Author Archives: David Hablewitz
HCL Software’s Prolific YouTube Channel
In case you’re not paying attention, HCL Software has a YouTube channel where they are posting an almost continuous stream of How-To videos. In fact, today alone they posted 10 videos. They are covering many varied topics that could turn a dedicated viewer into a Domino expert. It is especially useful because they are covering the new features in V12.
Is it possible they could make our user group conferences with all the How-To presentations obsolete? nah. Deep dive sessions are still important from a strategic perspective and a broader understanding of why you do things. But these short videos produced by HCL are very handy and remind me of days gone by when I would replicate the Knowledgebase database from Notes.net every morning and review the new technotes to start my day (easily identified thanks to unread marks and “show unread only” which you just can’t do with a web browser.)
If I were to offer HCL some advice, it would be to create an indexed website/table of contents with each of these videos embedded so they read like a help database with chapters and sections of related topics. I would also recommend paying more attention to the audio. In some videos, I have trouble understanding what is being said because the presenter has a thick accent. (That is my American-centric perspective and not everyone may agree.) In other videos, the recording seems to be made using a microphone of poor quality or low recording levels. Viewers will tolerate bad video quality, but bad audio will quickly lose viewers. Subtitles would be helpful too.
I would like to see content identified as intended for end users in a way that I could direct users to follow the channel and not be turned off by too much irrelevant information for that audience, though that may be partially addressed by the title labeling and playlists.
Speaking of title labeling, I do like that the titles are well thought out. The content of this channel covers a variety of products, so each title begins with the product; for example, “HCL Notes”, “HCL Accelerate”, “HCL Domino”, “HCL Sametime”, “Unica”, “HCL Commerce”. Viewers can focus on the labels of interest to them, yet still see what other topics and software is out there, which may peak their interest to broaden their understanding of the software portfolio (myself included). The playlists are also created for each of the products using the exact same name as the labels in the video titles — except for the ones that matter most to me, which are all put into a single playlist: HCL Digital Solutions, instead of having playlists called “HCL Notes”, “HCL Domino”, etc. This is not intuitive, especially for end users who have no idea what “digital solutions” is. They never call it that. It’s just Notes to them. So perhaps create additional playlists for those would be helpful.
Clearly, HCL is committed to filling the gaps created by the former product owners. It just keeps getting better.
If you haven’t already, click here to subscribe to the HCL Software YouTube Channel.
CollabSphere 2021 is Taking Abstracts for Sessions Now
So many new things to talk about! So many products in the HCL Collaboration portfolio have all new versions with tons of totally new features (not just enhancements). There is a big need among the community to learn from each other how to best put the latest software to work. If you have any tips you have learned, this is the place to give back to the community as well as build your own credentials as an expert in your profession. If you had to figure something out, chances are high that others out there are looking for that same knowledge. CollabSphere is October 19 – 21 and it will be held online. The cost is free because the labor comes from us in the community along with generous sponsors, most notably is the organizer, Richard Moy of Phora Group.
Here is the link to the conference website where you can register and where you can post your abstract for a presentation idea that you are willing to give. You have through the month of August to submit your abstract. If you want to be considered for HCL Ambassador, presenting at user group conferences will certainly add to your case.
A Dozen Business Solutions You Need. All on One Platform.
I have been asking — begging — HCL that businesses don’t need platforms. They need solutions. Solutions to common business problems. Domino is an incredibly powerful platform on which businesses can build solutions. But businesses want more than just an email app out of the box. To make Domino more valuable on Day One, it should include a collection of apps for the most common business problems.
