Moments ago at Admin2011, I had the privilege to announce the 2011 crop of IBM Champions for Lotus Software and IBM Collaboration Solutions. These fifty represent strong evangelists, community contributors, knowledge sharers, and all around good people from the Lotus community worldwide. We received many more nominations than we had slots available for Champions, so being selected represents real IBM recognition of your efforts.
The Champions are:
| Adam Brown Bill Malchisky Bruce Elgort Carlos Casas CC Liew Chris Miller Chris Toohey Daniel Recio David Leedy David Stephens | Declan Lynch Eileen Fitzgerald Eric Mack Femke Goedhart Francie Tanner Gabriella Davis Giuseppe Grasso Handly Cameron John Head Julian Robichaux | Kenio Carvalho Lidia Vikulova Lisa Duke Marie Scott Mark Leusink Mathew Newman Matt White Mikkel Heisterberg Mitch Cohen Mitsuru Kato | Nathan T Freeman Paul Mooney Paul Withers Rob Bontekoe Rob Novak Sanjaya Kumar Saxena Serdar Basegmez Sharon Bellamy Simon Vaughn Sjaak Ursinus | Steve Pitcher Stuart McIntyre Theo Heselmans Thomas Duff Tim Tripcony Ulrich Krause Warren Elsmore Yancy Lent Yoshihiro Matsuo Yoshio Maruyama |
As a selection committee, we tried hard to balance this group. Champions were selected from every major world geography, the "nerd girls" represent, and some of the Champions were selected from work on a broad array of products (not just Lotus Notes/Domino).
I am very pleased with the community's efforts to nominate the best of the best and my colleagues' devotion to making the best selections from among those nominations. Thank you to all of our Champion program selectees, we appreciate everything you do to help us all succeed together.
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- 2
Patrick Kwinten http://quintessens.wordpress.com | 6/22/2011 12:51:26 PM
@Mark Leusink: congratulations!
Who is rookie of the year? =)
- 3
Nathan T. Freeman http://ntf.gbs.com | 6/22/2011 12:53:00 PM
Man, you guys REALLY like people who run LUGs. :-)
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Sergio Ramos | 6/22/2011 1:07:34 PM
Congratz to everyone! To the new selected Champions, to averyone who was nominated, to all persons who take a time to nominate someone, and the team who selected them.
btw. is there any latin american champion selected ?
- 5
Roland Driesen http://www.silverside.nl/ | 6/22/2011 1:08:49 PM
Congratulations to all my Lotus friends i have had the pleasure working with. Specially proud of the number of Champions from The Netherlands and Belgium.
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Sjaak Ursinus http://Www.socialsoftwareblog.nl | 6/22/2011 1:23:22 PM
Congratz to all the nominated peeps. Thank you IBM for the recognition.
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Vitor Pereira http://www.vitor-pereira.com | 6/22/2011 1:36:50 PM
@Nathan, they're important both for IBM and people in the community who can't go to ibmsphere :)
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Sean cull http://Www.seancull.co.uk | 6/22/2011 2:18:23 PM
@7 + 1
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Nathan T. Freeman http://ntf.gbs.com | 6/22/2011 2:52:26 PM
@7 - I wasn't being critical. Just observing. I can't think of a LUG off the top of my head that isn't represented.
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Edwin Dekkers http://www.ilionx.com | 6/22/2011 2:52:49 PM
Great work Champions, congratz! And especially proud on Sjaak Ursinus, our colleaque and other Dutch champions Femke and Mark. Enjoy...
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Vitor Pereira http://www.vitor-pereira.com | 6/22/2011 3:03:32 PM
@10 - I didn't think you were. You don't use a smiley when you are and you are usually much more vocal ;)
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Vitor Pereira http://www.vitor-pereira.com | 6/22/2011 3:08:58 PM
@9 - Yeap, Kenio is down in Brasil. Geography was an important factor, eh?
- 14
Vitor Pereira http://www.vitor-pereira.com | 6/22/2011 4:20:44 PM
@3 after a close look, not as much as universities.
- 15 Adam Brown | 6/22/2011 5:59:48 PM
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Adam Brown http://www.isw.com.au | 6/22/2011 9:25:08 PM
Well this is a very nice surprise to wake up to today. Thank you IBM and thank you to my professional colleagues and friends around the world that are part of this awesome community. I feel humbled & proud to be listed with such a group of high caliber people.
