Join us for the inaugural Pacific Lotus Users Group (PACLUG) event at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas on June 21-22. This event will bring together IT and LOB professionals from all over the Western United States to share ideas and tools using IBM Collaboration and Social Business solutions. This free event will provide you with the most current information about increasing your efficiency through collaboration and integrating your platforms with social business tools.  This is an event that you will not want to miss!

We have many great plans for our inaugural event. These include:
·        Expert panel discussion on “The Future of a Social Business”, which will cover topics like Web 2.0/E2.0, mobility, gamification, enterprise collaboration and much more!
·        Keynote address including demos from Alistair Rennie, GM of IBM Collaboration Solutions
·        Lab solutions area to see demos and meet with IBM subject matter experts
·        Solution Showcase including the IBM Pavilion
·        Discounted certification exams and testing area
·        Meals and receptions

Sessions and Speakers include:

• A “Day in the Life” Exceptional Work Experience – Chris Crummey, IBM (@ccrummey)
• Application Development Strategy – Presented by IBM
• Building the Next Generation Web Experience with IBM Forms with Workflow – without coding – Bob McCandless, Alphalogix (@BobMcCandless)
• Creating or Moving Your Social Portal to the Cloud – Tom Simmons, Alacrinet (@tjsimm)
• Developing Mobile Apps with XPages 8.5.2 – Lance Spellman, WorkFlow Studios (@lance_spellman)
• Discussing a Mobile Strategy for Lotus Notes/Domino – Richard Sharpe, TeamStudio (@teamstudio)
• Exceptional Web Experience / Portal in the Cloud – How to make the right business driven decisions – Steven Gerhardt, Ixion
• From Phone Calls to Mobile Web – How Bekins Brought Mobile to Trucking – Mike Ostrowski  (@mikeostrowski)
• Getting started as a social business – Don Browning, Sirius Computer Solutions (@CollabGuyDon)
• Introduction to IBM Lotus Web Content Management 7 – Naji Zeineh, Citent (@Citent)
• Leading the Way to Exceptional Customer Web Experiences – Jon Raslawski, IBM (@jrazz)
• Licensing Strategies for New Innovations – Presented by IBM
• LotusLive – Moving to the Cloud. LotusLive Hybrid infrastructure explained – Mark Harper, IBM (@k5tao)
• Messaging and Collaboration Strategy – Ed Brill, IBM (@edbrill)
• Organizing an XPages development team – Brian Benz, (@bbenz)
• Powering a Market Leading Business with Social Collaboration – Presented by IBM
• Project Vulcan in Action – Mind Meld Sold Separately – Bruce Elgort, Egluji Software (@belgort)
• Sametime from the Administrators side – Andy Higgins, IMCollaboration (@amhiggins)
• Security, DoD, and connecting it to Notes/Domino – D’Artagnan Fischer, SDDUG
• The Lotus Mobile Strategy- Presented by IBM
• Two-minute drills for Administrators – Ted Hardenburgh, Group Business Software [GBS] (@thardenb)
• Unified Communications and Collaboration Strategy and Roadmap – Presented by IBM

Total Cost:
This is a free event for all attendees. You do not need to be a part of a local users group to attend, nor do you need to register for any other conference. Since this is a FREE conference, we have limited availability to host the event. Make sure you register today and make plans to attend. Your total cost will be your travel to Las Vegas and hotel arrangements. We have a block of hotel rooms at Planet Hollywood for $99/night.

This is your opportunity to learn and network with colleagues from all over the Western United States. Register today at www.paclug.org!

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/paclug
Friend us on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/4oej3vd  
Like our Facebook page: http://tinyurl.com/4twr9pe
LinkedIn Event page: http://events.linkedin.com/Pacific-Lotus-Users-Group-Conference/pub/646205
Lanyard social conference: http://lanyrd.com/2011/paclug/

Smartphone users send or receive emails more than any other business activity. And you may have guessed that accessing calendar information is a close second. We all know how critical mobile access has become in today’s workplace. IBM and WorkFlow Studios invite you to see the great possibilities when you include these mobile devices in your collaboration strategy.

At this session we will discuss and demo various Lotus products on the iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices.

The goal is to encourage you to consider including these types of devices in your strategy and to show you how your employees can have access to their mail, calendar, PIM and other applications using these devices.

Discussion Topics:

• Lotus mobility solutions for Blackberry devices

• Lotus mobility solutions for Windows Mobile devices

• iPhone Application development for mobile devices

San Francisco, CA – February 9

9:00 am – 12:00 pm
IBM San Francisco Innovation Center
425 Market Street, Room #20-280
San Francisco, CA 94105

Costa Mesa, CA – February 11

9:00 am – 12:00 pm
IBM Costa Mesa 600 Anton Blvd, 2nd Floor Room #209
Costa Mesa, CA 92626

Space is limited REGISTER NOW

For more information:

David Stephens
WorkFlow Studios
Director of Interactive Sales and Marketing
949-212-5396

I was so very surprised to see one piece that I was not expecting.  The laptop was shipped to me without MS Office on the desktop.  I had Lotus Notes 8.5 of course, Sametime, Connections plugins and SYMPHONY.

So here is my thoughts after the first 90 days without MS Office.

