM) didn't seem to care if an electronic version of their presentation was made available for publication -- for those unable to attend the session but still very interested in reviewing the material.  Why stop there?  Why not share the presentation with the entire Lotus community by posting it somewhere?  Sure I can understand there may be a need to have a blackout period to reinforce the economic value of attending conferences.  But for lotusphere, by the time free Lotusphere Comes To You events are being held globally it should be time to open up access to this wealth of knowledge for the benefit of the entire community.  I have most of these presentations in electronic form and have offered to host the presentations for those without an alternative.  I still haven't heard from anyone.  John Head has suggested presentations be posted on Slideshare.  When I checked earlier today the only two presentations posted were John's.  I have searched the Web sites of most presenters and could find no more than 10-20 presentations (out of 200+ total) that were being made available on-line for non-attendees.  Perhaps I am oversimplifying it, but surely there is more we can do to put relevant information in the hands of those with need.  Why are there so many separate efforts to help me plan my time at Lotusphere and/or collaborate before/during/after?  Why not a single community effort developed through collaboration?
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There are many other examples (opportunities) I could quote, but I am sure you get the picture.
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We all need to get ready for the next level of collaboration that the next generation of Lotus products will provide.  It may be you may feel we are already in a good shape as a community and doing more than enough to collaborate now.  But I would challenge everyone to consider what opportunities might exist to do even more.  We dared to challenge IBM to get its act together and take on Micro$oft, Google, and others.  They seem to have have responded to the challenge.  Are we ready to show the true power of collaboration?  Seize the day!

January 26 is Australia Day, the day in which Australia celebrates its achievements as a country and what it means to be Australian.  Historically it represents the date on which the first settlers from the UK established the first permanent colony in 1788.  Australia did not become a country until Federation in 1901 but it has been a proud member of the yellowverse since the very first release of Lotus Notes.  As a proud Australian I would like to send a special g'day from my new home in LA to my Lotus colleagues down under in Australia.  To mark the ocassion I have added the first three Australian members to Lotus Legends.  Adam Brown, Graham Dodge, and Matthew Newman represent a small part of a vibrant community down under.  I am looking forward to adding many more deserving Aussies in the coming months.
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Man, what I wouldn't do for a few BBQ sausages washed down with a nice cold Boags Draught while watching a live one-day game (cricket) at the SCG.

Last week at Lotusphere IBM had the foresight to invite William Shatner to Lotusphere to be part of the announcement for what may be Lotus's own Genesis device - Project Vulcan.  In my previous blog I attempted to try and define "Project Vulcan".  In today's blog I would like to share some of the "Vulcan" things I saw last week at lotusphere as well as share some of my own ideas about what we can expect to be able to do within our organization when the concepts contained within Project Vulcan are allowed to take collaboration to the next level..

Below: The only known sreenshot of Vulcan courtesy of Ed Brill's Flickr account.

Existing Products:
Much of Vulcan is not new.  The existing Lotus products already contain many of the features and capabilities that will be core to the Vulcan vision:-

1. Lotus Notes/Domino:  An important part of Vulcan appeared with Notes 8.0 -- the application sidebar.  Thanks to widgets, plug-ins, and Live Text we are now starting to see how additional information can triggered in context to via the Notes sidebar.  The Notes client already demonstrates the power of federation with federated calendars.  One of the best working examples of existing Analytics comes in the form of SwiftFile, the Lotus add-in that assists in defining the folders into which a particular e-mail may be best placed.  And the development model for Vulcanized applications almost certainly will be based upon XPages, made available in 8.5.0 and 8.5.1 (XPiNC).
   
2. Lotus SameTime: SameTime and its extensions have already been well integrated into the Lotus Notes product to demonstrate how instant messaging and voice communications can be integrated into both the PIM (mail/calendar) and Notes applications.
   
3. Lotus Connections: The basics for using profiles, communities, activities, and files have already been demonstrated with the existing versions of Lotus Connections.  I am expecting Project Vulcan to deliver a great many extensions to Connections as well as additional integration with the other Lotus products, especially the PIM component of Notes/iNotes.
   
