1Ed Brill  24/11/2008 14:35:44  Would it be nice if ALL Lotus BLOGGERs will have Lotusphere attendance for FREE? and those who are Certfied Advanced Developers/Administrators will have discounts???

We are doing a pilot program at Lotusphere 2009 for a selected group of Lotus community bloggers. We could not include everyone that we would like to...those that have been selected have been notified. If it is successful, we could potentially expand this in 2010 and beyond.

2Andrew Pollack  24/11/2008 14:42:44  Would it be nice if ALL Lotus BLOGGERs will have Lotusphere attendance for FREE? and those who are Certfied Advanced Developers/Administrators will have discounts???

I don't particularly like the idea of companies giving too much special attention simply because someone set up a blog -- and I say that as someone who sometimes gets some of that attention.

Its easy to forget that we're a vocal but small community with questionable influence in the real world.

3Vladislav Tatarincev  24/11/2008 14:52:31  Would it be nice if ALL Lotus BLOGGERs will have Lotusphere attendance for FREE? and those who are Certfied Advanced Developers/Administrators will have discounts???

Well, I agree that every one will blog, and there will be a lot of trash in Lotusplanet.

But I think if people like Paul Mooney come to Lotusphere, it is a big event for all people who do the Administration/ consulting work, at Least I met him last Lotusphere, I came to Ilug2008, and learned new things. Same as there are people in development who realy ADD VALUE :)

4Andrew Pollack  24/11/2008 15:25:56  I think the less direct benefit the better

The more direct benefit to blogging, the more crap will fill the space.

Formula:

1. Sign up for a free account on blogger.

2. Write or copy a paragraph about Domino each week (or just compile a weekly list of interesting articles -- automatically through a search bot)

3. Save $2000 a year.

Sounds like a recipe for pollution to me.

5Theo Heselmans  24/11/2008 15:34:02  Would it be nice if ALL Lotus BLOGGERs will have Lotusphere attendance for FREE? and those who are Certfied Advanced Developers/Administrators will have discounts???

@Ed: Nice effort. Thanks.

And no, I'm not one of the happy few, and no, I don't mind paying for my 14th LS.

@Andrew: Indeed, recipe for pollution, but on the other hand, isn't it rather easy to see what's crap ? If you first let bloggers pay the fee, and, when fulfilling certain criteria, their fee is waived. You could even link it to certifications.

6Kai Benjaminsen  24/11/2008 16:32:29  Would it be nice if ALL Lotus BLOGGERs will have Lotusphere attendance for FREE? and those who are Certfied Advanced Developers/Administrators will have discounts???

It would be great to get Lotusphere free just for blogging, but why? Even if I blog, I don't feel like I deserve a free Lotusphere pass on that basis. There must be some sort of quality assurance, and I guess that IBM has done this now.

7LongliveLotus  24/11/2008 17:09:21  Would it be nice if ALL Lotus BLOGGERs will have Lotusphere attendance for FREE? and those who are Certfied Advanced Developers/Administrators will have discounts???

Rewarding the bloggers is NOT the way to go imho for the reasons outlined by others in this thread.

I do think that the free pass for LS for speakers is a good idea and is part of the reason that the competition for speaking spots is getter hotter by the year.

My bugbear is the lack of discount or recognition (please don't say a blue sticker on your LS ID and access to the pitiful clp lounge...) for clp's - there are many more of these than there are bloggers and these are the real foot soldiers for the Lotus brand and product line.

Spread the warmth a bit more thinly please IBM....

8Keith Brooks  24/11/2008 17:25:24  Would it be nice if ALL Lotus BLOGGERs will have Lotusphere attendance for FREE? and those who are Certfied Advanced Developers/Administrators will have discounts???

Naturally not every blogger should be given a pass to the Sphere and certainly some logical thought process could be defined if they chose.

Other ideas have been proposed and shot down too and still more get brought up daily, but there are some realities which have to be met.

It is a shame they stopped the discount for certified people, I am not certified but think this is a bad idea but as it has been the case for a few years now I don't expect it to return.

