Ed Brill

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1. 1  Tim Latta  | 1/24/2006 1:15:35 PM

   Yes, nice as a track manager to see the demand. As an attendee, it begins to bring back nightmares of overflows and double overflows and repeats of years past. Has the pre-survey of session interest not panned out as how the room leveling was implemented?

1. 2  Jonathan Walkup http://www.thewalkups.net/weblogs/jonsworld.php | 1/24/2006 2:01:12 PM

   Yes, there must be a heck of a lot of admins here this week. You have to be in the ID sessions 10 minutes early to get a seat.

1. 3  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 1/24/2006 3:43:21 PM

   @1 pre-survey doesn't always map, no. But it was used to schedule repeats and assign some rooms... just amazing to see some of the actual behavior.

   Also, look at the Frappr -- only had 300 out of 6000 people join it.

1. 4  Andres Gorostidi http://www.gorostidi.net | 1/24/2006 8:33:02 PM

   Ed, if session that you managed were full, I can not imagine what will happen on the one you are as speaker....

   I am willing to attend tomorrow at "The Boss loves lotus"...:-)

1. 5  Jeff Picco  | 1/25/2006 4:01:35 PM

   Ed,

   First off, it's nice to finally see you on stage instead of just the partner forum. Second, it is very encouraging to see how packed the sessions are. ID122: Sametime 7.5 and Beyond was so packed I had to stand up against the back wall with a few hunder others. What Lotus is doing with the product is very exciting on both the client and the meeting services side. I can't wait to deploy it.

   Thanks,

   Jeff

1. 6  Jonathan Walkup http://www.thewalkups.net/weblogs/jonsworld.php | 1/29/2006 12:36:52 AM

   Ed, I heard from a few places that there were quite a number of session applications turned down for Lotusphere this year - that is undeniably a good thing. Along with the news that they sold out the backpacks they had set aside for onsite registrations (perhaps anecdotal, but a good story nonetheless) and the fact that they ran out of Lotusphere water on Thursday (I personally witnessed them using "plain" bottled wateer in the Swan) it is a good sign of the returning strength in the Lotus community.

   However, I was surprised in retrospect that so many speakers seemed to pop up again and again. Not that I don't enjoy Bob Balaban's talks immensely, but it almost seems like you could have gone to the Sphere this year and only been in sessions he presented :-)

   I'd like to put in an early vote for as diverse a set of speakers as possible next year. I can't imagine that someone who has two or three presentations to work on can devote as much time to getting them right as someone who only has one to give. I'm also curious about how many of the speakers this year were new to Lotusphere. Do you track that?

   (And yes, I'm the irritating guy who brought up the issue of the Lotus blogging community being too "insular" in the bloggers BOF :-) More voices is always better, IMHO)

1. 7  Christopher Byrne http://www.controlscaddy.com/ | 1/30/2006 10:28:01 AM

   @6 Jonathan,

   I would like to address a couple of your thoughts here. At one time I thought he blogging community was insular, until I started blogging and interacting with other memebers of the community. I found it to be just the opposite and in fact opened many doors for me personally and professionally. This would include being invited to speak at Lotusphere this year and last, as well as writing for a number of publications.

   I would be curious as to what you mean by diversity of speakers? Do you mean traditional measures such as race and gender? Do you mean where they are from geographically? or do you mean topics/sessions presented?

   I would not want the job of track manager, having to whittle down submitted abstracts. But there is a finite number of slots and space available. And there are sessions that "sell out" repeatedly and draw rave reviews (such as Ed's and Bill Buchan's sessions), and will always be hits.

   Perhaps a way of reframing this question is one I have sometimes pondered about this and other conferences. Does rep[eatedly having the same session offerings have an impact of people not coming back because of a "been there, done that session" mentality?

   There is also the flip-side of evaluating speakers that, as a track manager, you do not know. I know Ed brought this up in a session, but if someone totally unknown submits an abstract, what is the risk of accepting that speaker/abstract.

   You also have to look at your blog and see what it is you do to break the perception of "insularity". You have six entries on your blogroll. You cannot view blogging as a "build it and they will come" type activity. You have to let people know you are out there. It is all about networking and community building.

   Just a few rambling thoughts...