4. With LotusLive we are seeing the first steps for Lotus into the cloud.  If you have not already done so, you should take a close look at Lotus Live as a way of understanding how IBM may deliver more and more of its core functionality inside the cloud.  It appears that IBM intend to use LotusLive Labs as a way of allowing the Lotus community to interact with pre-release copies of Vulcan components such as:
1. Slide Library: A collaborative way to build and share presentations.
2. Collaborative Recorded Meetings: A service that records and transcribes meeting presentations and audio/video for searching and tagging.
3. Event Map: An interactive way to visualize and interact with conference schedules.
5. Others: I would say a lot more about the other Lotus products if I knew more about them myself.  These products are already addressing core needs to many organizations that should continue to be accessible in a Vulcanized world.
   

OGS, Press Releases & Vulcan Demos:
A lot of information has already been placed in the public domain for Vulcan.  Many people (e.g. press, analysts, bloggers) have had a chance to access additional information.  Based upon the information presented in the OGS, other sessions, Lotusphere labs, and reading blogs and analyst reports from Lotusphere we can also deduce quite a bit about what we can expect to see in Lotus products as part of the Vulcan project:-

1. The OGS showed a working prototype of Vulcan in which the Notes client had a new home page into which a continual feed of information flowed.  This is not unlike the timeline concept of Twitter.  Mail will be there as a key component but will then be consolidated with "feeds" from other sources such as Activities, RSS Feeds, Subscriptions, To-Dos, and information pushed from other applications.  Enterprise content will also be directed into the stream based upon the context of what you are doing or an analytics engine that analyzes what you work on.
2. The potential flood of information will be associated with people.  It will also be associated with topics, a concept that combines the features of semantics, tags, categories, and searches.  A third level (projects) will represent an intersection of the two.   i.e. A project will define those people and topics with whom you work on a "project".  Note: Projects are virtual and need not correspond to an official project going on in your organization.
3. Information placed in the stream will be automatically analyzed using analytics to identify the people and topics to which it relates.
   
4. All "Vulcan" applications, including the home page, will have the ability to provide context to the stream of information allowing a more focused stream of related information to be viewed at any time.  Access to the traditional mail-box will also be retained.
   
5. At any time a set of tools will allow users to customize the way the flow of information is displayed, including filters, allowing the information to better match the need.
6. Hooks will be available to allow a core set of features to be used to collaborate about any item in the stream.  This may be to contact one of the people associated with the item, to add a comment/question/idea, to tag the information, or even to link the information to other specific items.  Hooks will also be available for other applications to interact in this space.

Innovation Labs:
The innovation labs at lotusphere demonstrated an enormous range of exciting projects being undertaken by IBM.  I would be surprised if many of the great ideas encapsulated in these projects did not find there way into the existing Lotus products as a part of Project Vulcan.

1. I expect profile synchronization to be a key element in collaboration.  People currently have their profile data spread over many social software sites/products such as Sametime, Connections, FaceBook, and LinkedIn.  The ability to track down information about people and allow people to synchronize their data with these sources will go a long way to allow people to have real-time access to latest and most accurate data on the people with whom they interact.  Contact Central provided an excellent example of how this might work.
2. Concorde is one of the products on show in the Innovations lab that was already been mentioned several times as being part of Project Vulcan.  The core of the project is to show how documents can be made available (via the Internet) to allow multiple people to review and edit the same document simultaneously.  Tools are added to allocate sections to specific people for review as well as the addition of annotation such as comments, sticky notes, highlighting etc.
3. Audrey is a Web based news service that could form the basis of an enterpise feed service.  It was interesting because it combined social networking and semantic content analysis to recommend stories to users.  It also borrowed from Linked-In by allowing you to see the feeds other subscribed to as a way of finding news sources.
   
4. Mail Triage demonstrated an approach to allowing mobile devices such as the iPhone to be used to triage the flow of information while people are on the go.  To me it looked like a cut down version of Getting Things Done.  While the focus of XXX seemed  focused on Mail triage, I could see a lot of potential for these concepts being applied to the entire flow of information that Vulcan may deliver.
5. Answers had much the same look and feel as IQJam and StackOverflow and hence was not revolutionary.  But I would certainly have component like this in any collaboration solution I built.
6. I also found Blog Muse to be interesting as a novel way to make blogs more relevant in a organization/community.  This project demonstrated how allowing readers to suggest topicsa for new blogs could result in much higher readership, comments, and ratings.
7. DUNE (Desktop UNified with ENterprise) was a project I did not get a chance to see but several people I met commented on its ability find data spread across multiple applications (including Notes, Sametime, Connections and Quickr), analyze it and make personalized recommendations.
   

And that is just what I found whilst at Lotusphere 2010.  Imagine what may be out there come Lotusphere 2011.  So when you think of Project Vulcan think of what it would be like to have a single interface to a single flow of data that then provides a complete set of tools and features such as those found in Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, Amazon, Notes, Connections, QuickR, SameTime etc. combined with the power of analytics to identify the stuff that should be really important to YOU.
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Soon, the smarter members of the Micro$tack and Gaagle development community will be attending Lotusphere just so they can get a glimpse of what there own products will be trying to do in the years that follow Lotus releasing new collaboration capabilities.
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Related Information
Demo by Charlie Hill (Lotus CTO) of Project Vulcan
IBM's Project Vulcan: The Next generation of Lotus Notes and a Rival to Google Wave.
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Footnote: OK, so in the movie the Genisis device didn't deliver on the promise, so let's not extend the analogy that far!  Let's just leave it at the opportunity of bringing new life to otherwise dead "information" landscapes.

For my final blog entry before I pack my computer ready for the long trip back to LA early tomorrow I thought I would share some thoughts about blogging that I learnt during my first visit to Lotusphere and why it really does matter...
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But first, let me congratulate Chris Toohey for his award as Planet Lotus "Blogger of the Year" -  that was announced during this year's Lotusphere.  Anyone who has monitored Planet Lotus over the past year will know that Chris has dramatically increased his contributions to the blogsphere.   I got the impression that Chris wanted to win this award this year, so it is also nice to see it going to someone who values it (as did Ed brill last year).  It was a shame he was unable to attend in person.  I suspect he would have been the recipient of more than a few congratulatory beers over the course of the week!  The latest stats show that Chris's blogs are now amongst the most read on Planet Lotus.  While I doubt very few of us can devote the amount of time Chris does to posting material into the yellowverse Chris typifies the spirit of the Lotus blogger community and the amount of effort that goes into creating a constant stream of new material that has the potential to keep the entire Notes community informed and engaged.
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During the week I met a great many of the well known (and not so well known) yellowverse bloggers.  Kimonos was as good a place as any to find these people!  As a first time attendee to Lotusphere it was interesting to compare notes and find out that for many, becoming a blogger was great way of getting known when you attend Lotusphere.  And its true.  I was able to make contact with a number of people at Lotusphere, not because I recognized them, but because they actually recognized me, my name tag, or my blogs when the subject came up in conversations.  I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that IBM developers do read many of our blogs and they do seem to be taking notice of what we have to say via blogs.  Blogging can be difficult at times because there are many occasions when there is little or no feedback to the material you write.  It is somewhat gratifying to attend an event like lotusphere to find out that people do place value of the material that is blogged on a daily basis via Planet lotus.
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Another interesting aspect of Lotusphere was meeting the large number of people to whom names such as Planet Lotus are still largely unknown.  It shows there is still a lot to be done to expand the yellow bubble into the lives of the many Lotus professionals to whom blogs could provide mini-lotusphere learning experiences each and every day.  It was great to see both IBM and the Notes community presenters all giving regular plugs to OpenNTF, Planet Lotus, IdeaJam etc at so many sessions.  I was watching closely as I observed many people writing these URLs down on their notepads.  Slowly but surely the word is getting out there.  But we still have  long long way to go.
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IBM again ran the Lotusphere Blogger program in which a number of high profile bloggers in the blogging community were granted access to additional sessions (and great seats at the OGS) in a similar way as press are given additional access.  The opportunity to participate in a program such as this is a great reward for the many bloggers who get selected each year.  I know one of my goals is to eventually improve the profile and quality of my own blogging so that I too can rub shoulders with the true greats of the lotus blogging community and get additional access to information at Lotusphere.
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Not everybody can blog several times a day as Chris does.  But even if you only manage one blog entry a month these small contributions collectively can make a large contribution to the Lotus Community.  They can help to increase you own profile within that Lotus community an even get your message to IBM.  There are plenty of free blogging resources out there such as bleedyellow.com, planetlotus etc to host your blog.  So don't just wait till you've had a few beers at next year's Lotusphere to start making your voice heard.  Get a head start today and help the yellow bubble grow larger and larger.  We all have ideas and opinions and they all matter!

So this is my last blog from the Lotusphere site for now. My head is swarming with all sorts of ideas for future blogs on my return to "normality".  Hopefully time will permit me to publish some of this before it all escapes.

