Lotusphere 2010: What did you like and what you did NOT?

Hello, check this for what I liked : http://bit.ly/6CQxVf
I'll start thinking about what I did not like which is little !

I'd love to keep a foot in the online community, if at all to try LotusLive in real life.

I agree with most of the other comments so far. Too "cheap" this year. No hot breakfast, couldn't find afternoon snacks (cookies, ice cream, etc) that we've had in the past. The pocket agenda maps were very difficult to work with. There were no agendas for BDD which caused me to miss sessions. Only 5 rides were open at Hollywood Studios - no shows. I realize that there aren't a lot of rides there, but there are many other things to do, but they weren't open.

There weren't any major announcements which caused the buzz to fade early Monday. Of course Vulcan was talked about, but that isn't a real product. And it was the topic of discussion because there was nothing else to talk about. I spoke to several IBMers about this and they felt the "lack of excitement" as well. There needs to be major product announcements or at least purchase a company every year (how about purchasing some best of breed E2.0-type companies and put their products into Connections?). I think that next year should be a good event with several possible big releases (Notes, Connections, ST, Qr, Portal). This year seemed pretty dead.

One more thing...stop changing Lotus Executives. I know, stop the clouds, the wind blowing and the rain while you're at it. :-)

Suggestions: perhaps individual hashtags for each session. I'd like to see more "forum" type sessions with customers and BPs talking about how it's done and specific experiences. These type seem really popular at the E2.o conferences. More generic "how to" sessions on implementing E2.0 strategy, not just Connections, but including Connections. Encourage some "conference games/challenges" - perhaps a scavenger hunt, or tweeting/texting challenges. Give away Prizes - IBM/Lotus branded, not BP branded. Lotus Knows bus should be shuttling people back and forth to airport for good visibility (perhaps invitation only based on awards).

I LOVED the video creating/editing workshop. Was possibly the best thing of the week. Even though it wasn't Lotus specific, it will help me with my job. I always enjoy the location (WDW complex) and was happy that we were at a Disney park (not too fond of the Universal parks that we've been going to lately).

Well I liked #ls10 as before. But ofcourse I have some points to consider for next year.

Firts I agree with other comments about OGS. If announcements are shifted to the mini KEYNOTES then OGS should be shortened more ! Session content was great (still some people should consider for them self if presenting at lotusphere is something is of their capabilities) Still missing some presentations on lsonline. Year after Year it seems hard for the ls organisation to have all those given presentations online at some source (lsonline or slideshare or any other service). This is a great dislike for me ! Hollywood studio's was to small (or at least to litlle rides where open) for the complete lotusphere attendees group ! lsonline should be open for always if you ask me !

BD day I felt was disappointing, I didn't get access to the agenda until late, and TBH, the materials, wow, you try sitting at the back of some of the rooms trying to read those slides and take in the content before it switched over. Most of the decks, I couldn't see the content, so the break outs were really hard to follow.
Also on BD Day, (oh god I feel like I'm whingeing already) , sessions in the swan, lunch in the dolphin, I know I know, you want me to exercise, but please, me feet hurt already and I haven't started booth duty yet..
Aircon: oh boy. Mostly during the conference, I didn't get to leave the showcase, but still, there's not wonder I got sick. Hot, cold, hot cold. I'm sure the folks at Disney must be able to control this better..
Coffee. (strewth I am whingeing aren't I?) but how difficult is it to leave the coffee out? Most of the break times I was talking to people, and when I could turn around to grab a coffee, the darned stuff had gone. Sometimes it just felt inhumane that I could see the cups, but not the coffee.

OGS. a couple of years back, the exhbitor only badges could get into the OGS. We can't now. I'll stand at the back, I don't need a seat, it just would be I think a good gesture that the folks who work hard in the showcase get just the one feel good session...

Conference agenda: It would be great as an exhibitor to get a "booth copy" of the session details - not the content, just what's on, we weren't able to get a hold of a single schedule :-( until our conference badge holder turned up, and even then, he needed it and we couldn't see what was on.

