Jeff's Zone 2

Thanks for your support!

Special thanks to everyone who supported me in the MS150 ride to raise money for the Illinois MS Society. My friends Andy (pictured) and Bill and I rode 102 miles on Saturday in a constant downpour. Miles 65-80 were pretty rough because I have not been training for that distance ofa ride, but I rallied at mile 80 and had a strong finish.

It was not freezing but just cold enough to get chilled if we stopped too long at the rest stops(click on the picture to see what it really looked like in the rain). Between the non-stop rain and being splashed by water from the lead bike as we drafted into the wind, it was a pretty miserable ride but well worth the cause. After all it was only 6 hours of discomfort compared to what people with MS and other diseases go through all the time. And, once you are done and warm its a great feeling to have done it.

Again, thank you for all the support and generous donations!!!!!

For any of you who would still like to donate you can do so here: http://www.msillinois.org/goto/jeschultz

Round up of this week’s news

We have had a busy week this week! Two trade shows, two announcements, and some great coverage. Here is a round up:

Announcements:

mindSHIFT and Parlano partner to address customer needs for federated group: This is an important relationship because it is a big step forward in our strategy for providing secure, federated connections between customers who want to share chat channels with each other. MindAlign 2007 makes this easy because of our use of Microsoft Live Communications Server but some of our customers do not want to manage federated connections to all of their customers and partners. mindSHIFT solve this issue with managed chat channels and compliance services.

Parlano announces new compliance and ethical walls capabilities for group chat at SIFMA Technology Conference: This announcement discusses some pretty substantial improvements we made in MindAlign 2007 with regard to integrating with leading compliance frameworks. It also discusses our new channel security approach.

Some coverage from this week:

Michael Sampson's writeup on The Instant Messaging 2.0 Panel (Nick Fera was a panelist)

Eric Mack's writeup on the Instant Messaging 2.0 session.

Alec Saunder's writeup on the Presence 2.0 session (Nick was a panelist)

Actually, Michael posted great write-ups on several sessions as did Eric Mack.

Also, Wall Street and Technology posted coverage of our announcements at SIFMA. I expect more coverage soon!

(P.S. Michael and Eric it was great to finally meet you both in person!!!)

Great new article on MindAlign in Financial Services

Windows in Financial Services published a great article on the use of persistent group chat (MindAlign) in financial services and quoted several of our customers. I won't bore you with extra commentary because the article is a great read on its own!

By the way, we will be in both Boston (Enterprise 2.0 Conference) and New York (SIFMA Technology and Management Conference) this week. Nick Fera is speaking at Enterprise 2.0 and Microsoft will be in our booth and having us at their big parties both nights. I get to be in both places at once!

We have two big announcements at the SIFMA show… to be posted later this week!

17 Seconds

When I first started in triathlon I was pretty amused by all the talk about ways to cut a few seconds here and a few seconds there. The big areas are in the transition (swim to bike, bike to run). My view had always been that it wouldn't make that much of a difference compared to how long the race would take and I wasn't going to win anything anyway, so it was best to focus on the race itself.

Last year when I was training for Ironman Wisconsin I started to have a change of view. Even in a race that would take me something like 12-14 hours, I started to realize there was a big difference between finishing at 12:59.59 and 13:00.00. Or, as some of my friends know first hand, missing the cut for Kona by a few minutes.

This weekend I raced the Batavia Triathlon. It was a Sprint distance (400m swim, 14 mile bike, 4.1m run) and I was really hoping to do well (my goal was to beat 1:20.00). I had a great race. I finished in 1:16.38. That was 25^th overall out of 453 participants. My swim ranked 14^th overall and I ran 6:44's. I ranked 4^th out of 59 in my age group! There is plenty to improve upon (that's what makes triathlon so fun IMO), but I was very pleased with the effort.

So, why bring up "17 seconds"?

That's the difference between placing 4^th in my age group and placing 3^rd. I missed the podium by that little.

As I think back on the race and all the good parts I also think about my botched bike mount and the few times that I got caught behind other riders and wasn't aggressive enough to pass. And, any number of other details.

17 seconds.

Don't get me wrong, I am not at all disappointed. Trust me. It was a great race, I had a ton of fun, and it was very motivating. I said in my earlier post, it's a blessing to just be able to be out there at all. But, it's a good reminder that personally and professionally, sometimes it is worth focusing on the little things because they end up making a big difference.

Soprano's Ending: My Take

I have been reading the various comments on the Soprano's ending and while I haven't posted on a topic such as this, I feel the need to speak up.

I think that what happened in the final episode is that we, the audience, got whacked. Dramatically speaking, that is. I am serious. Think about it...  We were drawn into an intense scene with the family finally coming together as "normal" people (yet not normal because they can never truly be safe) and then when the words to the song say "don't stop"....POW. It all goes dark. Never mind what we were thinking. Never mind what we were doing. Never mind what we were hoping to see next. POOF. Just like any number of people got whacked on that show throughout the years.

No question in my mind that it was a deliberate and well thought out way to let us keep experiencing the show in a personal way well beyond the end.

Couple other thoughts: that scene with meadow having trouble parking? That is a metaphor for them having trouble bringing the show to an end.

And, I loved the way they paid homage to The Godfather..... a re-enactment of the scene with Michael Corleone going into the restroom of the family restaurant before coming out shooting! Gotta love it.

