Gab Davis and Paul Mooney talk about their new Connections101.net website, a project to document the steps involved with building an IBM Connections server from scratch using a "module-based" approach. In the podcast they discuss:

* What motivated you to do this in the first place?
* What kinds of questions are customers asking about Connections?
* Is it really that complicated of a product to set up?
* What is the difference between Connections101 and the IBM wikis?
* Do Lotus Domino customers already have an entitlement to Connections?
* And much more...

You can contact Paul and Gab directly via their websites (pmooney.net and turtleweb.com) or on Twitter at @pmooneynet and @gabturtle. ...

We talked to Graham Acres, an IBM BP in Canada, about how to develop a strategy around mobilizing your applications in the enterprise. Graham discussed mobile strategies in general as well as his own personal experiences, including:

* Deciding which devices to support
* Working with users and business units
* Defining how the mobile app will work, and what it will look like
* Problems with networks, firewalls, and device settings
* Dealing with "bring your own device" policies
* Choosing a toolkit
* And more...

Graham gave a Lotusphere session on this topic, and his slides can be found at the Brytek Systems website. You can also follow him on Twitter at @gacres99. ...

Learn about Teamstudio Unplugged, a tool that helps you mobilize (as in mobile smartphones) your Lotus Domino applications. We spoke with Nigel Cheshire, president and CEO of Teamstudio, and Craig Schumann, Teamstudio senior developer, about:

* The rise of Apple and iOS in the enterprise
* The rise of XPages in the Lotus developer world
* Teamstudio's approach for adding a mobile interface to Domino apps
* Replicating data to and from a device for offline use
* Choosing a strategy for mobilizing your apps, to make sure your project is successful
* And more...
...

Today we talked with Alan Lepofsky, analyst at Constellation Research Group, about the current and future state of Activity Streams in the enterprise. Our discussion included:

* What's the difference between streams of information like Facebook and Twitter, and what we'll see in business in the coming months and years?
* Considerations about filters, and making sure important information gets seen
* How does analytics play into all this?
* Is there truly "one stream to rule them all", or does certain information need to be siloed?
* What about my inbox?!?
* Where will mobile devices fit into this picture?
* Once this all gets going, what are some of the advantages (obvious or not) with having a stream-friendly enterprise?

For more on what Alan has to say on the subject, also check out his Making Activity Streams More Manageable blog post from last week, and find him on Twitter at @alanlepo . ...

In today's show we talk about all things OpenSocial with Ryan Baxter of IBM and Mikkel Heisterberg of Intravision. We talk about:

* What is OpenSocial? How did it get started?
* How is IBM involved? How can I get involved?
* How is IBM leveraging OpenSocial?
* What is Apache Shindig and how is it connected to OpenSocial?
* What are the advantages to building OpenSocial gadgets over existing technologies? Will I be able to leverage XPages?
* How do I get started building gadgets?
* What about the community? Is there a community built around OpenSocial, should the ICS community become involved?
* How can we also leverage the OpenNTF community?
* Where else can I leverage OpenSocial outside of embedded experiences?
* What other companies are involved in OpenSocial?
* What does IBM need from the ICS community when it comes to OpenSocial?

Also, here are some links to a few of the things we discussed in the podcast: the OpenSocial website, the OpenSocial sandbox, and Ryan's Lotusphere slides. ...

We had the pleasure of interviewing IBM Collaboration Solutions General Manager Alistair Rennie, where we talked about:

* Lotusphere! Specifically, the evolution of Lotus/IBM products we saw demonstrated there last week.
* What's driving improvements in the Notes/Domino platform for 2012.
* Why is "social" so important to businesses right now? What has changed in the past few years to make it relevant?
* Are traditional desktop applications going away, in favor of mobile and web initiatives?
* What kind of feedback and takeaways did Alistair get from Lotusphere?
* And more...

The podcast runs 24:06 and is best listened to while eating a pretzel cookie. ...

Today we spoke with Joyce Davis and Colleen Burns from IBM about the upcoming Lotusphere 2012 and Connect events being held in beautiful sunny Orlando, Florida NEXT week!

