But Lotus Notes 8.5 lets me easily add my Google Calendar to my work calendar!

This rocks. =D

Oh, and I can work with Activities offline, too… I'm in love!

It was September 2006. I was a graduate student researching Enterprise 2.0, and my blog was one of the most popular ones in IBM. I heard about the Greater IBM Initiative's planned launch party in New York, and I really wanted to go. When the organizers read on my blog that I was trying to figure out how to get there, they invited me to become one of their Core Connectors. Kevin Aires called me all the way from the UK to invite me personally. I was thrilled! What a great opportunity to see corporate social networking in action, and to learn more about social networking in the process of supporting real-life connections.

I asked my research supervisor if I could have travel funding. He said no; our budget had already been earmarked for the research conferences. I asked the IBM Center for Advanced Studies for travel funding, seeing as the trip was mainly for the benefit of IBM. They said no, because they didn't want to set a precedent. I didn't want to pass up the opportunity, though, so I searched and searched until I found a bus ride to New York for the round trip price of USD 100. My mom connected me with a family friend who let me stay on her couch. I was going to make it happen.

With the logistics out of the way, I focused on making the Greater IBM launch party the best possible event. I remembered how good introductions helped me bring together my mostly-introverted friends from different circles, and I wanted to create that same kind of friendly atmosphere at the event. We had been using Xing as our social networking platform, and all the attendees had profiles there. I browsed each profile, copying their details and their pictures into a document - a social networking dossier. Their profiles included their current positions, their former IBM positions, their interests, and what they were looking for. I sent this dossier to the organizers, who printed it out and inserted it into each attendee's event bag.

To make the most of the 8-hour trip, I printed out a copy of my social networking dossier for myself. I also created flashcards, putting names on one side of the card and interesting details on the other site. I noted common interests, too. I couldn't print pictures, but I had those in my main dossier. As we rattled along the highways in a small van, I thumbed through my flashcards, committing as much as I could to memory.

That totally rocked.

As guests filtered into the swanky NY venue, I greeted them and often helped them find interesting conversations. Some had written only their first name on their nametags, but after I asked them their last name, I could remember everything I'd learned about them. I really enjoyed being able to delight people by introducing them with a few choice details - their current positions, their previous positions, the interests they shared. For example, in one conversation, I revealed that both of the other participants liked skiing enough to put it on their profiles. I think everyone walked away feeling like a VIP!

There are so many interesting things we can do when we combine online and offline social networking. I can't wait to see how we can make the experience even better. I'm looking forward to experimenting with this by organizing or helping host events!

I am so going to earn that massage.

I did the first set of presentations today. About thirty people attended the first session, and about fifteen people attended the second.

Back-to-back sessions are tough. I felt more comfortable with the first session because I could chat with the audience before starting. The second was a bit more difficult because I didn't want to wait too long, but that meant that people filtered in during the start of the presentation. Next time, I'm going to give myself more time between presentations so that I can grab a drink of water, chat with people, and reset myself.

Good stuff, though. I'm tempted to radically restructure the presentation as a story. Might be worth trying–and it'll be fun! I should ask the organizers if I can get the feedback forms from the first day separate from the feedback forms from the second day. After all, how many times will I get to test presentation styles with the same layout, same type of audience, same timeslot, and things like that? =)

Ooh, this will be fun.

Here's what I love about Pass It Along, and I think you'll love it too:

• You can find out who's learning a topic and see what else they're interested in. Sharing what I know becomes a lot more fun when I can see who's learning, because it gives me feedback that what I'm sharing is useful. Lists of people are much better than anonymous hit counts because I can view their profiles to see what else they're interested in.
• You can learn from other people's contributions. People can add links, related presentations, discussion topics, and other updates. For example, the "How to Make the Most of Your Commute" topic I started within IBM drew lots of interesting suggestions.
• You can create a place for discussions. I give a lot of presentations, and Pass It Along topics are a terrific place to hold follow-up discussions and reach out to more people. I post my presentation material using the Presentation Wizard and include the URL of the Pass It Along topic on my slides. It's a great way for learners to connect with each other, too.

I also really like how a newbie like me can create value for other people by sharing what I'm learning. =) Whee! I'm copying some of my public content over, and you can find my topics on Pass It Along.

IBM Pass It Along on Alphaworks is a public site open to everyone. Access controls will follow soon, so you can limit topic access to just your organization if needed. IBM Pass It Along is even better inside your organization, where you can link it up with your employee directory or do all sorts of other cool stuff.