2010 - My first time at Lotusphere.  It was a major cost for me to attend so I had researched extensively before arriving to ensure I got the most out of Lotusphere.  And while I recognized much of what was going on around me, I definitely had to adjust my approach to the events as I went along, as i learned more about what was really happening.  The following are some random thoughts about Lotusphere as a collaboration event and things I learned along the way as a first time attendee...

1. Almost all the presentations get published on-line several days before the event starts.  The Lotusphere event should start several days before the OGS with downloading all the presentations that are an interest to what you do and then read them thoroughly.  Presentation content will often not match the title or the abstract.  Seeing the details of the presentation may change your opinions about what sessions you want to attend.  It is also a lot easier to absorb the information in the sessions if you are spending less time reading the slides and more time listening to what the speaker is saying.  Advance viewing also provides a chance for you to think about the material presented and formulate potential questions ahead of time to ask at the end of the session.  The sessions database also provides a chance for you to ask questions prior to LS as a way of influencing what gets covered (Not sure is this works).  There is often more insightful and  NEW information divulged during the Q&A session at the end of the session than during the main presentation itself.
2. Have your sessions selected BEFORE you arrive at Lotusphere.  I did this, and I am glad I did.  In the turmoil that follows valuable time can be wasted trying to figure out where to go next.  Time that can often be better spent reflecting on what you just heard or talking with those around you to hear what they learnt.
3. There are lots of great presentations but Lotusphere is not just about sitting in break-out sessions.  During the course of the week I found myself cutting out more and more presentations to find time for other activities.  it helped that I had researched my presentations and knew the presentations I could most live without attending.  I would estimate 80%+ of what I learned at Lotusphere was outside of the track sessions.
   
4. Before arriving at Lotusphere and even whilst at Lotusphere, listen closely to what Ed Brill says (in his sessions and on his blog).  He probably has as much inside knowledge as anybody about what will be going down at Lotusphere and is one of the few people with such knowledge that will provide subtle hints about what we should be attending.  And he is almost ALWAYS right!
5. The best way to get hands on previews of the new stuff announced at LS is via the UX labs.  These people know the subject matter extremely well and you not only get a chance to see how it works close at hand but also have the chance to provide direct feedback on how you see these products.  You can book your UX sessions before the event starts.  Don't try and cram a 30 minute lab session into a 30 minute break between two presentations, it will never work.
   
6. The final LS session - Ask The Developer - is in many ways for ceremonial purposes only.  The Meet The Developer labs provide you a chance to ask questions directly to developers in one-on-one sessions and you don't get booed off the stage if you ask more than one question.  It was also self-evident from the Ask The Developer session, that if you have an idea about improving the product the developers are looking to see that idea posted on ideajam as a way of having it validated based upon the votes cast by the Notes community.  So (for ideas) every day of the year can be Ask the Developer thanks to IdeaJam.  There are also some BOF (Birds Of Feather) which are well attended by developers.  These are much more informal sessions and provide a great way to exchange questions, information, and ideas with developers.
7. BOF Sessions themselves are very hit and miss.  I had some where my own learning was to hear about the learning experiences of others.  One of my absolute best sessions was an XPages BOF where it seemed the entire XPage Development team turned up along with some of the top minds in the Notes Community exchanged an enourmous amount of information in a one hour period.  None of this was in conference materials so it was a awesome win to be in attendance.
8. Travelling around LS as a party of one can force you into meeting people you may otherwise not meet.  At the parties and lunch breaks, by picking a table at random that had nobody I recognized I was able to break outside the yellow bubble and get many varied perspectives.  I was surprised how many people i met who were (a) Administrators, (b) From Europe, (c) had been coming to Lotusphere for 15+ years.  It was interesting to talk to a Websphere developer attending his Lotusphere who had known nothing about the other Lotus products until now.  I also had my wife with me on several occasions.  She speaks Chinese which allowed me to learn a little about the size of Lotus in China.  Get off the beaten path for a while to gt a different perspective.
   
9. After the event had ended I still hadn't found out how the refreshment services operated.  I learnt that water coolers were placed at the back of most smaller break-out rooms.  Refreshments were down in the Product Showcase.  Outside of that, it was a good idea to bring you backpack with you every day to grab water, soda, fruit etc. wherever/whenever it presented itself.  It never seemed to be around when you wanted it.
   
