LepoLand - A Blog by Alan Lepofsky

Google Ad: Is Tiger Feeling Lucky Today?

Alan Lepofsky — Mon, 8 Feb 2010 10:42:18 -0400

Jesus Fed His Pet Velociraptor Pancakes

Alan Lepofsky — Sun, 7 Feb 2010 17:15:00 -0400

Friday night, I was one of the 8 Powerpoint Karaoke presenters at the closing party of Social Media Week Toronto. The way it works, is you have to present a slide deck that you have never seen before. Each slide is on screen for 40 seconds, and then advances automatically. My topic was something about what to do when someone lies on the internet. I'm just rambling in the clip below, but at the time it was the best I could do.

Here is the first video I've seen, if they share the full video I'll update this post.

It was a great event, and all the presenters were fantastic. The night raised over $1000 for Sick Kids Hospital. In addition to having fun, I meet some of Toronto's Social Media elite, so it was well worth the embarrassment.

Enterprises Want Activity Streams That Include Microblogging

Alan Lepofsky — Wed, 3 Feb 2010 21:00:00 -0400

Yesterday Gartner released their Five Social Software Predictions for 2010 and Beyond report. There were two quotes in it that I was thrilled to read:

By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users
By 2012, over 50 percent of enterprises will use activity streams that include microblogging, but stand-alone enterprise microblogging will have less than 5 percent penetration

I think we all understand the desire to reduce email, so I won't focus on the first one.

The second completely validates what we're doing at Socialtext. Our Activity stream shows events such as page edits, comments, signals (microblogging), and more. This allows people to easily discover content and people that can help them do their job. The Activity stream can be customized to display just certain types of information, by filtering on event type, from, and group. This enables people to go from seeing "all the events from everyone in all groups" down to something as granular as "just the microblogging messages from the people you follow in the Marketing group" and everything in between.

The report also points out that stand-alone microblogging vendors will see very little traction in the enterprise. I completely agree, and our customer wins support that thought as well.

The last thing people want is to have their IT department throw yet another stand-alone tool at them. Instead, people want to use tools that are integrated into the flow of their daily work.

Socialtext does just that. For example, when you're saving a Socialtext workspace page, you simply check a box to send a link and edit summary of the page to Signals. That means that you don't have to switch to email or a stand-alone microblogging tool to let them know about the update, its done for you automatically.

So thank you Gartner, it is great to see we're providing customers with exactly the right type of tools.

If you have not seen Socialtext Signals, I encourage you to take a look. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Now That Is How Add To Calendar Should Work!

Alan Lepofsky — Wed, 3 Feb 2010 16:00:00 -0400

Using Mac Mail.app, I clicked on a date and selected "Create New iCal Event".
It added the subject, date and time as one would expect, but it even parsed the location from another part of the email.
Sweet.

The calendar event also has a link back to the email message. (url Show in Mail...)

However, it still pisses me off that I can't resize the calendar event window. Often I have a ton of information in the note field, and I hate that I can't expand the dialog box to make it easier to read. Please show me the error of my ways if I am missing something.

Two good Notes Tools

Alan Lepofsky — Tue, 2 Feb 2010 10:30:00 -0400

To my readers in the Lotus world, if you are not following @CollabChick on Twitter, you should be. She provides some great links to information and tools. Examples:

Using IBM Lotus Notes 8.5.1 Reference Card
This quick reference card will help you get started performing the most common tasks in IBM Lotus Notes 8.5.1

SwiftFile Mail Assistant 4.0 for Notes client 8.0
SwiftFile is an intelligent assistant for Lotus Notes that helps users organize their e-mail into folders.

Downfall of Analyst Releations and the Gartner Magic Quadrant

Alan Lepofsky — Mon, 1 Feb 2010 10:44:37 -0400

Part of me hates sharing a video of Hitler (even in parody form), but this is just too good to pass up.

The most important thing I heard at Lotusphere

Alan Lepofsky — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:00:43 -0400

I have about 10 pages of notes from Lotusphere that I want to turn into blog entries. However, since Orlando I've been involved in project PDL, been working on some awesome upcoming Socialtext stuff, and had a family party this weekend that brought my siblings to town, so I've not had a spare moment. I don't even want to think about my laundry nor the pile of bills on my desk!

Anyway, I'm going to begin my Lotusphere posts with what I think is the most significant thing I heard at the show. Yes, it is about Project Vulcan, but it may not be what you think. While I'm excited about a potential new user experience for Notes, that is not it. It was the announcement that right from the very start of the beta program, the API would be available for developers. Contrast that to Lotus Notes, where after a decade of promises, there is still no C&S API.

One of the keys to Twitter's success is that from the very start, developers built applications around it. There are literally thousands of tools that enhance the Twitter experience, and the team at Twitter could not have made all of those things on their own. Ask 3 people which Twitter client they use, and you'll get at least 5 different answers.

For Vulcan to succeed, the same thing must occur. People should not rely on Lotus to do everything, especially not right at the start. Instead, developers should get their hands on the API, and start making Vulcan into what they want it to be. For example, I would hope that the API would allow Socialtext events and actions to be written to and acted upon from the Vulcan UI. Time will tell.

So go forth developers, explore strange new worlds where IBM is open, seek out new integration points, and boldly go where Lotus has rarely allowed you to go before.

Congrats on a great decision IBM, it is a great move.

Recording a TV show should not be this hard

Alan Lepofsky — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:30:00 -0400

I'll admit it, I've complained (ok, whined!) a lot about Rogers Cable in Toronto since I moved back from the US (where I used TIVO and Comcast). Since silly little "it sucks" type comments provide no value to anyone, I decided to record the following video to show one of the problems I struggle with. Below you will see me try and do what I think is one of them most common PVR tasks, recording a season of a show. I hope someone can show me the error of my ways, and help me learn what I am doing wrong. So sit back and enjoy watching my pain, and there are a few little surprises to keep you entertained as I suffer.

To recap some of the issues encountered:

You can not search shows to record from the PVR screen.
The Quick Start menu makes getting to the Guide (the most common thing you do while watching TV) take double the time that it used to.
You can not actually search for shows. All you can do is browse by the first letter of the first word in a show's title.
When browsing, if you eventually find the show you are looking for, you only see the airings for one day, and if you switch days, you have to start scrolling all over again.
If you don't know what day a show airs on (which is normally the case) you're screwed, because it is almost impossible to find it.
Shows are not grouped together, causing the display of show titles to scroll page after page after page.
There is only 1 week of data available in the Guide.
If a show's premier is 2 hours, then you need to set a separate recording for the regular weekly 1 hour shows.

I would like to be wrong about these things, so please, if I am missing something please let me know, as I am VERY HAPPY to learn.

Lotus Knows - The DJ Steve Porter Remix

Alan Lepofsky — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 21:39:01 -0400

What’s Your Favourite Notes 8.5.1 Client Feature

Alan Lepofsky — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 09:07:31 -0400

Have you upgraded to Lotus Notes 8.5.1? If so, on which platform?

The 8.5.1 client has a ton of new features. Some examples: New toolbar icons that offer more control over fonts and highlighters, the insert link dialog box, drag to resize tables, and auto-correct for spelling.

What is your favourite new feature? Please let me know.

If you've not upgraded yet, you better!