HCL came through. Check out these dozen sample apps that are included with the Domino Volt ecosystem just released with Domino V12. These can replace a dozen different applications, subscriptions, or services that I previously had to buy — and administer. That is 12 different apps I had to worry about managing users’ access, deploying, securing, and backing up. And there wasn’t a good way to integrate them with each other because they were each a standalone solution. HCL has (re)started something here that I hope is just the beginning. Domino provides the platform to quickly develop custom business apps, but now it can also provide these most common business solutions right out of the box with Domino Volt. I’m expecting they will continue to expand the list. They went with a dozen to fit the release of version 12. You can read their details published by HCL. Here is the list:
- Candidate Recruitment
- Vacation Request System
- Asset Tracking
- Expense Tracking and Reimbursement
- Employee Onboarding
- Order Entry and Procurement
- Basic CRM /Sales Tracker
- Visitor Registration
- FAQ Management
- Case Management
- Event Management
- Online Booking (Healthcare)
https://www.hcltechsw.com/domino/offerings/domino-volt/showroom-announcement
Footnote: for #12, check out a feature-rich solution for managing your bookings at https://clickbook.net
This is vastly more complete and yes, built on Domino.
HCL Notes/Domino Events Calendar
There are so many activities going on these days in the HCL (Lotus) software community! The buzz is going strong as people rediscover the power of the software and it is being led by HCL’s huge investments and attention to the market. Here are some of the activities that are coming up as well as a few that just happened that you may want to go watch the replay. There are so many things going on, it’s easy to lose track. If you know of any I missed, please post in the comments directly on my blog (Not just on the social media sites where this is shared).
May 9 – Nordic Collaboration User Group (NCUG) – The future of Domino V12. Watch the replay here
Subscribe to their YouTube channel to see all of the videos from this event
May 20, 11am EDT – OpenNTF Webinar – Overview and Status of Popular or New Projects – Register here, Details here
May 27, 11:00am ET – HCL Business Partner Academy (HCL BPs only) – Volt MX & Domino 12 Highlights (see below)
June 7th – HCL – Join Andrew Manby and the HCL Digital Solutions team for this monumental launch of their best ever releases of Domino and Sametime! Register here
June 10, 11:00 am ET – HCL Business Partner Academy (HCL BPs only) – Domino 12 Essentials for BPs (see below)
June 16 – HCL Verse – Configuring a Proxy for HCL Verse High Availability Register here, Details here
See all OpenNTF webinars upcoming and replays at https://openntf.org/webinars
Panagenda upcoming webinars and replays are at https://www.panagenda.com/webinars/
The most recent replay is on Notes & Domino Security
Here is the whole series being presented for North America HCL Business Partners:
This post sponsored by @FreddytheBassett
HCL Domino Online Meeting Integration (DOMI) pre-release demo!
Short notice, but that doesn’t change the value. Tomorrow, 4 May, 2021 at 5:00am PDT (13:00CET) the Nordic Collaboration User Group (NCUG) will be hosting a 3 hour presentation that will include HCL Domino & Notes V12, HCL Volt and Volt MX for end user development tools, HCL Connections V7, HCL Sametime and DOMI.
DOMI is a new feature that integrates Sametime, Zoom, and Teams with Notes so you can schedule those online meetings entirely within your HCL Notes calendar.
Get all the details at ncug.org schedule and registration page.
Updated Zoom Plugin for HCL Notes V11
[blog post update: The new software and documentation from Zoom can be found here.]
HCL Notes users: If you are using Zoom instead of HCL Sametime for your video meetings, you may have discovered that the Notes integration plugin provided by Zoom that made it easy to schedule Zoom meetings in your Notes calendar broke with Notes V11. Well I have good news. Zoom is finally releasing an update that works with Notes V11. See their response in the Zoom support forum. You can find the earlier release of the Zoom plugin for Notes V10 here. The update is scheduled for release on Monday. If that is at a different URL, I will add it here when it is available.
If you want to eliminate this problem altogether, your company should be using HCL Sametime for video conferencing. It is more secure; you have total control of the software; it allows you to keep all of your data inside your company with no harvesting of user data or chats; it is — and always will be — tightly integrated with your HCL Notes and Domino environment; and it’s less expensive.
LogJam River Rescue. One Adventure. Two Stories.
