Ed Brill

OK, mark another one off the bucket list.  Today at Lotusphere Comes to You here in Madrid, I delivered an entire 45 minute presentation en español.  The presentation, "Smart Collaboration", was essentially a slightly higher-level version of the keynote Kevin Cavanaugh and I delivered at Lotusphere.  In fact, it was the comfort of knowing that this was my presentation, my words, that gave me the confidence to deliver those words in a different language.  The times when I stumbled were mainly those where I tried to use someone else's words, for a few slides that were borrowed from here or there.  Otherwise, according to reports, the message got across.

Here is the presentation -- for IBMers, I'll even post it along with the entire script (not just speaker notes) on my Lotus Connections files later tonight.

Speaking in Spanish had its challenges, clearly.  While I routinely read Spanish-language documents, my daily use of the language is fairly limited, and it has been 20 years since I was a student.  The situation was improved last night when we realized I could use my Mac as a teleprompter -- yes, despite the criticisms of Lotusphere reliance on same -- and then it was more about pronunciation than about word choice.  That was a HUGE help.  I struggled with pronouncing a few words, especially large ones or those that looked suspiciously like their English equivalents -- try saying desarrolladores three times fast (in the end, I resorted to "developers, developers, developers", but there was no monkey dance.  The way I knew that things had gone well -- the owner of the "lotuspherecty" twitter ID, who I did not meet, tweeted several times during my presentation, highlighting the key messages.  Clearly, the message came through correctly.

Both in person and on blogs/twitter, many in the audience thanked me for making the "titanic effort" to present in Spanish.  Really, it shouldn't have to be that big a deal.  Unfortunately, in the culture in my country, being fluently bi-lingual is not common nor a requirement.  I am in awe, and somewhat embarrassed, when I meet people who can speak four (or more) languages easily.  So, such is not mi vida.  For me, today (and of course, Thursday in Barcelona) are the best effort I can make to truly bring Lotusphere to "you".

After my presentation, I later joined IBM's Luis Suarez on stage to discuss social software.  Luis's presentation was excellent, and I understood most of it.  Interestingly, the Spanish are among the most prolific users of social software, but it is mainly market-facing usage.  Many in the room use LinkedIn and Facebook, but not so much for (or from) their jobs.  Luis asked me to discuss IBM's use of social software and how it has affected my business, and (after holding up my Spanish/English dictionary as a reference), I provided some basic answers about how you and I are now having the direct, market-driven conversation instead of hiding behind market research reports and consulting studies.

The IBMers have run an excellent event here in Madrid, and I expect more of the same on Thursday in Barcelona.  Until then, ¡hasta luego, otra vez!

Alistair Rennie has been the general manager of Lotus software for about sixty days.  In this podcast, recorded last week, Alistair debriefs on Lotusphere, talks about Project Vulcan, and looks ahead in the collaboration and productivity market.  Well worth a 20 minute listen.

LotusUserGroup.org caught up with Alistair Rennie, General Manager of Lotus Software at IBM, and we recorded the whole conversation for you to hear. Listen in to hear what he finds matters most in his new position and what he took away from his first Lotusphere as GM. He talks about where Lotus is with their announced plans for expanding enterprise mobile messaging.

Link: LotusUserGroup.org: Interview: Alistair Rennie, General Manager of Lotus Software at IBM >

Near as I can tell, it has been more than seven years since I was last in Spain.  Madrid, more like ten years.  I barely had discovered blogging at the time of my last visit. As such, I can't wait to get there tomorrow morning and start the day with some churros y chocolate.

The Lotusphere Comes to You events are on Tuesday in Madrid and Thursday in Barcelona.  I agreed, as blogged earlier, to deliver my presentation en español.  While I studied Spanish in high school and college, it has been a very long time since I really used any of it, other than in a restaurant at any rate.  I ended up writing out my entire presentation -- like having a teleprompter, but on paper instead.  I hope the customers/partners in Spain will be forgiving of my scripted approach and Latin Spanish.

The ESLUG community has been wonderful in encouraging this trip, and I am looking forward to in-real-life meetings with so many of the people I've met online over the last few years.

Twitter followers know that I am, of course, looking forward to food as well.  Already discussing plans to visit El museo de jamón, not a literal museum, but a shrine to all things porcine.  The real question will be my stamina..."dinner time" is a very different concept on the Iberian peninsula.