Check it out - it might be a great fit for your organization!

IBM Pass It Along

Technorati Tags: enterprise2.0, ibm, km, learning, passitalong, social, web2.0

My work seemed pretty random in the beginning. I spent a fair bit of time just getting the feel of IBM, learning about the different services on IBM's intranet and making sense of the blogosphere. I had to be told to concentrate several times! ;)

The funny thing is that this random casting-about is probably *just* what I needed to do. My blog helped me meet other people working in the space, and I learned about visualizations and resources that I wouldn't have come across on my own.

The prototype that I made for kicks might be an interesting tool. The researchers I talked to found it novel...

What's next?

I need to sit down and just build the darn tool. I think it'll take me two, three weeks for the search engine, maybe another week for the aggregator. I already have most of the code. November will be my intensive hacking month, so don't expect to hear much from me externally.

Then I need to test the tool with people so that I have data that I can write up during my vacation. Early December?

On Technorati: ibm, research

Random Emacs symbol: w3m-url-authinfo - Function: Return a user name and a password to authenticate URL.

So I decided to wear the skirt Kathy gave me. I thought I might as well get a few more uses out of the skirt before winter really set in. The skirt naturally suggested this whole pink outfit: a heavy maroon corduroy shirt/jacket, a pink T-shirt, a plaid miniskirt, and shocking pink tights. Fortunately I didn't have pink winter boots, only black ones! ;) (Despite all your assurances, Kathy, it is *NOT* a winter mini!)

In the middle of cramming my presentation for the teleconference, I heard the distinctive clicking of the shutter of an SLR camera. I grew up around photographers. I'd know that sound anywhere. I looked up to find five or so people standing in the middle of the Center for Advanced Studies. One of them has a serious-looking camera, and he was pointing it in my direction.

"This is just perfect," said the person who appeared to be in charge, smiling.

I stopped slouching and looked around. There was no one else in my corner of the lab: just my desk, the brightly colored kite dangling from my wall, the wobbler toy I occasionally talk to when I podcast, and me in a shocking pink outfit.

They said that they'd talked to my manager already.

I pushed up my glasses and touched my hair, self-conscious about a messy ponytail. I'd gotten just five hours of sleep and hadn't had the time to put it in a bun.

"Oh, don't worry, it's just for a poster for IBM 3600. We want to show them what the Lab is like."

I smiled while thinking, "Oh no oh no oh no..." Of all the days to catch me in a miniskirt and shocking pink tights. Then again, it would've been a tossup between that or a brilliantly colored malong.

And hey, if word got out that IBM technology gets invented by cute girls... ;)

I suppose that dressing conservatively would allow me to avoid stuff like that, but then it wouldn't be *nearly* as much fun. Although maybe I should start seriously looking for ethnic accents like scarves and stuff like that, so that I can still spice up a conservative-ish wardrobe...

Another interesting thing is that this was the second time my desk has turned up in promotional material. Apparently, my desk was included in a recently filmed video about the Center for Advanced Studies, although I wasn't there at the time.

Possible explanations:

• The brightly-colored kite and stash of hot chocolate packets at my desk give it far more character than other grad students' desks.
• They want to archive potentially embarrassing material for when I'm famous. ;) "See, this was her first IBM desk!"

Heh. IBM. Gotta love the place.

On Technorati: ibm

This means I can work on my research from my regular computer instead of cramming it into one day a week. I just need to figure out how I can free up more space on this system...

On Technorati: ibm

Travel. I found bus tickets for $100. Sure, I have to leave at 6:00 AM and arrive at 2:00 PM, but I can deal with that. I'll just have to take the night bus on Thursday, and... errr... deal with New York at 5:00 on Monday. That's okay. I can hack that. Simon suggested just going ahead and booking a flight, but the backpacker in me resists the idea of spending nearly five times more money than I have to, even if IBM might end up paying for it. When I'm a high-powered executive, sure, they can fly me in. But if I can nap and write on the bus, I might as well take the bus.

Okay. Ticket booked. Next.

Accommodations. Chaya's offered her couch. Yay! The party probably won't run too late - the Greater IBM thing ends at 8:30, and there might be a later event that ends at 10:00 or something like that. I should give myself margin on the first day to account for travel fatigue, etc. Still, I don't want to inconvenience Chaya, so I can stay at a hostel (or with an IBMer?) for the first night and then stay over for the weekend. *Somehow* or another, it'll all get sorted out and I'll find myself back in NYC for the 6:00 AM bus trip back on Monday.

