Eric Mack On-Line

Wondering who the Lotusphere Opening General Session Speaker will be? Wait no longer.

Tonight, I attended the B.A.L.D. Bloggers dinner at River Brewery. In a bold (foolish?) move, I decided to use the wisdom of the crowds to get the inside scoop on the Speaker's identity.

This 5-minute podcast will tell you what I found out.

I just opened my suitcase to find cards and letters from my wife and children. They are wonderful.



As much as I am looking forward to Lotusphere 2010, it's a long time to be away...

Where to find me at Lotusphere - here is a brief overview of where I'll be.  When I have nothing scheduled, I'll be at our table in the Foundations Lab.  Come by and see me or Ryan Heathers there Monday through Thursday.


Friday
Look for Ryan or me in the Lotus Foundations Lab.
I'll be arriving at the Dolphin Hotel late in the evening.

Saturday
Look for Ryan or me in the Lotus Foundations Lab.
I expect to hang out at the hotel, acclimate to the east coast time difference, and work on my presentations.
3:30pm  "BALD" - Bloggers Annual Lotusphere Dinner at the Big River Brewery on the Disney Boardwalk


Sunday
Look for Ryan or me in the Lotus Foundations Lab.
Business development day.  Haven't fully decided which sessions I'll be attending.
6:30pm   Lotusphere 2010 Welcome Reception - Poolside at the Swan and Dolphin Resort


Monday
Look for Ryan or me in the Lotus Foundations Lab.
8:00am   Opening session (I will be sitting in the bloggers' area).  I have several meetings throughout the day.
8:30pm   Business Partner Reception at Disney's Atlantic Dance Hall

Tuesday
Look for Ryan or me in the Lotus Foundations Lab.
This will be a very busy day for me.  I've got a few meetings scheduled in the morning.
4:15pm  Come join me for my presentation:  IBM Lotus Notes and Me: Maximizing Personal Productivity with Lotus Notes.  Best Practices Session, BP302. It will take place at the Dolphin Hotel (Southern II).  This session will show both expert and novice Notes users how they can use Lotus Notes coupled with proven best practices to make them immediately more productive.
6:00pm   I'll be at the Team Studio Awards Reception - We are a finalist - Can't wait to see how we did!  We'll be at the Fresh Mediterranean Market Restaurant - Dolphin Hotel

Wednesday
Look for Ryan or me in the Lotus Foundations Lab.
8:00am  I will be giving a presentation to the Lotus Foundations group in the Lotus Foundations Lab.
Will spend the day at a few meetings
5:30pm  I have a Birds of Feather session: Getting Things Done with IBM Lotus Notes”. We'll be at the Swan Hotel (Macaw 1).

Thursday
Look for Ryan or me in the Lotus Foundations Lab.
Closing session - wouldn't miss it.  Then off to play mini-golf with the bloggers - watch out windmills, here I come!

Friday
Hanging out at the hotel, getting "in" to empty, and doing my weekly review.

Saturday
Heading home to my incredible family who will all greet me at the airport with hugs and kisses.

Dave Lawrence is the president of Smart Technology Enablers, Inc. His company resells the fantastic Lotus Foundations product that gives a host of Lotus capabilities in one server box.

Now, even the best products can use some tweaking here and there, and Dave's company has found that eProductivity provides a missing ingredient for Foundations.

See what he has to say about improving the Lotus Foundations customer experience:

As I mentioned over on the Notes on Productivity blog, this last weekend I talked with David Allen on a variety of subjects around productivity and Lotus Notes.

David allowed me to record a portion of our conversation, and he has this great riff on Outlook and Lotus Notes that I want to share with you.

There are so many people I hope to meet at Lotusphere. I've reached out to many friends, bloggers, and contacts. If you want to meet at Lotusphere, send me an email and we'll try to find a time...

There's still much to do: presentations to prepare, free software giveaways to pack up, and laptops and Blackberries to sync up. I am looking forward to this year's event, which promises to be the best ever.

