Attached is the presentation that John Beck of IBM and I gave at IamLUG 2013 yesterday:

http://www.slideshare.net/johnhead/whats-next-application-modernization-roadmap-for-socializing-ibm-notes-and-domino

Some organizations neglect or under-utilize one of the greatest IT assets in their portfolio - the line of business application. Most were built 10+ years ago with no Web, mobile, or social. This session describes the application revolution taking place, covering the options and best practices required for success. Migration and new development will be compared and contrasted. Real-world data will demonstrate the positive potential return on investment. We will discuss PSC's Application Modernization Center and how it helps move customers from merely maintaining Notes applications to increasing their value with XPages. If your organization is considering a migration or an XPages solution for your Notes/Domino investments, this session is for you!

For those of you that have seen this presentation at Connect 2013 or BLUG 2013 this year, we have made changes. All new sample slides and some new data slides on how to sell XPages are included.

This presentation is not possible without the amazing XPages team that I get to work with every day. Special thanks to Andrew, Ken, Wil, Mark, Kathy, Brad, Troy, Steve, Imran who worked on the projects highlighted.

This month Michael Blumenthal will be presenting on Solving Business Problems with SharePoint 2013.  Please join us by registering here. More info:

I have seen quite a few XPages demos over the past few years. At conference, in webinars, and in sales calls. As I look back and critique myself, I have some thoughts to share so that as a community, if the quality of demos goes up, the community and the opportunities will grow.

Typically, something like this is what I see in an XPages demo:

There is nothing 'wrong' with this, but it is out of date. It could be showcasing one of the out of the box templates or something custom (as this is), but its way to out of date. So, if you are going to show XPages to someone who has never seen it before, how about something more like this?



Not so small, but at least use the current version of OneUI. Focus on applications that don't look like Notes applications. Highlight something modern. Even better yet, why not showcase something like this:



That doesn't look like Notes. Or even XPages. It looks like a modern web application. But it is XPages:



You don't have to hire a designer to build a UI like this, you can purchase them. This one comes from a Twitter Bootstrap Theme website. You can spend $15 and get a great user interface that you can use with your applications.

XPages injected much needed life into the Domino development space. Let's take advantage of this by focusing on the strengths of the modern web development platform it is. Customers get excited when something looks amazing.

It can be hard to put into words how great an organization is. I have said many times on my blog how much I love working at PSC Group over the past 12+ years. But it always helps when others talk about it as well.

Last week, both Mark Roden and Kathy Brown blogged about receiving their first star points in the PSC Group's 5 Points of Excellence program. It is our own internal career development program for employees. This is based in something we call Clear Vision, which is the culture at the company. It is a great program that focuses on a person's strengths. Each person can earn 5 star points out of a possible 25. The 25 points are the areas we as a company want to have.

Reading about Mark and Kathy talk about this program and achieving their first points made me smile. They are just two of the many people at PSC Group that were recognized so far this year. That includes myself.

I earned my 5th Star Point in 'Network" (my other two are in Sell, Propose, Mentor, and Evangelize). For myself, this was about how I have taken it upon myself to grow outside of the Lotus community. I sit on a not-for-profit board and am joining the junior board of a major Chicago networking organization in September. I have really pushed myself to build a great network outside of the my friends, or as Ed put it so well, family. As a salesperson, I need that larger network to help PSC continue to grow. To find new and interesting work for our consultants. To meet my own goals.

Working at PSC has been my best professional experience of my life. I look forward to continuing that for many years to come.

PSC Group's Norm Murrin will be speaking at the Chicago IT Architect's Group on April 16th on "Implementing Applications with Django CMS". A bit more about the talk:

"CMS systems can be a valuable addition to your environment.  With the web getting more flexible and dynamic, can a CMS keep up?  In the presentation Norman Murrin will address how Django CMS can be leveraged to implement dynamic web features including AJAX and custom logic to tailor user content as well as handling basic content management."

CITAG meets at TechNexus at 200 S. Wacker Drive, 15th Floor Chicago, IL USA. The meeting runs from 5:30 PM until 8 PM.

