I have been a Lotus Notes developer since 1997 (R4.5) and somewhere along the way I lost my way. Back in the early-mid 2000 I was collaboration with people online about various Domino projects, especially the rich text editor posted in the Lotus Code Store by my good friend Alan Hurt. In 2003 and 2004 I wrote two articles for the View Magazine:

• Create MS Office and Other Application Documents from a Browser — Using a LotusScript Agent, Some HTML, and a Content-Type Flag
• Simple Methods for Creating HTML-Formatted E-mail in Domino Web Applications and Scheduled Agents

I had prepared a submission for openntf (never submitted) which was very small at the time and I was ready to get seriously into the community….and then it all changed. My company lost a contract, 5 of my team were laid off and by necessity of needing to stay employed, I became a manager……and there I stayed for 5 years, with a very minor role as a notes developer and a major role as a manager of Lotus and .Net applications.

I learned a lot over that time. I learned to write documentation, create a project plan, use a Gantt chart, manage customer expectations and I learned how to manage a team of people who had no respect for each other. Ultimately while I never lost my passion for development, my daily deliverables did not include code for months at a time.

2011 comes along and I am the last Lotus Developer left at my company and that contract finished. My love was Domino Development and I had to leave. So after 10 years at the same company I left and re-energized myself as a developer at my new company. 🙂

I just went to Lousphere in Orlando and it was my first – I have had Lotusphere envy for so long and now I got to go……and it was not what I expected. It was not the developer conference I had expected. In fact I was rather disappointed at the lack of AppDev sessions. But on the final day at Gurupaluzza it struck me – this is what I have missed all these years – the community. I could do this and I could be a champion. I love sharing and writing about Lotus Notes….why not?

I asked a question to the bloggers about why I should come again because it was not a developer conference any more and the response I got was not what I expected – Lotusphere is what you make of it, the friends the collaboration, the networking, and I had missed almost all of that….what an opportunity missed………….

Carl Tyler said that I should go next year because I will be presenting a session…….why not? Is it a dare? Is is a challenge? or is it just he kick in the pants I wasn’t looking for?

This is going to be a good year and I have a lot more to write about.