Kathleen McGivney

Into the belly of the beast

As you know, Thursday was my last day at IBM Lotus. I will be posting a bit more detail about my new company and the services we offer in a few days, but first, I have to tell you about what I did on Thursday night.

I was at dinner a few weeks ago with Mary Jo Foley and she mentioned that she was going to be a judge at a competition for technical speakers called "Speaker Idol". Due to my experience speaking at Lotusphere and attending similar speaking competitions, she thought I'd be a great addition to the judging panel, so I agreed to do it. The event in question? A Microsoft .Net Developers Group meeting. Inside a Microsoft building.

Eek!

I have to admit, I was a little nervous walking into a room full of .Net developers, but the organizers, attendees, speakers, and other judges couldn't have been more inviting and pleasant. The speakers were great and the judging was fun. Also, as it turns out, entering a Microsoft building as an ex-Lotus employee will not, in fact, cause one to burst into flames. Who knew?

Lest anyone think that I am running out Lotus/IBM's door straight into the open, willing arms of their main messaging and collaboration competitor, not to worry. I still plan on remaining independent for the foreseeable future. This being my own boss thing is pretty sweet.

Plus, I just officially migrated to a Mac. I'm pretty sure that's like Kryptonite to Microsoft people, right?

Photos of the new Mac after the jump.

Zeitgeist Films

Zeitgeist Mugs, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

Recently, I went to the offices of Zeitgeist Films with Jenni Miller of Premiere while she interviewed them for a piece about their 20 years as a filmmaking team and their retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. I was there to shoot photos of the two for the article. I only posted a couple - this one of the mugs that a friend of theirs made for them, and another of the two filmmakers, which are both featured in the article on premiere.com.

I am looking forward to doing some more work with Premiere, which I'll be doing next week as I cover one day of the San Diego Comic Con for them. Yes, it's a comic book convention (and one I've been to many, many times before), but there is quite a large film company presence there and there will be many filmmakers and actors there promoting their films. And I'll be there to take pictures of 'em doing it.

Ch-ch-changes

In the past couple of years, I've been through a series of changes both big and small - moving back to New York City, getting married, changing blogs. Today brings another in that series of changes, as it is my last day with IBM.

I'm both excited for what lies ahead and sad to leave such a wonderful group of colleagues. I've had the great fortune to work with some of the best and brightest within IBM and Lotus. I truly value the time I've spent at IBM/Lotus and am very thankful for the amazing colleagues and friends I've come to know during my time there. And I don't expect those relationships to change - though I'm leaving the company, I'm certainly not leaving the Lotus community.

My decision was not one I took lightly. For the past couple of years, I have often had thoughts of changing focus - taking some time to explore my interests outside of IT and explore new possibilities. I've been very fortunate that I've been able to explore two of my passions while working as an IBMer: travel and photography (and sometimes, a combination of the two). I've found, however, that I'd like to explore that creative side a bit more, so I'll be devoting more time to photography, and will be going back to school for photography and fine art.

But as I said, I won't be leaving the Lotus community. I've started my own consulting company, Sakura Consulting, and will be providing consulting services for an array of Lotus products. I'll also continue to speak at conferences and user groups. In fact, I'll be presenting at the UK Lotus User Group meeting in September.

I want to thank my manager and my colleagues and mentors that supported me as I made this difficult decision. I also want to thank all of the friends and colleagues I've met and worked with via the Lotus community over the years. I encourage you to keep in touch, whether it be by blogging, e-mail, Twitter, or just saying hi when we cross paths at a conference. I've got so many great memories of the people in the Lotus community, and I can't wait to see the new ones that are to come.

Raging water

Raging water, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

I have blogged a few photos that were taken using a Lensbaby before. As I mentioned in this post, the Lensbaby is a hybrid of a tilt-shift and a bellows lens that allows a photographer to create a selective focus effect. With a traditional tilt shift lens, you can create focus on your desired subject and have the other areas of the image out of focus, which makes the subject really pop out from the background. This is achieved by creating a very shallow depth of field.