Hasta luego and see you from Madrid!

A few days ago, Erik Brooks wrote a blog entry entitled, "8.5.1 FAIL. Your code may just break."  Unsurprisingly, that blog post got a fair bit of attention, from many of you as customers/partners as well as within IBM.  I received a number of emails and pings from people who were worried about the issue, even though some said they couldn't reproduce it.

At any rate, a few of you opened PMRs and SPRs, and I quickly escalated them from my side as well.  I didn't "turf mark" the conversation on Erik's blog, but our best people were in there already and I knew the issue was getting needed focus.

This morning, Chad Scott from our support organization posted an update in comments on Erik's site...if you aren't monitoring his comments, you might not have seen it.  So, here it is as well:

IBM understands the implications of this issue and has put a concerted effort into identifying a resolution. The development team has investigated the GetDocumentByKey and GetAllDocumentsByKey issue that was first introduced by the fix delivered for SPR AJMO7LHMK9. A plan has been defined that will change the way we fixed the issue in SPR AJMO7LHMK9 to avoid the problem. This will allow code to execute without error or going into an infinite loop. The fix will not require a developer to edit their LotusScript or Java code nor will it require the use of a Notes.ini parameter. Customers seeking the fix to this issue should refer to SPR CSCT836HFL (see my post above for key SPRs). We plan to have this fix delivered by March 12th. 

Note: The current issue does not affect XPage server-side JavaScript.

There are some good reasons why the feature was coded in 8.5.1 the way it was, but in the real world, things sometimes play out differently.  That's why we have a support organization, and some really great people in the labs.  They've worked hard for the last few days to find the right solution here.  But I want to thank all of you for helping the process along with your reports, ideas, and tests.  Fix is coming soon.

This is so cool.

At Lotusphere, Tungle announced that their connector for Lotus Notes was in beta.  The Mac version wasn't ready until a few days ago, though, so I hadn't yet really started to tell people to "tungle me".

Last week, I installed the beta plug-in and didn't really think anything further about it.  Earlier today, though, a colleague used Tungle to schedule a meeting between a few of us IBMers and an outside party.  If you haven't tried this, what happens is that each party invited to a meeting specifies when they are available -- the person setting up the meeting can use Tungle to find some times to start with if all parties are on the service -- and when all parties have responded, the meeting is booked.  Before the plug-in, what would have happened is that I would have received an iCalendar invitation to process onto my Notes calendar.  Now, with the plug-in, I simply received an email indicating that the meeting had been scheduled, and voila -- the plug-in automatically put it on my calendar.

Tungle is a great way to set up meetings outside your organization, where free-time search is not possible.  With the Notes plug-in, the process becomes seamless on both sides.  My customized Tungle page shows when I am available, and my Notes client keeps it updated in the background.

We are looking forward to announcing the formal availability of the Tungle plug-in for Notes soon.  Meanwhile, if you want to check out the beta, find the details and sign up information here.

Link: Tungle.blog: Tungle.me for Lotus Notes -- Beta Connector Now Available! >

Note: Wrote this on Saturday's flight home....sounds a bit ASW-ish but I am definitely interested in discussing perceptions.

I had a great week in Germany, once again.  My 26th visit (I think) was just as good as the previous 25, and I start to feel more and more "at home" in Germany every visit.  I still would love to learn the language some day, though oral comprehension seems like it would take a very, very long time.  At least for now I consider my "restaurant German" to be very solid, and hey, for a foodie that's probably the most important skill anyway :-).

However, after appearing at four Lotusphere Comes to You events during four days, I am starting to feel slightly overexposed in the German market.  I measure this more by what didn't happen than what did.  The sessions went great -- in Munich and Dusseldorf I did a modified version of the Lotusphere "Oral history of Lotus Notes/first 20 years" session, and in Hamburg and Cologne I delivered a Notes/Domino family strategy update.  All events were well-attended and feedback from the organizers was extremely positive.  However, other than an excellent (and at times, apparently comedic) question/answer session in Munich, moderated in "good German" by Herr Weber, I encountered relatively little direct interaction with customers who attended these events.  I try -- at least I think I try -- to engage, by hanging out during coffee breaks or meals, and saying that I am available for questions.  However, both at these events and otherwise, I did not have a single sit-down customer meeting all week.

There could be any number of reasons for this, but it is hard not to examine whether the issues lie within.  One factor I am acutely aware of is that I have had several different roles within Lotus over the last several years, and in many cases am better known as a "Lotus blogger" than for my business accomplishments anyway.  I was introduced on one email a couple of weeks ago as the "Lotus competitive guy" (which hasn't been my full time assignment since early 2004).  Even this week, I saw several references to my previous title as Director, End-User Messaging and Collaboration -- which changed five months ago to Director, Notes/Domino Product Management.  Maybe the right title for me is as vowe says, "Mr. Notes".  With all these different, admittedly sometimes too-vague external descriptions, maybe it's not clear which customer discussions would be useful and which ones would seem more like courtesy calls.

At the conclusion of my German winter tour, I am wondering if I have done something either very well or too much.  Do my sessions communicate all the answers?  Does my blogging and tweeting mean that customers and partners feel they already have the vehicles needed to connect with me, outside of the formal face-to-face meeting?  Do I need to "work the crowd" more in the social/offline times of these events?  I am not sure what the right answer is.  Of course there is a balance issue as well.  This past week, I did not stay at any of these events for the entire day.  Why not?  Well, I don't speak German, so sitting in other sessions would only be pretending, and of course the reality of a globally integrated enterprise is that there are plenty of conference calls available at all hours to dial into, with physically location less relevant than ever.

When I travel out to these events, I am doing so precisely because I want to learn what is going on in local markets.  I could clearly stay at home, sleep better, do e-meetings, and worry less about "Up in the air" status cards. Instead, I have committed to Spain, St. Louis, Toronto, and San Francisco in the next 60 days.  The key is to make the next set of travel worthwhile.  I am open to your ideas on how to do this even better going forward.  In Germany, I believe the next such opportunity will be DNUG, in June in Berlin, followed by Pavone's Powersphere event in September.  There is no question -- I will be back, but I want to make all those upcoming trips as useful for all as possible.  Your input as to what I can do differently would be very much appreciated.

This is a great video showing several of the hottest OpenNTF.org projects for Lotus Notes and what their end-user benefits will be:



File navigator, status updater, and XTalk discussion forums are shown.  Niklas Heidloff demonstrates the actual end-user experience for each, in this short video that shows exactly what Notes is capable of.  Nathan should be happy :-)

A few weeks ago I was asked, what can *you* do to help get the word out about Notes.  We had some videos like this submitted for the Lotus Knows website last year.  I would happily take more or be happy to see more on YouTube -- these kinds of videos do exactly the right thing in highlighting how end-users can be more productive with Notes.

A few people have pinged me today about Microsoft's new competitive website, which can be reached via the classy-looking "Why Microsoft" blog written by andrewk (doesn't that anonymity make you feel better about doing business with Microsoft already?).  On the new site, Microsoft has done a clever job of their usual innuendos and half-truths (labeling everything Lotus as either legacy or acquired -- great throwaway line but how does that connect to reality?).  In one place, though, they've backed their claims up, with a Forrester "Total Economic Impact" study.  The assertion is:

Read a white paper in which Forrester covers four customers who migrated from competitive email and collaboration platforms to the Microsoft platform with a overall ROI of 29%

Hmm, that's sort of impressive, except when you go to ibm.com and find this contrast:

Forrester Consulting calculated a three-year risk-adjusted ROI of 147% for the composite organization with a payback period within 12 months of deployment.

So let's see, migrate to the competition and get an ROI of 29% in 14 months.  Stay with what you've got and get an ROI of 147% in 12 months.  Maybe I'm oversimplifying, but I do know which one I'd choose...

Another prime example of how in the Microsoft world that Microsoft giveth with one hand and taketh with the other...

Everything else about the Exchange 2010 storage story pushes the costs of high availability down--it's possible to use commodity hardware (SATA in some cases), no SAN, no RAID, etc. But we went from having the ability in Exchange 2007 to do replication on Windows Standard Edition with SCR and LCR (in combination with one another if desired) to having no HA or replication solution natively available on Windows Standard Edition in Exchange 2010.

In other words, Microsoft is pushing customers to deploy Exchange 2010 on Windows Server Enterprise edition -- which costs 4x Windows Server standard edition at list price.  Multiply out for all the various Exchange 2010 roles, directory catalogs, and of course multiple servers in a cluster, and things add up fast.

