Eric Mack On-Line

I just finished helping my friend and associate, David Allen, bring his weblog on-line tonight -- though not in a way that we had ever discussed.  

In the book David gave me, he talks about being prepared for the unknown: "Something is coming," David writes, " -- probably within a few days -- that's going to change your world. You don't see it yet. You don't know what it's about. But it's there, rolling inexorably forward, destined to throw you a curve that you do not expect..."  (Hold that thought.)

Yesterday, David called me to discuss my weblog and how he really wanted to get one going.  (For a several days now, Buzz Bruggeman and Robert Scoble have been publicly encouraging  David to start a blog.)  Since David and I both use Lotus Notes extensively in our organizations, we discussed the possibly of using Notes/Domino as the platform for David's new weblog and for his company's group blog reading.  I offered to set up a proof-of-concept prototype so that he could create content on the airplane and then replicate it from the airport or from his hotel.  I quickly created a prototype site using DominoBlog, which I had used for my own weblog. Working with Tanny O'Haley, a talented developer and friend, we quickly created a functional weblog in a matter of hours.

Since this was to be just a prototype, much of the content was my own, or material that I had copied from David's past newsletters, along with a few sample posts that David had sent me.  I sent David a link to the first prototype, mentioned that I would follow up on Thursday, and went to bed. This was Tuesday Night.

"it's there, rolling inexorably forward..."

Today was my day off.  This afternoon I was at the library, doing some research, and I decided to check the server log remotely to see if David had looked at the site. Nothing.

"destined to throw you a curve that you do not expect..."  

An hour later, I checked again, and there was a flurry of activity, but not from any addresses I recognized.  Then I realized what had happened. While testing the key links on the sample site, entries were recorded in the referrer log of Buzz' site.  From there, things took off like a rocket, or more accurately, a virus.

I had no phone with me and none was to be found, so from a kiosk, I immediately pinged Tanny, and sent an urgent alert to David.  A few minutes later, as the referrer logs started growing, Tanny was on-line with me.  A short while later, David joined me on-line from his hotel room. We quickly discussed the options and David decided it was time to roll.  We quickly posted "Off and Running," and began to make the site ready for company, while everyone watched.

Working together, the three of us quickly deleted the some of the original (test) content and replaced it with new content, which David wrote on the spot.  We made the finishing touches to the site, and tested it. It was really quite amazing to watch -- I had two SameTime IM sessions, one Notes Session, and two Internet Explorer sessions going as I juggled keystrokes between David and Tanny to get things done. (good book title?)   For those of you who may have been reading the site during this time, it must have been interesting to watch posts appear, only to disappear, and then reappear.

I belive this is called "Shifting gears as required." (See page 4, Ready for Anything)

The site is now live, the logs are growing, and I'm going to bed. I've had enough excitement for one day. :-)

Here's David's version of tonight's events.