December 28th, 2008
The year ahead
Not wanting to do a year end review like everyone else, I thought I'd look ahead. I recently received an invitation to attend a "Break your Resolutions" party in NYC in early January. It seemed like such an absurd expenditure (although most of it is being done with FF miles), that I decided to do it. What with the economy in the gutter, my 401K so potentially toxic that I haven't even looked at it since about March, the insecurity of any job, and the general gloom and doom spewing from the TV news channels, I decided to turn to the only thing that's helped me in the past - humor. And possibly stupidity.
The last time the economy was really really bad in the 1980s, I worked at a major electric utility. We had layoffs, we had management resistance to change, we were scared and cynical it felt a lot like now. What I did back then was to take over a struggling underground PROFS newsletter called "Friday's Note" and proceeded to publish a weekly broadcast of management and employee foibles and fun, risking promotions and employment because people thanked me for writing it and for the sheer joy of walking down the hallway on Friday morning to watch my colleagues laughing out loud at a green-screened terminal. We got through it. (Side note - I got through it still employed only because of friends in high places and a CEO who actually read and liked the newsletter.)
Flash forward to now. It's grim out there, and many - maybe most of us are worried about things. Each week brings news via LinkedIn updates of another friend or colleague who has changed jobs. None of us really knows if we're going to be essential to our companies in the near term. Blogs have taken the place of underground newsletters, so there are things to read when we need humor, but its still not easy to stay positive.
So next year awaits at the end of this week. Awesome - it's about time. Whether you like it or not, political change has come to the US. Change is different, its good. The economy will do what it does, most of us will try to spend less, do what we can to keep money trickling in. Me? I am working hard to remind myself that I can control only one thing - me. I'm older than the last time the economy tanked, but still worry doesn't help, so I'm just working harder to learn more stuff. I've had a line from a song called "Watusi" stuck in my head for a month or so now. It was written by good friend, songwriter, storyteller, and singer Michael Reno Harrell. and goes:
"People say time flies when you're having fun
Hey - it flies if you have fun or not
So blow out your candles and give me a call
And we'll dance till we both drop" *
So find me on the 2nd weekend in January in NYC, breaking my resolutions, then find me in Orlando on the 3rd Saturday in January where I'll be preparing to work hard at Lotusphere, and in the evenings will be breaking my resolutions and maybe dancing the Watusi.
* "Watusi", from the CD, The River , Michael Reno Harrell, 2007
October 17th, 2008
Here’s your chance - talk back about Notes C&S
I get a lot of feedback from you when I do presentations on Notes C&S, particularly when I do them at places like the upcoming Admin2008 Europe conference. Mary Beth's team has been incredible at seeking your input at places like Lotusphere also. One item that almost always comes up when I talk to you is categories in Calendars and the colors that are offered.
The design team is asking for guidance on these issues right now - so go fill out this survey and send a link to all of the admin assistants in your companies who work with Calendars every day - Link to survey here
September 15th, 2008
DDM Survey
The Lotus Domino Admin Developer team is looking for input from YOU. Go over here and respond if you have a forum ID.
http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/nd8forum.nsf/DateAllThreadedWeb/0805852bf7efd436852574c4007073c9?OpenDocument
If you don't have a forum ID, you can answer here - at my blog and I will forward the info to the Admin team. Do it , please.....
The Domino Admin team is collecting information on the usage of Domino Domain Monitoring (aka DDM) by our customers. Please take a moment to answer the following two questions to help us improve the usefulness of this feature for you:
1) How would you characterize your use of DDM?
A. What's DDM?
B. I tried it but don't really use it.
C. I use it occasionally.
D. I use it all the time and rely on it to help keep my domain running smoothly.
2) What improvements to DDM would provide the most value to you? Please pick your top 3:
A. Make it easier to get notified of DDM events via mail, pager, etc.
B. Make probe configuration easier and more intuitive.
C. Make it easier to filter out uninteresting DDM reports.
D. Improve the workflow for DDM events (e.g., assigning owners, tracking changes made, etc.)
E. Make it possible to assign a priority to DDM events and then view & filter them based on priority.
F. Automate the corrective actions, allowing DDM to automatically fix problems when they are detected.
G. Other: please specify
Feel free to include any other feedback re: DDM usability and how we can make it work better for you.
