Running Notes

Category Lotusphere
I've had a really hard time pulling my thoughts together about Lotusphere. I still have so many thoughts leaping through my head and haven't completely processed any of them.

First, I love the way Lotusphere always motivates me to be better than I am. I always learn something new, and more importantly learn how many other cool things I need to learn. It's that shot in the arm to learn more, do more, blog more, tweet more (is that possible?).

Anyway, on Sunday, I had my first ever gig speaking at Lotusphere. Tom Duff and I presented “The Top Things All New IBM Lotus Domino Developers Need to Know”. I had a really great time and would highly recommend speaking to anyone. It was a fantastic experience that was nerve-racking and exhilarating. Hopefully the presentation is attached here...

On Tuesday I attended the Nerd Girls panel and the Nerd Girls BOF on Thursday (at 7AM!). As expected, this was a great experience. The big takeaway for me was the need for at least one mentor, as well as community. A mentor is important for obvious reasons. Less obvious is the fact that at least one of your mentors should be DIFFERENT than you. Someone who can provide a different outlook and opinion. For women, that can mean having a male mentor. The other important item is community. Having a group that understands you, that you can vent to, feel a common bond with. A group to which you can ask “Has anyone felt this way?” and others in the group will say “Yes!”. To that end, we've created a Nerd Girls group on Linked In, please feel free to join if you're interested. *

*Also note that none of this advice is limited to women. It could just as easily apply to any group or facet of your life. We just happen to be focusing on women. If you have a problem with that, start your own group.

Of course, I also attended some really great technical sessions. :) I tried to focus a bit more this year. In years past, I would just try to hit everything and I knew that wasn't going to work this year. Like many, I attended sessions on XPages and feel ready to jump in. I attended some Quickr and Symphony sessions, as well. As always, some really great content. I've downloaded all the slides and will spend the next several weeks trying to digest everything I saw.

I had a really great week and can't wait til next year!

Posted by Kathy Brown At 7:00 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Lotusphere Running
So sadly, @RunningNotes was a miserable failure. I still like the idea, so am hoping we can try again at some future conference. It really is fun and motivating to run with other people, and to know that they'll be out there waiting for you!

Even though we didn't meet up as a group, I still managed to run every day. Without the streak, I never would have run every day. I might not have run at all, it would have been too easy to keep telling myself “I'll run tomorrow”. On the one hand, without the streak I wouldn't have been motivated to run. On the other hand, I was definitely cursing the streak a few of those days, and could have used more sleep.

Oh well, it's Lotusphere, who needs sleep, right?

Posted by Kathy Brown At 10:20 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (6)

Category Lotusphere
This was my third Lotusphere, I attended in 2008 and 2009. Both years, I mostly hid out on my own, attended sessions and not much else. The first year, I didn't even go to the Welcome Reception, for fear of not having anyone to talk to. (Please feel free to approach me with your hand in the shape of an L placed on your forehead the next time you see me.)

What a difference a year makes. Since Lotusphere 2009, I really started blogging and tweeting. I got involved in the community, which meant I “knew” lots of people coming into this year's Lotusphere.

“The Surreal Year” started off tweeting from the airport in Manchester, NH and having Mary Beth Raven tweet back that she was on the same flight. I saved her a seat and flew down with her. We shared a cab, along with Rob McDonagh, whom I had met for the first time at IamLUG last August.

I arrived on Saturday and headed off to BALD, the Bloggers Annual Lotusphere Dinner where (surreal alert) I met my co-presenter for the FIRST TIME. Yes, that's right folks, Tom and I had never met in person until the day before we were going to present.

I had a great time meeting people in person that I had met long ago online, mostly on Twitter.

Further surreal moments -

When I presented a session AT LOTUSPHERE, twice!
When Mary Beth Raven mentioned me in the Nerd Girls panel.
When Ed Brill asked my opinion during Lotusphere Idol.
When Rob Novak called out my tweeting during his Code Giveaway session.
When I met some “stars” of Lotusphere and they knew who I was.
When some Yellebrities (yellow + celebrities = yellebrities) took off their shirts to show me their tattoos.
When I sang at Kimonos (never done karaoke before) with my back to the crowd and turned around to see half of Lotusphere had walked in to the place.