The first thing that I thought was… ok… now I can really cut the cord and use Symphony only.  I had been using it for over a year… but not exclusively.  IBM has been offering all of our templates, forms and presentations in the Symphony formats, but I was still using the Office Suite.  Well really it was the default on my old laptop.  But I do have to say that I have been using MS Office since it’s inception, so it is hard to make a complete cut over without taking some action.

To be honest… I am enjoying this much more.  The fact that when I do a file save, my machine does not freeze, most of the capabilities are not that different, in presentations I can add animation, manage groups, combine objects, add text effects, so many things that you can do in Powerpoint.  My favorite thing is the ease of use (more logical in my opinion) for the Masters – Slides, Notes and Handouts and controlling the Page Layouts.  I tend to use presentations the most, but really there are great things about the Document and the Spreadsheet tools as well.  Really tables are so much easier, formating is easier too… no pesky hidden code to make you mad and hard to control.

It is also so very easy to save documents into Office formats to share with my customers, and to easily export in one click to PDF / HTML format.

Here is the point:  I am just one person and with little to no effort this upgrade saved IBM $350.  You can do the math for your own organization and see how much money you can save.

I am really happy… and I have not looked back once!  Give it a try yourself for free… BE FREE AND WORK SMART!!

IBM Lotus is very focused on integration in your environment.  We do not believe that you should be locked down with a technology, that you should be able to blend the technologies to create the best work space for your end users.  Lotus specifically leaves the door open for you to integrate the technologies that you need.  Each of our technologies offer complimentary touch points into and with the Microsoft environments to provide the best capabilities.  See for yourself.   Interested in learning more?  Please feel free to contact me @ holli_konig@us.ibm.com

Here are some great links to show you how! )

• IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows
• IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft SharePoint
• IBM Lotus Quickr Content Integrator
• IBM® Lotus® Sametime® with Microsoft Office, allows you to collaborate, create meetings, and chat with co-workers from Microsoft Office
• IBM Websphere Portal – Collaboration and Messaging portlets
• IBM Lotus Traveler support for Windows CE
• IBM Lotus Symphony and Microsoft Office

Lotus Software has long been synonymous with collaboration— and leading the pack in helping individuals and teams create, innovate and become the visionaries they aspire to be. And today, we’re continuing to pioneer the way, shaping how organizations around the world collaborate ‘smarter’ every day.

Announcing a new series of webinar events aimed at helping you and your company ‘Get Smart’, regardless of where you are in the process, or which Lotus software products you’ve embraced.

Get up close and personal with the Lotus executive team. Register for these important events today.

Get Smart. Start the conversation. Be the visionary. Shape the future. ibm.com/software/lotus/events/smarter-collaboration/

Register now for Get Smart with Hot Technologies, Cool Solutions:

• The Cloud Advantage 12-Aug-2009 Speaker: Sean Poulley, Vice President, Online Collaboration Services, Lotus Software
• Get Smart with Hot Technologies, Cool Solutions: Unified Communications and Collaboration 19-Aug-2009 Speaker: Bruce Morse, Vice President, Unified Communications Software, Lotus Software
• Get Smart with Hot Technologies, Cool Solutions: Messaging Economics 26-Aug-2009 Speaker: Kevin Cavanaugh, Vice President, Messaging and Collaboration, Lotus Software
• Get Smart with Hot Technologies, Cool Solutions: Social Software 09-Sep-2009 Speaker: Jeff Schick, Vice President, Social Software, Lotus Software

IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, and Lotus are trademarks of IBM, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. A current list of IBM trademarks is available at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml. Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others. © Copyright IBM Corporation 2009. All Rights Reserved.

Great reading! Holli

Pre-order this new book on Amazon

IBM Lotus Connections: Planning and Implementing Social Software for Your Enterprise (Paperback)
by Stephen Hardison (Author), David Brooks (Author), David Byrd (Author), Gary Wood (Author), Saurabh Calla (Author), Tim Speed (Author), Michael Martin (Author), Suzanne O. Minassian (Author)

Negotiate a better enterprise agreement

Ever wanted to be the big hero and save the company millions of dollars?  Well… I have a secret… we have seen drastic calculations regarding saving across the board for evaluating the Microsoft Enterprise Agreements, leveraging what you have in your organization, vs what Microsoft is bundling in their agreenments.   IBM offers a site that can help you understand how doing an evaluation of your environment could save you money.

Customers with Microsoft Enterprise Agreements might be able to save up to 40% or more on the cost of their renewal through this “no-charge” evaluation of their current Enterprise Agreement.

Click here for more information on IBM’s Project Liberate

If you are interested in setting up a conversation with one of our consultants, please feel free to contact me directly @ holli.konig@us.ibm.com and I will assist in getting you to the right people for your organization.

• Monday 02/23 – Understanding Lotus Connections – Profiles andDogears
• Tuesday 02/24 – Unified Communications andCollaboration
• Wednesday 02/25 – IBM Mashup Center – Build a mashup application withoutcoding
• Thursday 02/26 – Portal 6.1 and Web2.0
• Friday 02/27 – Forms 3.5 and Turbo “why do Icare?”

For details please click on the links… if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly…