You will find it at: http://contentperspective.se

There were two different kind of situations. The first one was when I together with three older male collegues were visiting Switzerland and one of them several time addressed the Swedish team with expressions like “Hey, boys lets have something to eat” (Grabbar, nu ska vi…). The hard part is that it is from a person that I have worked with for some time and really respects me for my knowledge and experience. So it is not at all meant to disrespect me but said spontaneuosly and almost without even noticing his error himself. I guess it has something to do with the English expressions “Hey, guys…” which can be used for both males and females in some occasions. What really sucks is that when collegues such as him has spent sometime with me there is obviously something about my appearance or voice that makes them not clearly see me as a female. At least not completely. Sure, these kind of comments can happen to genetic females as well but during the trip one of the Swiss officers even said “Let’s have the woman in the middle in the photo…” and he was referring to the other woman in the group. Again clearly spontaneously not thinking of me as a woman. Again not meant to be disrespectful because this was a high-level visit between two countries. Still it happens.

When I think about this I realise that this “Hey, boys…” happens to me at least every months or so at work. Or some other situations were someone starts by saying that, than pauses for quite a while and adds “…and girls…”. It happens in emails were they can start with “Gents, lets have a teleconference….”. It does not hurt the same way as when someone says “he…” maybe because it is an effect of a male-dominated workplace but somehow it adds to put a dent in my self-confidence.

The second situation was the Ergife Palace Hotel in Rome when I went to my room during lunch time and found the cleaning staff working in my room. I was wearing my pink shirt, jeans, Coach sneakers and Coach handbag. I met the young women working there for maybe 10 seconds before they went into the room again. Inside the room I heard them whispering in Italian and I understood that they were discussion whether or not I was a transvestite. I became cold and it felt so unfair. What did I do so wrong that they read my so fast? It is of course an impolite and unprofessional behaviour from hotel staff but that is not the thing. The thing is that it put another dent in the self-esteem saying I am not seen as real woman. Again.

All of this puts my recent issues of feeling very uncomfortable at bars and my feeling of not being able to believe in myself as being attractive in the eyes of lesbian women. I mean what is the chance that I am passing at all? And if I am not, what is the chances that she thinks it is ok even though she reads me as woman with transsexual background.

This Tuesday we had planned to go there and as an even better touch I had been given a Spa treatment as well so she had made an appointment for that at 1900 hours. Last summer I was nervous beyond belief before going there and I frankly would not have made it would her at my side. This time I was way more relaxed. Still a bit anxious about how much people there would be and whether or not I have fixed my body enough before. But apart from that quite calm and very much able to talk.

I was a very nice feeling to enter the old building again since I had so fond memories from it the last time. I think the worst part was approaching the reception and passing over all the gift certificates. It is almost as that is the point where I feeled judged to which sex I do belong. Again, this time without any makeup and my own long hair. We got dark green towels and a white bath robe each and headed for the women’s changing room. A bit more women there than the last time but not totally crowded. Think I was mostly worried about my voice and how feminine that would sound. I don’t want to experience anyone turning around with some confused look on the face looking at me. I think I managed to look around a bit to experience the whole situation. I mean I am a lesbian and just had to look a little bit at least. Even though it feels a bit strange. Well, we changed and went for the showers where it felt nice to have been there before so I knew how everything worked. It felt so nice to be there in my bikini and showering, feeling my hair down the back as it was becoming wet.

This time we left the shower room in our white bath robes and I guess that was a bit worse than last time because people saw almost nothing of my body and I believe that really helps me passing. But it was a bit chilly so it made sense to wear them. We found the waiting area for the spa upstairs and chatted a little about life and love. Something that really have not worked out for me yet. Love that is. Well, after a while a young lady called my name and I went off to the spa area for a hot stone massage. It is hard to know but somehow I did sense a hesitant reaction from the young women. At least she did nothing to make me feel extra welcome and at home. However, the massage was just wonderful. Those hot stones were just the right temperature and I almost dozed off at the massage bench.

Coming down from the spa treatment area I started looking for my friend and found her in the bubble bath. I looked at her with a question in my eyes and she signaled to me to come join the bath beside her. There was a small empty spot there. Again, approaching a large group of people in my bikini is something special. Tried to move graceful and slipped into the bath beside my friend. It seemed to work this time as well. However, without a bachelor party in the pool this time!

We spent the rest of the evening eating and talking in the relax area and finished off with a long sauna bath at the end. Again I remembered how nice it was to be able to do these things again. Used the same hair conditioner as last time in my long hair so I had a scent memory of the experience. Last time the scent of the conditioner last at least 24 hours.

Back home I felt the same kind of harmony as last time. Feeling proud of myself challenging myself again. Feeling fortunate to have such a wonderful friend. Feeling soft and tired of the massage and the sauna bath. Fell asleep.

So how is life these days then? Well, in general life is pretty good, a lot of the fears I had after the process have not been anything to worry about. I mean the surgery here in Sweden has a mixed effect on very intimate aspects and things that affects the everyday life. In fact since quite few people see your private parts most of them are everyday things. Being able to wear any kind of clothes, having a gender-correct personal number (social security number) and of course a much better effect of the hormone treatment. I think I pass much more and it makes everyday life so much better without being questioned or looked at all the times. I think I can spend a lot more energy on other things as a result.

The work-related stuff has also played out more than good. I think I have the best job in the world and my background does not seem to affect it in any negative ways and I feel very proud in my female dark blue Air Force uniform when at work. It is also great to be noticed for what I do and not just for who I am. Being on the first page of one of the Swedish top tech magazines is such a thing. From one perspective it feels wonderful to have been able to achieve this despite my background but on one hand it is also just as natural as it should be. I like to be somewhat of a geeky girl who are passionate about what we are trying to achieve at work. Being able to speak at conferences like Momentum and EMC World is really cool to me.

From a personal perspective it is a bit more mixed. As I have said many times before here I feel so alive nowadays and it means both ups and downs. I like my new body very much and it feels great to be able to go around Stockholm without feeling a need for make-up and all of that all the time. It is a wonderful freedom to be me, a woman, all the time without feeling the cinderella effect each night.

One important point of any transition process is to be realistic about expectations both from a body perspective but also from a life perspective. I think I was really aware of that and I guess that is also why I am so pleased about my new body. I had lower expectations and it turned out better than that. Just as I don’t think it is fully possible to prepare for the rehabiliation after the first main surgery I don’t really think it is possible to fully imagine life post-op. I think I at least hoped it would be a little bit easier to feel confident at bars and night clubs. I mean I am so much more confident in most other parts of my life, often to a degree that I rarely think about my background or at least not worrying about it. However, the fear of being read as not a genetic woman is still there.

However, looking at the past ten years the relationship aspect of my life has not become any better after the surgery – it feels more difficult than ever. That is so mixed because I feel so good about myself in general and even proud of where I am today and still I am getting nowhere to find love. I wonder if it is the process itself that does things to me which takes some effort to overcome. I have many nice friends, many of them women and it feels great to hear that they think I am a wonderful person. Somehow that does not seem to matter, since I have no luck at all. These things become so obvious sometimes in the casual social environments at work where a common question is: “So, do you have family and kids?” It is not that I don’t have that NOW – the hard thing to process is that I never had and does seem to be very far from it. I wonder if I women simply aren’t attracted to me or if they are and I am not noticing it. I am not sure which is worst.