July 17th, 2008
Happy Trails
Well, my pal, fellow Foodie, co-presenter extraordinaire, second-favorite redhead and former co-worker Kathleen has decided to make the jump away from the mother ship. She tells of her plans here: http://kmcgivney.typepad.com/kathleen_mcgivney/2008/07/ch-ch-changes.html. I was lucky enough to know it was coming, so didn't have to pick myself off the floor when she announced this morning. Since we only see each other at big life events and Lotusphere, our relationship isn't going to change, except she finally managed to do something nobody else has...she made be actually USE twitter this morning. We'll still be texting, emailing, chatting and yes, even twittering.....So wish her the best over at her site.
Kat - study the concept of escape velocity - it didn't work for you last time, maybe this time.
June 24th, 2008
Go get this - Swiftfile
This little jewel has been one of my favorite tools since it came out - and I can't remember what release it was. Swiftfile is shipped on the CDs for the Notes client. However, almost nobody I know gets the CDs, and its been a little hard to find - until now. Two new technotes tell you all about it, and even give you a link to an ftp site to grab it. No registration, no strings attached, just grab it. Do it now.
Download Link - links to ftp site
Information Link - has instruction, release notes, everything - but its simple.
If you've never tried it, you need to. You may hate it, you may love it. If you hate it, simply remove or disable it. What it does is this: If you have folders in your mail file (and I know some people don't) it will analyze the contents of all of the folders, then it will present a list of 3 folders that it thinks you may use to file that document. The list is at the top of each document, and you can select one of them, or if it guesses wrong, you can use the regular buttons to file it.
Now I know what you're thinking - but you're probably wrong. It doesn't use email address only, it doesn't use subject only, it's not a full-text index. It uses some combination of everything in a magical, mysterious AI function to guess - and most of the time, its on target. The program is small, the index is small, its easy to use and its free to add on to Notes.
Any of you who know me knows that 'organized' is not a word that is used to describe me unless there's a 'dis' in front of it. This little toy actually let me clear my inbox out once during a cross-country flight. I use it all the time.
Just try it - let me know how ya like it.
May 4th, 2008
Twittering - or just a twit?
I am back from Admin2008 and relatively recovered from the now expected travel trauma involving late or cancelled flights and unexpected overnight stays. I enjoyed seeing everyone, attendees both familiar and and new, speakers, colleagues and the View staffers. I noticed something in Boston that I had noticed recently at Kat and Atom's wedding - and it's starting to annoy me - a little around the edges plus, it makes me sad.
It's Twitter. Or maybe its just certain twits (defined by real dictionaries alternately as an annoying person or someone who is regarded as contemptible see also fool, twerp.) I think I 'get it' about Twitter - a little, but I can't really get into it. It helps with the isolation that many of us who are solo, virtual workers feel. So from that point of view, its the virtual water cooler - so I don't think I'm so old that I don't get what people like about it. But the line crosses quickly and it seems relatively often from social networking into simple twitdom.
Our business - the technology business most of us are in attracts nerds, no doubt. I've worked to try and keep a healthy balance between nerd and human, to avoid the really sad specter of just becoming a stoop-shouldered keyboarder who stares into the screen all night instead of actually walking into the yard to talk to neighbors and friends. It's easier to not have to make eye contact, interact, have to shower and wear clean clothes maybe. But I'm not so introverted that I can stay in that place - if I were, I wouldn't have the brass to step onto stage and think anyone cared what I have to say. Plus, I get yelled at if I stay in front of the computer when not working - and maybe we should all get yelled at. I am getting to my point.
At Kat and Atom's wedding, there was a fabulous reception, great food and music and dancing. I was sitting at the table at one point and looked around and noticed that the girls were on the dance floor just like in junior high, and the boys were at the tables. Except that they were all grown people. And the boys were twittering either with each other or people who weren't there while their beautiful wives had fun dancing and talking to each other. It seemed strange, but hey - the people there were mostly younger than me, more tattooed and pierced and I just shrugged it off as odd - or maybe me being old or not understanding the slightly 'faster' crowd. But....
