As the excitement of Lotusphere dies down, and we return to daily business, I am compelled to write (okay, pressured by our CEO Jeff to blog) about what a positive experience the event was for me.
I will admit that I am not the world’s biggest tradeshow fan. Past experiences at large tradeshows have left a bad taste in my mouth, and honestly I try to avoid them at all cost. I have made my sentiments known to the rest of the management team, so when I was asked to attend Lotusphere at the last minute, I hesitantly committed.
As it turns out, Lotusphere exceeded all my expectations and was an extremely positive experience for me, both professionally and personally. Not only was I impressed with the event itself, but the caliber and friendliness of the IBM folks that I met and interacted with was amazing. As I spoke with the many people who came by the booth and were interested in learning about Prolifiq/LotusLive, it hit me. I am having fun!! I came away reinvigorated and optimistic about our partnership with IBM/LotusLive and excited to see what the future holds for this partnership. I am confident that jointly, we have a very successful future ahead of us.
Lesson learned: the past is not necessarily indicative of the future, or at least it doesn’t have to be if you approach the future with a positive attitude.
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Yesterday morning, Sean Poulley of IBM/Lotus formally introduced LotusLive Engage (formerly Bluehouse) to a standing room only crowd at Lotusphere.
Prolifiq customer Maureen Shaffer of InSet Technologies (a NJ based manufacturer of implantable infusion pumps for the treatment of chronic pain) was showcased as she told the story of why InSet chose Prolifiq and LotusLive Engage. Maureen wowed the audience, not only because she is poised and captivating as a speaker, but here was a VP of marketing telling 1,000 IT professionals why SHE made the architectural decision for her company's IT strategy. She blew them away with her story.
Additionally, Prolifiq was honored to be showcased as the first LotusLive Engage ISV partner. We were joined by our fellow partners: Skype, LinkedIn and Salesforce.com. Based on the partner ecosystem they are building, it is clear that IBM/Lotus has a very clear SaaS strategy, and has the market clout to dominate the space. I am proud that we had the prescience to recognize the potential of the platform and to help IBM bring this to market. This should tell you something about our team.
Speaking of the Prolifiq team, this being our first Lotusphere (and not knowing what to expect) we chose to control our expenses and rent a house rather than stay at the event hotel. Because of some last minute personnel changes, I ended up sharing the house with 4 of my female coworkers: Isabella our Director of development, Lisa our Director of Marketing, Bridgett our Director of Account Services and Lisa, the President of our PR firm.
This is an interesting way to bond with your peers and get to know them in a whole new light. Bridgett is a demo goddess and her navigation skills are better than a Garmin; Lisa M is a gourmet chef and Twitter fiend; Isabella has a great sense of humor and possesses hidden skills; and Lisa P sweats the small stuff and handles logistics better than FedEx.
The best part of living with 4 women for a week: I now know that for pulling booth duty, flats are better than pumps.
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This morning, IBM/Lotus formally announced the commercial availability of LotusLive -- formerly known as "Bluehouse" -- IBM's cloud-based collaboration and social networking application.
In conjunction with this announcement, Prolifiq announced the commercial launch of the Prolifiq--LotusLive integrated solution with medical device manufacturer InSet Technologies. (see Prolifiq press release)
InSet Technologies is the first customer shipment of this joint Prolifiq/IBM solution and is transforming how the company does business. Maureen Shaffer is a visionary marketer; Lotus is interviewing her onstage on Tuesday morning so that she can share her experience with the 8000 attendees of Lotusphere.
Maureen has established a truly virtual work environment and has woven social networking into the culture and operations of the company. Maureen believes this joint implementation saves 20% of each of her employees' time.
This deployment is the result of a 17 month engagement with Lotus. Prolifiq was invited into this relationship just as Lotus was beginning to plan its partner and integration strategy. As a result, Prolifiq helped craft, and was the first ISV to develop against, the web services APIs of LotusLive.
When we first contemplated the project, we were intimidated--IBM has roughly 400,000 employees and does over $100 billion in revenue--what could they possibly gain by working with Prolifiq? I asked them exactly that question when we first met.
Robert, LotusLive Chief Architect, said it was quite simple: Prolifiq has 7+ years of cloud computing experience, and IBM could learn from us how to integrate and deploy hybrid-SaaS solutions.
Prolifiq gains visibility within the Lotus ecosystem and gains new customers. While our official color palette is red, black, white and grey--this week, we're bleeding yellow.
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