What the Lensbaby does that's a little different is adds a blurry effect around the center area of focus. As you can see in this image, the flowers and foliage surrounding the water that I was focusing on look streaky, as if you took a watercolor brush and dragged it away from the subject. This effect happens when you focus the Lensbaby, which is done by pushing down on the bellows until your subject is in focus. The flexibility of the bellows also allows the photographer to concentrate their area of focus at any point in the image. So I could focus on the upper right corner, for example, and the rest of the image would have that streaky, soft-focus, watercolor look. I especially like to use this lens for high-contrast or difficult lighting situations, because the Lensbaby allows for some incredible ways to play with light and color.

On our last trip to Ireland, I used the Lensbaby much more than I did our traditional lenses, so I'll be posting some more on the artistic possibilities that can be achieved with this lens, which has a very attractive price point, just $150 USD for the Lensbaby 2.0 (my preferred version). It's a good way to take a step towards expanding your creative vision with your photography.

To really see the full effect in this image, it's best to view it larger. Bigger version posted after the jump.

A friendly horse

A friendly horse, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

I have been to Ireland a number of times and always love exploring there. It's a beautiful country and in case you couldn't tell from my name, I'm of Irish descent, so visiting Ireland has special resonance for me. So it was with great delight that in 2006 and 2007, I spoke at the Irish Lotus User Group meeting in Dublin, Ireland. In 2007, my husband (then boyfriend) and I brought his parents with us and had a little vacation before the conference. One of the places we visited was Inis Mór, one of the Aran Islands off the coast of Galway.

While we were exploring the island, we came upon this little horse, grazing in a field behind a stone fence. She was very friendly and interested in us, allowing people to pet her and sniffing at us with curiosity. She was much more reluctant, however, to let us get even a glimpse of her foal, who she was quite determined to protect. Two more pictures of the friendly yet overprotective mom are after the jump. You can barely see her foal hiding behind her in one of the images.

Flowers from Belgium

Flowerpots, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

One of the subjects that I like to shoot often are flowers. That sounds awfully girly, but I like them for the same reasons I like shooting landscapes and people with pink hair and architecture and crazy dudes walking down Park Avenue in a bunny suit - because something about them catches my eye. Sometimes it's the color, sometimes it's the texture, sometimes it's the novelty, and sometimes it's the juxtaposition of modern and ancient, like an office building in the same shot as a Roman ruin. With this image, it was the bright yellow of the flowers contrasting with the muted colors of the windows, flowerpots, and bricks surrounding them.

I took this while we were exploring in Bruges in 2006 on our annual Thanksgiving weekend trip to Europe. Bruges is a really romantic and lovely city - lots of old brick streets, beautiful buildings, and many, many chocolatiers. Of course, because of that, pretty much all of our friends and family got Belgian chocolate for Christmas that year!

More photos from Belgium here, and more will be added soon. We're moving our photo archives from all of their many disparate storage locations to a centralized 1TB shared drive, and finding lots of photos that we thought we had lost. I'll be sure to share them with you soon.

In Memoriam

Three years ago today, a good friend of mine, Keith Alexander, died in a cycling accident. I can hardly believe that it's been three years already; it seems like just yesterday I was at a bar in Brooklyn with him, talking about music and technology and our crazy-ass friends and making the bartender's life hell. I miss him a lot.

Today, BME News (site is not safe for work!) relaunched with a piece about Keith (interview link safe for work) as its lead story. Several people contributed their memories and thoughts about Keith, including me. I am glad that his memory lives on in so many people. I'm better for having known him. Hopefully others will continue to be inspired and influenced by how he lived his life for a long time to come.

Cooking adventures

Fusilli with sauteed swiss chard and burrata, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

My husband and I have decided to start cooking more at home. In NYC, where we live, it's easy to get take-out or go out to eat every night - there are literally four good restaurants within one block of our building, and countless good restaurants in our area that deliver. We love food, and after going to Italy for our honeymoon and eating so much incredible food there, we decided that we should learn to cook more of it ourselves. We tried a new recipe tonight - one I got from epicurious and modified - and I'm going to document it here, along with lessons learned and what we'll do differently next time. I hope to have a lot more of these posts going forward!