It is easy to think I am doing anything wrong, even though my friends insist I am not. However, something stops me from finding love. Sure, there are always things to work on but for me I have fought so hard to be where I am today that it also feels strange to start changing things. I mean to me it is very attractive to be who you are in a natural way and be proud of that. I am proud of that I am a woman now but ten years of experiences continue to remind that some people do not look at me that way always. That makes it more difficult to believe in yourself with a constant fear of being seen as strange. Maybe online dating sites is not so good even though I only use gay ones. Being open with myself is important to not be forced back into that dreaded closet again but on the other hand may scare women off. Not because of my transsexual background per se but because there is always an interesting woman around who isn’t at the next place in the search listing. In that case life is quite unfair, but that is no surprise of course. Also being in small lesbian world most likely makes it even more difficult…

So, on my third pussy anniversary my life is pretty good in many respects but with a growing frustration over a missing piece  (the only?) in my life…

Shifting focus from bestsellers to niche markets
In 2006 the editior-in-chief of Wired magazine Chris Andersson published his book called ”The Long Tail – Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More”. Maybe even the text printed on the top of the cover saying ”How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimted Demand” is the best summary of the book. This might have been said many times before but I felt a strong need to put my reflections into text after reading this book. It put a vital piece of the puzzle in place when seeing the connections to our efforts to implement Enterprise 2.0 within an ECM-context.

Basically Chris Andersson sets out to explain why companies like Amazon, Netflix, Apple iTunes and several others make a lot of money in selling small amounts of a very large set of products. It turns out that out of even millions of songs/books/movies nearly all of them are rented or bought at least once. What makes this possible is comprised out of these things:

- Production is democratized which means that the tools and means to produce songs, books and movies is available to almost everybody at a relatively low lost.
- Demoractization of distribution where companies can broker large amount of digital content because there is a very low cost for having a large stock of digital content compared to real products on real shelves in real warehouses.
- Connecting supply and demand so that all this created content meets its potential buyers and the tools for that is search functions, rankings and collaborative reviews.

What this effectivly means is that the hit-culture where everything is focused on a small set of bestsellers is replaced with vast amounts of small niches. That has probably an effect of the society as a whole since the time where a significant amount of the population where exposed to the same thing at the same time is over. That is also reflected in the explosion of the number of specialised TV-channels and TV/video-on-demand services that lets views choose not only which show to watch but also when to watch it.

Early Knowledge Management and the rise of Web 2.0
Back in the late 90-ies Knowledge Management efforts thrived with great aspirations of taking a grip of the knowledge assets of companies and organisations. Although there are many views and definitions of Knowledge Management many of them focused on increasing the capture of knowledge and that the application of that captured knowledge would lead to better efficiency and better business. However, partly because of technical immaturity many of these projects did not reach its ambitous goals.

Five or six years later the landscape has changed completely on the web with the rise of Youtube, Flickr, Google, FaceBook and many other Web 2.0 services. They provided a radically lowered threshold to contribute information and the whole web changed from a focus on consuming information to producing and contributing information. This was in fact just democratization of production but in this case not only products to sell but information of all kind.

Using the large-scale hubs of Youtube, Flickr and Facebook the distribution aspect of the Long Tail was covered since all this new content also was spread in clever ways to friends in our networks or too niche ”consumers” finding info based on tagging and recommendations. Maybe the my friend network in Facebook in essence is a represention of a small niche market who is interested in following what I am contributing (doing).

Social media goes Enterprise
When this effect started spreading beyond the public internet into the corporate network the term Enterprise 2.0 was coined by Andrew McAfee. Inside the enterprise people where starting to share information on a much wider scale than before and in some aspects made the old KM-dreams finally come into being. This time not because of formal management plans but more based on social factors and networking that really inspired people to contribute.

From an Enterprise Content Management perspective this also means that if we can put all this social interaction and generated content on top of an ECM-infrastructure we can achieve far more than just supporting formal workflows, records management and retention demands. The ECM-repository has a possibility to become the backbone to provide all kind of captured knowledge within the enterprise.

The interesting question is if this also marks a cultural change in what types of information that people devoted their attention to. One could argue that traditional ECM-systems provide more of a limited ”hit-oriented” consumption of information. The abscense of good search interfaces, recommendation engines and collaboration probably left most of the information unseen.

Implications for Enterprise Content Management
The social features in Enterprise 2.0 changes all that. Suddenly the same effect on exposure can be seen on enterprise content just as we have seen it on consumer goods. There is no shortage of storage space today. The amount of objects stored is already large but will increase a lot since it is so much easier to contribute. Social features allows exposure of things that have linkages to interests, competencies and networks instead of what the management wants to push. People interested in learning have somewhere to go even for niche interests and those wanting to share can get affirmations when their content is read and commented by others even if it is a small number. Advanced searching and exploitation of social and content analytics can create personalised mashup portals and push notifcations of interesting conent or people.

Could this long tail effect possibly have a difference on the whole knowledge management perspective? This time not from the management aspect of it but rather the learning aspect of it. Can we expect a much larger amount of the available content to be consumed or used by at least a few people in the organisations? Large organisations have a fairly large number or roles and responsibilities to there must reasonably be a great difference in what information they need and with whom they need to share information with. The Long Tail effect in ECM-terms could be a way to illustrate how a much larger percentage of the enterprise content is used and reused. It is not necessarily so that more informtion is better but this can mean more of the right information to more of the right people. Add to that the creative effect of being constantly stimulated by ideas and reflections from others around you and it could be a winning concept.

Sources

Andersson, Chris, ”The Long Tail – Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More”, 2006
Koernan, Brendan I, ”Driven by Distraction – How Twitter and Facebook make us more productive workers” in Wired Magazine March 20

So after I while I stood in the wardrobe line and felt almost shaky. Partly from walking alone from my car in the dark night of Stockholm but also a bit scared of how I would handle myself at this party. Of course looking forward to see my friends but also nervous. Luckily my friend spotted me in the line and gave me a hug and some company while waiting. I had been to this place a few times before but that was 8-9 years ago or so. The very first time almost not being let in because they wanted proof of me being a transsexual woman. That time scared because of passing but this time not as much to my surprise. I felt cute in my greenish shirt with a lace top under and my own hair flowing over my shoulders. It seemed I passed well because I got almost no looks at all. Being not looked at is somewhat comforting I guess but also not the best approach to meet someone.

Walking towards the bar I realised that one of the things I have trouble to handle is that the whole experience is a strange mix of people in a party mood which means that they are happy towards certain people but also a bit impolite towards others. You are being pushed or even spilled drinks on and have to fight your way towards the bar. When you meet someone there is almost often not enough room and it is easy to feel pushed away because people need to scream in each other’s ears to get some attention. I guess a have a tendency to back off when being pushed in different ways. The music was load and it was really hard to hear what people where saying which is my next issue.

My voice is something I have written about before. I am proud of the work I have done with it over the years and today I feel more confident than ever. I mean people have several time told me I have a nice female voice or even a “chick-voice”. I found myself thinking about how I sound less and less. However, in the loud club environment I find that I have to muster all my energy down to the stomach to say something. Then what comes out sound very coarse and not feminine to me. However, what is worst is that all that makes almost avoid talking to people because I feel I lose all spontaneity and everything I say feels a bit corny. This strange because in other situations I like to talk to people and think I am quite good at creating a good conversation with most people.

So I ended up around a table with my friends drinking a coke. A little bit surprise that the crowd was reasonably varied (compared to last time!) with different looks and a wider age spread than usual. A flow of lesbian women around me to and from the dance floor pumping out music. Everybody occupied with there own look and checking other people out. I wondered how people see each other and how this instant attraction really works. Of course I am wondering if I am passing and I guess me being not in my best element is visible to people. But I almost felt invisible in that flow of women. Seeing my friends socialising, talking and even kissing people around me makes the contrast bigger.

I know everybody is not up for that but of course I can’t help thinking about Sara Löwestams column in the LGBT Magazine QX where she reminds people that transsexual people sometimes have missed out of all these teenage things. The school parties with the first kiss and the first love. Getting experiences but of course also making mistakes. I did not have these experiences and that can bring insecurity in unfamiliar situations like this. After a while I ended up being there at the table alone because some have went to the restrooms and the other’s I have no clue. The feeling of being lonely or maybe even worse thinking that other people think I am lonely. Especially if they “read me” as a transsexual woman. I did not panic or so but I decided that if my friends or some other that I know showed up in 15 minutes or so I just had to leave. Luckily I got some company just before my mental deadline.

After a while we ended up dancing and I had a great time for the first time that evening. The music were better than earlier that night and it felt nice being in the sea of women dancing. Around 2.20 most of my friends have went in different directions again and it was me and a friend of mine left at the very same table. When she said she was going home I tagged along. Mostly of fear of standing there alone again but also to keep and get some company on our way home.

In the end I think I hope I can master all situations but have to realize that I am more comfortable in some than others. I should therefore accept that I prefer maybe a nice dinner rather than a night out at loud bars. However, I like to dance and it is fun to look at people so I also don’t want to feel like I am not the girl to bring along for these things. Again fear of feeling left out. I wonder how people do it. Maybe alcohol have something to do with it…

Lately another aspect of how to deal with interview requests have been surfacing in my mind. Whether or not it is good for me as a person to keep reaffirming my status as a transsexual woman. It does not have to do with denying my past or anything like that but just what is will do for my self-confidence and self-image to have someone look at me as being different. Not that journalists have been negative towards me in any way but maybe the fact that I am special or courageous just because I have made this journey. Maybe also reminding people around me that I am not just another woman. My idealistic heart of course wants to keep changing the world by being out there on the barricades but maybe I have done my part for a while. On the other hand I strongly believe that we need to normalise our situation by also promoting people who actually make it as business leaders or in public office while being open with their transsexual background. When President Obama recently assigned a transsexual woman as the technical advisor to the US Commerce Department that was a big thing for all of us. My own situation is also quite cool when I think about it. I feel rather successful in my line of work and it feels great to be able to do that “despite” my background for lack of better words. It actually is quite nice to just be a skilled woman without having to talk about my personal life as well.

So as you see this is not an easy thing to handle. Lately I have started to hesitate when journalists call me and it has often ended in not doing the interview because the deadline had passed. I am finding myself confused and my “save-the-world”-gene prevents me from saying “no” so instead I have become hesitant. I have also found myself a little bit prudish for the first time in life. I have been asked to particpate in an art project around femininity which includes doing a photo shoot without any clothes but I can use props to cover selected parts if I like. On one hand I really would like to do that and use it as an exercise to feel confident as a woman in the nude and possibly get some well needed affirmations. However, unlike all other media related things I have done I don’t regret any of them and would gladly make most of that public at work for instance. It is not the same if I do this painting I think. I know there is a common fascination around the results of the transition process and the surgeries. Can I handle the fact that people around me will look at that painting to “judge” the results and look for any traces of my old self? I don’t know…

What I think all of this boils down to is how my self-image really is affected in the long run. I need to be able to settle down as a woman and to be able to think positively about how I am perceived or actually not thinking about it at all. The difference in how much time a day I spend worrying about how people would see me between now and ten years ago is just huge. Today it can happen but back then it was the normal state of mind. Moving away from that is not easy and what I am fearing is that recurring affirmations of that by doing interviews could make that process slower. On the other hand these thoughts will come anyway without any journalist in sight. Maybe when I am entering immigration in the US, walking into a store full of teenage girls or meeting officers from other nations. And of course when I am attracted to that cute lesbian woman…

Maybe I am also a bit new to the feeling of not being that sure about what to do about this anymore…

So today I am almost facing the opposite. My dream have come true and I am my true self in terms of gender and sex but as I am probably passing sometimes it brings up the opposite question. When do I tell someone about my background? Some would argue that there is no reason to tell since I am a woman today and it is nobody’s business. However, no matter how you put the whole process have been such an important part of my life, my experience and who I am today. I believe that all people change and evolve over time and this was my experience – maybe more than most people experience but still. So in order to get personal with someone it is very difficult to not feeling the need to relate to my own experiences. Also have experienced the anxiety of waiting for the “right moment” to tell someone and that is not something I want to experience again. So this leads to the obvious Catch 22 when I so like being “just a woman” and also feel that I can’t deny my past.

A couple of months ago I was cleaning out my old office in Uppsala and taking care of the paper piles turned into a travel in time. The closer I got to the bottom I got closer to stuff from the 1990-ies when my situation was different. Seeing my old name is still a bit annoying but not as complicated as it was just one or two years ago. The real shock came when old pictures of me turned up in the piles and in binders from military schools and stuff. There I saw another person that was still me. Things like that of course remind me of my past in a negative way. Brings back memories of how scared I was to talk to anyone about my situation but also a very visible proof of the fact that I was not a woman back then. In my head of course but nothing that people actually saw and knew. I know that it shouldn’t but that of course affects my self image today.

This week a friend of mine suddenly looked at me and said that she just could not imagine me as a man. That was of course very sweet and just that kind of compliment that my still rather week self-image needs to be fueled with. For some reason it means more when a woman says it to me. However, later in the evening she said that she wasn’t sure about what she would feel about seeing pictures of me from before my transition. Not that I ever show people that but it made me start thinking. It put yet another aspect of my past. She said she was scared that these old images would get stuck in her head and I think that was a scary thought for both of us. However, since I do have a fear which is a bit like Cinderella – for lack of better words that the image of me as woman would fall just like Cinderella turns back from princess to an ordinary maid. I realized that things from my past then can be somewhat of a threat to me and my life today. Again, just like me passing or not, something I actually don’t have any control of. That made me a bit scared. I mean how should I know when these images can pop up – hopefully there weren’t many digital cameras back then.

So as we enter a new year I realize that each year seem to be even more important than the last one. When I look back I think that has been true for the last 10-15 years of my life and some years brought big experiences and sometimes also big changes as the result of that. The past year started in a rather sad way being sad for lost love. Actually it was not lost love for me but rather my own sense of losing a chance for love. Something like “how would I find someone like her again”. I took it rather hard when I later learned that she had found love and for some reason it felt worse that it was love for a man as well. What I learned from that was that there is no point of trying to be nice in that crucial moment when you declare that you have no romantic/sexual interest in a person. Instead of being nice and try wrap it in by saying “it’s not You that there is anything wrong with, it is me who are not ready”. Usually the somewhat crual but honest fact is that “she wasn’t attracted to me” and I now think it is better to say that to remove any hope and to make the experience of finding out that she have found another person much easier.

Another experience at the beginning of the year was how to deal with not passing and how to react to people saying not so nice things to our about me. I learned to raise my voice but also that it can sometimes feel like being the “touchy” one which is easily hurt. However, it feels much better to voice my reactions than sitting there with a hurting stomach being more and more sad. Partly because it feels good to get the very real feelings out of the system but also getting it out on the table and get some other reactions to it. That can in most cases be a good way to see what others think of the very same situation.

Summer vactions started late for me and I felt a bit low and lonely. Working hard sometimes makes me lose a little bit of the close contact with my friends and during summer time it is easy to feel a bit behind. It takes a while to catch up. Also realised that I needed some therapy to coach me through the daily experiences I have as well as my self-esteem as a woman – a woman that another woman can be attracted to. Found a good woman who gave me support and coaching about my own reactions but not the least to conquer some of these small fears. I think she had an important part in me being a lot more brave about my feelings for a woman I had a crush on. Actually felt a little bit proud that I actually managed to say what I felt for her without waiting for more than a couple of weeks.

Yes, my little love candle was lit in August which seem to confirm that it only happens once a year or so. I had some great summer evenings with her and it felt just wonderful to have these butterflies in my stomach for a while. In the end I learned that she was not attracted to me and in the light of past experiences that was just the words that is best to use in the long run. After processing that for a couple of weeks we started seeing each other again and I now consider her a dear friend and really think that was the best choice for both of us. Sure it hurts to be rejected – especially when I really need some affirmations as an attractive woman. However, another important thing I learned is that sometimes that rejected is also the sweetest thing. It actually means that someone thinks I am a fine person that she does not want to “waste” on a one-night-stand. That means that sometimes refusing to make out or have sex is a much stronger sign of love than doing it.

I also think I learned to come out as a lesbian again. You see in my situation as a lesbian woman with a transsexual background I realised that the main thing for me always has been my gender identity and being accepted as a woman, especially by other women. I have no experience of the day when I started to be attracted to woman – I have always been attracted to women. However, I now realize that my desire of being accepted (or fear of being rejected by women) made me  repress most of the feelings I had for them. A close friend of mine called that “believing in the sistershood between (lesbian) woman”. The reality is however that when lesbian women meet they sometimes experience attraction and that it is a very normal reaction. However, the key thing is how you act on it. In some sense it felt good to know that I did not necessarily “betrayed a friendship” just because I suddenly found one of my female friends attractive.

It is also easy to be way to hard on myself to be successful in every aspect of life. However, it is not always easy to match the fact that I am 35 in many respects but when it comes to relationships are more like 20. Experience the these shifts can sometimes take me with surprise. To handle that during the day I I comfortably stand on a scene in front of 150 people and speaking passionatly about Enterprise Content Management and being one of the “stars” of the conference that everybody wants to talk to. Later in the evening at the lesbian club I become the shy and quite girl who think everybody is way cooler than me and that no one can possibly want to talk to me let alone being attracted to me. Being just a woman in that setting is not that easy. However, I also need to accept that the bar environment isn’t everyones best arena and that I feel much more confident (and charming) at a more quite private party.

The hard part I guess is to relate to my own transsexual background. Feeling great as a woman nowadays and often smiling when I see myself in the mirror. At the same time a need to get some kind of positive affirmation from that cute woman that she actually sees me as the woman I am. No matter how confident I am it is still always in the end up to others to make that judgement. Especially in the rather cruel and binary attraction situation where it is either “on” or “off”. On one hand I should be a little bit more brave but that is hard when I am so adjusted to seek that sign of acceptance that makes it “a green light”.

In all going into 2010 life is actually rather good but there is of course that little love thing missing. I hope that this important year of 2009 made me a little bit more confident and that I sometime will found that woman that can see me more than a friend and thus become my princess. However, in the end I would never have come this far without so many supporting friends. Wish me luck!

Last day we met for dinner for the first time since that phone call a week ago and I did not found myself really nervous or anything but still of course wondered what I would feel when I met her. It turned out to be a nice evening where we talked about life as usual. However, both of us was a bit blue and we both seemed to be taken by the realities of life somehow. I think the sorrow feeling started there when I realized that it was over for this time – the butterflies had flown to someone else. For some reason they don’t seem to visit me more more than once a year or so I thought that it could take sometime before that feeling arrived again. Still it was nice to see her and I really want to keep her in my life as a friend. I feels very mature to be able to do so I think. So I guess all of this made my morning today a sorrow one so it was perfect that I had time for therapy this morning.

A month or so I decided I needed an external person to help me process my daily experiences as a woman with a transsexual background. Regular readers here know that now and then things happen that I get sad about and I think I need some help to deal with that. I have found a great therapist who I think mostly acts as my coach in life right now. I had the opportunity to talk about my emotions over that past week and it was great to get it out of my system and I felt rather good afterwords. Proud of myself for actually daring to say to someone that I am interested in her. I did not get the answer I so longed for this time but maybe the next time the butterflies come to visit me I will also dare to ask and maybe that woman will be my princess.

Back home I prepared for getting to work and found myself thinking I looked really good when I saw myself in the mirror. The sun was shining on my way to work and life seemed rather good after all. Emotions can surely shift quickly.

När Puck berättade nästan i förbigående att hon mitt i sin graviditet visst hade skrivit en musikal blev jag lite förvånad måste jag säga. Det var inte det jag förväntade mig av någon som var gravid med sitt första barn. Men än en gång blev jag imponerad av hennes energi och produktivitet som den här gången kom från hennes egna reflektioner kring just mamma-rollen. Inte nog med att hon skrev musikalen och sjöng in låtarna i Garageband på sin lilla vita MacBook (vilket gör mig så stolt!) utan hon har med en liten bebis på armen lyckats att få projektet att bli en uppsättning med en otroligt proffsig ensamble och härlig musik. Drömmen blev till slut verklighet!

Jag har haft förmånen att få se några av repetitionerna men nu skulle jag få se allt från början till slut och bara insupa texter och musik. I söndags var det så dags att få uppleva Musikalen Mammor på plats på Impro & Co. Jag tycker ju så mycket om min vän och det kändes så fantastiskt att få vara med och ta del av det hon skapat och som kommit från hennes tankar. Ett manus som hon sedan format till föreställning där hennes karaktärer fått liv. Det är visserligen “bara” karaktärer som är utmejslade men ger en massa perspektiv på längtan efter barn men också de normer som samhället är ganska snabba att lägga både på ens inställning till barn och hur man ska vara för att vara en bra mamma. Just att det handlar om ett kompisgäng som liksom jag är i trettioårsåldern gör det så mycket lättare att relatera till tycker jag. Själv menar hon att den tar vid en bit efter att många av de klassiska musikalerna om amerikanska tonåringar sluter…

Det blev tårar, skratt och njutning och en underlig känsla av att efter föreställningen verkligen känt att jag fått lära känna nya människor liksom. Redan i första numret tårades mina ögon av texten och den härliga musikalkänslan som ensemblen lyckades skapa. Jag har ju fått en helt ny syn på barn i och med att Puck fick sin underbara supersöta Jonas och det gjorde säkert att ämnet tog tag i mig lite extra. Nu känns det ju otroligt långt borta för mig att skaffa barn men om jag hittar min prinsessa nån gång och hon vill ha barn så kommer jag vilja det jag med. Avslutningsnumret sätter sig i huvudet och det är svårt att inte nynna på texten efteråt.

Musiken har Puckan själv gjort men Emil Nyström har arrangerat den (på min Mac Pro!) och den är skönt varierad och har det mesta man kan förvänta sig av en musikaluppsättning. Både finstämt och härligt pampigt. Artisterna sjunger fantastiskt bra och förmedlar ofta väldigt starka känslor som griper tag i en.

Jag hoppas att ni tar chansen och lägger beslag på en av de sista biljetterna till föreställningarna nästa söndag och och måndag genom att boka här: Bokning Musikalen Mammor

I don’t think I really could imagine how important this breast augmentation surgery turned out to really be for me. I felt it was the natural and final step for me but it wasn’t until many months later that I really started to enjoy the completeness of my new body. The joy of being able to buy really nice underwear slowly made look at myself in the mirror in a new light. I actually felt pretty even with just my underwear on. I started realizing that using the changing room at stores was much more natural and even the locker room as well. I have started wearing more low cut tops and feel really proud of my cleavage. It makes me feel feminine in a very nice way and I can now wear more styles without being afraid. However, soon I also noticed that they brought some new attention to the game sometimes, especially among men.

