Engage 2023: The one where Wannes was awarded the HCL Life-Time Ambassador status
On 24-26 April 2023, approximately 300 HCL users from around the world gathered in Amsterdam for Engage 2023. Including 5 (that I know of) Australians; Adam, Hailey, Ian, Jared, and Vanessa from Huddo Boards/ISW, joining Wannes and myself based in Europe (Belgium and Spain), making a 7-strong Huddo representation at Engage. I am sure our presence was felt with our bright stand, Australian chocolates, and one seriously snazzy orange and blue suit! Continue on to witness the proof.
The 15th Engage event, organised by Theo, kicked off with an inspiring Opening Ceremony, including the usual interesting local statistics, and a few gems on the incredible venue Felix Metritis…
… and Richard outlining the roadmap from HCL, focusing on user experience.
Then came an update, so spectacular that the surprise caused a momentary lapse in focus. Fortunately, it was one which I recovered from quickly enough to grab a quick photo… Wannes was awarded HCL Life-Time Ambassador status for his continued support of the HCL community. Wannes is one of the organisers of SocialConnections (the HCL Connections user group), is an active HCL blogger, has presented at multiple conferences, and helps fellow IT people out in chats and forums and has done so over many, many years.
We were (and still are) thrilled to see our colleague awarded this status. We all know, internally, just how much support Wannes continues to give to the HCL community, and this has helped him to maintain his Ambassador status year after year. However, it was super heart-warming to see him recognised for all his contributions in front of all the Engage 2023 conference attendees. Seeing him on stage made each of us at Huddo, very proud.
Not one to relish the spotlight, the moment was brief. However, it didn’t stop me from bowing to ‘his excellence’ at every opportunity I had, much to Wannes’ embarrassment. A further testimony to Wannes, and that he supports this community out of love of HCL and the community itself. To me, this makes his new status even more deserved.
Shortly after the Opening Cermony, Wannes presented his first session as an HCL Life-Time Ambassador, on the topic ‘Your HCL Digital Office in the Browser’. Discover what the Digital Office in the HCL world could look like in a browser. All your mail, calendaring, chat, meetings, communities, low-code applications, and Nomad web applications running in the browser using Single Sign On and MFA. You can see his slides from his session here.
With a further technical and commercial session to come from Huddo and ISW, and several key customers and partners also at Engage 2023, it took the team 48 hours to all convene at the same place, at the same time. That moment is worth the wait though, and very special for us as Huddo/ISW. It continues to bring a very sweet taste to the Engage events. It’s not only a time to Engage with HCL, HCL users, and HCL Partners, but also connects our European and Australian colleagues together, in person.
Our commercial session, and the first session given by Hailey, was all about the latest Boards updates including Template Rescheduling and Roles, Unlimited Colours and Task Dependencies, as well as some of the founding basics of Boards for any new users in the audience. It was excellent to see the reception of Roles, which seemed to make many eyes sparkle, as Boards users imagined creating templates with roles, not people, and then assigning different colleagues to different roles in the new Board. Such a smart feature which our users will love. You can get a little taste of the new features in our latest quick introduction video here >
Hailey conducted her session as a live demo, so there are no slides to share, but we have a video on Task Dependencies here >
You be seeing more content on the latest features of Huddo Boards in a feature update video coming soon.
The conference dinner in the Waag, the oldest non-religious building in Amsterdam, was spectacular. Although spirits were high and continued high into the night, we saw a lot of Engage attendees bright and early on Wednesday morning and Jared’s technical presentation on health checking your Domino environment was subsequently full. Fuelled partly by caffeine, but also by Jared’s unique charisma, it was excellent to see the session absorbed so extensively, with Jared covering how to execute a comprehensive health check including performance, security, database health, new features, and much more. For those who missed it (because there were so many excellent sessions), you can see Jared’s slides here.
There were countless other moments that have, for me, become synonymous with Engage. Such as meeting a new contact in one of the most organic and pleasant ways possible. For me that was Peter from Crossware. Then we have the usual bustle of the Speed Sponsoring and frantic stamping. Then, of course, the Closing Ceremony. This year was bittersweet and full of many emotions. From the usual joy of the gift-giving in the raffle, to the hilarity of Jared accidentally pouring wine over countless TimTam’s on stage, then the sheer shock of being drawn to win the prize I myself had brought as a contribution to the prize draw All very memorable. Then the Closing Ceremony speech from Theo himself and to hear that next year Engage 2024 we be in Antwerp… and also that it will be Theo’s last Engage as host! The idea seemed inconceivable, but it also helped me reflect on just how much Theo has done and to see his organisation of Engage every year as a legacy. One that he hopes to pass on…
I can already envisage that next year’s blog post will be ‘Engage 2024: The one where Theo passed the Engage baton to…’.
It’s very heart-warming to write this blog post now, reminiscing on the fantastic few days I had in Amsterdam. We look forward to seeing many of you online, and offline, until we ‘engage’ again next year in Antwerp.