Fortunately, I know what I need to do and I have a good action management system to help me stay on top of things.

In addition to blogging, I'm trying to get a bunch of video clips from my recent interview with David Allen loaded up on the web. I'll post them to the Notes On Productivity Blog.

I'll post details of my LS10 sessions shortly.

If you want to meet at LS10, get in touch with me and we'll set something up.

2009 has been a whirlwind year for the Mack Family and for me personally and professionally. I took some time to reflect on a few of the accomplishments for this past year as well as some of the goals that I have for 2010:

LOOKING BACK: A few notable accomplishments for 2009

January, 2009
- We launched the commercial version of eProductivity at Lotusphere
- David Allan and I presented at Lotusphere on using Notes Productively
- Ian and I received honorable mention in the TeamStudio Spotlight Award
- Ryan and I launched the Inside eProductivity Blog

March 2009
- Attended the GTD Summit to present eProductivity; Amy & Wendy helped
- Moderated a Productivity Panel at the GTD Summit
August
- Earned my Master's Degree in Information and Knowledge Management
- My emphasis was on enabling high performance knowledge work
September
- Attended the National Knowledge Management Conference

October
- Kathy and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary for the 20th time
- Taught MGT 430 Technology for Business Decision Making

November
- Presented a workshop on High Performance Knowledge Work
- Moderated a panel on Personal KM and Social Networking

December
- Bloggers post over 75 blog posts about eProductivity
-  And one I am very proud of: People in over 900 organizations in 50 countries are using eProductivity to get things done with Lotus Notes.
- I read all the way through my 1-year Bible in only 366 days!

I'm grateful for the love of my wife and children and I'm thankful to be able to serve with an awesome team of professionals at ICA/eProductivity. I also grateful for the group of key business and personal advisors; godly men who have provided guidance and mentoring along the way.

LOOKING FORWARD: A few goals for 2010
Lord willing, there are several goals on my list for 2010. These include:

• Launch of eProductivity 2.0, (based on Notes 8.5.1)
• Presenter at Lotusphere 2010 on using Notes Productively
• Introduction of eProductivity versions for mobile and cloud apps
• I look forward to teaching for The Master's College again: MGT 430 Technology for Business Decision Making
• Travel with my family
• I hope to present a paper at the National KM Conference
• I plan to present a workshop and main session on High Performance Knowledge Work at KMWORLD
• I will be working on my book on High Performance Knowledge Work
• Now that I'm done with school, and time-permitting, I hope to spend some time on my hobbies in robotics, CNC, mechanical music, and vintage computing

The cover of the books says "365 Daily Readings" but it actually took me 366 days to complete it. That's not the author's fault; it's mine for falling behind. In any case, I spent the day catching up so I can now cross this project off as completed - at least until I'm ready to read it again.

Despite the title of this post, I won't presume to write book review of the Bible. As the inspired Word of God, it needs no review from me and there's nothing that I can say other than I am deeply moved, convicted, challenged, and inspired each time I read it. What I will write about is the format for this particular Bible. It's the New International (NIV) Translation which I really enjoy for casual reading. (For in-depth study of the Scriptures, I prefer a more traditional study Bible in either NKJ or NASB translation and I found it helpful to keep a study Bible at hand for those times I wanted to dig deeper.)

What I really appreciate is the presentation of the scriptures in chronological order. It reads as a story and the chronological reference makes it easier to consider the events in context. In addition, the editor, Dr. F. LaGard Smith, provides an ongoing narrative in the form of a brief commentary at the start of each day's reading to set context. This is my second time reading through this particular Bible cover-to-cover and I have enjoyed the experience. If you desire to read through the whole of God's Word in one year and leave the experience with a good contextual and topical overview, I can certainly recommend this approach.

Over the years, I have given away several of these Bibles to friends. Apparently the version I own has been updated. You can find the current version on Amazon here.