I sometimes find myself admiring them because to me they are just perfect and in some way they also are a physical affirmation of me being the woman I have always dreamt of being. It is actually good to be able to feel them being a part party of my body when I am walking and moving around. Some kind of reminder of how lucky I am in that respect and it can actually make me smile just because of that sometimes. Being able to feel very much ok in my bikini among both men and women was another great step for me of course. I even managed to not feel that uncomfortable when a really cool, intelligent and cute woman happened to browse through my iPhone and seeing pictures of me in a bikini just after taking an outdoor bath this summer.

This summer I also started jogging again. Tried with my existing sports bra but it turned out to hurt a lot. Thanks to my good friend Linda A we ended up at a specialty shop for women runners and I got myself a sturdy sports bra together with some cute running clothes. Being able to feel pretty while running was quite a thing. A combination of my old life and the new one in a healthy way.

In normal day-to-day conversations around a table it is generally considered rude to ignore what someone is saying or even refrain from answering direct questions. Over the phone or a voice chat it is similar but body language isn’t communicated (unless using video chats) and you can therefore afford to look bored, do faces or whatever while somebody is talking in the other end. As long as we are doing synchronous (real-time) voice communication a lot of the social rules for IRL seem to apply.

When the mobile phone rings you either answer or don’t but most people choose to call back at a later time to see what that person had on their mind. To me that is a good example of a social rule in modern society. Can one expect someone to call back if we have bothered to call them? Or is the social rule that if it important (enough) you expect someone to try again? Is therefore a repeated set of calls in a short matter of time a sign of urgency?

Getting an text message (SMS) notifying me that I have a voice message usually also signfies a sense or urgency or importance which I usually find results in a call back to me. However, I believe here is another area where we see a change in social interactions because the mobile phone is always with us and always on. Many people today bring their phone everywhere which includes meetings,vistit at friend’s and dinners. That means that is has been regarded ok to not answer because you are not able to talk at that specific time. Reasonable that has also meant that people choose not to answer when someone is calling and you don’t feel like talking to them.

Text chats seem nowadays to bridge synchronous and asynchronous communication. In one sense it is real-time because you can interact very rapidly and if both are typing really fast it can become a fast paced discussion. In general I also think that in the early days of Instant Messaging (IM) the siginificance of a text chat was higher than it is today. If you got that pop-up window with a bleep I usually switched my focus on that and bothered to answered directly. Today, we see IM going really mainstream and becoming a part of corporate infrastructures often with the argument of replacing some emails. That means that IM text chats are to some respects a replacement of asynchronous messaging (often email) where you type something up which does not really require an immediate response but something you want your co-worker to be aware of. You know that people are in meetings, talk to people around them and therefore can’t be expected to pay attention to all incoming IM-messages right away. That IM-message has then became an asynchronous message that gets read minutes or even hours later. Socially that must mean that there is an acceptance of IM-messages not being answered to directly and therefore not considered a rude behaviour. However, I do believe that it is a little but rude to ignore replying to an IM at all or at least mentioning that in an email or the next IM-chat.

I personally think it is really cool to be online at all times but the question is if that also means a committment(personal domain) or responsibility (corporate domain) to also answer and interact as soon as you can? In my personal domain I think the way IM is used has changed a bit over the years. In the early days of iChat we were intensely chatting often but nowadays it has almost shifted that an IM is done only when you have something important to say and therefore almost “worthy” of a phone call but just almost. The way IM works is that it usually doesn’t require your full attention the way a phone call does. Nowadays you do IM while doing something else.

I wonder if this means that all means of communcation changes in the way we see them as requiring our attention or how important they are to us. We I got my first Internet connection back in 1995 I think I considered an email being somewhat the same as an old-fashion letter. It was carefully drafted and sent with some sense of importance and thus requiring an answer. Over time email also became a way to share information “for-your-information” rather than something requiring a direct reponse. Email became a way to share information more casually. Compared to writing a letter it is so much easier to copy a text or just send a link to a web page. More of anything can often mean that the sense exclusiveness goes away somewhat, unless you are in love of course when I guess many love messages only make things better in most cases.

Social media (such as FaceBook) brings the sharing aspect of information to a whole new level. Nowadays you can share your current situation where you express what you are doing, how feel and what you are about to do. Thing that differes social media networks from web pages with information is that it usually assumes you have some sort of relationship to people who you are sharing your information with. The information is personalised and therefore to a higher degree targeted by you. Just as you expect a reaction to something you say over dinner about what is happening in your life I guess many people who post their “status” on FaceBook hope or desire some kind of reaction to it. Congratulations to good things that happen and expressions of compassion when bad things happen in their life. So as we are getting more and more information about people around us the questions how we do handle the social rules about all this social information. Is it rude to not read or try to keep up-to-date about someone you know? Do you expect comments from these people around events in your life? Is a FaceBook message something that require an answer just as we might think of an email or an IM-chat?

No matter if how reactions or response will arrive the increase of information streams (should we call personal ones life streams?) coming from sources you have chosen will most likely affect people who consume them to some degree. In an era of mass information and need for affirmation it can be confusing when different people apply different social rules to all these communication possibilities. Some people apply the social rules of IRL strictly and get offended when people don’t follow them. Others are very relaxed about the whole thing and don’t feel obliged to do anything at all. The thing that confuses me is when the level of obligation is determined out of someones particular view of a specific tool rather than their relation to the person they have a relationship with.

The inside of the 109 year old spa was beautiful and the atmosphere was very relaxed as we slowly made it down the stairways towards the cashier. I was very nervous and I think my friend understood that and took care of all the talking and getting us a locker key each. The girl behind the counter then smiled and said “…and you find the entrance to the women’s department over there”. I smiled and it felt really solemn to walk through the passage. There were only a few other women inside and we both found our lockers at the end of the room. I looked left and saw that my friend was already undressing so I took a deep sigh and starting doing the same as well. Before knowing it we both stood there in our bikinis and agreed that the bikini I bought last summer before my surgery fit me really well. It was nice to get some words of approval and we headed of towards the shower room.

I realised that it wasn’t only 7 years since I had been on a public bath but also in public locker rooms as well (brief visit around Christmas at work though) so it was almost a little bit exciting being there again. I relaxed a little bit when the water was starting pouring down over my body and realised that noone seem to take any notice of us at all. Standing there in my nice bikini and feeling the water almost made me more aware of my body and that it actually was ok and nice. I worried a little bit that my wet hair would affects my looks a little bit but then it was time. We took our towels and opened the door towards the public areas and before I really had time to react I was walking beside the bar area in the entrance wearing a bikini. It was a great feeling to be that natural and not having to worry about makeup and extra hair but also not anything to hide or be ashamed of. There I was, a woman walking beside another women who was my best friend. It was actually a very pure feeling that I had dreamt about for a long time to just the average woman and not feeling different compared to my dear female friend. We explored the relaxation area and passed along the table where some people were sitting and drinking. The rest of the area was taken up by a big bubble bath pool and a equally large salt-water thermal pool.

We agreed on that swimming a few strokes would be a good start and started looking for the swimming pool and after a while we found some signs leading to a stairway. In the stairway I whispered happily that nobody had stared at me and she smiled back almost like she had expected just that. The pool room was a beautfiul place with nice chairs and small cabins by the side of the 18m long pool. I almost felt proud as I walked along the side behind her. Proud that I was finally there, proud of my body and very thankful for her support without which I would never be there.

