Lotusphere mop-up; then I’ll shut up

Rather than write a series of blog posts of ever-diminishing interest (for me and for you), I thought a final Lotusphere round up would make sense.

First up, Doug Heintzman. He's the director of Lotus Strategy. We talked about the market for collaboration software, top to bottom. I mentioned the bottom last week. But, at the top, he talked about the Enterprise Adaptability practice: something that materialised after the last Lotusphere. The most interesting bit, for me, was the toolkit that it provides its practitioners for studying the social networking patterns in enterprise and using it to help build an ROI case. I asked him what parameters were measured, hoping to get a checklist for you, and was rewarded with a verbal finger wag. Something to do with the huge intellectual property value in the patterns that emerge. Drat and double drat. If you're interested in learning more, start here.

Okay. I've given up trying to find the next thing online. It was a brilliant use of the 'Crocodile Dundee in New York' scene where Dundee has headed for the subway to get out of Sue's life. She's dumped her fiancé and wants Dundee. The scene is the one in the subway where she wants to get a message to Dundee that she wants him back. Verbal messages are transmitted up and down the crowded platform until he clambers over the heads of the passengers for a reunion. Aaaah. You can see the clip on YouTube, but it hasn't got the IBM punchline. I tell you, if that's a real ad', aimed at real people, IBM/Lotus has hit a hole in one. Sean Poulley, the host of the session claimed that the nine collaborative tools being offered will be "competitively priced with meeting-only services". Interesting.

I'd wager that Casey Dugan was the most enthusiastic person at the event. She was showing off Beehive – a social networking site where people can reveal stuff about their personal lives as well as maintain professional connections. It has 50,000 users inside IBM so it is clearly of value to this substantial minority. It lives behind the firewall, which is less risky than public services. It's still a research project at the moment but you can grab more details here.

I think that's enough for one year about Lotusphere, except to say that some things made me unhappy. My Linux/Firefox netbook wouldn't render my agenda properly. And I'd have liked a single sign on to the three different IBM services I was trying to use: the analyst site, the LotusLive site and the Lotusphere site. And, as for responsiveness, getting hundreds, maybe thousands of people trying to hit the access points and networks at the same time was a recipe for disaster. I gave up early and took to wandering round carrying bits of paper and having face-to-face conversations with real live people. Much more fun.

Now I'm taking a break. See you in a few weeks.