Check.

Goals. What do I want to do in NY? Whom do I want to meet?

This probably won't be my only trip to New York, so I'm not too panicky about organizing a geek dinner or cramming my sched full of interesting things. I'll get around to watching a Broadway musical eventually, and someday I'll focus on tapping the New York tech scene. =) But yeah, it's all good.

Send me your number if you'll be somewhere near NY this weekend, or if you know of something interesting I should do!

On Technorati: travel, ibm, greateribm

I *really* love this company, and I really love this universe!

On Technorati: ibm, greateribm

First, let's set that up as a deal I make with myself. After I finish five articles about networking that I can post on the Greater IBM blog, I'll give myself permission to go on this trip.

In the meantime, I need to plan ahead. How can I keep my costs down?

• Transportation: I'll keep an eye out on rush flight ticket prices. Can I hitch with anyone driving down from Toronto?
• Accommodation: Maybe one of the IBMers at Corporate HQ will let me crash on their couch.
• Party: How can I make the most of the event? Is there a program that I can get onto?
• Events: What other events should I hit at that time?

How can I raise money for this? (Hah. Maybe a donation jar at the event!) Ideas?

Let's make this happen!

On Technorati: greateribm, ibm, networking

I love watching street performers. Every time I watch one, I learn more about stage presence, drama and suspense, comedy and patter, even how to invite audience participation. I see many tricks again and again: juggling random dangerous objects, riding a unicycle, juggling random dangerous objects while riding a unicycle. Each performer brings a certain spin to things, though, and I enjoy their achievements just as much as the rest of the audience does.

The 2006 BuskerFest starts tomorrow—and the strange thing is, I feel more excited about going to IBM. I know that BuskerFest will delight and amaze me, but I don't want to just be delighted and amazed. I want to participate, to push the edge, to make things happen.

Somewhere in the sunlight, I know there will be kids laughing at the jugglers' demos and ooh-ing and aah-ing at the acrobats' antics. No one will miss me there; no one would even notice if I went. But in IBM, I can do something cool, learn tons of stuff, and be appreciated for it. Given a choice between watching a show and being part of one—you know what I'd choose.

I'll sleep early tonight. I don't want to feel tired tomorrow. I want to be wide awake and bursting with energy! There are so many cool things to do, so many people to reach out to. =)

What a terrific feeling!

On Technorati: ibm, research, buskerfest

Sounds good to me. =) In fact, it sounds like exactly what I need. For the next few weeks—months, even—I'll be in heads-down single-tasking mode when it comes to IBM. I'll keep a research plan somewhere (possibly a password-protected page on this wiki) and post regular updates on my internal blog, and at all times my research managers will know what my next action is and what I'm waiting for.

I might need to give up a few things as part of scaling back my involvement in IBM. I have a lot of opportunities to help define IBM 2.0 and move it forward, but the IBM Center for Advanced Studies pays for my graduate studies, and so they have dibs on my IBM mindshare. I can think of my research as almost a contract. If they're happy with my proposal, then I can scope it, schedule it, do it, and be done.

I'm not too worried about missing out on opportunities. Evangelizing social software within IBM, supporting networking at CASCON, improving the experience of social computing: these all point to goals that I can achieve through other means at other times. When I'm ready to take advantage of these opportunities again, they'll reappear.

In the meantime, focusing on my work and treating it as a time-sensitive contract allows me to separate it and free up brainspace for a few other things I'd like to do, like writing and establishing an external reputation. This is better for me in the long run, too. That way, I finish my graduate studies ready to take on problems at different scales: from 300k-person enterprises to smaller gigs.

A minor downside is that I won't be able to claim a living allowance: it certainly adds up, particularly if you think about compounded interest over a long period of time. If I manage my time wisely, though, I might be able to make it worth it in the long run. For example, if I can convert three hours of sleepy commuting or relaxed RSS reading into three hours of focused writing time each day, that can lead to a lot of opportunities in the future. Getting rid of time constraints can also mean that I'll eat better (hello, breakfast!) and cheaper (hello, kitchen!). The opportunity to schedule coffee breaks with people here will also help me plug further into the local tech scene. I'm trading money for flexibility, and I think I can make it worth it.