We slowly entered the water on opposing stairways and it was a wonderful feeling to feel the water around my body and my long hair floating in the water as I took my first swim strokes in years. We swam together along one side of the pool and I felt just wonderful and smiled a lot. After a few turns I realised that I was getting tired really quickly but it felt great to get a little exercise at least.

Back in the relaxation area we had look at the bubble pool but it was cleaning its water just then so we ordered orange juice and a warm sandwich to eat. Sitting there waiting was great, people were walking by and I was feeling just normal (for lack of better words). I don’t remember all details but I think my friend noticed that the bubble pool was bubbling again so we headed off to it to try it out. At the same time what seemed like a bachelor party discovered the same thing and decided to bubble bath as well. The pool quickly filled up and me and P slided in on the front-end and the pool was full. I have to confess that my tension level jumped a few bits then. Here I was sitting in a bikini the first time in a bubble pool together with 8 strange men. I think my friend also was a little bit worried if something could happen. However, they seemed happy about the female company in the pool and I felt just wonderful. After being massaged by the jet streams for a while we switched pool to the warm salt-water one. It was also a very nice and warm to just enjoy the warm water in the pool beside the bar.

After a long time our food was ready and we got some really tasteful sandwiches and I just tried to enjoy every moment of this experience. We were getting a bit cool and closing time was getting nearer so we then headed for the sauna department. We choose the dry nordic sauna and ended up laying on our backs without the bikinis and with hair balm in our hair. Lying there naked with other women and feeling a sense of belonging was just great. It was really warm (around 90 degrees Celcius) and it was a great way to end the bath experience.

We showered and changed clothes in the locker room and headed back home to my friend in a beautiful Stockholm with warm summer wind and a lovely sunset. She called her boyfriend and we decided to pick him and her baby up and find a place to have coffee. Sitting at a nice café with them and enjoying a Latte was a perfect end on a truly magic evening for me. I was definately back on my pink cloud when I came home.

That could of course be the case if it wasn’t for the fact that no matter what I do with my looks there is always that someone who for some reason sees something that makes them see my background. In that moment I am not just a woman but suddenly that strange person. I should of course not really have to care what every single person think about me and I like to think I actually can disregard that sometimes. However, what I am scared of is that I will end up creating somekind of “scene” because someone feel a need to point some strangeness about me to me or most often someone else around them. In the worst of cases that could of course develop into one of those situation where you feel really uncomfortable (or even scared) and just want to run out of the room.

The strangest part is that I had thought (or at least hoped) that these feelings would go away by now. I mean I remember how scared I was just going downtown shopping ten years ago. In many respects my life is so much easier now but I have realised that these situations takes me much harder now because I am less prepared and it feels much more unfair. Back then every step outside felt like a political action of visibility and even if I longed to just pass as the average girl I know I sometimes did not and was prepared for that. Nowadays I feel just great about myself when I leave my house and then suddenly from nowhere I cause some reaction just by being there which makes it so obvious for me that I am strange. Sure a lot of this is just in my head and a girlfriend of mine did point out that I had to learn to handle that some men does not look friendly at women. Maybe genetic women has become more used to this than I have but the thing is that I feel that I am getting these reactions from a lot of women as well.

I remember the joy of finally going to the women’s restroom back then and it truly felt “right” even though I did not have woman’s body back then. Therefore it is a bit sad that I still can be a little bit nervous to open that door not knowing what kind of reaction I will cause in there. Sure, in most cases there is no reaction but sometime there are. Especially late at night in cramped places and where people have had something to drink. I am actually a bit scared for what a group of drunk young women could say to me in that situation. To me that is also the worst thing – to be questioned as a women by other women. In these situations it does not matter what my ID-card says or how my body looks beneath my clothes. Isn’t that rather unfair?

Well, so that is the reason why I need my best friend’s hands when I take my first swim strokes in 8 years or so soon. Wish me luck!

• Performance. 1 FAST Full-text node supports up to around 20 Million objects in the repository (some customers commented that their experience were closer to 10 M…) and it requires in memory indices. With Documentum installations containing Billions of objects that means 100+ nodes and that has been a hard sell in terms of hardware requirements.
• Virtualisation. Apparently talks with Microsoft/FAST about the requirement on supportin all Documentum products on VMWare made no progress. This has been a customer demand for some time. MS/FAST cites intensive I/O-demands as a reason why they where not interested in certifying the full-text index on virtualisation.
• NAS-support.
• More flexible High Availability (HA) options. Today FAST can be clustered by adding new nodes which leads to a requirement of having the same amount of nodes for backup/high availability.

From a performance stand-point I personally think that the current implementation of FAST lead to slow end-user experience when searching in Documentum. One reason for this is that a search is first triggered to FAST which then delivers a search result set irrespective of my permissions. Instead the whole result set must be filtered by quering it towards the relational database. That takes time. This is also a reason why we have integrated an external search engone based on the more modern FAST ESP 5.x server with Security Access Module which means that acl:s are indexed and filtering can be done in one step when searching in the external FAST Search Front-end (SFE). More about how that is solved in ESS later on.

From a business perspective EMC outlines these challenges they see a need to satisfy:

• End users expect Google/Yahoo search paradigms
• IT-managers want low cost, scalable, ease of deployment and easy admininstration.
• Requirements for large scale, distributed deployments with multiingual support.
• Enterprise requirements such as low cost HA, backup/restore and SAN/NAS-suppprt.

New new ESS is based on the xDb technology coming from the aquisition of the company X-hive and leveraging the open source full-text indexing technology in the Lucene project. The goal for ESS is to leverage the existing open indexing architecture in Documentum. The idea is both to create a solution that really scales but of course with some trade-offs when it comes to space vs query performance.

ESS supports structured and unstructed search by leveraging best of breeed XML Database and XQuery Standards. It is designed for Enterprise readiness, scalabiity, ingestion throughput and high quality of search as core features. It also provides Advanced Data Management (enables control where placement of data on disk is done) functionality necessary for large scale systems. The intention is to give EMC to continue to develop and provide new search features and functionality required by their customer base.

It is architected for greater scalability and gives smaller footprint than current Full-Text Search as well as scale both horisontally (more nodes) as vertically (more servers on the same node). It is designed to support tens to hundreds of millions of objects per node.

This allows for solutions such as Archiving where there can be Billion+ emails/documents while preserving the high quality of search while still achieving scale. The query response time can be throttled up or down based on needs – priority can be shifted between indexing and quering.

The installation procedure is also simplified and EMC promises that a two node deployment can be up and running in less than 20 minutes. The solution is also designed to easily allow to add new nodes to an installation.

ESS is much more than a simple replacement of the full-text engne. It will focus on deliver these additional features compared to existing solutions:
- Low cost HA (n+1 Server based)
- Disaster Recovery
- Data Mangement
- VMWare Support
- NAS Support
- New Administration Framework

The new admin features includes a new ESS Admin interface which has a look and feel very similar to CenterStage. Since the intention is to support ESS on non-Documentum installation it is a separate web client. The framwoork also supports Web Services, Java API, JMX and it is open for administration using OpenView, Tivoli, MMC etc.

