Kathleen McGivney

Heading in a new direction

As some of you may already know, last Monday, I started my new role as a Client Services Architect at Ping Identity. The first week of January was my last week as Director of Customer Success at Socialtext. It is not often that one gets the pleasure of working with a team filled with the amazing, talented people that I've worked with during my time at Socialtext, and I'm so happy that I was able to spend two years there. I'll miss my Socialtext colleagues, but I'm thrilled to have been able to work so closely with such a stellar team of people.

I'm equally happy to start my new role at Ping Identity. I'll be working in a technical role, delivering professional services for Ping's federated identity solutions. I've been interested in the federated identity and single sign-on space for quite some time, and I am really excited to join such a great team. Last week was our 2012 kick-off meeting, and one of the reasons I'm so happy to join Ping is because of their great company culture - the products rock, and so do the people. They also have a lot of fun, including costume parties during the annual kick-off meeting. This year's was '80s themed, and my new team rose to the occasion admirably (though we're missing our comrade Mr. Gorbachev in this photo). I'm looking forward to more awesome adventures with my new team.

The illusion of silence

I've always been a sporadically prolific blogger. I've gone through periods of time where I've blogged daily, but that usually only lasts a few days in a row. Every once in a while I'll blog more than once in a day, which is usually when I'm feeling particularly wordy. More often than not, and of course most recently, I haven't blogged much at all, which makes it appear as though I've gone silent. This, however, is just an illusion. For example, during the time period between my last blog post and this one, I have tweeted approximately 180 times. I've also typed thousands and thousands of words into Skype, AIM, IRC and Signals, our internal microblogging product. I'm not silent at all. So why the blog silence?

I suppose it's because I no longer use my blog as an outlet for small ideas and comments - I use Twitter for that. I don't use it to bitch about my day - I use the group chats I have with my friends on Skype for that. I don't use it to share hilarious links with my friends - I use Twitter or AIM for that. I don't use it to talk about work - I use Signals for that, and this particular blog (unlike several past blog iterations) is my personal blog, on which I rarely discuss work anyway. It's not that I'm lacking inspiration or topics, just that I either have other outlets for them or I don't have the time or inclination to flesh them out into longer posts.

This isn't a problem that's new to blogging - in fact, when I first started blogging, after the initial honeymoon period of realizing that I had my very own self-publishing platform on which I did not have to censor myself or cater to anyone else's approval, my posting frequency was erratic at best, and I know that many other bloggers run into the same issue. I have no solution to this problem (and I don't really know if it's even a problem!), so I need some ideas.

So what motivates you? What gets you to flesh out tweets into posts, or take that idea you talked about with your friend via instant messenger into a full-on blog post? What keeps you posting often, and more importantly, what do you do when you hit a dry spell and can't come up with anything to blog about?

A new beginning

I've been through a number of changes over the past couple of years, and today I have a fabulous one to share with you. It's with great happiness and excitement that I announce that I'll be closing up shop at Sakura Consulting and joining Socialtext as a Customer Success Manager.

Like it was for Alan, moving to a company that is outside of the Lotus community is a little bittersweet for me. I've been working with Lotus products since 1996, and I've spent most of that time in deeply technical roles. I've spoken at many Lotus-related conferences (and still will in January - more on that in a moment). Most of all, I've met some amazing people during my time working with Lotus products, whether I was a Lotus/IBM customer, business partner, or IBMer. The Lotus community has some of the most passionate, intelligent, and geeky people I've ever met, and I'm happy to have been a part of it for so long.

The move to Socialtext is not only a logical one for me in terms of career direction, but also in terms of the software I'll be working with. Socialtext is all about collaboration, in its culture and its products. That's one of the things that really speaks to me about Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 - the collaborative aspect. It's an aspect I'm very familiar with, and why I think the Lotus community was so quick to grok the value of things like Twitter - collaborative software is in our blood.

I could not be happier about my new role at Socialtext, where I'll continue to put that love for collaboration into practice. I'm excited about the software, the company, and the people I'll be working with. I'll post more about my role and the products as I move into my new responsibilities in early January.

Also, as mentioned, I will be speaking at Lotusphere in January - co-presenting with my evil twin Susan Bulloch for two sessions and participating in the Nerd Girl panel and BoF. I'm also looking forward to seeing the usual lot at the bar, where you are all free to buy me a farewell drink. (I kid, I kid. Mostly.)

I don't plan on leaving the Lotus community completely - I will continue to co-organize the Tri-State Lotus User Group with Mitch for the time being, and will be around the various blogs and chats. So, to the Lotus community - thank you for being so awesome over the years, and please keep in touch!

Art imitating life

My husband as art, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

Last week, my husband, my partners in Hanne Apparel, and a few of our muses went to GMHC's third annual Fashion Forward event. This was our second year attending and sponsoring, and we had a fantastic time! One of the highlights this year for us were the fashion students walking around the party sketching the attendees. We bought a couple of the sketches - one of my daughter, and another one of an anonymous fabulous fashionista, but missed out on this one during the event. Fortunately, my husband is fairly recognizable, and one of the event organizers saw this sketch of him after the event and sent it to us. I love it! I especially love how the artist captured his favorite new red shoes.