Know the difference between an Outing and an Adventure?
An Outing is what it’s called when everything goes as planned.
An Adventure is what it’s called when things don’t go as planned.
Julie Titone and I shared a whitewater adventure. It took some time to digest the events, but here it is, published in companion articles in American Whitewater. I share it here on my blog with permission, but I encourage you to consider joining AW so you can have access to all the issues online and get new ones in print if you wish, as well as support their efforts to protect our free flowing rivers and our access to them. Seven full pages were dedicated to our adventure. The hope is that you will benefit from our experience. Share it and you may save a friend! Footnote to the story: My GPS tracker indicated it was under 2 minutes before I got there. Time flies!
(Julie’s post of the same article)
Senate Hearing on SB 5176 delayed, possibly dead thanks to your voices!
The Senate at the last minute decided to hold off on the bill hearing. Committee Chair Van De Wege announced that the House is still revising the text of their bill (after all the feedback we gave them) and they will want to wait to get their updates. Word I got afterwards is that they heard loud and clear this isn’t ready for law. (Perhaps that’s what happens when they get over a hundred responses and they unanimously oppose the bill?) If they do any thing more with this bill, they will reach out to the paddling community first. Most likely they will do other things to enhance safety. You can see the start of the Senate meeting and the House hearing below. Visit my post citing my testimony for other details.
A footnote: Senator Van De Wege also noted that someone published the personal contact information of the lobbyist representing the one company that supports this bill and he urged that people not address or harass the lobbyist, but speak directly with the senators and representatives.
Senate meeting today (1/28/2021)
For the record, of the 28 people signed up for verbal testimony, 19 were speaking against the bill, 9 listed as Other and 1 person speaking in support of it. That one would be the lobbyist for Kalkomey Entrprises https://www.kalkomey.com/ the business that would sell the online courses to the millions of people seeking a boater card.
House committee meeting (1/20/2021)
We aren’t out of the storm yet, but the horizon is looking clearer. Well done!
Testimony opposing HB-1018 on boater education
Here is my written testimony opposing House bill HB-1018 (and matching Senate bill SB-5176) This bill is intended to extend powerboat permit laws to human powered boats. I also gave verbal testimony during the public hearing today by the House Committee on Community & Economic Development. You can watch the replay of the hearing here. The committee meeting opens with a presentation about the stats of the Washington State Park system. The hearing for the bill starts at 0:34:00 My testimony starts at 1:19:33. If you want to give them input, they will take written testimony here until 10:00am tomorrow (1/21/2021).
“I grew up in Florida. Florida is the mecca of water sports. I’ve been paddling since I was 10.
I was a Red Cross Certified Lifeguard Instructor and in Boy Scouts I taught paddling safety.
At The University of Florida I handled waterfront safety for our sailboard, sailboat and canoe rentals to students.
I’ve been an avid whitewater and sea kayaker for 30 years and I’m trained in swift water rescue.
Thank you for your efforts on this issue. Having personally served as a water safety professional, I appreciate your passion and efforts to make water sports safer. But trying to force power boating rules and regulations on recreational paddling won’t work. If it were at all viable, Florida would have done it long ago.
The organized paddling community already does a fantastic job of safety education. Whitewater boaters are obsessive about river safety. Whitewater paddlers are statistically far more likely to get killed driving to the river than paddling it. No amount of legislation could match — much less improve — what they already do. Similarly, sea kayakers are very focused on safety.
Every sport has different safety education requirements. Whitewater paddlers use helmets and rescue throw ropes; sea kayakers use paddle floats and lights and have to know how to self-rescue far from shore; paddle boarders and surfers use board leashes; surfers actually avoid wearing a PFD because it would keep them from diving to avoid a wave. One safety class cannot cover all sports and being educated in one sport cannot prepare someone for other sports. So one boater card cannot ensure they have studied the knowledge they need for every craft they may paddle. What is even worse is that it will give holders a false sense of security that they know everything they need to be safe in any circumstance and create a liability for the State of Washington.