Interested in IBM Collaboration Solutions? Want to attend this quarter's largest user group in the US? Want to learn more about Notes & Domino 9, Connections 4.5, and much more? Then you should be attending IamLUG 2013 on May 6th and 7th in St. Louis, MO USA.

PSC Group, LLC has been a big supporter of IamLUG since the first one in 2009. PSC is one of two Gold sponsors. We will have a table talking about our solutions and the Application Modernization Center. We also have a few sessions the fantasic PSC team:

Don't Roll Your Own, Integrate...Collaboration On the Ground and In the Clouds
Speakers: Troy Reimer Kathy Brown Track: Development

Your users want to collaborate, so how do you provide that ability within your XPages applications without coding from scratch? Troy and Kathy will show you how to take advantage of existing collaboration capabilities and integrate them with your apps. They will begin with a simple integration of XPages and TeamRooms. Next they will demonstrate more complex integration, using XPages to surface data like files and activity streams from IBM Connections and SmartCloud Engage, using the IBM Connections API.

Opening the Toolbox: Tools for the Domino Developer
Speakers: Julian Robichaux Kathy Brown Track: Development

It’s always important to have the right tool for the job. You wouldn’t use a screwdriver to hammer in a nail. It might eventually work, but it would take a lot longer. Tradesmen like plumbers and electricians make it look easy, but sometimes it is because they have all of those specialized tools. Julian and Kathy will open up the toolbox and show you some of the tools available to make your job as a Domino Developer even easier. Even better, most of the tools are free! They’ll cover tools for agents, XPages, browsers, testing, ideas for building your own tools, and more. It's like a home improvement show for developers!

What’s Next? Application Modernization Roadmap For Socializing IBM Notes and Domino
Speakers: John Head  John Beck Track: I Don't Know Where This Fits

Some organizations neglect or under-utilize one of the greatest IT assets in their portfolio - the line of business application. Most were built 10+ years ago with no Web, mobile, or social. This session describes the application revolution taking place, covering the options and best practices required for success. Migration and new development will be compared and contrasted. Real-world data will demonstrate the positive potential return on investment. We will discuss PSC's Application Modernization Center and how it helps move customers from merely maintaining Notes applications to increasing their value with XPages. If your organization is considering a migration or an XPages solution for your Notes/Domino investments, this session is for you!

I look forward to seeing everyone there!

As the second calendar quota of 2013 has begun, I wanted to start a series of blog entries to talk about my day to day efforts and where I am having success and failures. I think the idea of application modernization is appealing to many, but there is not enough discussion for people to know what it means. Hopefully through this discussion that can change.

As I talk with customers about projects, there is a lot of discussion around 'modernizing our applications.' For those of you that know me and have heard me speak, this is a topic right up my alley. Almost every customer has applications that are years old. How many years varies, but let's call them from 5 to 20 years old. These applications still run. They still perform the business function they were built for. They get tweaked here and there, but for the most part, they are left alone. IT organizations focus on new OS, ERP, CRM, and HR systems. Line of business applications are left to run as they are.

As organizations begin to think about taking these applications and modernizing them, an organization needs to approach the project correctly. Many times, this is looked as an application migration. Let's get the application to a new platform that is our current focus. Let's migrate the business process, data, and whatever else is part of it. There are many cases that this is the best option. But there are other cases where modernization will produce the best outcome. Every platform has a modernization vs. migration story. For the IBM Collaboration Solution folks reading this, this is the XPages story. There are different stories for the Visual Basic 6, AS/400, and many other platforms out there. But let's talk about the XPages story here.

When you are looking at taking an existing Notes application and you want to create an XPages version, treat it as an application modernization. Tear the application down. Go through the process, the design, the logic, the integration points, and the user stories. Look at what can be improved. What is not being used. What new business requirements are in the organization. Build a new XPages application, using the schema of the core forms and views, and create a new experience. Do not treat this as a migration of moving every bit and byte from one version to the next. The costs of porting everything from the Notes app to a new XPages version will outweigh the shiny new application

Application Modernization is more than a new user interface. It is more than writing Java and JavaScirpt vs. LotusScript. This is the time to create a new user experience. To streamline the business process. Cut out steps not needed. Detach the application from a rich client model and make it work in a browser or on a mobile device. Inject new ideas such as social, analytics, and other current trends. Reinvent the way the application is used and the outcome it shapes. Apples to Apples does not make sense here. Make apple pie out of the apples and change the story. The effect this will have on the users and things like ROI is huge.