1. 8  Chris Miller http://www.IdoNotes.com | 1/30/2006 10:51:34 AM

   @6 Jonathan - I am not sure how to take this one. The speakers put enormous time and effort into making the sessions "right" as you put it. It is not only in the material but in the presentation of the material itself.

   I find it hard to believe that Bob did over 30 sessions, even though I know he is talented and people like his talks. I agree with Chris here, what sort of diversity are you wishing for?

1. 9  Jonathan Walkup http://www.thewalkups.net/weblogs/jonsworld.php | 1/30/2006 1:15:38 PM

   @6 Christopher - My comments about diversity were not meant to imply that IBM was somehow being racist or sexist in its selection of speakers. I was simply trying to point out that more different voices would be better.

   I also would not like to be a track manager. I have the highest respect for the work that managers like Ed and Rocky put into filling their tracks. I think they did an excellent job (but not perfect) and deserve our appreciation for what was, for me at least, the best Sphere in 6 years.

   I think the "been there, done that" problem is not that bad. Usually there is enough new stuff at Lotusphere, and enough of the old standbys that you could fill your plate 10 times over without getting enough.

   As far as looking to my blogroll to get an idea of how "insular" one can be, I don't think it's really a fair comparison. I am (obviously) much more of a reader and/or lurker than a writer. I don't think that the length of the list on the side of your page necessarily represents how "connected" you are.

   @8 Chris - I was certainly not trying to criticize individual speakers. I was in your LDAP session and would have been in your hands-on SMTP session if there was room. I was in only a couple of sessions (out of 30 I went to) that were not useful to me, and I don't think either of those were from speakers who had repeats. I would say, however, that the ones that I attended that were the most technical, the most in-depth, were being presented by people that only had one session. YMMV, of course.

1. 10  Christopher Byrne http://www.controlscaddy.com/ | 1/30/2006 1:37:39 PM

   @9 - Jonathan,

   I think you missed the point of my comments:

   1. Diversity, I am just trying to get a better understanding of what you meant by speaker diversity. The traditional measure in the work world is race and sex (I seed to be an EEO officer in my work life). Remember when Rich asked the question about Panel diversity in the Blog panel and it was followed up on the the BOF? Again, how would you define "different voices"? My co=speaker was a first time speaker and we presented on a topic usually not seen in any of the Lotuspheres that I have been to. She did an awesome job and heck, met every possible form of diversity definition: female, Canadian (have to let them in occasionally), older than 40 (forgive me for saying that:-), and presented a very different topic/viewpoint. The reviews we got applauded this topic being part of the agenda, with one person saying "More, more, more!".

   2. The blog rolls we maintain and cross maintain can indeed be a fair measure of insularity, no matter how you define the term. If insular means "closed community" and one has not taken the efforts to reach out to the community (either by adding blogs read as a lurker to your own blog roll or by letting people know about your own blog so they can add it to theirs), then the finger of "insularity" can only point inward. So can you clarify how you are defining insular?

   If I remeber correctly, I think you may have said (in the BOF) that you were thinking of it in terms of the dictionary definition of "Circumscribed and detached in outlook and experience; narrow or provincial." That being said, do we go outside of the Lotus community? Sure we do. In my case I link to blogs in the MS Community, the trade magazines, as well as an author or two. And I think a number of bloggers in the Lotus community do the same thing. It is not displayed as a measure of "connectedness", but as pointers to other views/insights (not all the same).

   Ramble, ramble on I go...

1. 11  Jonathan Walkup http://www.thewalkups.net/weblogs/jonsworld.php | 1/30/2006 2:13:15 PM

   @10 Christopher - kudos to hte "diversity" of your session. I was simply referring to different speakers, not race/gender issues. My definition of "different voices" is pretty simple: not the same person twice.

   I'm fairly certain I didn't define my concern clearly enough in the BOF, and I wasn't really criticizing so much as asking the question of "how can the community avoid the problem" (at least that is what I was thinking). I was really looking for suggestions and trying to encourage others to look for good blogs outside the Lotus "circle".

   So, to ask the question in a differnt way: "What blogs that are out of the 'mainstream' of Domino blogs do you read that help you in your Domino work?" Maybe it's a VB blog, maybe it's the Daily WTF?, whatever.