But is your PHONE ready for Lotusphere?

With only 2 weeks to go until Lotusphere I just realized I have to prepare for the shock of living out of my... phone, away from the comfort of my all powerful laptop. I'll have the laptop, but my main mode of connectedness will be my smartphone.  So how to prepare? For that I turned to those available on the im.bleedyellow Sametime server...

Question: What are 3 must have phone apps you should have for Lotusphere and do you have any tips....In no particular order...

Chris Toohey:  The sessions database, gTalk and twitterberry. Tips... "I'm going to WAP-enable SOTU and get it out there that way, you can issue remote console commands via a wap browser to your server from your WAP browser-havin' phone so, I'd def recommend THAT one, once it's released "

John Head: Twitterberry, facebook, and personal calendar. Tips... "get a portable charging device, like the callpod fueltank. recharges most blackberries about 4 times before its dead. so the device stays charged all day ".  and "set the ringer to vibrate on the plane to Orlando .. don't take it off vibrate to the plane home".

Karl-Henry Martinsson: Twibble for twittering, Google Sync to synchronize calendar between Google and Blackberry, Google maps for the Blackberry (or any cell phone), and LS09 Session Database.

Paul Mooney: The Turtle Group Sessions DB, currency calculator and weather app. Tip... Learn the silent mode

So, its unanimous. Have an easy on-ramp to Twitter, the sessions database and put your phone on vibrate.

The best advice I can give requires a single document in the Journal database. Every trip I go on I prepare a trip 'one sheet'. I usually name it "1111 Lotusphere 2007" or "11111111 Lotusphere 2008" to have it show up at the top of the list. Then, in order, I add...

Name of Event/Trip
Room number (just the number so if I loose the phone I don't get any midnight callers).
Ped / both numbers (for Axceler.com) for the showcase floor
My Flight Numbers and times
Names and Phone numbers of everyone I'll be there with.
Then a quick list for the hotel and where we plan to eat (and the menu ....
Walt Disney World Dolphin Hotel
1500 Epcot Resorts Blvd, Lake Buena Vista, FL, 32830
407-934-4000
Palm Restaurant (Orlando)
5800 Universal Blvd, Orlando, FL 32819
407-503-7256

http://www.thepalm.com

http://www.thepalm.com/menu.cfm?menu_id=324

Notice the single line address, this makes it easy to copy and paste into the google map app if you need to. Always fun if you want to check the route of the taxi or the Mears shuttle.

I then live out of this document. And make random notes for when i get back home. As far as applications go, I just started adding them so I don't really know what I'm missing. Up until this point I have gotten by on http://m.planetlotus.org and http://m.planetlotus.org/twitter.php, hence the investigation into this topic.

Overhaulin’ – The Dolphin and Swan Hotel Edition

A coworker just came back from a family vacation at Disney. She stayed at the Dolphin, after years and years of hearing us talk about it at Lotusphere. Aparently the quality of the rooms never came up because when she got there she couldn't get over how out of date, bland and humid they were. This led to a polite conversation with the hotel management where they (leaked?) a makeover was in the works. The Swan will be done this Summer and the Dolphin this Fall.

So we could all be staying in new rooms come next January. I of course won't believe it until i... sleep in it. You have to take with a grain of salt things that are said to appease customers. But I'm hoping this one is true.

My run-in with Luis Suarez

First a little background. Luis and I had emailed back and forth about Twitter and Planet Lotus a couple weeks if not days before the start of Lotusphere. I had also been doing a lot of reading of his tweets and blog entries, suffice it to say, he was one of the many I was excited to meet at Lotusphere this year.

So there we are, a group of us waiting next the beer stand at Islands of A., waiting for the other half of our larger group to get off the Hulk. I turn to throw something away and see  Luis doing the same... "Hi Luis, Yancy Lent"... The name doesn't register, fine... I'll try again. "Yancy Lent of Planet Lotus, we've been emailing back and forth...". Come on, how many Yancy's could there be… His face goes from confusion to disbelief. I'm trying to muster something to say that will remind him... and then a smile, then bigger and then he says the funniest thing I heard all week... "I though Yancy was a girl". I start laughing, he starts laughing and I'm pretty sure my coworkers behind us drowned out the both of us. It was hilarious.

 I can't tell you how blessed I am to have a name so unique; I know there are no shades of uniqueness, anyway, it's the single best ice breaker my parents could have given me.

It was great to share a laugh with Luis, and some great conversation, he is truly an amazing guy.

It was also great to meet so many of the bloggers in the Lotus bloggesphere. It is an informal fraternity that I am thrilled to be a part of… more on that in future posts.

P.S. I have since added my picture to linked-in, facebook, twitter and soon this blog

Saying hello to Bloggers at Lotusphere…

I've been on the phone with the Lotusphere organizers since I arrived to my room at the Dolphin. I'm trying to get access to the RFID system (RFID's are stickered to our badges) so I can link all of the bloggers at planetlotus.org. I then plan to link that info to the google maps api and post it on the mobile.planetlotus.org site…. The process will be like this… if you are viewing the mobile site and a blogger comes into your range you will get alerted, the alert will be in the form the bloggers page being loaded to your smart device. OK, I'm kidding, walking through the halls, seeing all the yellow backpacks has truly brought out my inner geek.

On another side… how about blogger name tags, instead of the actual names we can use things like this…

Test: