Lotusphere Online
Lotusphere Online worked well and was faster than it has often been. Many of the sessions had slide content available before the session ran, which is excellent. This year they added wireless networking to the plot, to go with the workstations provided, as well as a couple of wired places to plug in your own machine. It took just a moment or two to get connected. They even sold cards to people who just had to have one immediately.

The wireless coverage was extended during the week so that just about all of Lotusphere was included, including most of the session rooms. Everywhere you went, you could see people connected to it. This is a definite keeper for next year, Lotus.

Charlie Kaufman's session on security
Charlie Kaufman's sessions on security are always entertaining, and always informative. Because I had a bunch of press interviews--so that I can bring you, our readers--all the meat, I was only able to go to a few sessions, so I went to the repeat of this one. Charlie said at the start that repeats are the ones to go to because they tape the first one. In the second one he gets to say what he really means.

Charlie's session starts fast and stays fast right to the end. You can often tell the good sessions at Lotusphere by who gives them rather than by the synopsis. I missed Julie K's session this year. Fortunately, I can get the slides off the Web site.

Bill Andreas and Maureen Leland's session on advanced Designer topics
As always when Bill presents, the session on advanced Designer topics took the form of a high-speed demo. It was a tour around six particular features of Designer. There's virtually no slideware. No point in taking notes; you just need to sit back, enjoy, and then plan to buy the video. During the session, Bill stated that a recent usability study on Outlook actually shows that, contrary to popular opinion, Outlook is less usable than Notes 6. I'd like to see a copy of that.

The labs
This year there were more than a dozenlabs, mostly in the Dolphin. The labs are where you get to speak first-hand to the developers of Lotus products, to some third party developers, and even to IBM Research people. If you have any questions, particularly of the "Why does it?" or "Why doesn't it?" variety, this is where to get answers.

How about asking for "locations" in Sametime, so that as you travel, you can log on to different Sametime servers depending on where you are?

Thanks, Jim
The "Thanks, Jim" buttons that appeared during the week commemorated a great friend of many in the Lotus community, particularly those involved with Lotus Education. Jim Adair was the man behind the whole Lotus CLP program in its early years. He was someone that I, and many others in the global Lotus friendship, had worked with over the years on the course curriculums and on the certification exams. I always looked forward to seeing Jim again at each Lotusphere, with his wry smile, twinkling eyes and dry humor. Sadly Jim passed away towards the end of 2002 after a battle with cancer, and Lotusphere 2003 was a little darker for his passing.