This bill includes paddle boards, but excludes sail boards, and makes no mention at all of kiteboards or surfboards. Apart from the kite or removable sail, they’re all about the same thing. The only difference is how they move.
It is ironic that this bill EXCLUDES the 2 groups who are most at risk:
- Those who take air mattresses, inner tubes, and single-chamber toy rafts on dangerous waters. They don’t have PFDs because they consider themselves swimming.
- Those operating boats with a small engines (under 15 HP). They may be misled by the existing law into complacency assuming that because they don’t have a big motor, they are not at risk. This may create another legal liability for the state.
In fact, by excluding motors under 15 HP, if I toss a trolling motor inside my kayak, I wouldn’t need to buy a permit.
This legislation is the same as requiring permits to ride skateboards, bicycles, go backcountry skiing, rock climbing or horseback riding. Yet those activities can be every bit as dangerous as paddle sports. Backcountry skiers aren’t required to take an avalanche class and get a permit. Cyclists aren’t required to pass any test. Hikers and backpackers aren’t required to take any safety classes, yet rescues of hikers happen far more often than paddlers.
Finally, this is a regressive and inequitable tax. It creates another barrier to entry that discriminates against the poor who can’t afford luxury activities.
Testimony was given in opposition by representation in every affected stakeholder group: the national organizations on paddling safety (American Whitewater, American Canoe Association), a kayak manufacturer (Eddyline Kayaks), by a whitewater rafting outfitter, the Recreational Boating Association and private paddlers.
The only verbal testimony given in support of HB-1018 was by the 2 businesses that stand to gain by making a profit from it. That would be Tom Hayward, the Chief Financial Officer of NASBLA, based in Lexington, Kentucky who sustains his employment by providing services to states that implement legislation like this; and Amy Brackenbury from Kalkomey Entrprises https://www.kalkomey.com/ a business that sells the online courses that would be sold to the millions of people seeking a boater card. The deaths Ms Brackenbury cited in her testimony were given completely out of context. She offers no proof that a boater card would have prevented these deaths. Beware of emotional arguments used to sell products. She also made the claim that accidents and fatalities are spiking as people get outdoors more in response to COVID, yet testimony from Rob Sendak, Boating Programs Manager and Washington State Boating Laws Administrator housed under the Washington State Parks Department stated that accidents have actually declined. Kalkomey Enterprises has much to profit for decades to come if this bill were to pass.
In summary,
This is an education problem, not a compliance problem. You are law makers, but not every problem is solved by making a law. “If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” Making ignorance illegal won’t change anything. If you feel you must do something, then analyze the primary causes of paddle sports accidents and address them specifically. Reach out to the paddling organizations that have many decades dealing in paddler safety. I have included the most relevant ones below:
Washington State Parks already partners with American Canoe Association for paddler education programs. You can find the links here:
https://parks.state.wa.us/832/Paddlesports
American Whitewater even keeps a detailed database of all river related deaths along with a detailed analysis of the contributing factors along with valuable graphics that categorize the causes of these incidents. This is a must-view website: https://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Accident/view/
American Whitewater https://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Safety/view/?
American Canoe Association https://www.americancanoe.org/page/Courses
North Sound Sea Kayak Association https://nsska.clubexpress.com/
Washington Recreational River Runners http://wrrr.org/category/rivers/river_safety/
The Mountaineers https://www.mountaineers.org/
National Center for Cold Water Safety http://www.coldwatersafety.org
Kayak Academy http://www.kayakacademy.com
Washington Kayak Club http://washingtonkayakclub.org/
Congratulations to the 2021 HCL Ambassadors!
This has been a challenging year for all of us. In the beginning of March, I was in Holland attending the Engage user group conference when the pandemic started and I returned home just 2 days before the border restrictions would have left me stranded in Europe. It turned out that was the last time that any HCL Ambassadors would gather this year.