The server consists of:

• ESS API
• Indexing Services will have document batching capability, callback support for searchable indication and a Content Processing Pipeline with text extraction and linguistic analysis via CPS.
• Search Services. This will provide search for meta-data, content or both (XQuery based) as well as multiple search options such as batching, spooling, filters, language, analyser etc. It will return results in a XML format and provides term highlight, summary and relevancy. The thread execution management support multi-query and parallell query. It also includes low level security filtering.
• Content Processing Services is responsible for language detection, text extraction and linguistic analysis. The CPS can be local or remote (co-located with content for improved performance). It will have a pluggable architecture to support various analysers and/or text extractors. It will include out of the box support for Basis RLP and Apache SnowBall analysers. However only one analyser can be configured per ESS. (My question: Can I have different analysers on different nodes?). Content Processing can be extended by plugins.
• Node and Data Management Services is the primary interface for all data and node management within ESS. It provides ability to control routing of documents and placements of collections and indices on disk. It deals with index management and supports bind, detach, attach, merge, freeze, read-only etc.
• Analytics includes API’s and Data model for logging, metrics and auditing, ingestion and search analysis and facet computation services.
• Admin Services. The example shown was really powerfull very an admin could view all searches made by a user by time and see what time it took to first result set. The one with a longer time could be explored by viewing the query to analyse why it took so long.

Below that the xDB can be found and in the botton the Lucene indices. The whole solution is 100% Java and xDb stores XML Documents in a Persistend DOM formats and support XQuery and XPath. Indices conists of a combination of native B-tree indices + Lucene. The xDb supports single and multi-node architecture and has support for multi-statement transactions and full ACID support. In additon it supports XQFT (see introduction it here) which is a proposed standard extension to XQuery which includes:

• LQL via a full text entension
• Logical full-text operator
• Wildcard option
• Anyall options
• Positional filters
• Score variables

ESS includes native security which means that security is replicated into the search server and security filtering is done on a low level in the xDb database. This means effective searches on large result sets and enables facet computation on entire result sets.

Native facet computation is a key feature in ESS which is of course linked to the new search interface in CenterStage which is based on facets in an iTunes-like interface. Facets are of course nothing new but it is good that EMC has finally realised that it is a powerful but still easy way to give users “advanced search”.

ESS Leverages a Distributed Content Architecture (for instance using BOCS) by only sendning the raw text (DFTXML) over the network instead of the binary file which can be very much larger in many cases (such as big PowerPoint files). ESS also utilizes the new Content Processing Services (CPS) as well as ACS.

The new solutions also makes it possible to do hot backups without taking the index server down before as it is today. Backup and restore can be done on a sub-index level. The new options for High Availability include:

• Active/active shared data (the only one available for FAST)
• Active/passive with clusters
• N+1 Server based

Things I like to see but have not heard yet:

• Word frequency analysis (word clouds based on document content)
• Clustering and categorisation (maybe done by Content Intelligence Services)
• Synonym management
• Query-expansion management
• How document similarity is handled by vector-space search (I guess done by Lucene?)
• Boosting & Blocking of specific content connected to a query
• Multiple search-views (different settings for synonyms, boost&blocking etc)
• Visualisation of entity extraction and other annotations
• Functionality or at least an API to manually edit entity extraction within the index. Semi-automatic solutions are the best.
• Freshness management.
• Speech-to-text integration (maybe from Audio/Video Transformation Services)

Personally I think this is a much needed move to really improve the internal search in Documentum and make much better use of the underlying information infrastructure in Documentum. It will be interesting to see what effect this has on Microsoft/FAST ambitions to support the Documentum connector. Maybe the remaining resources (no OEM to develop) can focus on bringing the connector from an old 5.3 API to a modern 6.5 API. I still see a need for utilising multiple search engines but as ESS gains more advanced features the rationale for an expensive external solution can change. The beta for Content Intelligence Studio will be one important step in outlining the overall enterprise search architecture for big ECM-solutions. In this lies of course tracking what Autonomy brings to market in the near future.

Another thing worth mentioning is that I during the past four conferences have heard quite a few complaints about the stability of the current FAST-based full-text index. It crashes/stops reguarly and often without letting anybody knowing it before users start complaing about strange search results.

A public beta will be released in Q3 2009 and customers are invited to participate. Participants will recieve a piece of hardware with the ESS pre-installed and pre-configured and after a few configuration changes in Content Server it should be up an running.

Customers will have the option of upgrading existing FAST full-text index  or run the new ESS side-by-side with FAST. ECM will also market ESS for non-Documentum solutions.

Be sure to also read Word of Pie’s notes as well as my previous notes from FAST Forward 09 around the future of FAST ESP.

First of all many thanks to EMC for listening us and improving a lot of things from the last year. I have been to EMC World 07 and 08 and during both these occasions I felt a little lost as a Documentum customer among all these storage and virtualisation people. Back then I heard people referring with love to past Momentum conferences where the sense of community was there. In November 08 I had the chance to go to Momemtum in Prague as a speaker and it was actually a bit different from EMC World. Suddenly all the focus was on Documentum.

Things well done

So the establishment of a Content Management & Archiving (CMA) Community was just what we all needed. We all got yellow ribbons with text “Momentum” to attach to our badges which made us all much more visible to each other. We got all the sessions in the same area which meant no more running around and the chance to bump into people with those ribbons. Intead of having a very thick catalogue with all sessions merged together into a giant schedule we got our own CMA Show Guide which was really easy to use and made life much easier to me. Next to all the sessions we had a beautiful  Momentum Lounge which was manned all day around. You could even meet CMA executives for drinks after sessions on Wednesday and Thursday. It had nice sofas and chairs togeter with soft red lighting which made it quite cosy. In the solutions exhibitions all CMA Booths were gathered in the same area with a separate graphic profile then the rest of the EMC booths. Around the CMA booth you found all the CMA partners co-located. Finally we had our own CMA Party on Monday evening which was well attended as far I saw. In addition to that we finally seem to have a working online community both for Documentum and XML Technologies.

[View with PicLens]

There was also a great thing to create a Blogger’s lounge where all people who blogged and Twittered could register. Outside the lounge there was a large screen displaying what we all were saying more or less live. And the Vanilla Latte served there was a life saver! On Tuesday their Barista started making mine as soon as I passed the entrance What a service! I think EMC actually made social media into a working business tool here. Really something to build on. If you have not done it search for #emcworld on Twitter to see what it was all about.

I attened one Product Advisory Forum (PAF) around the new Enterprise Search Server (ESS) and that was a great experience. Ed Bueche and Aamir Farooq did a great job to inspire great discussions between us customers and the engineering team. I attended PAFs in Prague as well and those were also a great part of the conference.

We had access to wireless internet all around the conference area and that is vital for a conference like this. Especially for us who Blog and Tweet!

Things to improve

First of all EMC is a company which has a payoff saying “Where Information Lives” and touts itself as an information infrastructure company. I assume that all means digital information and is it something we Documentum people care about then it is information management. Then it does make a lot of sense taking notes and searching the web on a laptop computer during sessions. After all we are IT-nerds Please get us some rooms with sufficient number of power outlets!

Why not even extend it further and use your own technology to integrate Tweets, Blog posts with the conference schedule so we more or less can interact live around sessions. It would even make sense for me at least to being able to register that I am attending a conference (voluntary of course) using the online profile community that alre which would make it even easier

There seem to be fewer sessions in general and especially I believe the number of developer oriented ones have become significantly fewer. I am not a coder myself so I actually think it makes sense to have sessions focused on people writing code and other with different advancement levels for us focusing on architectures, features and business cases. Another thing I noted is that there are no call for papers to EMC World the same way it works for Momentum (Europe). I think use cases from customers are an important part of the conference and it would be great to find a way to get them back in.

Please also have a look at what Word of Pie had to say about this year’s conference.

See you next year in Boston!

It will introduce a new gridless view which lists all objects as list with columns for attributs. Gridless view also can can show thumbnails at the left end of each line. There will also be a storyboard view much like the one existing in today’s Digital Asset Manager.

MWS will now have support for comments – which can interact with CenterStage comments.

