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 Typically, something like this is what I see in an XPages demo: There is nothing 'wrong' with this, but it is out of date. It could be showcasing one of the out of the box templates or something custom (as this is), but its way to out of date.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 designe

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). Fo

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 demonst

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

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: Application Modernization: Where Consumer, Social, and Mobile Converge from John Head 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 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

Attached are the slides for the session that John Beck and I gave at IBM Connect 2013. AD214 What's Next? Application Modernization Roadmap for Socializing IBM Notes & Domino from John Head

On Wednesday, October 24th, 2012, PSC Group had the grand opening of our new offices in downtown Chicago. More in the press release: PSC Hosts Open House Event to Launch New Chicago Office PSC Group, LLC, an information technology and business consulting firm, hosted an open house today, launching its new office in the heart of Chicago. The Chicago office, located at 125 S. Wacker Drive, is the newest addition to PSC’s locations, which include Schaumburg, IL, and Overland Park, KS. This office will be the home of PSC's Application Modernization Center, an innovative program designed to help clients with their replatforming initiatives. PSC Group, LLC, an information technology and business consulting firm, hosted an open house today, launching its new office in the heart of Chicago. The Chicago office, located at 125 S. Wacker Drive, is the newest addition to PSC’s locations, which include Schaumburg, IL, and Overland Park, KS. The launch event featured a meet and greet with PSC Partne

Overnite, PSC Group, LLC sent out the following press release: PSC Group, LLC Named One of Chicago's "Best and Brightest Companies to Work For" by the National Association for Business Resources PSC Group, LLC, a business consulting and technology solution provider, has today announced that it has been named one of Chicago’s “101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For™” by the National Association for Business Resources. Chicago, IL (PRWEB) July 11, 2012 PSC Group, LLC, a business consulting and technology solution provider, has today announced that it has been named one of Chicago’s “101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For™” by the National Association for Business Resources. Chicago’s 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For™ is a designation that hundreds of companies pursue. This year, the 2012 winners proved to be companies that deliver exceptional human resources practices and an impressive commitment to their employees. The National Association for Business Resou

As much as I have tried to hide it and deny it, the past two years has professionally about my journey from technology consultant to business development. It has not been the smoothest transition. Heck, I even fought it for a year mentally. But last year was the turning point. I hit my stride, accepted my new role, and was able to turn connections into relationships. Last evening, as a great PSC Group event to celebrate and kick-off 2012, I was awarded with a very humbling award. The above photo is the end of a Louisville Slugger bat engraved with the PSC Big Hitter - 2011 award. I sold more than a million dollars in services last year. This happened even with two months of being sidetracked as I dealt with Dad's passing. Thanks to everyone at PSC Group who helped make this possible - especially Andrew, Rick, John and all of the kick ass consultants who worked on the projects I closed. I am surrounded by one of the best groups of technologists in the business. They make the ideas th

PSC Group is very excited to announce that our team has grown by one, Our collaboration team is expanding and we needed a Boston area resource for some killer XPages, Notes, and mobile development. It's a pleasure to announce that we are lucky that Kathy Brown has agreed to join us to fill that role. For those in the Lotus community, she needs no introduction. For those not, Kathy is an active member of the community, frequent speaker at Lotusphere and other Lotus User Groups, Blackberry developer and co-host of BlackBerry Today. She is a proud NerdGirl and of course known for her daily running and unmatched twitter skills. Please welcome Kathy to PSC over on her blog. Welcome Kathy!

Barilla, a PSC Group, LLC customer, has been recognized by the Bulldog Awards 2011 as the Grand Prize Winner (plus three Gold and one Silver) for the Share the Table: The Barilla Family Dinner Project website. PSC is proud to have been part of the team that worked on the website. More on the awards:This year’s Grand Prize Winner was awarded to Barilla for its “Share the Table: The Barilla Family Dinner Project” campaign. Judges awarded this campaign three Gold Awards—for Best Company Positioning/Branding, Best Use of Personality/Celebrity, and Best Website Business/Consumer—plus a Silver Award for Best Issue/Cause Advocacy Campaign. “This campaign won an extraordinary number of Bulldog Awards, but it’s no surprise when you consider the strategic brilliance and the superb tactical implementation the company demonstrated,” observed Bulldog Reporter publisher James Sinkinson. “The campaign is a picture-perfect example of the best PR can be—both great for the product and great for

Earlier this week, I presented on the top of Application Modernization with David Via of IBM. One of the first slides that I presented was the following This slide has generated a few comments and discussion, so I wanted to expand my thoughts on what the slide says. I truly believe that we are at a crossroads around applications. Take any specific vendor out of the conversation for a moment, but we are seeing a coverage of a number of issues. First, email is becoming as much a commodity as productivity software. Two years ago, we heard IBM introduce Lotus Symphony for free because productivity software was not only expected software, but feature saturation had hit and it was time to remove the financial burden of maintaining the licenses. At the same time, we saw Google push hard with Goolge Docs. OpenOffice.org has mad a real dent in Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia in various forms. We have also watched many users abandon the preferred IT platform to use their preferred

I am pleased to announce that PSC Group, LLC's second iOS application is now available. Built for Medela US, iBreastfeed provides tools and resources to help you successfully breastfeed! Get information on the benefits of breastmilk, breastfeeding, breastpumping tups, breastmilk storage guidelines and instant access to other online resources. Add your baby's profile and easily keep track of breastfeeding, breastpumping, sleeping and diaper changes. You can even send the log to your baby's doctor. Track activities for up to six babies. Find breastfeeding- and pumping-friendly locations in your local area and add your own personal locations. Here are some screenshots: The application has gotten a highlight on the medela breastfeeding website as well Great work by the PSC Mobile Application Team!

I must take a moment from all of the Lotusphere 2011 craziness to thank some people at PSC who went out of their way to help Alex and I with our session demos yesterday. We do so many demos in our sessions (this year we did 26) that we ask the team back at PSC to help out. Since our integration demos reach across our IBM Lotus and Microsoft practices, there are a bunch of people to thank: Eric M. Andy S. Wil H. Tim M. Jimmy M. Andrew B. Rick P. Eric, Andy, and Wil spent hours and hours up until the session Sunday helping us get all of the advanced ODF and OOXML demos with .NET / C# and XPages. Tim and Jimmy worked on some of the demos we updated for this year. and Andrew and Rick supported their teams when Alex and I asked for help. I can not thank everyone on the team above enough. Alex and I need to do something special for Eric, Andy, and Wil - but I wanted to publically recognize all of them. Thanks guys!

Lotusphere 2011 is upon us. The lead up to the event is always a whirlwind. But here is Sunday morning and Business Development Day is upon us. This afternoon, Alex and I present. After that - I get to enjoy the show, write a lot of blog entries, and more. I will have a couple of announcements on my blog tomorrow coming from our session today. But here is a preview: and yes, that is an XPage! I want to take this time to thank the amazing team at PSC for helping Alex and myself. Wil, Andy, Jimmy, Andrew, Rick, Tim, and the fearless leader of our help team Eric. Thanks to all of you for helping make our session demos something special this year.

Tomorrow, August 28th, marks the 20th birthday of PSC Group. The founders, Andrew Lauter and Bruce Bellak started the company out of a desire to do provide superior service and great technology consulting to their customers. I have personally been with PSC for 10 years and am proud to be part of this great company. And at 10 years, I am in the middle of the pack in terms of seniority ... we have one member of the team that has been here for 19 years and another for 18! Pretty incredible in these times. As a company we celebrated at our annual company picnic earlier in the month, but here is a toast to everyone at PSC. Here is to a great 20 years and many more to come.

In May of 2010 I blogged the following posts about a business technology resources survey that PSC commissioned in the spring of this year: PSC Business Technology Resources Survey Part 1: Technology Pain Points? PSC Business Technology Resources Survey Part 2: Top 2010 priorities PSC Business Technology Resources Survey Part 3: Top Information Sources PSC Business Technology Resources Survey Part 4: Trusted Sources PSC Business Technology Resources Survey Part 5: Top Applications Used to Research Technology Purchases PSC Business Technology Resources Survey Part 6: Research Influence on Decision Making As promised, here is the complete report posted as a PDF. You might even find a few questions and results that I did not cover in my blogs in the full report. PSC Group, LLC Business Technology Resources SurveyView more documents from John Head.