Appetizer: Burrata crostini
Main course: Truffle-infused fusilli with sauteed swiss chard and burrata
Wine pairing: Spanish white - Cuevas de Castilla Conclass Rueda 07

We based our meal around burrata, a fresh Italian cheese made from mozzarella and cream. The outer shell is pure mozzarella and the inside is a mixture of mozzarella and cream. It gives it a lovely soft and creamy texture (similar to ricotta on the inside), and we thought it would be perfect for a pasta topping.

For our appetizer, we thinly sliced a baguette, put small dollops of burrata on top, and sprinkled a bit of Italian sea salt on it. It was quite delicious, though next time we will use smaller pieces of burrata and season the baguette slices with a little olive oil and basil and toast them for a crisper crostini.

For the entree, we cooked fusilli, boiling it in water seasoned with truffle salt instead of regular salt. While that was cooking, we sauteed some chopped swiss chard leaves in a mixture of equal parts butter and olive oil, seasoned with a little garlic and an herb mix of basil, bay, marjoram, rosemary, sage, and thyme.

When the pasta was finished, we strained it and tossed it in a little olive oil. Then we stirred in the swiss chard and mixed it in with the pasta. After we put it on the plate, we topped off the steaming pasta with a healthy dollop of burrata, and sprinkled a little of the herb mixture and sea salt on top. It was also really good, though next time, we'll season the water for the pasta with equal parts regular salt and truffle salt, as the truffle flavor and aroma was a little strong, and we'll only use the burrata in one dish, as it's a lot of creamy, delicious cheese for one sitting.

Photo of the appetizer and full recipe after the jump.

Update: I tried making the crostini again as a snack, and brushed the bread with olive oil and sprinkled it with a mix of organic Italian herbs, then topped with burrata and a little sea salt again. The results were even tastier and I've added another photo after the jump.

Alan Lepofsky - Career 2.0

Congratulations to my friend and colleague Alan Lepofsky, who just announced that he is leaving IBM to join Socialtext. Alan has always been an absolute pleasure to work with - his passion and enthusiasm for Lotus products have always been a valuable asset, and his willingness to help and go the extra mile to get information for a customer have made an impression on me many times. Socialtext is lucky to have him.

Congratulations and best of luck in your new position, Alan!

Domain names, redirects, and Moo cards, oh my

After blogging at my own domain for so long, blogging on TypePad, a hosted service, took a little bit of getting used to. I'm all settled in now, but to complete everything, I bought a bunch of domain names that I can't believe I didn't have already - kmcgivney.com, .net, and .org, which redirect here, and kathleenmcgivney.com, .net. and .org, which don't yet, because I might put a photography portfolio up there. Don't hold your breath, though, because between designing my husband's website, putting together our wedding photo books to send to family, and doing a little prep work for some upcoming adventures, I don't have the time to do much more than redirect the URLs. Any volunteers for free website design will be happily accepted, as long as you don't use like, FrontPage or something.

Part of my reasoning for doing this is that kmcgivney.com is way easier to remember than kmcgivney.typepad.com when I'm telling someone about my blog. Of course, now I'll have to change the backs of my Moo cards when I order the next batch, because they all have the TypePad address on them, but that's no big deal, since they are dirt cheap - $20 for 100 mini cards. I use them to hand out if I'm taking a photo of someone on the street, or just for non-work-related contacts - if I am hanging out with Tim Gunn, I do not need to give him an IBM business card. I'd rather give him one that shows my creative side, and that's what I get with the Moo cards. Plus, they're easy and fast to create (bonus! see: lack of time, above), good quality, and I got them very fast, considering they're coming from the UK. I also ordered some stickers and postcards with my photos on them, and I like the quality - and now have fewer excuses for not sending my mother anything in the mail. A picture on a postcard is worth a thousand words, mom!