What is an HCL Ambassador? As described at the HCL website:
“HCL Ambassador is a distinction that HCL awards select members of the community that are both experts in their field and are passionate about sharing their HCL knowledge with others.
HCL Ambassadors are exactly that, ambassadors. Importantly they are not employees, but their commitment to sharing their expertise has a huge impact on the HCL community. Whether they are blogging, writing books, speaking, running workshops, creating tutorials and classes, offering support in forums, or organizing and contributing to local events – they help make HCL’s mission of making technology play nice, possible.
HCL Ambassadors are eager to bring their technical expertise to new audiences both in person and online around the world.”
This year it has been exceptionally difficult to contribute in the typical ways, but this group of individuals managed to make the transition, holding several more user group conferences online, which actually made it possible for more people to attend than ever before. Certainly these heroes are the glue that keeps our software community together to make it possible for all of us and the companies we work for, to maximize our success. There is no stronger brand loyalty in the industry. See the entire list of HCL Ambassadors here. I am honored and humbled to be surrounded by such a team of positive, generous, innovative people dedicated to our profession and the HCL Digital Solutions community, I am! If you know or work with any of them, please take a moment to thank them.
Domino Jeopardy! at CollabSphere 2020
I recently had the honor of playing the role of game show host of a Notes/Domino edition of Jeopardy! at CollabSphere User Group Conference. This was the Day 2 Lunchtime entertainment.
The contestants were Helen Mendoza, an HCL customer from Chicago, IL, USA; Roberto Boccadoro, an HCL business partner from Milan, Italy; and Luis Guirigay, an HCL employee from Boca Raton, FL, USA.
Hosted by me, HCL Ambassador David Hablewitz.
Many requested it, so here is the replay of that fun game.
It opens with the pre-game chat to relax the contestants and wait for the audience arrive. The actual game starts at timestamp 5:00 and ends around 38:00 followed by more conversation. Actual attendance was about 60 people. Event organizer Richard Moy (Donna) did have a gift certificate for the winner.
Sadly, on November 8, less than 2 weeks after this event, Alex Trebek, the host of the actual TV game show for 36 years, passed away from pancreatic cancer. It was a great honor and tribute to have the privilege to serve as moderator and will make this event so much more meaningful to me. While you’re watching, please take a moment to view the video in youtube and subscribe to my youtube channel or click the subscribe button at the end of the video.
A few logistical details for those interested:
The meeting was run as a webinar in Zoom, though it could have been done in any online conferencing software. Helen and Luis chose to use the virtual background feature in Zoom. Roberto used the IRL background feature (in real life). For my background, the introduction bumper, and some game controls and audio effects (which were muffled) were managed using Open Broadcaster Studio (OBS Studio) software. The website used to host the online game was https://www.playfactile.com/
The game website does provide for a method of using a buzzer, but I opted to keep this as simple as possible to avoid potential technical difficulties and it really was entertaining to hear the contestants’ voices when they buzz. This also switched the speaker view in Zoom to the person when they buzzed. The recording of the event only shows one camera at a time, but during the live event, the cameras of all 3 contestants and the host were visible at all times. This was really fun to do and it was a great success, especially considering I had only a week to pull it all together. Freddy The Bassett also made a cameo appearance at the very beginning.
4 Things Tom Hanks does that they didn’t teach you in Toastmasters
I always thought Tom Hanks was a captivating speaker, but never analyzed carefully to figure out why. If you want to be a more interesting speaker, practice the 4 tips in this video. If you’re in toastmasters, you may have heard some of this, but not with this much detail (vocal variety, body language, eye contact) and there is more here that you might not have heard before:
1. story gap
2. emotional intrigue
3. inherit the character
4. audience inclusion
Watch it and tell me what you think in the comments. (disclaimer: I don’t know about or have anything to do with the promo at the end of the video.)
Also check out my analysis of how these unusual performers use body language and… the pause… to be more entertaining.
The Notes Guy in Seattle 