At Admin2008, you saw and heard about people twittering the whole time. I even opened an account to see what John Head had typed about something I said. It was everywhere. From the stage, you could see people doing it. Where it crossed the line into twitdom and prompted this post was at the pub on Thursday night. More than a few people including vendors, speakers and paying customers went out for a few drinks after dinner and the magic show. I was talking to Yancey of planetlotus.org fame about real things and caught the sight of 1, then 2 then 3 or more guys (sorry, all guys) leaned into their various mobile devices twittering people who weren't in the room, or maybe each other. So - explain this - you go out to have a drink with pals, then ignore them and send messages to other people not there. I mentioned it to a couple of the twits/twerps/nerds, probably not nicely. So - have a sip of a drink, type "I just had a sip of my drink", stare into the screen and wait to see what other people type back at you, then type "My drink was warm", while never noticing that the person breathing the air in the space next to you would have listened too had you looked up, into their face and said something with your voice.
At one point, one of the speakers got a twitter message asking if he was worried about people twittering about him while he was on stage- his style, his content, etc....I'll answer for all of us: No. Way back when we were kids - like 2 years ago - people did that all the time - except in the halls, at the coffee breaks and in the bars. With their voices instead of their thumbs. And they wrote feedback both positive and negative on the feedback forms and we read them and made adjustments. If attendees only griped to each other or the air, the show wouldn't be the premier event it is. So no, he doesn't care nor do any of us, but I do think its rude on a ginormous scale. So what I want to know is ...Has it come to this? Human contact not necessary? Is this bothering anybody else? Is it rude? Let me know - cuz if its me, I'll just go ahead and make my reservation at the nursing home, plus get a job bagging groceries or something where eye contact is sometimes required.
May 2nd, 2008
Admin2008 - In which I try my hand at learning development
I completed my 5 sessions at Admin2008 yesterday - plus I worked the Meet the Experts on Wednesday night. I am exhausted. Several of us went for beverages last night, and then I decided to attend sessions today - so I can learn things. We all have 'stretch goals' when we set work goals, so for mine today, I decided to attend Julian Robichaux's session "How'd the Do That?" in which he shows how the ND8 templates work - by deconstructing them.
I'm an admin and it's been years since I made any claim to knowing how to develop. As a matter of fact I will say up front, any time that I am really bad at it. On about slide 23, Julian said, "Create a three-pane frameset in your target database, and if you don't know how to do that, by the time the presentation is halfway over, your head will be on fire."
He's on slide 53 and my head is on fire. I'm still trying to create a 3 pane frameset. Everybody else is asking questions and JUlian is answering them and they all seem to understand. Where am I? They might as well be speaking Klingon. Wait - they're developers - they ARE speaking Klingon! This is a humbling experience.
Julian is going to do a sample now - its pretty - I'm working on a 3 pane frameset. Why did I ever try to do this?
Wow - Julian is smart - possibly useful - in spite of being a developer. We can keep him.
April 6th, 2008
How I Got Started with Lotus Notes
In 1992, I was working in Strategic Planning at a large company. We reported to the new CEO and were tasked with getting the opinions of the great minds (the 13 SR VPs) about how to navigate what was becoming an uncertain future, using the methods outlined in The Art of the Long View. We were to set up meetings for these men to discuss the issues – but a problem arose because a lot of these people didn't like or trust each other and simply wouldn't talk in the meetings. We were getting nothing.
Our IT guy Terry suggested we use something called "Notes" and a "Discussion database". He had heard about it and played with it a little, so he grabbed a piece of hardware, loaded OS/2 and Notes 2.0 on it, shoved it into a closet, hooked up our coaxial cables and loaded up clients.
After loading the software on the VPs machines, we were able to post ideas and suggestions using our own names, and since we were staff weenies, the Veeps felt at ease arguing with us and giving their own opinions. From these responses, we were able to formulate discussion points for the later meetings which had threads of each person's ideas in them, allowing them to discuss ideas in a less tense environment, and we came up with a really good set of scenarios. After seeing the magic that this 'groupware' could perform - making these uncooperative people actually do good things, I fell in love with the product and what it could do. We didn't use it for email (we had PROFS and ccMail for that), and many of these executives had the documents printed by their Admin Assistants and dictated the answers back to the AAs, who then typed up the response documents. Much has changed, but much has not.
