What a wonderful week.  As I sit here waiting for my ride to the airport after CollabSphere, I just keep thinking, what a wonderful week.  I mean, it’s usually a wonderful week.  How could it not be?  I see some of my closest friends in the world.  I see people I’ve known for years in a community of people brought together by technology, but stay together because of something more.

However, this week, this CollabSphere (formerly MWLUG), we had some of what used to make these conferences really great, that shot of motivation and excitement in what we do.  Lotuspheres of years past used to make me so excited to get back home and WORK!  To try new things, learn new things, be a champion for the product (before that was even a thing). 

And to be perfectly honest, the last couple of years have lacked that.  Domino felt like an aging product with little to no interest by the company that made it (excluding a small group of passionate people, who probably were just as frustrated as the rest of us).

Then HCL got involved.  And sadly, I didn’t much care.  I knew some passionate, smart people were excited about the product and even that wasn’t enough to get me excited.  There was the factory tour and lots of seemingly exciting announcements.  I still couldn’t get interested.

So why did I even come to CollabSphere?  For the same reasons I always do.  The people.  The opportunity to share my knowledge with others.  To learn something new. (Richard Moy has done a great job, allowing the conference to grow beyond “just” Domino). 

I didn’t expect to get excited by Domino.  But guess what?  I did.  Lots of new things are on the horizon.  And not the far off, someday maybe horizon, but seemingly the actually possible, near-future horizon.  I know others have posted what’s coming, so I won’t rehash that here, but I would like to say that as a skeptic, I want to believe.   I do believe.  I have hope again.  I’m really looking forward to the future of Domino and what’s up next.