The premise of the article itself is interesting -- Lotus Domino clustering for years has offered an architecture where you could consider going without backups, because every clustered server had an identical copy of each NSF.  For that matter, even the local NSF on a replicated Notes client was the same (the one time I ever had a server mailbox corruption, it was faster to replicate my local NSF back up to the server than it was to pull from a backup).  It's interesting to see that admin philosophy has changed in a way that this is now even in the realm of conception and possibility.

Link: Windows IT Pro: More on Going Backup-less with Exchange 2010 > (Thanks, Russ and Chris)

Earlier this week, we kicked off the second major market presence for the "Lotus Knows" campaign -- "Lotus weiß", here in Germany.  The website is up at ibm.com/lotusknows/de.

In Germany specifically, this effort incorporates advertising -- online, print, and "out of home" (e.g. Frankfurt Airport), but there is much more.  The IBM presence at CeBIT, a major trade fair in March, will have a strong "Lotus Knows" message.  After that, there are additional events and activities -- including a Lotus Knows bus/blogger tour and a JamCamp.  All of this should crescendo toward the Deutsche (German) Notes User Group meeting in June in Berlin.



Now, beyond Germany, there is plenty of "Lotus Knows" activity.  We've translated all the "Lotus Knows" assets and materials into nine languages, and more are coming every day.  Social media activities continue in many markets -- for example the Lotusphere Comes to You events in Spain in two weeks have a heavy "Lotus sabe" element and are up on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.  In Finland, "Lotus tietää" comes to Helsinki next month.  You get the idea.  Lotus partners, too, have access to all this creative material and the ability to use/reuse it -- we have approved quotes for partners such as RIM and Group to use in their own efforts.

I've also heard there's some Lotus Knows stuff planned around the World Cup later this year in South Africa.

Meanwhile, the early work in the US has had a real impact.  Market research has shown that "Lotus Knows" in the New York, Boston, Chicago markets has improved Lotus's mindshare, along with the activities such as in-flight and other awareness.

I know the comments on this post will include people asking for more "Lotus Knows" in your own markets -- I get it.  This needs to continue to expand.  In many markets, the raw material is there already for partners and social media usage.  The traditional stuff still has to come along, but it either has to be done right (e.g. not just one ad in a newspaper) or not at all.  The right people in IBM marketing are working those efforts.  Meanwhile, of course, you can help by continuing to expand awareness of the "Lotus Knows" messages in your organization, your customers, and your partners.

Link: Lotus Knows >
(Updated) Link: Stefan Pfeiffer (Lotus marketing Deutschland): Lotus weiß, die 360 Grad Marketingkampagne startet heute >

eWeek has a good summary today of the state of the cloud-based messaging and collaboration market...

Google finds itself in a daunting position on Feb. 22, the third birthday of Google Apps Premier Edition. The company is trying to dislodge legacy on-premises installations from Microsoft and IBM while fighting off SAAS solutions from those same companies. It also has to compete with new cloud offerings from Cisco Systems, as well as from a slew of startups such as Zoho, Mindtouch and others. But Google, Microsoft and IBM will be the main protagonists in the battle for pre-eminence in the market for cloud, or Web-based, collaboration software.

There's some interesting posturing from my competitors...

Markezich claimed Microsoft has an advantage over Google because customers who choose to migrate to Google Apps from Microsoft or IBM still can't get the migration "spend out."

Moreover, Markezich claimed three-quarters of Microsoft's cloud customers are coming from Lotus Notes, including pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, McDonald's and Pitney Bowes, he added: "The reason they are coming from Notes is they've always wanted to get off of Notes onto Microsoft, but they didn't want to invest in the hardware and skills in that transition. Microsoft Online gives them an easier, faster path to get to a higher caliber communications and collaboration platform."

Translation -- our software is too expensive, but we can buy the business this way.

Google, too, seems to have a weird view:

eWEEK asked Google's [Enterprise President Dave] Girouard how the company can compete with Microsoft and IBM, the incumbents in the enterprise collaboration market.

Girouard pointed to history for incumbents giving way to newfangled approaches in computing. Just as the evolution from mainframes to the client/server model gave birth to Microsoft, the client/server era is giving way to Google and its cloud, Girouard believes. ...  

Girouard argued that all collaboration apps will move to the cloud in the next five years.  He said: "Where are the new apps being built? What app that is not a cloud app has been launched in the last five years? There are none. The best non-cloud app I can think of is probably [Apple's]  iTunes."