I had the pleasure of presenting my session on Application Modernization and XPages with John Beck at BLUG 2013 today. Below are the slides we presented:

BLUG 2013 has been an amazing conference. 300+ people, the best LUG keynote I have ever seen (by Scott Souder and Louis Richardson), and a wonderful two days of content and chocolate. Well done Theo!

I got home today and found that my Pebble watch had arrived. I kickstarted the standard black one on the second day of the event, so I was pretty early in the batch run. Here is a few unboxing photos:



Front of the box



top of the box



Side of the box - you can see how the opening is part of the box. Apple totally changed the way that people think about packaging.



The box open. Watch and charger. No manual. Nothing but that image and a URL.



The usb to custom magnetic charger end.



The Pebble itself.



I know some of the photos are bad, but I wanted to show the size. Here is the charger attached to the watch.

So first impressions:

• Watch is big. Even on my wrist.
• Once you start charging the watch, a quick 2 second push of one of the 4 buttons turns it on.
• Backlight is nice.
• Pairing via Bluetooth easy.
• Updating with iPhone app - took a while for the update to be recognized but worked from there.
• Today, you can get the watch, get notifications, control music on your phone, and set an alarm. That is it. None of the cool apps are turned on yet.
• Watch vibration for alerts is very strong.
• When you get a call, it vibrates and shows the CallerID. Very cool.
• The watchband is heavy, uncomfortable plastic. must replace it.

So first impressions are good. But there is much to do to make this worth what I paid. Or for the big ugly brick on your wrist. Looking forward to all the custom apps.

I wanted to highlight the slides from my fellow PSC Group, LLC co-workers from IBM Connect 2013 (a.k.a. Connectosphere). The best way to do that is highlight the incredible resource Chris Miller a.k.a IdoNotes has put together. You can access the IBM Connect 2013 and Lotusphere Slides database here. From PSC Group, here are our sessions:

BP103 jQuery: The World’s Most Popular JavaScript Library Comes to Xpages - Mark Roden
BP211 Lessons Learned from the World’s Largest XPage Project - Andrew Barickman and Mark Roden
SHOW111 XPages: No Experience Needed - Kathy Brown and David Leedy
AD214 What’s Next? Application Modernization Roadmap for Socializing IBM Notes and Domino - John Head and John Beck

Last night while chatting about the IBM Connect 2013 conference and some after thoughts, a discussion came up with a person (they can reveal themselves if they want too) about how they probably had to move their email from a on-premises Notes/Domino solution to something else. They didn't want to maintain a Domino server any more. That led into a question on why IBM hasn't made SmartCloud easy for a single person or small company to order with a credit card. I know I spent 18 months talking about this with IBM executives, so I went and looked.

First, the Lotuslive.com URL still works, but the new direct URL is IBMCloud.com/social. That takes you to this page:

Attached are the slides for the session that John Beck and I gave at IBM Connect 2013.

I am finally back home in Chicago after ten days in Orlando, FL for what has become my yearly pilgrimage to IBM Connect (formally known as Lotusphere or as I like to call it ConnectoSphere). Every year the conference feels like it takes longer to prepare for, goes by faster, and the zombi flu gets more people sick. I get to see old friends, meet lots of new people, and do so many things that I love to do for myself and as a salesperson at PSC Group, LLC. I find that trying to put my thoughts afterwards into a blog entry both easier and harder every year. Let's see how I do.