Anyway, I would have loved to see more but the show had to end at some point so it is what it is. At least they got everyone talking!!!!

Help me in the fight against MS!

For the last two years I have participated in the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Illinois' MS150 Bike Tour to raise money in the fight against MS and thanks to the support of many of you have been able to raise nearly $4000 to fight the disease. Some of you may know that I have three family members with varying degrees of the disease and that it can strike at any time in our lives, so this is a very important event for me.

This year, like last, I am only able to ride on Day 1 (Saturday, June 23) but I will be going the full 100 miles for the first day's event. Many of you know that this year I am training for mostly shorter events so 100 miles is going to be a long, tough ride! I will earn every penny of your support, trust me. :-)

If you are interested in supporting me, it's easy. Simply click on the link below to go to my personal donation page. From there you can click on the link "Make a Gift" that is just under the thermometer.

http://www.msillinois.org/goto/jeschultz

Every penny counts so please don't hesitate to help at any level.

Thanks everyone for your continued support of my personal and professional endeavors!

SLAM 2007

I am writing this from the plane ride home from SLAM 2007, a great conference in Denver focused on software licensing and marketing. Yesterday I presented at a breakout session on the value of blogs in marketing. My premise was that you don't have to have a top-ranked blog to create real value for your organization. As you know, I am passionate about the value and promise of social networking both inside and outside organizations. Blogging has enabled Parlano to have a much broader market conversation than we ever had before and it has delivered real results. Not to mention created many new personal and professional relationships.

I know many of the folks I met at the conference are now following my blog so I want to send a special thank you for showing all your enthusiasm during our session, asking great questions, and continuing the conversation well into all of the breaks. I really had a great time and learned a lot from you as I hope you did from me. Keep in touch!!!

Demoing video calls and Microsoft Tech-Ed

All of you know that Parlano is very focused on persistent group chat.  However, we also focus a lot of effort discussing our vision for how persistent group chat is a critical component of unified communications. While "unified communications" based on most industry definitions unifies technologies and people, persistent group chat unifies teams and groups.

An essential component of that vision is the ability of MindAlign 2007, which is built using the SIP/SIMPLE standard, to integrate and interoperate with other essential group and individual communications systems.

This week at Tech-Ed we are showing a sneak peek at what some of this will look like. We are demoing video calls launched directly from within MindAlign 2007 utilizing an early release of Microsoft's Office Communications Server 2007.

If you are in Orlando for Tech-Ed be sure to stop by booth 1526! We will be raffling off a state-of-the-art XBox on Wednesday and XBox games all week long!

Twitter is not persistent group chat

I came across this post from the 37Signals product blog that discusses Twitter, Campfire, and persistent group chat.

37Signal's Campfire is competitive to MindAlign although we clearly focus on different markets. I like their description of the value of persistent group chat. It's good to see them helping the cause of promoting persistent group chat as a high-value business tool. I also agree that ease of use is the key and one of the reasons why Parlano customers can effectively participate in so many conversations at once while managing interruptions, etc.

That said, I don't agree with the assertion that Twitter is an example of persistent group conversation (simple or otherwise). It's not. Perhaps it's persistent group notification. Or, SMS broadcast for the web. I'd even go so far and say that it is an interesting uber-presence model (more credit than I gave them in my previous post).  But, its not a group conversation. I might use it to tell everyone where I will be for the next few hours, but I wouldn't use it to enable a dispersed cross-functional team to collaboratively build a sales strategy for a multi-national prospect. Or, any number of scenarios that persistent group chat really enables.

What's missing? Tons. But among other things... the ability to effectively create and participate in numerous topic-based conversations and the ability to easily read through the historical conversation in context. Not to mention information security.

I am still all ears (and eyes) if someone wants to comment with a differing opinion!

Some great races last week

I had a couple of really strong races last week. The weekend before last I was in Memphis for the Memphis in May Olympic distance race. I finished in 2:18 and change... nowhere near the podium but to put it in perspective, over 20 minutes faster than my last Olympic distance triathlon (albeit 2 years ago). I didn't know what to expect going in so this was nice. The real surprise was my swim... 21:37 for 1.5K. Much faster than I had expected. Looks like some form changes I made a few weeks back really helped! My bike was good (my bike computer didn't work so I didn't have a good idea of how I was doing), I finished the 40K ride in 1:06 and change. My 10K run was OK... 46 minutes. I have a lot more running speed in me, I had to fight a little cramping this weekend but still had a decent run.... look for that time to improve dramatically over the summer.

Speaking of running speed, a group of us from Parlano ran in the Chase Corporate Challenge last last week as well. I ran the 3.5 miles in 21:50, which is slightly under 6:15 minutes/mile. That was not only a 3.5 mile PR for me but a 5K PR  as well. I think I have a good shot of going sub 19 minutes in a 5K this summer. We'll see!

Big time best wishes to my friend Howard Solomon who is doing a Sprint Distance Triathlon this weekend only a month after having radiation treatment for Thyroid cancer and having to be off of his Thyroid medication. Howard is an Ironman (the guy that got me into this crazy sport in the first place) and I have to say that even going to the start line of this race takes some serious dedication and will power no matter what the distance.   As much as I am enjoying seeing improvement in my times, this a good lesson in how privileged we are to just have the chance to get out and race. Go get 'em, Howard!