It's an interesting story but I would turn it around and say, what innovation has Google demonstrated in this space at all?  We are focused on the future where email isn't the center of the universe, instant messages are a tool and not a wave, and bringing true business value to collaboration -- as we have for the entire history of this market.  Girouard's view won't help him sort out what's important in his inbox (I'm quite sure of this based on a single past attempted interaction), what is needed to make decisions, and to do more than drive commodity pressure in the market.

I'm spending a lot more time on LotusLive, specifically LotusLive Notes conversations with customers, but the conversation starter is often the siren song of cloud/SaaS or commodity price pressure. This article sums up how IBM offers a more comprehensive total solution to customers--on-premises, cloud, or hybrid--with the only real offerings focused on a complete collaboration solution.

Link: eWeek: Google Apps Turns 3 as It Fends Off Microsoft, IBM in the Cloud >

I've been meaning to blog about this for quite some time, because I think it's cool engineering and an important step for Notes that may have been mostly overlooked.

In Notes 8.5.1, we changed the client's spell check engine.  The new engine is also used by Symphony and Sametime.  It is based on IBM's own LanguageWare tools, and gives us a lot more flexibility.

A number of additional languages are available to plug into the new spell check engine.  Technote 1411732 explains how to find those and install them.  They are basically provisioned through the same approach as sidebar plug-ins and other updates to the Eclipse-based Notes 8 environment.

Almar Diehl saw the technote and suggested using the widget catalog as another way to distribute additional dictionaries.

Now that the new engine is in place, there is an opportunity to support many more local languages inside of Notes.  While it's true we won't be translating the whole UI, at least the editor will correctly spell check these additional languages.  For example, a business partner called Filosoft has built a spell check dictionary for Estonian.  Another business partner developed a spell check dictionary for Bahasa Malaysia.  

You can find more information on the new dictionaries in the developerWorks wiki.  Let me know if you know of additional languages and dictionaries that you're using with Notes 8.5.1.

Sprint 4G mobile router.
Palm Pre.
Nokia N900.
Droid.
Nexus One.
New Blackberry Bold.
iPad.
Windows Mobile 7.

Is anyone else getting mobile whiplash?

It seems like the time horizon for innovation and one-upsmanship in the mobile space is about two weeks.  More to the point, each device is introducing genuinely new innovation and leaps forward, not just leapfrog or Moore's law.

I can't remember a time quite like this in hardware.  Certainly nobody gets this excited about the latest Dell, HP, and Lenovo laptops.

The rate and pace of change in the handheld device market is indicative of its maturation.  It's becoming clearer and clearer that in a short period of time, mobile devices are moving (have moved?) to front and center stage in terms of both raw and, increasingly, preferred computing power.  My older daughter occasionally pokes at me for using my Crackberry so much, but as I point out to her, I'm just as likely now to be looking something up on wikipedia for her homework as I am to be reading my corporate email.  It's a much, much more all-purpose device.

Honestly, I'm excited but bored at the same time, if that makes any sense.  When my Blackberry Bold 9000 started dying a month ago, I didn't hesitate to move along to the next Bold 9700.  All those other devices?  Sure, interesting, but is one of them going to make that big a difference for me right now?  

The life cycle for a handheld phone-based device for me right now is about 15-18 months, max.  I am fortunate to be able (usually) to upgrade that fast, but it's also the limits of how rugged these devices are.  I know that Bold 9000 wouldn't have made it another six months, or at least I would have ripped the trackball out of it by that point out of frustration.

I admit to a fascination with the rate and pace of what's going on in the mobile space, but am having a hard time challenging myself to think discontinuously about the long-term future.  Incremental improvements such as we heard coming out of the World Mobile Congress this week, sure, but the next-big-thing?  I'm sure it's out there--heck, at the current market pace, it's probably only two weeks away.

In the process of reviewing content for the now-in-progress Lotusphere Comes to You events, I came across the graphic used by Bob Picciano in his Lotusphere keynote highlighting new Notes/Domino customers:



This was only on screen for a few moments, so the full impact might not have been clear.  Each country is highlighted with an appropriately-sized dot breaking that 18,378 total of new customers down.  The graphic pretty much shoots down a competitor's boastful claim a year ago of there being "Notes-free countries", though if they want to take credit for Mongolia as some way of demonstrating their momentum, more power to them.

