Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Al Bredenberg has put a post on the iotum Relevance Engine up on his blog, before the "official" announcement tomorrow.  It’s interesting because it’s full of screen shots of how to set the software up.   He talks about what we do as presence management, which in many senses it is.  However, where presence fails today is in the reflection of your actual intent.  You are either present, or not present, in today’s systems.  It’s very binary.  iotum allows you to be present for some people, and not present for others on a situation by situation basis.  iotum reflects your intent, as opposed to your physicality. 

When I talk with people about what iotum does, I start by asking them "What would the world be like if your telephone only rang when it was important for you to receive the call?  iotum helps you choose which calls are important, and which can wait, depending on what you’re doing, and who is calling."

Anyway, Al’s piece is great.  He finishes up saying "iotum’s interface for setting up the Relevance Engine is the most-developed process I have seen yet for configuring presence-management."

Thanks Al.  Our development team worked hard to make it as simple, easy-to-use and powerful as it is. I know they appreciate the praise.

If you haven’t already found it, Shel Israel is blogging the show from his Conferenza site. 

Update:

In Shel’s first posting he talks about experiencing the DEMO hall for the first time.  A lot of people just come into the hall and gape.  Here’s a photo I took a couple of days ago, while the hall was being set up.

Yesterday was a busy day at DEMO.  It was the final day of setup — there was a mandatory exhibitors meeting to attend, rehearsals, booth setup, and a mixer event in the evening.  I did a couple of press interviews as well.

At the moment, we’re feeling pretty good about the demo.  It’s gotten very tight.  We’re consistently coming in at about 5:30, which leaves us 30 seconds to recover from errors if needed.  Cellular and internet gods willing, we won’t.

A lot of folks have forwarded me Guy Kawasaki’s piece on How to Be a DEMO God. There’s a lot of good advice in that piece, but I have to admit that when I read it my first thought was "oh no".  And then, when Cara Garretson posted a link to Guy’s piece on the DEMO Letter blog, I thought "what are they telling me?".  Why the panic?  We have two people on stage doing the demo.  We’re NOT bringing servers and we’re not faking out the network access.  We’re flying live.  I suspect that’s what you’ll see from a lot of other presenters, based on what I’ve seen so far.  What you’re going to see with us is actual product. 

Most of all, though, I think that’s what should be happening.  If the product is the star of the show, then why bring a simulation? 

The show begins today, with breakfast in about 15 minutes.  And tomorrow, at 9:58 in the morning, we’ll show the world what we’ve been working on.  Until then, unless you’re at the show and can stop by the demonstrators pavilion for an early peek, you’re going to have to be content with Susan Gittlen’s short piece at the end of this Network World article.