An archive of my writings from 2007 till 2011. If you're interested in the recent stuff, visit my Tumblr at dvirreznik.com.
I just had to check for myself.. after seeing some of my colleagues take the test for themselves.
Although a low score by some standards, I feel good about myself, 68 is an honorable score, if you take into consideration that I don’t think of myself as a nerd..
So, you can see my score, 68. Want to check you score? click the image, or here.
BTW – I’m not surprised. Are you?
First I would like to give a big congrats to IDC – for taking this task of producing the 1st bloggers conference in Israel. Another r-e-s-p-e-c-t goes for bringing top notch bloggers from the US, led by Om Malik – who was the only speaker that got the auditorium to look small…
I wanted to participate on both days, but I could only attend the 2nd day – half day, in which I participated in the 3rd workshop of the conference, entitled “Next generation of communications and information management – Web logging as an inner organizations tool”, together with Eyal Levin from IBM SWG.
Although the turn-out was a bit lower than I expected, it was quite an interesting discussion, and during it I realized that the barriers for bringing blogging inside the corporation, as well as other web 2.0 technologies, are taller than what they seem.
Don’t get me wrong – corporations understand now that web 2.0 is here to stay, and that web 2.0 is going to work, but there’s still a gap between realizing it and implementing it. And as a sales specialist managing the Lotus brand in IBM SWG (responsible for IBM’s collaboration software) – my task is to narrow that gap (among other things..).
Anyhow – it’s been quite an experience as a blogger to see that Israel is deep inside web 2.0 and we even managed to get Om Malik here. Om, one thing thou – why did you pay so much money for wi-fi access? Most coffee shops in Tel Aviv have free wi-fi (over 75%), and some shopping malls are completely covered.. Next time 🙂
Gartner published a press release with some interesting information about Instant Messaging (IM), saying “Instant Messaging Will Be De Facto Tool for Voice, Video and Text Chat by The End of 2011” (David Mario Smith, Gartner). I first saw it at Adam Gartenberg’s blog, and later at Chris Pepin’s, and I’m sure other advocated of Lotus and Collaboration software will pick it up later. The main points of Gartner are:
As my colleagues (and several analysts) mentioned, IBM is already taking the lead in corporate IM, leading by example. Lotus Sametime 7.5.1 offers a real-time, multilingual, open, collaboration platform, that allows for 3rd party extensions and plug-ins.
You can read more about IBM’s internal deployment of Sametime in Chris Pepin’s presentation, which was delivered at LotuSphere 2007.
Gartner’s article pushed me to perform a little search on IM and I found another interesting article, from Network Computing, about Mobile IM – which is really the next logic step of instant messaging.. especially with the quick adaption of mobile devices and the ability to connect from multiple devices, using Wi-Fi, 3G or WiMax networks. NC quoted a study performed by Forrester Research, that asked 4,548 students between the ages of 12 and 21 about their No. 1 must-have mobile phone feature, IM was the top choice, nearly twice as popular as mobile e-mail. And as we all know, teens are the employees of tomorrow.
The article also mentions IBM, saying “We were impressed by the degree of effort IBM has put into its Lotus Sametime Mobile client. Not only does the Sametime client communicate directly with a Sametime server using wireless IP services, it also operates on a wide range of devices, including Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and Nokia Symbian E Series.”
Very interesting reading, but free some time, it’s quite long (you can download a PDF version, it’s easier).
It’s been quite a week for me, and it isn’t over yet..
I met with a customer yesterday, presenting Notes/Domino 8. In all fairness I would say that the customer are a subsidiary of an American company, which uses Notes platform, and that’s why they’re considering migrating into Notes. Currently they’re using pop3 format.
After the official part of the presentation I asked the customer his opinion on why Lotus Notes hasn’t succeeded in Israel as it did in Europe and the US. He said that it was the ease of use of Outlook, and the fact that it was available to everyone, as part of the OS (even as Outlook Express). I felt rather pleased with the answer, and I’ll tell you why: the customer didn’t trash the product – in fact he’s aware of the benefits Lotus Notes provide over the competition. It was mostly because the UI (user interface) – which is easy to amend. When I showed them screenshots of Lotus Notes 8 Beta I’m running on my laptop, they were impressed of the improved UI, that is much better than the older versions. That’s good news – the product is better than the competition, and now with the improved UI of Notes 8, it even looks better…
and looks (apparently) does matter… 🙂
And something for the soul – my usual video moment..
There was an SNL-like program (did I just put them on a pedestal or what?!) in Israel, called Eretz Nehederet (=great country). Here’s a short clip I found (on YouTube, where else), from one of the first shows in the last season, based on a hip-hop clip “Here I come”.. enjoy !
It’s hard to imagine being without my laptop. If you own a laptop, and had to be without it (not by choice) – you’ll understand. My ThinkPad T41 is 3 years old in August, and he’s been giving me some problems for some time.. Most were minor (USB related stuff), that had little effect on my daily work, but for the past 2-3 weeks it’s getting worse.. It got stuck coulpe of times, resulting in an abrupt shutdown, using a long press on the power button..
I’ve lost sound as well, on speakers and headphones..
So I had to put it away.. for our tech support..
It’s only been 3 days now, without emails (Lotus Notes 8), IM (Sametime 7.5.1), my 35GB of WPLC related data – and it’s hard.. I do have my favorites at del.icio.us, and used Gmail from time to time, but it’s just not the same.. Google Reader kept me in sync with my feeds, but being away from my data was just too hard. And although many collaboration softwares are available (from IBM and others), I realized I just didn’t use them as much as I like.
Only today I had to give a presentation about Web 2.0 at IBM, using Lotus SW, to a large customer. I realized that all my files are stored on my hard-disk, and I have no remote access to them. There is a security issue, obviously, in putting personal data on a shared spcae, but there are many examples out there of how to make resources available online, shared as well as private.
So, my (new) resolution after this short laptop-less experience is to make a better use of Lotus collaboration software, so I’ll have most of my HOT materials available online, regardless of location and device…
BTW, my laptop is fine – new motherboard, and we’re back to business..
