OpenNTF at Lotusphere
by Volker Weber
Bruce is disappointed that he does not get a session at Lotusphere 2007. He wanted to do a repeat session of his very popular "How OpenNTF open source solutions can save you time, money and your hair" from 2006. I understand there were a lot of good proposals for 2007 and there will be a lot more people disappointed that they did not get accepted. Not an easy task for a track manager, because you will be making a lot less people happy than frustrated.
Look at the bright side: If you get turned down, there must be a lot of even better sessions to attend.
Besides: With more than 35,000 registered users, more than 150 projects and almost 10,000 downloads a month OpenNTF hardly needs a session for more than an ego boost of the presenters. ;-) You are out there, and we know where to find you. And OpenNTF has a pedestal 324 in the Product Showcase. Plenty of opportunity to meet the chefs.
If you want to give Bruce a well deserved pat on the back, you can find him all over the place. Just look for this drummer:
Which reminds me: Can we please have a rerun of the wonderful JamFest? It only needs to be one night. We had so much fun!
Comments
Except for the ego part Vowe - you are spot on. As you know I travel around the US giving presentations on OpenNTF (I take time off of my day job). I don't do that for the ego - that's why I do the podcast ;-). See you at Lotusphere!
Bruce, you love to present. I know this feeling, because I also like to do it. It's just nice to be on a stage and have people listen to you. That is what I mean with "ego boost".
Bruce, you and your fellow OpenNTF-ers will still have a blast at LS07, take comfort in that! And I'm sure plenty will swing by the pedestal to give the well-deserved pat on the back.
Lets not rag on the speaker selection too much - there was far far too much good stuff to pick from.
Bruce, we're on the adjacent stand, and we usually have some "liquid refreshment" from Scotland to offer. Nothing immature.. So anytime you feel low, pop by...
And Volker is bang on. Keep doing the great job your doing...!
---* Bill
Also Birds-of-a-Feather selection isn't done yet (stay tuned for more on that) , and OpenNTF did submit a BoF proposal. So there should be some additional visibility for the OpenNTF effort.
@Vowe,
Yes you are correct - presenting is a passion as I don't really get to do it during my day job.
@Bill,
OMG - I forgot about that - now I am scared.
@Ed,
Make sure the room is big enough ;-) jk
Just do the BoF at the Swan beach. That should be big enough. Or in the Dolphin kiddie pool at 7am. ;-)
another part of the continuing/neverending story how IBM will loose their loyal customers & business partners.
IBM listen: For whom do you offer the Lotusphere and these sessions?
If you got the answer than ask these people or paying attendees what they want, even if it's beyond every financial aspect and doesn't have a direct impact on the shareholder value.
Unbelieveable to see how complicate such ibm sales job is - where you first learn that you have to listen & understand your customer.
Do one thing: Listen to your international customerbase somewhere in/aorund the vowe world and his flying magic circus.
Do we have to raise our voices or do we have to collect money and pay like you know, Michael Schumacher , who's first seat in a formula 1 race was paid by Sauber, his Manager & Mercedes.
I don't want to here every year how such things can go wrong (especially branding stories about Lotus IBM Worksplace products). Everybody tries to establish communities and would be proud to have these supporters, opinion makers and true networkers.Most of them live in a very ideal world sharing their full knowledge for free and never asking to get paid for a minute. And this is nowaday very rarely in our IT world.
So where is the track manager? I think that vowes readers would count for maybe 20% off IBM'S biggest customers (insurances, banks, (car) production, research, military, services)
Every year the same or maybe they think if nobody raises his voice than it was OK and these guys & customers must be treaded like that.
Jetzt lass mal die Kirche im Dorf.
Sorry, I had to say that in german. I do believe that IBM supports OpenNTF well. They get a free booth in the Showcase. They had a BoF for years, and last year even a session. So let's not blow this out of proportion.
@Vowe,
IBM has been good to OpenNTF as you state when it comes to Lotusphere. We have had BoF's since 2002 if my memory recalls and a pedestal at the Product Showcase in 2005, 2006 and 2007. I do also agree that OpenNTF has hit it's mark within the community which gives Anil, Vince and I great pride. We look forward to serving the Notes/Domino community in the future.
Since you're quoting stats, let me also add that at the last Lotusphere the OpenNTF session filled the room to capacity with some people having to stand - I believe there were over 500 people. We're also adding new members at the rate of approx 1000 new registrations per month.
Although the quality of some of the applications on OpenNTF created by some of the project owners are what bring people back to the site, this doesn't just happens without publicity. The first couple of years we had a hard time gathering momentum, but events like Lotusphere do always cause a spike in registrations and site activity, in addition to events where Bruce goes and spreads the word about OpenNTF.
At any rate, we're not resting and patting ourselves on the back - we spend a lot of our free time working on keeping the site running, so stay tuned for a few changes we will be implementing in the next few months to improve the OpenNTF site!
One other thing for OpenNTF: in December 2005 I was ready to kill my project: I’d had enough. I attended LS06, saw the interest in OpenNTF (and indeed in my project*), and I was re-invigorated.
You can’t put a price on that.
* - Oh, and the reason the next version took me so damn long was because of the sh! t day job sucking the life out of me—nothing to do with OpenNTF!! :o)
OpenNTF is doing a large part of Lotus' job. All the people who contribute do this as open source. Which is a good thing in itself. And they are building applications on top of Notes and Domino. This is growing both the recognition of the product and the ecosystem around it.
If I were the GM of Lotus Software, I would give OpenNTF credit for this. On stage, in the opening session of Lotusphere. It only needs one slide, one word: OpenNTF.org. And one big thank you. This will cost 30 seconds of speech. And half a minute of applause. That would be a minute well spent.
It would certainly have more long-term benefit than my putting Ray up on stage at LS05 did :-)
*OK, it was a combined effort of Sandra Marcus, Mike Shamrell, Kristin Keene, me, and the Groove PR team.
@Ben,
Nothing like seeing DominoWiki on the big screen 'eh? I love covering DominoWiki in my User Group presentations as DominoWiki is a first class app. You and the team rock!
Great idea Volker :-)
Very similar post a couple of years ago
In the last year or so, I have seen OpenNTF.org being mentioned much more in the Notes-related Usenet groups. Often when people ask for solutions or ask bigger questions, they now get pointed to OpenNTF for templates to look at, or to get a particular solution.
Most of those users seems to be a Non-programmer put in charge of Notes, or someone with no Notes development experience. They are basically looking for canned solutions.
Go Yanks!
The OpenNTF session was great!! Bruce did a wonderful job and the chefs are excellent. Sad to hear that it won't be available.
Has anyone said there won't be a jamfest this year? It rocked last year! I think a one-night stint would work out better - not sure how many people went the second night. I didn't get to make it the second night.
Jamfest even sounds funny... :-)
Indeed. This was not typical for the event though. For those who do not recognize the lead singer, it's her!
@Volker - I totally agree with a brief mention during the opening session with an opportunity for the community to show our thanks to everyone involved at OpenNTF.org . I don't think that they'll get 30 seconds of applause... I think that it will be much more!