There have been many questions asked about this "number of new customers" statistic, so it's probably worth going into a bit more detail.  The number represents the number of discrete entities in IBM's Passport Advantage buying their first Notes or Domino license since the release of Notes/Domino 8 in August, 2007.  To be fair, there is some number of customers who stopped using Notes/Domino in the same time period, but those are all still "customers" since they bought Notes in the past.  IBM has no real way to adjust for those.  It's not the point, anyway...the point of showing this number and graphic is to demonstrate the continued progress of brand new adoptions of Notes/Domino, versus competitor claims of a declining installed base.

During 2009, we (and some of you partners) created 134 new Notes/Domino references in our internal database; 41 of our references became public case studies available on ibm.com (that search is Notes...use other searches for Domino, iNotes, etc.).  We're always looking for more, so if you have some good stories, please let me know and I'll connect you into that process.  I'm not sure we have the capacity to create 18,000 such stories, but that would not be a bad problem to have.

This weekend has been the first truly quiet days on my calendar in over seven weeks.  The new baby, run-up to Lotusphere, wonderful visiting relatives, and travel have all combined to keep things going non-stop for the last couple of months.  It's no surprise that therefore, my main instinct this weekend was to do absolutely nothing as much as possible, which I've mostly succeeded at.

All of that intensity at once comes at the start of every year, but the contrast this year to the prior period was stark.  Putting aside the seventeen weeks of bliss we've had with baby Chloe and her blossoming big sister, I had essentially stopped traveling after Australia last August, and only started back up four months later.  We're all, obviously, still adjusting to our new roles and routines.  My instincts when traveling have been off; I find myself so aware of having complete solitude in a hotel room that it feels necessary or even urgent that I do as much as possible in those solo hours.  When I returned home from Saskatchewan a week ago, I was utterly exhausted -- having worked until midnight most nights, in a probably-unnecessary and certainly unhealthy fashion.  Sure, I slept on airplanes and played Bejeweled Blitz to distract myself, but mostly, I was feeling the post-Lotusphere pressure to dig in and get busy on our 2010 objectives.  

Everything around me has suffered a bit, and I was feeling a bit overwhelmed.  I haven't been blogging off-topic at all lately, and even my weekly column in the Chicago Tribune's Triblocal Highland Park edition was briefly stalled.  Twitter -- sure, I can keep up with useful Twitter use most days, though even there, I was shaken a bit when someone I respect, radio tech show host Alex Goldfayn, asserted that nobody cared what airplane I was on in which day:

Other companies, and especially many executives, are using social media to give updates on what meeting they're in, where they are on vacation, or what plane they're getting on. This is more harmful than helpful: it's boring, nobody cares, and you're actually creating  distance between yourself and your consumers. Most consumers in your target market don't live like you. Stop telling them how great and interesting you have it.

Instead, teach them about your products. Give tips, tricks, techniques, suggestions. Take questions. Give something away. Help people.

Whether on social media or in the real world, orient everything to your customers' self-interests, not your own.

While I seem to resemble Alex's remarks, I don't entirely agree with him.  My travel movement-related microblogging has resulted in many a happy social media moment, from better connection to customers, discovery of new restaurants and establishments, and even the occasional in-person meetup.  And for sure, I do not believe all that so-called glamorous business travel is really "great and interesting."  

But Alex is right, perhaps I can put a different angle on some of that.  Of course, the hard part here is, at least for now, I have just one identity on Twitter, where all my worlds collide.  I have toyed with a second Twitter personality, but it doesn't feel as genuine to try to segment by audience.  It seems the exact opposite of what the whole concept of following someone really means, as opposed to being connected or linked or friended or buzzed.

The travel calendar is busy in the next few weeks, with Lotusphere Comes to You in Munich/Hamburg/Dusseldorf/Cologne/Madrid/Barcelona, and presumably more to be added.  For sure, though, I'm going to approach this time period differently than I have so far this year.  Of course, almost by default, these upcoming cities are a little more interesting than Saskatoon in February (no offense, Jason, it was just too cold to do anything!), so that will help.  But I need a bit of a mental shift as well.  Maybe that means lingering over one more beer in Munich, one more tapa in Barcelona, to hear one more story or create one more memory.  The emails and conference calls will still be there; sleep can be managed.  Life, however, keeps rolling, and as I am now reminded, I want to keep living these moments, with all of you as part of the storyline.