As for IBM networking: I can do that through the Greater IBM initiative. They're externally hosted, so I don't need to use the VPN for that. What about the internal networking, the real-time collaboration I enjoyed and occasionally found useful? I'll just have to trust that people have a good enough sense of what I'm interested in and that I'm discoverable by people who might be interested in my research. Personal referrals will probably do the trick.

What might I miss out on? The IBM CAS experience, I suppose: chalk talks, lunches with random people, cups and cups of hot chocolate... I won't be one of their face-to-face Connectors, but that's okay; someone else can take that role. Most of the people I connect with are scattered around the world, so VPN won't make much of a difference. I can promise not to initiate conversations that aren't directly related to my research, and try to minimize unrelated conversations initiated by others.

VPN access might also include the expectation of greater availability, the way many people assume that cellphones make other people always reachable. To help assure my research manager that I won't get too distracted, I'll check my e-mail once a day and I'll resist the temptation to do anything unless I can explicity justify it. Sure, it's less value than I can provide IBM as a whole, but it protects the value I offer to CAS.

I could very well do most of my work downtown even now, although I'd still like VPN so that I can share my progress internally. I don't think I'm allowed to blog even my research proposal externally, so unfortunately I'll have to stay dark about it here. I'll try to write about other things I'm learning, though. If I omit IBM-specific information, I might be able to stay out of trouble. =)

My personal blog is my call, and as long as I follow my proposal and submit my deliverables, things should be good. I should be able to blog about cooking or tango or DemoCamp without my developer sponsor freaking out. =)

Sounds like a plan.

On Technorati: ibm, research, gradschool

My job is to think all the time—ah, the life of a grad student!—and Think!Friday gives me that additional impetus to go out there and do something.

A few Think!Fridays ago was Hack Day, an ad-hoc 5-hour hackathon across IBM. I built a social discovery web application that took a list of e-mail addresses, names, Lotus Notes mail IDs and even community IDs. Given a list of people, the tool displayed the latest three blog headlines and bookmarks for people who used the internal blogging and bookmarking services. I'd been meaning to build it for a few weeks, and thanks to the enthusiastic Hack Day vibe, I finally made the time to hack it all together.

Fast forward to today. IBMers voted on their favorite Hack Day hacks. Mine won Best Mashup! That made me ridiculously happy. It was a simple hack—most of the time was spent writing libraries to interact with IBM's services and figuring out how to resolve different kinds of names—but it turned out to be quite useful for finding people. Throwing it all together in Ruby was a lot of fun, too. Ruby makes my brain happy.

Hack Day was a terrific way for me to meet a lot of other early adopters and geeks within IBM. We presented our hacks in two teleconferences, and that was awesome.

Today, I decided to deal with some of the other little projects I'd been meaning to do. I set up RSS2Email (Python) and made it easier for people to have comments on their blog e-mailed to them. Again, a simple hack (took me a leisurely hour or so)—but I think it will have a lot of benefit. I also wrote a little Ruby script that summarized my bookmarks in bloggable form. Happy!

I like days like this a lot. I like sensing the need for a little tool and writing that tool. I like being in the zone, trying things out, geeking out, creating something useful...

Happy girl. =)

On Technorati: ibm, hackday, mashup, coding, :), happy, geeking

Random Japanese sentence: この鼠は私の猫に殺されました。 This mouse was killed by my cat.

I can understand why the article's so important, but I'm gettig paralyzed by the thought of my words being in print! Uneditable! Gasp, gasp.

I really should just whack myself over the head and tell myself that as long as I get _something_ in, that's better than nothing. This is not alwys true, of course, but it generally is.

Life is about showing up.

I need to break that article down into even smaller things. Lots of little blog posts on my internal blog, if I have to.

As long as I get it done.

The other trick I need to learn is keeping a whole bunch of ideas that I love writing about. I breezed through the ten speeches for the Competent Communicator certification because I had so many things I'd been wanting to talk about. If I have a file with all sorts of things I can write longer pieces on, then I can almost always write about something I'm passionate about - whatever that passion is at the moment.

<wry grin> I know! Maybe I need to stop looking for interesting people and start surrounding myself with the most uninteresting people instead. ;) That way, I'll be sure to be the first person in the lab each morning and the last to leave it each night.

Right. <laugh>

Must learn how to hack this. I need to be more in the mood to write, and I need to have the discipline to write even when I'm not quite in the mood to do so.

