Recently I haven’t been blogging as much as I would like, mainly because I’ve had my head down working hard on my first bit of plug-in development. Considering that I’ve rarely used Eclipse in the past and only even written Java in an IT course over five years ago, it’s been a challenge, but one I seem to have successfully overcome with some help. And when I haven’t been doing plug-in development I’ve been working on my Lotusphere session, trying to get some progress again on my book and thinking about my sessions for EntwicklerCamp next month.
But now that’s all put to one side for a week while I focus on Lotusphere 2011. It’s my second Lotusphere – the last one was in 2007 when I was most officially a rabbit in the headlights! Thanks to that experience and the help of podcasts, websites etc I now feel more prepared for Lotusphere. So what are my goals?
Well, as a first-time presenter, my main focus is to present a good session (That’s BP210 – XPages: Enter The Dojo Tuesday 3:30, if you haven’t picked it up from Twitter, TWiL or The XCast). There’s been a lot of preparation involved, not only in terms of slides and picking out which concepts to cover (there’s far too much in Dojo to show it all), but also in putting together the sample application. David Leedy had already done a lot of groundwork, but I think there’s some good stuff in there, not only in terms of Dojo but also XPages.
As a developer, my next aim is to learn as much as I can, primarily on XPages and Plug-in Development. I’ll be pestering the developers and have my head down in all the technical sessions. I know I’m going to learn lots, the challenge will then be feeding that back to others. And putting my speaker’s hat on again, I’m looking to see where the products are heading, what are going to be the key areas for the next year, what developers want to hear about.
The third major benefit I’m looking to get out of Lotusphere is networking. LUGs and podcasts over the previous year have helped me enormously, as has Twitter. I’m now looking to put faces to names (or profile pictures!) and meet new people. And I’m not just talking about the speakers and tweeps I’ve been in contact with. If you see me and read my blog or have heard me on podcasts, say hello to me. I’ll be very glad to meet you and discuss anything Lotus.
All in all it’s going to be a VERY busy week, but one I am sure will be extremely rewarding.