10. Lotusphere is also about parties.  Depending on what you do and who you know there are many ways to get yourself invited to various parties.  These are great ways to meet members of the Notes community and also offer a way of cutting down the total costs of drinks for the event.  There are also a number of bars, restaurants etc. where various groups seemed to attend.  I am definitely not a party animal but I did enjoy spending some time at Kimonos where many of the core blogger scene seem to hang out.  But what goes on at Kimonos Stays at Kimonos so I will say no more.  I heard many times that Lotus Knows Sleep is for February.
    
11. Can you bring your family to Lotusphere --- ABSOLUTELY.  On Wednesday I had my first BOF at 7am and I was on the run constantly until my last BOF ended at 6:45PM.  There was nothing better to break the strain of a hard day than a huge hug from my 6 year-old daughter at the end of the day.  I wouldn't do it for every lotusphere, but if I did do it again i would probably bring my family a few days before Lotusphere and watch the build up allowing them to return home on Sunday.  It's sad to stay several days after the event and see empty walkways.  Lotusphere provides discounts for multi-day passes at the Disney resorts.  Free transport leaves from Swan/Dolphin complex to all the parks and Downtown Disney.  It was also possible to hire a car from the Alamo/National counter at Dolphin to get away from the resort to get away for some shopping, visit to Kennedy Space Cnetre or any other attraction that may interest you.  The UX labs even ran sessions on Mondays for Spouses to use the Lotus products and provide feedback as novice users.
    
12. Many of the hard core Lotus people sit at the very front of most sessions.  So to increase your chances of meeting these people before or after the session find a seat as near to the front as you can get.
13. Carrying around images of people based upon blog photos is not a reliable way to find people.  Tim Tripconny does not have long hair, Natahan Freeman does not have yellow hair and Bruce Elgort does not sound anything like he does on Taking Notes.  I only wish IBM would issue big name plates like those used on cars for people to slide into the back of their backpacks.  Maybe then I could have found a whole lot more people.
    
14. I am still struggling to fully understand twitter but I do follow it and use it somewhat.  At Lotusphere I found it a more than useful tool for the first time.  It gave me a sense of where certain people where at various times.  I learnt about things happening I would have otherwise missed.  I would also get information about sessions I was also attending that I had missed myself.
    
15. Is it worth the cost?  Absolutely. To get away from a work environment for a week and focus on learning heaps of new stuff about the product you use every day is invaluable.  To get the chance to meet people inside IBM and within the Notes community is also invaluable.   There was simply too much to do for a single lotusphere.  I had a whole bunch of people I would have liked to have met but never found enough time to track them all down.  So I need at least one more Lotusphere just to complete that task alone.  This is the biggest stage the Lotus Community has to offer.  If you are part of that community you owe it to yourself to visit the yellowverse version of "Mecca" at least once in your lifetime.  Lotusphere 2010 was Lotusphere Kindergarten for me.  There was so much to learn.   Information that should prove invaluable should I get a chance to attend a second lotusphere.

A special thanks to each and every one of the amazing people I met thsi year.  I learnt so much from you all.  For those of you that did not make it, there is no better time to start planning a strategy for how you can maximize your chances of being here next year.  Like many others I sense that the Lotus brand is rising once more and I expect these events will grow in the size, excitement, and value in the coming years.
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Still not sure then watch this video