Two years later, I took a voluntary buy-out offer and left that company and a 13-year career as a mechanical engineer. I used the retraining package to take Lotus Notes developer classes, and took a contracting job at a bank. I hated the job, so when a recruiter called offering more money for a Notes Admin job, I called Terry and asked if he thought I could do Notes Administration. He said, "Sure, drop by my office, I'll give you the book". So with my Notes 3.0 Yellow Book in hand, I reported to duty at a place where the Notes Admin had walked off the job, left the Notes servers down, and with a shared Organizer system and something called LN:DI to run. I was in WAY over my head, but was too stubborn or dumb to admit it. I learned a whole lot in a short period of time and I never gave Terry his book back. Five years and several jobs later, I landed my dream job at Lotus (yes, my ID badge still says Lotus on it), and I've been here since then.
April 2nd, 2008
There’s more to Life than Work
My life has taken me a lot of places, but lately, I've been seeing more of the place where I spent a lot of time while growing up. I'm seeing more of my parents' home town in Georgia because I'm traveling there so often for funerals as my parent's siblings die. The reason for the trips are sad, but the reconnection with cousins has been empowering, insane, comforting and downright fun. I've driven with my parents again recently to Warm Springs for yet another aunt's funeral, as my Dad's youngest brother's wife died.
The cousins from this aunt and uncle were the ones I hung out with the most growing up. I never lived in the area because Dad and Mom left when he got out of college, but we spent every holiday I can recall there. Many of the holidays included visits from the Texas or Florida cousins and sometimes even the Kansas ones, plus all of the local ones. In all, we were the large gang of cousins from a family of 7 kids who had a bunch of us, and we gathered and roamed the fields, the branches, the fishing holes and train tracks. The family homeplace sits on country road that has very deep and fairly wide ditches on either side. Hurricane Branch runs the back of the property, and at the peak, 4 homes belonging to our family lined one side of the road and commercial timberland (read this as a large stand of future telephone poles) across the street.
We spent nights in the unheated back room at Mom-mom's house with multiple kids tossed into the bed for maximum warmth. As we got older, we got into a little more mischief here and there, but in the end, we turned into pretty darned decent, bright and successful adults who have a shared history, shared memories and a lot of love, even though we have a broad range of education, careers and homes. The visits by us mostly 'city kids' (about a dozen of us) to the rural area around Pine Mountain, GA gave us a good grounding, a chance to hurt ourselves, a chance to learn to fish and build dams, a chance for the local cousins (about the same number) to laugh at us and teach us and blame us sometimes.
Given that we are all pretty bright and have little fear, family gatherings have historically included somebody doing something memorable. I grew up with tales of Dad and the uncles catching a skunk instead of a raccoon by mistake, and getting lost on the mountaintop while hunting when they placed a light on the fire tower for direction-finding, only to realize that brilliant stars look a lot like a light on a fire tower, and many other adventures and misadventures.
My generation has a somewhat different history, as our adventures tend to involve cars in ditches and on mountainsides, inappropriate (but spectacular) use of dynamite, fire, broken car windows and broken bones and stitches Still, nobody has been killed, nobody has been wounded so badly that they couldn't be fixed, and it makes for good memories.
We now come to this most recent trip and one of the adventures. From my involvement, in this adventure, I have been able to look back at all of the others and see the patterns, and even realize the rules. I have to start with a disclaimer, because otherwise, you'll never believe it. Most of the people involved in this and all other incidents never drink anything stronger than Mountain Dew. Those of us who do drink adult beverages were stone cold sober every time. Why, you ask? Because we don't need to be drunk to do stupid stuff.
So - the rules, as I've figured them out. When you do something stupid.
Rule 1. Confess (preferably to peers, and if you're a teenager, ONLY to peers)
Rule 2. Call for help if needed. Footnote: You can only call relatives. In-laws are allowed.(And often involved)
Rule 3. Ridicule and taunt the victim.
