Lotusphere 2008: Opening Session (Collaborative Thinking)

Rough notes from this morning's keynote:

Mike Rhodin

Theme around "emergence".
Three styles of collaboration: document-centric, people-centric and community-centric
Community-centric is what drives the next generation of workers
Need to re-tool the enterprise by providing workers with tools they use before they entered the workforce
But, you need to do so in a way that fits the enterprise - security, compliance, etc.
Innovation and growth critical - talent initiatives are much more critical due to shifting workforce demographics
Social software - KM coming around again (telling an old story in new ways)
Self-organization - communities form.
People as a search filtering mechanism for filtering information needs - not about search, but about discovery
Spin around multi-tasking and context (setting up the old argument of a model view controller UI paradigm, ugh) - agree on the need to coordinate and pivot around information needs - need for context and situational applications, as well as mobile aspects but not the all-in-one-live-in-my-app-only line of thinking)
Composite applications - (portal UI re-packaged) - mashups as a productivity accelerator.
Setting up the argument for Symphony (money diverted into Office, etc).
SAP news: "Atlantic" ... first joint software product between the two - access SAP information from Lotus desktop. 4Q08. Leave, travel expense processing from Lotus Notes. Workflow.
Demo: Atlantic plug-in brings SAP data into Notes.

Alistair Rennie

Jeff Eisen (client), Russ Hoden (server): Version 8: Notes 8 UI improvements, open client, mentions Sametime Unyte ... DWA re-architecture ... iPhone support ... Notes on Linux and on Mac (beta now), Domino - admin, storage, compression,
Demo: Sametime Unyte called out. Google gadget integration, widgets can be shared via a catalog or email. Widgets can live in sidebar. Policies to manage widget distribution. I wonder if there is any security check on widgets as they are e-mailed around or before they are posted into a catalog. Widgets can be the front-end to a web service. DWA "light mode" - demo of Apple integration.
Domino 8.5: betted ID management, opening up Domino Directory, new data store (reduce mail file store, attachments, etc), Lotus Protector for e-mail security, Domino Design for Web 2.0 applications, reskin existing applications
Demo: Designer improvements, new design elements, etc. Built on Eclipse so other plug-ins can be supported.

Kevin Cavanaugh

Lotus Symphony, 400K downloads, performance improvements, language versions and UI improvements based on community feedback. Developer capabilities coming in next beta.

Bruce Morris

Happy 10th anniversary for Sametime
Celina and Carestream discussion re: unified communications and collaboration
Review of events (e.g., acquisition of Webdialogs), Sametime Entry, Sametime Standard)
Sametime Advanced and Sametime Unified Telephony
Sametime Advanced: community features, broadcast features (polling), Skilltap, persistent chat rooms (similar to Parlano/Microsoft), share files within chat room, screen sharing between people,
Sametime Unified Telephony: integrating multiple phone systems into one user experience - aggregates presence - external telephone integration so now a traditional phone call "call the PC" ... rules support ... redirect calls (from the phone to your mobile cell) ...

Larry Bowden

Added accelerators for portal (collaboration, learning, content, etc)
Now focusing on industry accelerators (vs. general productivity etc)
New dashboard builders (Cognos, etc)
Seems like mashup technologies being positioned to re-energize portal interest ...
Demo: Lotus Connections integration with portal, ajax, atom integration; rich content in portal, can "tear away" portlet and video continues to run; drag and drop within portal (e.g., take search results and drag onto a form to populate fields); customized forms, web based designer; dashboard framework makes it easier to build dashboard applications;

Jeff Schick

Quickr and Connections discussion; Quickr 8.1 shipping in March; integration with Lotus Notes, Symphony and Outlook, will eventually integration with backends FileNet P8 and IBM CM8 products;
Demo: Quickr - personal space - feed support - search - revised UI - integration with Windows file explorer - integration with Lotus Connections info (profiles) - new features include: stream of updates, watch lists, ratings for documents, tags for files, transfer files into ECM, leverages Connections for Activities, media library such as podcasts but also perhaps simulating a corporate Youtube -
Version 2 integrates with a broader variety of tools from other vendors, implements attention management capbilities, revised "front page" that gives more of a dashboard / destination view of social relationships and contacts
Demo: Lotus Connections Homepage - updates from colleagues, support for widgets to be added (Yahoo Answers) - federated search to consolidate results across Connections components - integration with Quickr personal files, aggregates recent posts and other social contributions, profiles allow you to manage invitations from others - improved Community features (adding discussion forum, save chats into forum) - communities can integrate with Socialtext and Atlassian for wiki spaces within community
Demo: Atlas - examines interaction patterns - visually maps out network structure - expert demo - can view "connectedness" and best way to reach that person - best path to contact someone.
Mashups: IBM Lotus Mashups: lightweight environment - graphical, browser-based tool designed to be used by business users. Mashup catalog. Ratings. Tagging. Commentary. Based on standards (but not defined what standards are being used) - can deliver them in Notes, WebSphere, other sites.
Demo: Drag and drops of feeds (interesting angle to take on the demo since IBM has no underlying feed syndication platform). Can wire widgets together but no info on how wired - what "standard" is there for wiring widgets?).

Mike Rhodin

Lotus Foundations: pre-packaged solutions containing infrastructure and applications - fast to deploy/configure - acquiring Net Integration Technologies which will help in this segment - other providers can integrate with Foundations
"Bluehouse" - project to serve companies with less than 500 employees - will extend/compliment Foundations - sharing contacts, projects, files, etc - SaaS play. Marketplace for SMB. Partners can participate and integrate.
Software and SaaS = Foundations + "Bluehouse"
Demo: "store and share" information ... contact management (looks like a work-in-progress clone of Plaxo or LinkedIn or Xing)
Closing remarks