We would like to thank Ken "MacOSKen" Ray for the new Taking Notes intro that he graciously produced for us. Ken produces three outstanding Apple focussed podcasts including:

* Mac OS Ken daily show
* Mac OS Ken: Live (weekly)
* Mac OS Ken: Day 6 (subscription)
* You can also hear Ken on MacBreak Weekly with Leo Laporte on occasion.

We also suggest you follow Ken on Twitter at @macosken.

Topics included:

* "Team Social" and how it can help you
* Which hashtags to use on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and more
* The Twitter scavenger hunt
* Social Cafe's at Lotusphere
* The social media aggregator
* The IBM Social Business blog
* Lotus Greenhouse Communities for Lotusphere and Connect
* When some tweetups will be and where
* The #ls12 Instagram photo stream developed by Elguji Software
* The Turtle Partnerships mobile session apps
* and much more!

See you all at Lotusphere in a few days. Oh, and we will be recording several live shows from Orlando. ...

On this episode we spoke with Michael Sampson
about his new book "Collaboration
Roadmap - You've got the technology now what?"
We talked about:

Why do companies need to develop a collaboration
...

On Episode 145 we spoke with three members of the IBM Collaboration Solutions division about the brand new IBM Connect 2012 event being held in parallel with Lotusphere 2012. Our guests were Susan Collins, Marketing Manager, IBM Collaboration Solutions and Social Business, Dan Hauenstein, Manager, Social Business Marketing Strategy and Michelle Tuttle, Market Segment Manager, IBM Collaboration Solutions.

We talked about:
* What is Connect?
* Where and when it is.
* Why you need to go to Connect.
* What kind of sessions there will be.
* Who the Connect OGS speaker will be (Awesome choice).
* Surprises people may see/hear about at Connect.
* How attendees will be "transformed" by attending this event.
* We ask about the Lotusphere OGS speaker and get an answer.
* What attendees do at IBM Connect.
and more...

Keep up with the latest on the IBM Connect conference by following the IBM Social Insights Blog or the Twitter hashtags #IBMConnect and #IBMSocialBiz. ...

With only 46 days until Lotusphere
2012 we thought we would pull
together a show with community luminaries
Andy Donaldson, Paul
Mooney and Stuart
McIntyre. Topics included:

Will this be the ...

On Episode 143 of Taking Notes we interview
IBM's Mike Riegel (@mikeriegel,
LinkedIn,
Blog),
Vice President - ISVs, Startups, Developers, and Academic Programs. We
talked about IBM's
SmartCamp p ...

Today we talked with Mark
Myers from the London
Developer Co-op about all things
NoSQL.

Topics include:

The four different types of NoSQL databases
Why the need for NoSQL
Why NoSQL has be ...

On the podcast today are Ed Brill and Pete Janzen from IBM, to talk about the release of Lotus Notes/Domino 8.5.3 as well as the new IBM XWork Server. The discussion included:

* What is the IBM XWork Server?
* Who is the target market?
* How is it licensed, and what are the restrictions?
* How much does it cost?
* What are the changes in licenses and entitlements with Domino 8.5.3?
* What are some of the architectural changes and enhancements with Domino 8.5.3?
* The OpenNTF extension library, feature packs, and extending Domino server functionality
* Anything new with Traveler?

The podcast is 38.9 MB in size and 40:30 in length. ...

In Episode 140 we sat down with Urban
Airship CEO Scott Kveton.
For those of you not familiar with Urban Airship here is what they do:

"Urban Airship powers the world's
most successful mobile ...

On this show we talk with the CEO of Appcelerator
Jeff Haynie. You may have heard of Appcelerators' Titanium development
platform.

"Titanium makes cross-platform
native application development e ...

On this episode of Taking Notes we sit
down with Rick
Turoczy the Co-Founder of the Portland Incubator Experiment
or "PIE".

In the show we talk about:

Who Rick Turoczy is and his background ...

On this episode we talk with IBM's Jim
Quill and Phil Riand about the forthcoming relational database support
for XPages coming with Domino 8.5.3 and the OpenNTF Extension Library.
We cover:

Wh ...

In this episode of Taking Notes we spoke
with IBMers Dave Delay and Phil Riand about the forthcoming REST API's
for Domino and XPages. We cover:

What REST services are

What the XPages
Extens ...

