Location : Cleveland, OH
"Game On"
That was the theme of the Opening General Session (OGS) and it told me that this isn't going to be your father's IBM. I hope that some of the things that were presented to the Business Partners will be shared at the OGS tomorrow. What, specifically?
2007 was a year of awareness. You saw viral marketing, Lotus Collaboration Summits, and advertisements in print and on the web. 2008 will be a year of leveraging. More marketing programs to build on the awareness of the brand. This should lead to more demand generation which will, in turn, lead to more people at future Lotusphere's and more companies purchasing Lotus products.
One of the most interesting features of the OGS was the "Futures Panel." During this panel, you were witness to some of the ideas that the "Big Thinkers" at IBM are contemplating. Two of the speakers jumped out at me: Carol Jones who talked about "Life without files." Consider the proprietary file formats that you deal with, .doc, .xls, etc. What if there were no "files?" OpenOffice speaks to this. It opens pretty much everything. Why should you care about the file format? The other speaker that I found fascinating was Mary Beth Raven. She talked about the Notes Task List, or To Do's. How she, and her team, are working on new visualization techniques for managing your tasks and To Do's.
It was nice to see that while they introduced her, she really didn't need an introduction. She received a nice, warm welcome.
They closed the OGS with Steven Berlin Johnson, author of "The Ghost Map."
Before I tell you about Steven, let me tell you about what I saw on stage. Five PC's and one Mac. Every PC was being used for the demos. I was thinking, "Hey, they are going to demo some stuff on the Mac." Nope. That was the Steven's machine for his presentation.
Steven is an amazing speaker. I don't think that I have seen a author so animated, so in touch with Web 2.0 or collaboration. And while he spoke on the cholera epidemic in 1850's London, he also spoke about how two people came together to solve the puzzle and to create groundbreaking work in eradicating a terrible sickness. Specifically, how they were able to create a visual representation of the deaths, something simple, understandable, but powerful.
After hearing him, I have to read his book.
I can say that after the BDD OGS, I am extremely excited about 2008. IBM/Lotus promised solutions in 2007 and they delivered. They have set the bar high, but now, with the momentum that they have, I feel that there will be great things in 2008 in this space.
Believe it.
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