Rule 4. Fix the problem
Rule 5. Repeat Rule 3
Rule 6. If needed, make up a story to protect the guilty. (usually needed for teenagers and it never works, because we all 'know')
As mentioned earlier, the ditches surrounding the houses are deep and wide. So much so that when you pull into a driveway or begin to leave, someone always says, "Careful! Watch the ditch!" After the funeral, a lot of us went back to my uncle's house, we all changed into our blue jeans and 'regular' shoes and started off onto adventures, roaming the hills and branches because at our ages, we figured this might be the last time we got to do this sort of thing with that many of us there. As most of the group took out on foot through the woods, I offered to drive Dad and Uncle Mack to meet them. We got into Dad's Buick, and I backed confidently and forcefully out of the front yard, directly into the ditch!
This is the first time that I got to be the idiot! Only the right rear wheel was off the dirt, but the bumper (and tailpipe) were on the opposite side of the bank and the wheel was touching nothing, and the car was tilted at an angle that hinted at the desire to roll on over....So as Daddy and Uncle Mack got out to try and fix the problem, I started obeying the rules. Uncle Mack sent one cousin to get a shovel to free the tailpipe and bumper, but I sent the nearest child into the house to tell my Mom, Aunt Betty and all the other people still inside to come look at what I did. (Rule 1 - Confess). When it became clear that the digging and the few pieces of fence weren't going to work, I went for Rule 2 - and called back the 6 or 7 other cousins - by calling one cousin's cell phone and confessing my stunt. It took them a while to get back because they rolled and howled with laughter the whole way back....and they began to enforce Rule 3 with great skill. This bunch of people ranging in age from teens to 80's fired off some of the best one-liners and wise cracks ever delivered. The wisecracks from Aunt Betty were some of the funniest. But Rule 4 was next.
Daddy had already sent one kid to find a cinder block when one of the help team just pondered the issue a couple of minutes and said, "Heck, let's just fill in the ditch." BRILLIANT! So each of this gang of mostly men grabbed a few large rocks, threw them into the ditch, placed a board across them, and with my tailpipe freed from the opposite side with the shovel and with the help of a good shove from the men, I was able to drive out of the ditch in a very unspectacular manner. Still, this IS our family and the crowd in the yard had all ducked behind other cars just in case I came out in a Dukes of Hazzard style jump (which has been done in the past). Somebody pulled a few handfuls of dirt and grass out of the tailpipe, inspected the bumper and declared it fine, the rocks and boards were returned to their starting positions, and Rule 4 was over.
With the problem fixed, Step 5 began, with continued taunting and ridiculing and laughing and understanding that we'd just spent one of the best hours ever, on an otherwise terrible day, with our family carrying on a great tradition. Within a few minutes, we were all back on our way to our original adventures of roaming and stomping around, but this time I turned the car around in the front yard and drove out forward, with 2 or 3 men out front guiding me like I was pulling a plane into the gate. I'll never live this one down. And I never want to. Knowing how it all went down, I would have done it on purpose
March 24th, 2008
A Bargain at the View Conferences this year
Well, the heads-down prep work is going on amongst the speakers for Admin2008 and Developer2008 right now as deadlines loomed and blew past us. It's hard to believe how ambitious the guys at The View are being this year. They're giving you 4 conferences for one price. The Notes 8 Upgrade seminar and the ND8 Development Seminar are going on at the same time also. You can attend sessions from all 4 if you want. I know I'm going to be attending sessions when I'm not presenting! That's not going to be very often, tho - they have me working hard this year.
I'm doing my usual C&S sessions, but this year, I'm taking a page from Mr Mooney and trying to deliver as much information as I can in 90 minutes. While the fast-talking Paul can make it through 70 tips with his "Admin Blast 2008... 70 Tips in 90 Minutes! " session, I'm going to do good to get through my "Top 25 Calendaring Tips and Tricks" in 90 minutes due to my more relaxed Southern speaking method. Still, I bet I can teach you things you don't know about C&S. I'll be doing 4 other sessions also, but I'll talk about them later.
This Friday is the last day to get discounted admission to the Seminar(s). They even offer group discounts, and the way they're cramming all the seminars together, it's a bargain at any price. So head on over and register - show your boss the website and brochures that are probably in your cube right now. You'll never get so smart for so little money again!
See you there!