And the number one surreal moment of Lotusphere 2010:

When closing session speaker Brian Cox was sitting in Kimonos on Thursday night. I approached him for a picture, and he said I sang well!!! AND, he posed with Papa Smurf. AND he said I could take the pic if I would “twitpic it”!!!

More to follow on Lotusphere, there is just so much to write about that I had to mentally break it into chunks.

Posted by Kathy Brown At 10:31 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (12)

Category Lotusphere
Others have already blogged about the Nerd Girl panel this year at Lotusphere, so I won’t rehash the details, except to say that I went last year and it was different than I expected. I had feared it would be a man-bashing session, and it wasn’t at all. It was instead very informative, and interesting to hear about the panel and how they got where they are.

So what hasn’t been blogged about much (and isn’t at the moment on the lsonline.info site) is the Nerd Girl BOF. I missed the BOF last year, but will try my best to make it this year!

BOF: What Does It Mean To Be A Nerd Girl
Thursday, 7AM, Swan, Macaw 2

As a Nerd Girl, have you ever wondered how you get into a more technical field? Or how to move upward in your career? Or how you start writing or speaking at conferences? This BOF will give you a chance to speak with other women in the Lotus community who have experience with many of these challenging topics. Whether you want to share or you want to learn, join us as we help each other and make connections for coaching and mentoring.

Posted by Kathy Brown At 12:41 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (2)

Category Running Lotusphere
Thinking about running at Lotusphere? I will be! If you'd like to join me and several others, we'll be heading out each morning at 7AM. We can meet in front of the Atlantic Dance Hall in the Boardwalk area. The loop around the "lake" is a little under a mile.

This is completely informal. Please run at your own pace (or walk!) and run as much or as little as you would like. A few of us got together at IAMLUG to run each morning, and it was very enjoyable. Please don't be shy, feel free to join us. You don't have to be fast or "good", just willing and able! I'll probably run at a "conversational" pace and hopefully get in three laps, but we'll see how much sleep I get!

Hope to see you there!

MTA: Follow @runningnotes on Twitter for updates. Perhaps we can use that Twitter ID to communicate, in case anyone wants to meet up with other runners at other times/locations!

Posted by Kathy Brown At 11:01 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (4)

Category Lotusphere
I am thrilled beyond belief to say that I will be speaking at Lotusphere in January! I have the pleasure of speaking with Tom Duff in a Jumpstart session (Eek! Two hours!):

The Top Things All New Notes Domino Developers Need To Know

Are you a newbie developer? Are you just getting started in the world of Notes and Domino? Do you wish you had someone to tell you the top mistakes to avoid? What about the top tips you need to know to create successful applications? Join Kathy and Tom as they show you the important things all beginning developers need to know. They'll explain what they are and why you need to know them. They'll also share some stories of their past pain and mistakes and how they learned these tips the hard way, so you don't have to!

Posted by Kathy Brown At 7:25 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (7)

Category Running Lotusphere
Just noticed on the calendar that Lotusphere is a tiny bit under 9 weeks away. At IAMLUG, some of us ran together in the mornings. If you want to run at Lotusphere, you've still got time even if you don't run now!

I (and several others that I know) got started with the Couch to 5K program. The program as written takes 9 weeks to complete. Go for it and go for a run at Lotusphere!

Posted by Kathy Brown At 4:30 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (4)

Category Lotusphere
The call for abstracts recently went out for Lotusphere 2010. I clicked on the official link from the Lotusphere website to the call for abstracts page and noticed a link to registration in the upper left-hand navigation...*seems* official, but I know there was a link floating around out there before that was "unofficial".

What do you think? The real deal?

Posted by Kathy Brown At 7:06 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (8)