I'll be back to my semi-regular schedule of posting recipes, travel photos, and the occasional technology rant shortly. In the meantime, if you're in the NYC area, we're looking for some more authors at the NYC Metblog, so if you want to write about NYC, post a comment over there and let us know!

Ciao 2008, it's been real

It's the end of the year, therefore it is time for all bloggers to get all introspective and do a "year in review" post. (It's in the blogging bylaws. Look it up.) As many of you know, 2008 was a rather eventful year for me. I got married, left IBM, started two companies, traveled a lot, renewed an interest in cooking, and became a well-versed patient advocate for my father. I feel like 2008 flew by in a blur of sometimes awesome, sometimes difficult, but always incredible occurrences and learning experiences.

I thought about how I'd try to sum up all of these things that have happened in my life in 2008, and realized that it would have to be an incredibly long blog post if I wanted to do most of these topics any justice. Instead, I decided to do a summary in a convenient bulleted list, followed by some of my favorite photos from 2008 after the jump. Sometimes it's easier to tell stories through images.

Note: It was hard to pick just these images, since there were so many more that I loved this year, but if I included them all it'd take 15 years to load the page. So I picked a handful of highlights.

Travel:

• Flew 109,753 miles total, 103,105 on American, 6,648 on JetBlue. 
• Countries visited outside U.S.: Canada, Italy, Belgium, U.K., San Marino
• Cities visited outside U.S.: Rome, Orvieto, Civita di Bagnoregio, Bologna, Rimini, San Marino, Ravenna, Asolo, Pisa, Venice, Florence, Assisi, London, Brussels, Antwerp, Bruges, Toronto
• Cities visited within U.S.: Chicago, Boston, Worcester, Syracuse, Watertown (NY), Orlando, Nashville, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego

Professional (Tech):

• Conferences: Lotusphere in January (was also supposed to go to UKLUG, but life interfered)
• Closed second-largest deal in Lotus history in June.
• Founded Sakura Consulting in July.

Professional (Other):

• Launched Hanne Apparel in November.
• Photographs published on Premiere.com in several articles in the summer.

Personal:

• Got married to the most wonderful man I know on April 12, 2008.
• Plenty of other stuff happened, but that is the most important!

All in all, it's been a bit of a rollercoaster, but at least it's been interesting! After the new year, I'll be posting a lot more about what's going on at Sakura Consulting and what I'll be doing at Lotusphere. But for now, enjoy some photos of these and various other highlights of 2008 after the jump.

A brief hiatus

I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to the three readers who still have this blog in their RSS feeds for my unexplained radio silence recently. Actually, 2 1/2 of you know what's going on because I talk to you on a regular basis, but anyway, I figured I should tell the rest of the internets what is going on in my personal life, because that's what blogs are for! Inappropriate sharing!

My dad fell ill right after we came back from Boston. (Personally, I blame the monkey in the last post.) I've been in upstate NY most of the time since then tending to my dad's medical, personal, household, and financial needs. He's out of the hospital now and out of immediate danger, but he has been diagnosed with several very serious conditions that will require ongoing treatment. Until I get a regular schedule set up with him with visiting nurses, family, and friends, I will be up here every week making sure he goes to his appointments and takes his medications.

Unfortunately, that means I won't be going to UKLUG. I was really looking forward to presenting, introducing my new consulting company to everyone, and reconnecting with all my colleagues and friends from the UK and the rest of Europe, but my father takes precedent. I'll just have to wait to see you all at Lotusphere!

The good news is that we're out of the woods for now, so I can resume a somewhat regular schedule of blogging, baking, photographing, and otherwise wreaking havoc on the world around me. Next week I'm bringing a couple of cameras so I can document the changing fall colors and my dad's beautiful flower and vegetable garden, so you can expect a few new posts in the near future with pretty pictures. For now, following me on Twitter to keep up with daily happenings is your best bet (if you're into that sort of thing).

General anesthesia for fun and profit

Anyone following me on Twitter will know that I went to the hospital this morning for some minor outpatient surgery. It wasn't a major procedure, but invasive enough that they had to give me general anesthesia. I was actually more nervous about the anesthesia than the surgery itself, because I had never undergone general before. I got some reassurances from a couple of friends who had had it before, but I was still a bit nervous. The staff at the hospital was quite nice and understanding and they did a great job reassuring me and keeping me as calm as possible, given the circumstances.

The actual experience was really easy. They gave me an IV, I looked up at the ceiling, and I was out. The next thing I remember is coughing my way into consciousness as they wheeled me into recovery. Within a few minutes, I was alert, and less than an hour after I woke up, I was discharged. (Of course, I made sure my husband sent an update to Twitter once I was in recovery. What good geek wouldn't?)

I'm home now, and I don't feel the least bit groggy or sluggish, just kind of sore in the surgery area (which is, of course, to be expected).

So, all is well. Thanks to my friends for the good thoughts via text, email, and Twitter! And thanks to Twitter for not giving us the fail-whale this morning.

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.