On Technorati: writing, research, ibm

Random Japanese sentence: Ａ ｓｐｏｔ ｏｆ ｓｈｕｔ−ｅｙｅ は、また猫のいねむりともいわれている。猫は１度に２〜３分しか寝ない癖があるからだ。 "A spot of shut-eye" is also called a cat nap because a cat is in the habit of sleeping only a few minutes at a time.

It didn't help that I spent most of the morning puttering about the blogosphere, welcoming people in and updating my blog. I knew I was supposed to work on the social bookmarking article and I had bits and pieces of what I wanted to say, but I couldn't quite sit down and do it. On Monday, I think I'll get that out of the way before I even start catching up with the blogosphere.

Yes, yes, way too much hacking. Along the way, I'd installed a few more extensions for my browser, including one that made it easier for me to paste some boilerplate into textareas (good for blog newbie tutorials). I wanted to chat with other IBM student bloggers at lunch, so I wrote a quick and dirty Ruby script that generated an OPML file given a set of e-mail addresses so that I could import that OPML file into my blog reader. I turned up only three bloggers, though: me, Pranam, and Kevin. Oh well. We'll get there eventually...

Even the fresh data I received distracted me. I couldn't wait to slice and dice it in interesting ways! It was a good thing that Mark scheduled a 3:00 phone call in order to check up on me. (Yay fantastic research supervisor!) He reminded me about the CASCON deadline, but also reassured me that it was doable and that he was around to help. =)

David also called me up to talk about some complications in the data set. We figured out how to deal with some missing data, and I think the workaround we came up with was okay. Then I went back to 1panicking. Fortunately my editor moved the deadline for my social bookmarking article to Monday so I could concentrate on my research.

So all I had to do was code the visualizations. I felt myself performing a bit more sluggishly than I'm comfortable with - too little sleep, not enough food - but I slogged through it anyway. Fortunately I knew enough Ruby to squish the data into a form I could easily work with, and I had learned enough about the Prefuse visualization library to add filters to the dataset, allowing me to get snapshots of the data. Yay.

So that worked out. My timing was perfect, too. I dumped screeshots into (gasp) a Microsoft Word document, blogged a couple of interesting things on my internal blog, and ran to catch the bus. I waited around five minutes for the bus - ompletely anxious, of course, as those buses run only once an hour!

So now I'm on a bus - the second on this trip - a little bit weak - I really should always bring emergency food in my backpack - but I'll be fine.

The coding was almost fun, even, playing around with Ruby for text processing and Java for visualization...

On Technorati: ibm, research

Random Japanese sentence: この種の猫にはしっぽがない。 The tail is absent in this type of cat.

I went to IBM, and that turned out to be perfect timing. Laurie Dillon, Pranam Kolari and Ian Chan all pinged me for lunch. I thought they should definitely meet each other, so we all met up for lunch at 12 and had a wonderful conversation about IBM intranet goodness and blogging visualizations. =) That was tons of fun.

On Technorati: ibm, networking

Random Japanese sentence: 家はねこが２匹います。１匹は白で、もう１匹はくろです。 We have two cats; one is white, and the other is black.

I'm so excited about the tagging panel. It looks like such an interesting lineup!

On Technorati: tagging, ibm, research

Random Japanese sentence: 飼い猫の毛のつやが悪くなった。 Our cat's fur has lost its luster.

I usually hover about #3 on hottest blogs within IBM. Stephen thinks it's because my blog title is "geek - girl - dogear dogmatist," and the combination of "geek" and "girl" makes most people click. ;)

On Technorati: blogging, ibm

Random Japanese sentence: 太った白い猫が塀に座って、眠そうな目で二人を見ていました。 A fat white cat sat on a wall and watched them with sleepy eyes.

I had so much fun hacking that I nearly forgot about the 5:35 bus. Good thing Stephen IMed me. =) I ran to the bus stop and caught it, but that was still pretty scary!

I ended up chatting with Quinn on the way home. I should invite her to a dinner party sometime...

On Technorati: geek, ibm

Random Japanese sentence: 「にゃお、にゃお、今度はおなかが減った！」と、百匹のねこ千匹のねこ、百万匹一億匹のねこがいいました。 "Mew, mew! Now we are hungry!" cried the Hundreds of cats, Thousands of cats, Millions and billions and trillions of cats.