For episode 135 Bruce sat down with Niklas
Heidloff from IBM/OpenNTF and Vanessa Hutchinson from We4IT
where we talked about the first ever development contest being hosted by
OpenNTF. This contest ...

On this episode of the podcast we spoke
with IBM's Mary Beth Raven and Joyce Davis about the IBM Champion Program
which has now been extended to include the IBM Collaboration Solutions
division. We ...

Julian and Bruce sat down with Justin Hill
(CTO) and and Jon Schultz (President) of Prominic.
What we did we talk about? Well, all things "cloud" including:

To the "cloud" - Prominic
has been in ...

This year at Lotusphere 2011 Brian Benz
(blog)
presented a session entitled "Running a Business on XPages" (slide
deck, session
abstract). Julian Robichaux
and I spent 30 minutes with Brian discu ...

At Lotusphere 2011 Bruce Elgort spend 10
minutes with IBM's VP of Open Starndards Angel Diaz. Topics included:

Angel's role at IBM
The evolution of web and mobile standards

Some advice for ...

Just a little over a week after Lotusphere
2011 we had the opportunity to sit down with IBM'ers Ed
Brill and Kat
Mandelstein. During the 35 minute
show we covered:

The IBM-ification of Lotus
...

TeamStudio's Craig Schumann and Karen Frasca
talk about the Spotlight
Awards 2011 contest. Theo
Heselmans, the winner of the 2010
Spotlight Awards joins the podcast and shares his experiences wit ...

Today Bruce and Julian interview Bob
Balaban from Looseleaf Software
and Andrew
Pollack from Northern Collaborative Technologies
about:

Bob's "Drain
Google" project
Andrew's Second
Signal ...

Today Bruce and Julian interview GROUP
Business Software's Nathan Freeman to learn more about their "Evolution
Transformer" product. The Evolution Transformer will convert Notes
client apps into XP ...

Today our guest on the podcast is Luis Suarez: Knowledge Manager, Community Builder, and Social Computing Evangelist inside and outside of IBM. We chatted with him about:

* Social software evangelism inside of IBM, and the group of 1,600+ BlueIQ Ambassadors within the company
* How you can possibly live without e-mail for over 2 years (a question Luis has probably answered hundreds of times before, and he graciously answered again)
* The difference between social networks on the Internet and social networks inside the firewall
* The future of social software, and what technologies will be used to make it work across networks and vendors
* Luis' recent Enterprise 2.0 Evangelist of the Year Award

For more insight from Luis, check out his blog at elsua.net, follow him on Twitter at @elsua, or listen to him on recent podcasts with This Week in Lotus and TWiT's net@night. ...

Have you ever wondered what it was like to plan an event like the recent Irish Lotus Users Group meeting held in Belfast last week? Eileen Fitzgerald from GSX, Paul Mooney from Bluewave and Steve McDonagh give us some behind the scenes details on:

* How long the planning process takes
* How the almighty clipboard is Eileen's best friend
* The event sponsors
* The awesome sessions given at the conference
* The ILUG 2010 planning team
* Speedgeeking
* How the venue was selected
* Speedsponsoring
* Bacon
* UKLUG 2011 announcment
* A visit from somebody claiming he was @FakeEdBrill
* Some parting words from Steve McDonagh

Enjoy the podcast. The show runs 38:49. ...

IBM's Joyce Davis and Sharyn Richard talked
to Julian and Bruce about the
VideoFest event which starts
on October 26, 2010. Discussion topics include:

What is Lotus VideoFest?

When will this ...

Today Marie Scott (Blog
| Twitter)
and Tom Duff (Blog
| Twitter)
sat down with Bruce and Julian to talk about their new book "Sametime
8: A User's Guide".

We talk about:

How did writing t ...

July, August and September brought 9 brand
new episodes of the Taking Notes podcast. Now would be a good time to catch
up on them:

Episode 114 - All
things LotusLive with Chris Blatnick

Episo ...

Let's talk Eclipse plugins! It's not just an Eclipse thing, plugins can be used to extend the functionality of your Lotus Notes client.