First, from an employee at PSC Group, this was a stellar year. It was the second year that Andrew was present as the practice manager at the event. Mark and Kathy were both in the first year as part of the PSC team, but not their first Connect/LS.. 4 people, 4 sessions. All of them well attended and getting great verbal reviews. For the first time in many years, one of the PSC partners was also present. This culminated with a great reception Monday night at the Boardwalk Brewery. The week was full of meetings with existing customers, IBMers, and potential clients. I think 2013 is going to be a great year if half of what was talked about last week happens. I was very proud of the entire PSC team. Mark laughed at me about wanting all of us to wear our PSC polo's at Gurupaloza, but I am the sales guy of the team. Having your companies brand visible at and event like this matters. It was at Lotusphere 2012 that Andrew and I had our first chat with Kathy ... and that Mark first talked about wanting to be on stage speaking. There is always more to do and not enough time. More to plan for next year.

Personally, I got to present with John Beck on the main stage in the Dolphin Northern Hemisphere A-C. That stage can be intimidating. It is hard to hear yourself or anyone you are speaking with. But John and I had a great session - the best of our 12 months speaking together at LS12 and user groups. I really think the message of application modernization thru IBM XPages is hitting home. I got more engagement through Twitter and email than for any session before.

On the other side of personal thoughts of the week, I have never been sick like I was last week. I didn't have the flu that was going around, but it was something. I would feel fine when I woke up, ok in the afternoon, yet by 8 pm I was dragging. By 10 pm I was ready for bed. No night was I out past 11:30 pm. With reading about everyone else being under the weather now, I might have lucked out. But I felt like such a party pooper. Sorry to everyone for not being out more. :(

I also saw many of my friends go though a horrendous experience. I won't discus the details, but I just wanted to tell all of them that your strength was amazing and awe inspiring. Many of you are party of my 'family' and I just wish I could have done more to ease the pain.

There are a lot of other thoughts on the tip of my fingers. Reading posts from Duffbert and Warren remind me how we all see the world differently. I saw this year as a new beginning for IBM and yet something born out of something very familiar. The conference will continue on, whatever name it has. IBM will add more content besides Notes & Domino, and I bet they continue the Best Practices track. People will come an attend and others will not. The community will do what it does every year - continue and change. No year is ever the same. I assume, based on conversations I had, that both XPages and Kenexa sessions take place at Connect 2014. Friends like Tom said good-bye and others like Ed said good-bye but see you next year (you think IBM would have an executive in the mobile space who didn't come to the event where they make the most mobile announcements?). It was an emotional week.

I have a few thoughts I am going to write about specifically this week as individual topics. But the theme for me last week was focusing on strengths instead of weaknesses. Positive vs. negative. I started that by removing a whole slew of negative folks from my twitter, facebook, and feed reader. I get that people disagree with myself and others, but there is no reason to try to bring others down. I am done with that.

Thanks to everyone for a great week. I look forward to seeing all of my family and friends again soon.

PSC is please to be sponsoring the Great Geek Challenge again in 2013! One of the best events of the week, be at The Fountain Restaurant (the place you get the ice cream) in the Dolphin Hotel (at the bottom of the escalators as you walk outside to head to the Swan). Tuesday at 8 PM. Great food, great people, and really fun geek trivia! The prizes are great as well. Be there or don't be square!

I am lucky to get to speak at Connect 2013 and present with John Beck of IBM on "What's Next? Application Modernization Roadmap For Socializing IBM Notes and Domino." This session is at 8:30 AM on Thursday in the Dolphin Northern Hemisphere A - C room - my first main stage experience! The session is in the Application Development track and will cover:

Some organizations neglect or under-utilize one of the greatest IT assets in their portfolio - the line of business application. Most were built 10+ years ago with no Web, mobile, or social. This session describes the application revolution taking place, covering the options and best practices required for success. Migration and new development will be compared and contrasted. Real-world data will demonstrate the positive potential return on investment. We will discuss PSC's Application Modernization Center and how it helps move customers from merely maintaining Notes applications to increasing their value with XPages. If your organization is considering a migration or an XPages solution for your Notes/Domino investments, this session is for you!

I am going head to head with Mark for this session, but they are targeted at different audiences. This session is for the decision maker who is trying to decide what to do with all of those Notes applications or the developer trying to convince an executive back home to consider XPages. This is an updated version of the session John and I gave in 2013, but it's both more technical and more broad than before. Looking forward to seeing you in the audience!