- 17
Bill Geimer | 6/22/2011 10:28:16 PM
Whomever had the idea for this list, it is a really great one.
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Mark Leusink http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/m.leusink | 6/23/2011 2:01:02 AM
It feels good to be recognized and I'm proud to be on this list with all those great names from the community!
@5, @11 and others: thank you and congratulations to all other champions (especially those from The Netherlands and Belgium - I guess this proves IBM/Lotus is still going strong there too).
- 19
Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 6/23/2011 7:25:07 AM
Congrats to the Champs! I recognize about a 3rd of the names and the value they provide to the community is invaluable. I will check out the other names I don't recognize.
Also I like Nathan's Job Profile on Developer Works "VP of Awesome" :)
sweet!
- 20
Kenio Carvalho http://www.plansis.com.br/blogkenio | 6/23/2011 1:09:08 PM
I am proud to have been chosen. It's great to be recognized.
Congratulations to all and thanks for the recognition.
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Kenio Carvalho http://www.plansis.com.br/blogkenio | 6/23/2011 1:13:39 PM
@9 Yes i live in Brazil
- 22
Greg Browne | 6/23/2011 3:23:50 PM
I'm not an IBMer but do take an interest in social and collaboration software so it is great to see that collaboration evangelist, Stuart McIntyre, recognised for the great work he does, especially on TWIL.
- 23
Carlos Casas http://about.me/carloscasas | 6/23/2011 8:52:08 PM
Ed- thx to you and you're team for the honor and nominations. You can depend on me for keeping it real and in-line with my customers as they are who we, at the RockTeam, ultimately represent. Special shoutouts to the Rockers -> Rob Kirkland, Dorothy Burke, Patricia Kirby Gibler, Patience Rockey, Ken Wachs, Leigh Weber, and Dave McGurgan for giving me the bandwidth to evangelize our small but proud education center, consultancy, and products. <oscar music>thank you!!</oscar music>
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Carlos Casas http://about.me/carloscasas | 6/23/2011 8:53:02 PM
...And congrats to the rest of the 2011 class. :-)
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David Stephens http://www.avnet.com | 6/24/2011 12:05:27 AM
I am honored and humbled to be a part of this list. Thank you Ed and IBM for giving me the tools to make a nice career. I look at so many names on this list as my heroes in the Lotus space. So many have inspired me to make life different for those that I come in contact with. Congratulations to all and thank you to so many who have lived out communication, collaboration and coordination.
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Stuart McIntyre http://blog.collaborationmatters.com | 6/24/2011 6:35:49 AM
I am hugely surprised and honoured to be included in this list.
What an incredible demonstration of the variety, geographical spread and strength of this 'Lotus' community it is. Thanks to Joyce and the rest of the team for their exhaustive effort to pull the program together.
Actually, both Joyce Davis and Luis Benitez took the time out to appear on This Week in Lotus yesterday to talk about the Champion program, the selection process and the nominees. The show has just been published... { Link }
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Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 6/24/2011 11:59:37 AM
Congrats to everyone involved. Carrying the torch is a lot of work, it's nice to see you getting the recognition from IBM you deserve.
- 28
David (The Notes Guy in Seattle) http://thenotesguyinseattle.com | 6/25/2011 1:13:24 AM
While most of us already informally recognize these people as huge contributors, it is great that IBM would formally recognize these non-IBM employees for the value they add. This adds credibility to our community and will encourage the rest of us to strive to achieve more. Congratulations to all of you!
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Lidia Vikulova http://effective-web-collaboration.blogspot.com/ | 6/27/2011 4:04:29 AM
Hello, Thanks again for being among the 50 Champions.
Congrats to everybody in the list!
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Paul Graham http://www.crossware.co.nz | 6/28/2011 10:47:43 PM
Congratulations to the IBM Champions from the Crossware Team in New Zealand. Thanks to all of you for your working in keeping the Lotus Community together and organising the great LUG events around the world!!
Very good choice!!! :-) I don't know all the people on the list but those I know all have very well earned their title (and I am sure all the others do as well) --> Congrats to all of them!!! :-)