Back from Lotusphere 2012 …

… and boy are my arms tired.  Sorry, after 5 days of talking, technology, and tramping back and forth betwixt Dolphin, Swan and wherever, I don’t have energy for any better humor.

My impressions of the show?  Smaller than in recent years, but I would say with better energy.  The “no panels, more demos” OGS set the tone for a more active Lotusphere.  The social business message definitely seemed to be catching on … it was part of almost every conversation.

I say “almost” because there are still lots of customers who want to move directly ahead with communications, particularly video.  Social business is great, but there is so much culture wrapped up in that, I think many organizations see it as a transformational step, which takes time.  Meanwhile, we all know how to do instant messaging and meetings – adding video to that is not a big culture step.  I sat in on some of the video-related talks given by my colleagues and every one was packed – no question people want to have video on their desktops, sooner the better.

My private cloud talk went well, but have to say there was not a big crowd in attendance.  I think some other cloud talks were in the same boat.  Anyway, that’s ok.  There were some important partners there, so the message got out to them – several came up to me and said “That’s exactly what I want to do – how I can I offer that service?”  My bet is, 5 years from now, or maybe less, all UCC will be delivered this way and we’ll all wonder why we ever did it any other way.

Closing thoughts .. had a great dinner at Bluezoo, I ordered their dancing fish:

Really enjoyed Michael J. Fox – just happened to watch BTTF 2 day before I went to Orlando and I remember thinking, this is just a great movie – fun and clever.  His talk was the same – fun but heartfelt, and with a great message of optimism.

Then finally, at Ask the Developers, got to share my turn-ons (science fiction) and turn-offs (internet censorship) with the whole show and, by extension, the entire internet.  If there had been any Sametime questions would have gladly answered them, but us non-Notes/Domino developers have to take what we can get.