Business partner Cafe - love the new opening hours - definitely helps that some of those are outside of the showcase hours...v useful.

Now, I've got my complaints out of the way. Oh wait. a cooked breakfast, yes, I missed that, that would have been good too...

Wifi was SUPERB this year, Cell phone ACCESS impeccable. Nice job on fixing what I saw as the biggest beef last year (i.e the wifi and cell phone coverage!)

BD Day was certainly not in a good location. The same sessions which last year packed 3x as many people were of course filled in those tiny rooms they put us in. Would have preferred everything at the Y&B if this was the alternative.
Logistics for bd day others discussed, also on Thursday, when only 1 session is running basically why is lunch and a boxed one at that(which was really good) in the dolphin downstairs while meet the devs, gurupalooza etc are in the swan?
Keeping lsonline open all year is a great thing we have been asking for some time. Hope you can make it happen.
The agenda, i'm showing my age, was really hard to read type and folding it back and forth and 2 parts? Preferred the old booklets but in truth REALLY prefer Ben's db over anything else. The LSonline one didn't work the 2 times I tried it.
Mini keynotes should not clash with sessions or be purely press invites.
BOFs should not exist on Thursday morning at 7am. No matter what you do wen night it is really hard to get to them at 7Am on thursday. Make them at 8 or maybe in parallel to the gurus or dev but some other way.
Not sure everyone appreciated their tweets shown publically. Yes, if you tweet it is public, and people should know, BUT people do funny things when they are with their friends.
OGS was a 1/2 hr too long.
On the Plus side, any session I attended slides were sent if I asked for them.

Interesting comment about tweets being shown LIVE publicly. Not sure if I agree with that though. I am personally getting requests to show people how it was done. If you want them private, don't tag with a public hashtag that 7000+ others are following closely.

I believe in being transparent and it is/was present, considering, its IBM, it is a HUGE change in mindset. I do agree with 7am point and that's again my personal view as well.

I don"t care about the tweets just saying some people got in trouble. I thought they were fun and the randomness ensured one couldn"t just post to see it.

Sent from my HTC Tilt2 using Lotus Notes Traveler 8.5.1

That has nothing to do with us though. You are at a professional conference. Or make your acct private :)

Agreed. It was cool. Would have been nice to have some live twitter feed while waiting for the OGS on the big s,creens.

Sent from my HTC Tilt2 using Lotus Notes Traveler 8.5.1

That was in the plan, logistics didn't work out with the 3rd party.

:(

I liked the session content, as always very good. Strategic direction seems good also. Like the tangible emphasis on community, like integration with OpenNTF.org, twittering, blogging community, etc. My complaints focus mainly on the logistics and evident cost-cutting as noted already. Bus service to Riverside had all kinds of problems, session rooms were fewer but often more packed; BDD being held in Swan but all meals at Dolphin; preferred the old booklet style agendas; Certification prep lab was an absolute joke this year; even the badges were cheaper than in years past.

Keep it coming. Thank you, this is great feedback.

Not having the hot breakfast was disappointing. Should have mixed it a bit rather than taking it all away. The pocket agenda was good but it was easy to lose. Having a single pocket agenda somewhere between the old one and the new one would be better. I did not like the fact the the business tracks required additional cost. The show and tell session was a good addition. As a showcase exhibitor there very a number of problems, but that is beyond of the scope of your discussion. It would have been better to have all of BPDD all at either the Swan or Dolphin. Instead we had to jump from Dolphin for breakfast to Swan and back to Dolphin for lunch and back to the Swan.

It felt like cost cutting went a bit too far. I checked in Sunday evening and they had already run out of pocket agendas, which is a bit difficult for me to understand how that could have happened. If X people paid and could no longer cancel out of LS 2010, then X + a few more pocket agendas should have been ordered, printed, and delivered to the conference. Very amateurish.

OGS is still too long. OGS 2010 felt even longer. Maybe because there wasn't a big announcement about the client or server. Felt like the content was stretched out to fit the 2 hours.