9John Turnbow  24/11/2008 18:01:01  Would it be nice if ALL Lotus BLOGGERs will have Lotusphere attendance for FREE? and those who are Certfied Advanced Developers/Administrators will have discounts???

I think it depends on the bloggers contribution to the community. Some of it may be easily seen and others not, it is subject, so I think this is hard as Ed pointed out.

Discount for certified people I agree should not have been discontinued. The time, money, effort, even if working for a company all the work is done at home (at least in my case) the measurement is easily seen as they have an Advanced Certification. IBM/Lotus does not offer anything else. Other companies do!

10Andrew Pollack  24/11/2008 18:04:04  Would it be nice if ALL Lotus BLOGGERs will have Lotusphere attendance for FREE? and those who are Certfied Advanced Developers/Administrators will have discounts???

On the one hand, Lotusphere is very very successful, so no matter what points I am about to make "on the other hand", they need to be tempered with the fact that the market for LS tickets is firm, and IBM isn't suffering for lack of attendance.

That said, if I could have it my way:

1. LS would be held in someplace like Fargo, North Dakota in February so that nobody was going just for the trip to Orlando sunshine.

2. LS was held somewhere that rooms on site didn't cost 200-300 dollars a night, and have taxes of up to 20% on top of that.

3. LS contained all the content I wanted, and none of the content I didn't want (and screw the rest of you and your petty desires for different content).

4. LS paid for speaker accommodations, not just the LS conference ticket. As a speaker, it will cost me around 2500 dollars to attend LS this year. The ticket savings is a real help, don't get me wrong, but its still expensive.

Again, griping aside, LS is a successful conference. I hate that people push to speak there just for the cost of the ticket, because I think LS is not the place to learn your trade as a speaker.

11Charles Robinson  24/11/2008 20:28:35  Would it be nice if ALL Lotus BLOGGERs will have Lotusphere attendance for FREE? and those who are Certfied Advanced Developers/Administrators will have discounts???

I agree, free passes for bloggers is a bad idea. Other vendors have community MVP's, and I think would be more objective and transparent. People like Gregg Eldred, Stan Rogers, and a handful of others contribute heavily to the community outside of blogging. That deserves recognition more than simply having a blog and pushing out information when it suits you.

They do offer free admission to speakers, and it's interesting when you look at who is speaking and who is blogging. I'm fairly sure that my lack of blogging in the past year hurt my chances of getting selected as a speaker. It certainly wasn't my outspoken point of view. Right, Andrew?

12Daniel Silva  24/11/2008 21:51:22  Would it be nice if ALL Lotus BLOGGERs will have Lotusphere attendance for FREE? and those who are Certfied Advanced Developers/Administrators will have discounts???

I'd like to see some sort of discount for folks who put money towards getting Lotus certified. Perhaps Advanced-level certified in the latest available certification (R8 as of this writing) should have early-bird registration up to the last minute? Dunno, some benefit, definitely!

13Andrew Pollack  24/11/2008 23:26:16  Would it be nice if ALL Lotus BLOGGERs will have Lotusphere attendance for FREE? and those who are Certfied Advanced Developers/Administrators will have discounts???

@Charles - Re: Blogging impacting who speaks; I think they're related but not causal. Track managers have a lot of competing needs when it comes to picking speakers. There's a whole set of needs around the topics and session descriptions, and then there's a whole set of needs around the speakers themselves.

Forgetting the session descriptions for a minute and just focusing on selecting the speakers themselves, track managers are asked to select a wide number if possible rather than just a few top well known people. On the other hand, they need to select people who they know can reliably do the job. That means a known ability to communicate and whenever possible a track record of good speaking engagements to stand behind them. If a track manager knows you through the community, knows that you're reliable and that you know how to string words together and get the work done of turning in presentations, they're more apt to consider you a reliable choice. To a small degree, blogging can make up for a lack or otherwise known experience. It could also hurt you, I suppose.

I don't think you should take that to mean bloggers get a leg-up. I think that's not really true so much as possibly accidental. Also, people who blog are (ASW's) by nature extraverted and confident people. They have to be or they wouldn't stick their ideas out front all the time. Those also tend to be the same people who like to present at big shows.