Lotusphere Recap: Monday OGS, Students, and lots more

Monday was one of my busiest Lotusphere days ever, and if you know about some of the days I have logged at Lotusphere past you know that is really saying something.

Oddly Monday is a slightly later start then the rest of the week with no 7 AM BOF sessions (yes I made it to 7 AM sessions but we will get to that in later updates), but I was still up early, and in my seat in the “Bloggers Den” ready for the OGS at 7:30.

I don’t intend to review the entire OGS here, the band was rocking, Alistair was good, the panels were long and drawn out, the demos rocked (you might have read a little about this already). The thing that really kills me about the OGS is how after all the prep they seem to consistently run over. This years OGS went almost 40 minutes over, which had a domino effect (no pun intended) on the rest of my morning.

Following the OGS I scrambled over to the Swan to give a brief presentation to the Analysts. This was followed by a run back to the Dolphin for an interview over lunch.

Next up I lost 10 minutes finding the location of my 1 PM meeting, for future reference the lobby level of the Dolphin is the 3rd floor (the signage could be a little clearer).

Next up a quick run over to the Yacht Club convention center for one of my favorite parts of the day, maybe even the week. I was fortunate to be asked to participate in a panel being held for the students. The panel was a discussion on the use of Social Media tools in business, and skills students should expect to need when transitioning from college to the workplace. The panel was moderated by Alice Chou, Director IBM Developer Works, and included Marcia Conner, Jim Deters and Rex Lee . After each panelist introduced themselves we took questions from the students, we probably could have taken questions all day, they were very enthusiastic (including the guy who walked up on stage in the middle to distribute his resume). At the conclusion of the panel all of the panelists were mobbed with additional questions. Unfortunately I only had a few minutes to spend as I was off and running again back to the Dolphin

Next up on the Monday agenda was the Lotus Connections Customer Council, always a great discussion with other customers and the product managers.

Following the Customer Council meeting was a brief stop at the vendor showcase which was packed for the Monday evening reception, followed by the Press, Analyst, and Blogger reception.

After that was UKLUG Night, thanks to all the  sponsors for hosting, and letting me attend despite my inability to speak with a British accent.

In all seriousness while UK Night was a great time (and there might have even been some beer) there was also a raffle which raised $3500.00 for an excellent cause congrats to all those involved in organizing.

Following UKLUG I finally had dinner (and by dinner I mean Ice Cream), visited Kimonos, and the Dolphin Lobby, and wrapped up a long, but good Lotusphere day.