Mikkel Heisterberg has been instrumental in helping developers wade through the murky waters of Lotus Notes sidebar app and plugin development for several years, through Lotusphere and user group presentations, blog articles, and onsite training. Bruce and Julian talked to him about how this plugin technology can be used and what's going to be in the new IBM Redbook he's been working on (HINT: it's about plugin development). ...

Let's talk Eclipse plugins! It's not just an Eclipse thing, plugins can be used to extend the functionality of your Lotus Notes client.

Mikkel Heisterberg has been instrumental in helping developers wade through the murky waters of Lotus Notes sidebar app and plugin development for several years, through Lotusphere and user group presentations, blog articles, and onsite training. Bruce and Julian talked to him about how this plugin technology can be used and what's going to be in the new IBM Redbook he's been working on (HINT: it's about plugin development). ...

Today we had two IBMers on the show - Sacha
Chua and Luis Benitez where we talked about IBM's Lotus Connections and
things like social software user adoption behind the firewall, the Lotus
Connecti ...

This Episode of The Taking Notes podcast
is sponsored by the fine folks at XPages101.net
where you can use the promo code "TN120" to receive a 33% discount
on their XPages Video training series. O ...

This Episode of The Taking Notes podcast
is sponsored by the fine folks at XPages101.net
where you can use the promo code "TN119" to receive a 33% discount
on their XPages Video training series. O ...

With special host Tom Duff filling for
Julian we spend some time talking with SNAPP's President & CEO Rob
Novak where we talk about:

The New SNAPP-On Modules for Lotus Quickr
from SNAPPS
...

Have you heard that there is going to be
a really cool XPages Extensibility API in Notes/Domino 8.5.2? Today
we interviewed Phillipe Riand and Jim Quill from the IBM XPages team where
we talked ab ...

This week we spoke with IBM's Ed
Brill who is the Director, Product
Management, IBM Lotus Software about this weeks LotusLive
Notes and Notes/Domino 8.5.2 announcements
(LotusLive
Notes, Notes/Do ...

We interviewed Niklas Heidloff (IBM), Chris
Connor (BSS), Michael Gollmick (TIMETOACT), and Herbert Wagger to discuss
the XPages
Mobile Controls project on
OpenNTF.

Niklas heads up the project ...

On this episode of the podcast we spoke
with IBM's Chris
Blatnick about:

LotusLive Connections
LotusLive Engage
LotusLive Notes
LotusLive iNotes
Why customers are asking about "the
cloud"
T ...

Bruce and Julian talk with Adam Brown,
Matt Newman and Andrew Welch from IBM Premier Business Partner ISW
about their new Wildfire application available from OpenNTF.

Check out the Wildfire
pr ...

Bruce spends 10 minutes talking with Tim
Clark the host of the brand spanking new "The
XCast Podcast". Please give
it up for Tim and learn about this new podcast focused on all things XPages
by ha ...

In this episode Julian and Bruce talk with
Joyce Davis, Community and Program Manager - IBM Lotus Software and Amanda
Bauman,

We talk about:

What Joyce and Amanda do at IBM

What is the Lo ...

Lotusphere 2010 Monday News Coverage

Please check out our Lotusphere 2010 sponsors Simplified Technology Solutions
or "STS" at http://simplified-tech.com.
STS also has started a new series of scr ...

Lotusphere 2010 Sunday News Coverage

Please check out our Lotusphere 2010 sponsors Simplified Technology Solutions
or "STS" at http://simplified-tech.com.
STS also has started a new series of scr ...

With only a few days left until Lotusphere,
Bruce and Julian talk with Tom
"Duffbert" Duff
and Andy
Donaldson. The gang talked
about:

Tips and tricks for newbies

A discussion about the OGS ...

Just in-time for Lotusphere 2010, Bruce
and Julian talk about the IBM Smart Work initiative with co-presenters,
Antony Satyadas and William Malchisky Jr.

The informative conversation includes th ...

Bruce spoke with Mainsoft President Yaacov
Cohen about their SharePoint Integrator for Lotus Notes V2.5 announcment.

During Lotusphere 2010 Mainsoft will
preview SharePoint Integrator for Lotus N ...