Over the course of Lotusphere I was surprised at how often I was hearing the question "What is Project Vulcan"?  And not just from Lotusphere "newbs" like myself.  I was also hearing the question come from members of the "Lotus Legends" community.  Perhaps I was lucky to have received a ten day advanced preview of this exciting "project" and hence have already had a number of days to think it through and recognize its significance even before I arrived at #ls10.  Perhaps the fact that the concept was not tied to specific products being released at specific times, it was perceived by some as being too vague to be fully understood.  Perhaps i was one of the few people to get LS backpacks with some special substance burried at the bottom.
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During the course of Lotusphere I had the chance to see the product up close in three half hour sessions at the UX labs (thanks Marty for answering ALL my many questions).  I also had the chance to attend a one hour presentation in which the currently proposed UX and concepts behind Vulcan were presented in much greater detail (a session I am sure was not attended by as many as it might if the name "Vulcan" had appeared somewhere in its title).  I also had the chance to spend a lengthy period of time in the Innovation Labs where I am sure some of the exciting projects on show will find their way into Vulcan in one way or another.  For those of you that have not had the same chance as I had at Lotusphere to do an extensive deep dive into Vulcan I will share some of my initials thoughts on what I think "project Vulcan" represents - and (in a later blog) why it is so important.
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1. Vulcan is not a product.  Vulcan is not even a destination.  Instead, I think Vulcan should be looked upon as a DIRECTION.  IBM have indicated that while they may have allowed themselves to fall behind Microsoft (Sharepoint) and Google (Wave) in the collaboration space over the past few years they have now established a clear direction in which they intend to take the entire Lotus brand.  To provide what appears likely to result in a vastly superior collaboration solution than any of IBM's competitors have even dared to promise (let alone deliver).
2. Vulcan does not represent a new initiative.  Rather, it represents a continuation of many things that IBM have already been doing for quite some time.  The creation of a vision should allow IBM to become more focused about what it adds to each of its products and why.  It should allow IBM to better define the overlap between the Lotus products as well as focus on integrating the products in a way that delivers real business value for its customers.  It is a focal point to which individual product road maps can be built (All for One and One for All).
3. Vulcan has not yet been tied to specific products because I believe IBM are still debating internally which members of its product portfolio will play what role(s) in implementing this vision.  With the possible exception of the analytics engine, there does not appear to be any real need to create new Lotus products for this.  If I was to take a guess then it would be that Lotus Connections more than any other product will expand its footprint to absorb many of the gaps in the existing product set needed to fully implement this vision.  Lotus Notes/Domino will be an important part of this, so Notes is definitely not "Dead" yet.  The emphasis within Notes (by IBM) will clearly be on leveraging XPage technology to add zap and sizzle, but Classic Notes applications will be able to play a role in various ways.  The only product I saw likely to be squeezed in any way may be Quickr.
4. Based upon what I saw, the focus will be on providing a mixture of on-premise and cloud based solutions.  Hybrid solutions may be the ultimate solutions for many organizations, but IBM is clearly wanting to cover its bets on the expansion of SaaS.  There will be a greater focus on the Web client (as needed for the cloud) than the Notes client.  The emergence of the mobile device should also be well catered for by this strategy.
5. What exactly does it do?  Well at its core is the capacity to take information from wide range of source and consolidate it into a single stream. It is not unlike my "Universal In-Box" concept that I described in one of my predictions for Lotusphere (No I had no inside information!).  The information sources will be a combination of personal sources (e.g. mail, tasks, meetings, requested feeds & subscriptions etc.) as well as enterprise sources (applications, enterprise feeds, news services etc.).  By building an intelligent front-end to this feed it becomes possible to focus this stream of information to be relevant to the task you are presently undertaking.  In addition, analytics will be employed to suggest additional information you may not otherwise be aware of as well as to prioritize information to make the important stuff stand out.
6. Exactly what you can do with Vulcan will depend, in part, on which components of the Lotus product suite you have installed.  It might be that an organization with only Lotus Notes installed may be able to implement parts of the Vulcan concept.  It is also likely that the more components of the Lotus Portfolio you have installed the more powerful your solution is going to be.  For some reason I get the impression that Vulcan will result in Lotus Connections ultimately becoming the "Big Brother" of the Lotus Notes product family while Notes/Domino assumes the role of senior statesman and tireless work-horse.  I also expect to see the differentiation between the Notes Client and the Web client narrow so much that many companies will ultimately abandon the Notes client, first for causal users, and later even power users.
7. The pre-requisite for implementing Vulcan appears to be to get to at least Notes/Domino 8.5.1.  I am also expecting that Vulcan will dominate Lotusphere 2011 at which time early betas for many of the products in the Lotus portfolio will be showing the "Vulcan" capabilities planned for shipment during 2011.  What we think of as "Notes 9.0" will almost certainly be part of the initial version of "Vulcan" and show at #ls11.  IBM already had real working code of their concepts running at #ls10 so it is certainly not beyond the capacity of IBM to deliver on this promise in the timeframe they have indicated (18-24 months).  It seems they are already ahead of where they were at when they promised (and later delivered) project Hannover as Notes 8.0 (yes I know it took a while for performance and stability issues to be resolved.  I am sure IBM learned a lot).
8. Applications (such as Notes applications) will integrate with Vulcan in several ways.  They will be capable of generating information that is fed into the eco-system (tasks/activities, feeds etc).  Applications will also be able to provide services that act on information that it surfaces.  e.g. An item from a news feed may trigger the creation of an idea that is quickly created by invoking your favorite idea application (e.g IdeaJam).  Applications will also have the capability to provide context to the information streams that can then be surfaced within the application.  e.g. applications may act like a community in which related information is aggregated and presented (e.g. Composite Application) and collaboration occurs between active users of the application.  Analytics will however ensure valuable information is not trapped within the confines of the application.
9. Yes it will also wash the dishes and take out the garbage (trash) but maybe not in version 1.0!
   

