Kathleen McGivney

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!

Comic-Con Update

Robert Pattinson, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

I used to go to the San Diego Comic Con every year. I started going in 1993, when the convention (and the convention center) were much smaller. Since then, it has expanded quite a bit, to include movie and television promotions and huge booths, not just from the usual suspects like DC Comics, but other media like the Sci-Fi channel and Sony.

This year, I found myself with only one day to devote to the convention, so I headed down on Thursday. My main reason for being there was to photograph the cast of Twilight, particularly Kristen Stewart, for an article for Premiere. I met up with my awesome journalist colleague Pamela Chelin and joined her for a roundtable interview session with the cast, a short photo session outside the interview room, and their panel to discuss the movie. As I was mainly there to capture the leads, Kristen Stewart (photo also included in the article on Kristen at Premiere) and Robert Pattinson (pictured above), and had limited time, I didn't capture all of the cast, but there are a few more candids and some shots of the panel in my Twilight set at Flickr.

More Comic-Con fun, nerdy goodness, and links to good-looking people after the jump!

Gama-Go shirt at Comic-Con

Gama-Go shirt, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

I was in San Diego for the first day of Comic-Con on Thursday and was walking around with my writer friend Pamela as we waited for our scheduled meetings. We stopped by the Gama-Go booth because I love their stuff and buy my husband a LOT of their t-shirts. One of the staff at the booth was wearing this old Gama-Go design, which he said was discontinued because people kept mistaking the Katakana lettering for Hebrew.

We sent it on over to Heeb Magazine, who collects such items for their Jewish esoterica archives (or perhaps just likes free t-shirts).

More photos from Comic-Con in my Comic-Con set at Flickr. (And a full Comic-Con report coming soon.)