During the traditional "Ask The Developer" session this afternoon it was mentioned that the "next maintenance release" was almost certainly going to include the ability to create database icons in new ways that break out of the original Notes 1.0(?) 16 colors.  I also heard one developer made mention of Notes 8.5.3.  That the first time I had heard those numbers used.  Based upon everything I had been listening to until then it seemed like an 8.5.2 feature release was planned for mid 2010 and then we would have a pause while we waited to see which parts of Vulcan are implemented in Notes 9.0 sometime in 2011.  So who knows for sure (and is telling that is!)....

As expected, my level of blogging has been down during Lotusphere.  I have spent so much time trying to drink from the firehose of knowledge IBM provides with this event.  it is truly amazing just how much information is there to be gained.  Not just from the excellent presentations givens, but also from the sessions that are conducted in the smaller rooms - User Exeprience labs, meet the Developer Labs, Birds of feather Sessions, and finaly the Innovations Labs (which will be my target for today).
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I had previously blogged about my impressions from the first day Project Vulcan.  Yesterday morning I had the chance to sit in on a what has been my single best session so far - ID103 Focus! Attention Management and Smart Aggregation.  What surprised me was how few people attended the sessions.  It surprised me, because this was perhaps the only session at which IBM provided any detail about how Vulcan would look and work.  It was amazing to see just how the desktop can be transformed.  I had predicted an annoucement of the universal mail-box at LS.  But Vulcan is all this and more.  Later in the day I had the chance to sit in the user Experience labs and get a full hour interacting with the initial product concepts that have been developed.  The more I see it the more I am amazed at what this concept can do.  So much so, I am going back for a final session in the UX lab today while I still can.
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Simply put Vulcan redefines collaboration as we think about it and places IBM in a position way ahead of anything I have seen out there.  This stuff is so far in front of anything i have seen from Microsoft and Google it belongs in a class of its own.  And based upon the class of what was already being shown, it appears that IBM are already well down the path to delivering on this promise.  As an application developer I am excited about the potential this offers to make Notes applications the "cool and sexy" application unit within any IT department.  Yes, the "Ugly Duckling" has finally grown up to be the swan.  Soon it is going to be so cool to do Notes development, because this will be the one form of application development best placed to take advantage of Vulcan.  And I am sure Vulcan will be the place where so many people will conduct there business on a day to day basis.  And not just the 150 million people who have already bought lotus Notes, but i expect this will reach way out beyond the existing installed lotus base.
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While we are still 1-2 years away from this being released, IBM have provided a few clues this week clues as to how "Vulcan" will be built.  Expect all the existing Lotus prodiucts to connect into this in a major way.  For Lotus Notes expect XPages to be at the forefront of that development.  Ways will most likely be provided for Notes Classic applications to be supported, but if you wish to be on the cool and sexy end of your IT department I would be making sure you have developed strong Xpage development skills between now and then.  I would also be suggesting you take the chance to migrate as many of your key applications to the XPage platform as possible.  IBM have hinted at tools being made available soon to assist with that migration.  And last evening I attended my 2nd best session so far, a BOF with the XPage development team (almost all from Ireland).    These guys & gals showed that they have great plans for Xpages and there were quite willing to share a lot about their plans.  They also showed they have been listening closely to the chatter on the blogsphere etc. about the short-current comings of XPages.  So I feel a whole lot better now that XPages will mature rapidly to be the absolute sexiest and coolest development platform on the planet bar none.

Your Future Has Arrived

In my last blog, I made mention fo the many new features being considered for addition to the coming releases of Lotus Notes.  Amongst all the material listed it may not have been obvious the extent to which IBM have announced plans for extending the LotusScript language.  So for those of you who are LotusScriot developers, the following is a complete list of all the enhancements for lotusScript that I have heard announced so far:-

-- End Of List

I think there might be a hint there for those of you that have not yet made the bold step into XPage development ;)