Personalised Dashboard include the following views:

• QuickFlows
• Most Popular Assets
• Recently Viewed Assets
• Recently Updated Assets

To met that looks like they have starting to think in terms of Information Analytics…There is now also a feature to show the accumulative rating among users.

They see a need for customisations and an SDK or similar will be released during 2009

The Inbox allows to open a quickflow which actually was really nice-looking with attached images as thumbnails below. Looked rather similar to an email message which is the right way to go I think.

QuickSearch now supports searching on any index data.

Advanced Search has a tab called General and then for Presenation, Video, Audio and Images which allows for a higher level restriction of search.
Search on properties for instances image with a certain pixels…

There is new Presentation slide view which looks way more flexible than current PowerPoint assembly. Looks actually like viewing/reviewing slides now can be done completely without opening the application.

The view below the preview of the slides has tabs for Metadata, Versions, Rendtions, Comments, Permission Relationships

Slides can be rated and metadata can be editied just by clicking in the fields.

Video view supports thumbnails but also preview of the video utilzing FlipFactory. Looked like the previewer was using Flash.

FileSharing Services, My Documentum and Documentum for Outlook will be merged into a new MyDocumentum product and then moved into the Knowledge Worker group. Documentum Connector for InDesign & Quark Xpress are also part of My Documentum but from a Digital Asset Management side of  the house.

Many companies have 3D-data which comes from different CA-systems. Therefore they have started to develop CAD Integration with in Documentum with support of Right Hemisphere Integration (press release) which supports viewing data from 80 CAD/PLM-systems.

The solutions allows customers to request and repurpose derivatives
Flat Iron Solutions have a demonstration in the exhibition area at EMC World 2009.

Content Transformation Services
There are mainly bug fixes and some Improvements on the performance for the OEM products they are using mainly on the image side of the house.

CTS now includes support for for Adobe CS3 & CS4
There is an SDK for CTS which can be used to handle custom encoders….from my point of view the obvious question is whether or not i make sense to develop support for GIS-formats?

The next release of MWS will probably be available in September 2009.

There is available technology in the the platform to support annotations on video files but not yet exposed.

Aility to show forms in a Flex environment is something they are working on and it seems fairly important especially for us who use both TaskSpace and DAM with Forms.

VISION
The main areas which they focus on are:

Web Experience Management
Customer Comms Management (build websites based on preferences)
Customer Intelligence Management
Marketing Process Management
Brand Management include:
- Presentation
- Video
- Image
- Collateral
- 3D Image
- Agency Collaboration

MidYear
- New version of Presentation Assembly

End of Year
- MWS Pro
- Integrated Collaboration and Publsihing
- Campaign Management
- Marketiing and Web Metrics Tracking
- KPI
- Rapid and Setup of Brand

D7 – 2010
- MWS Field Editin
- SalesForce integration
- Support of Personalised Customer

MWS Pro
- Different Libraries as Tabs

Q1 2010 MWS & DAM Sp3

I torsdags fick jag ta emot priset Framtidens Ledare av JCI Sweden (f.d. Juniorhandelskammaren). Priset delades ut av Handelsminister Ewa Björling som också talade vid prisutdelningen. Jag fick priset i kategorin “Personlig prestation” eller “Personal Improvement and/or Achievement” som den internationella kategorin heter.

JCI Sweden utser årligen ”Framtidens Ledare” i syfte att uppmärksamma framstående personer mellan 18 och 40 som är goda förebilder för världens unga. Vinnarna går vidare till den internationella tävlingen The Outstanding Young Persons of the World (TOYP). De slutgiltiga internationella pristagarna presenteras i november i samband med JCI: s världskongress i Tunisien i slutet av året.

Det kändes faktiskt riktigt fint att få priset och jag var mer nervös än jag trodde när jag skulle upp på scenen och ta emot priset. Det känns på något sätt lite extra att det är en icke-HBT organisation som ger priset till mig som HBT-person. Extra trevligt var det att min pappa Gordon var där tillsammans med min vän Martin men också Martin Bergstrand som är Public Affairs på den enhet inom Högkvarteret jag jobbar jobbar på.

Jag fick priset för att jag kämpat för att vara mig själv inte minst genom min utredningsprocess samtidigt som jag varit anställd i Försvarsmakten. I denna process har jag ju hela tiden försökt vara öppen och ärlig om vad jag går igenom och försökt hjälpa både mig och andra genom att sprida information om HBT-frågor i allmänhet och transsexualism i synnerhet.

Efter en liten paus hade vi som fått pris ombetts hålla ett tal på ca 15 min och i det försökte jag tala om hur jag faktiskt har information som tema i mitt liv. Jag insåg tidigt att det saknades bra information och jag har försökt skapa sådan information och hela tiden försökt använda teknik som hjälp för att sprida den. Jag pratade också om hur viktigt det är med de små handlingarna som bekräftar en och får en att känna sig mindre konstig. Det kan vara allt från ett leende till att bli inbjuden i någon hela liv. Jag har under min process träffat många underbara människor som gjort det där lilla extra precis när jag som bäst behövt det och de har därför verkligen varit med och förändrat mitt liv. Att få detta pris är för mig en sådan gest som gör skillnad för mig och förhoppningsvis för andra i min situation också.
Årets vinnare var:

Kategori 1 – Näringsliv, affärsmannaskap eller entreprenörskap: Charlie Hansson
Kategori 6 – Bidrag till barn, världsfred och/eller mänskliga rättigheter: Alice Bah Kuhnke
Kategori 7 – Humanitärt ledarskap och eller volontärarbete: Jonas Forsberg
Kategori 9 – Personlig prestation: Alexandra Larsson

Last Thursday I recieved the Future Leaders award from the hands of the Swedish Minister of Commerce Ewa Björling. The price is given by Junior Chambers International Sweden and I got it in the category for Personal Improvement and/or Achievement. I got the price for being myself while doing the journey as a transsexual woman within the Swedish Armed Forces and at the same time reaching out to others with information. All four winners will be submitted as candidates to the International part which is the The Outstanding Young Persons of the World (TOYP).

[View with PicLens]

First it is offensive to the group but it becomes even worse when it is someone you know. What happened later is possibly even worse. Despite that I very clearly stated that it was offensive to me all of them quickly pretended as if nothing happened. Sure, Swedes are in general afraid of conflicts but it is a very obvious example of how saying “I don’t discriminate anyone” is not enough. Instead people need to really understand their own behaviour and what they need to change which in turn usually requires knowledge to “see” where sometimes unconcious values comes into play.

I decided to tell them I could not stand this and left the party. That felt much better than staying and feeling real sad but try to hide it since nobody wanted to discuss what happened. Something I did not do last summer when the same person said a similar offensive thing to me in my face. Then I stayed but of course I could not avoid thinking about it all the remaining time at the party. This time the worst feelings gradually drifted away as I drove home.

Lessons learned is again that it is vital to have strategies for what to do when people do stupid things to me. The hard part is that some of the people around me probably have to develop their own in order to know how to stand up for me. For those who have done that it has so far worked like a charm.

Today, I got an apology over SMS. I need to figure out what to say back.

When I was in school I actually was fairly interested in history and had really good grades in it. I think most of my interest was focused at the Second World War era and of course aviation in particular. I still have all these books in my bookshelf but I seem less and less inclined to read them. It is not because I have lost interest in miitary warfare, in fact in my job I think I need to consider historical lessons learned quite a lot.

I believe it has more to do with progress in terms of human rights, democracy and respect for minorities. My own journey into the woman I am today and my work with LGBT-rights has actually influenced me a lot. So much that is has became a centerpiece of all my values. I have learned so much about all the aspects of human rights from laws and regulations down to the importance of awarness building in schools and society in general.

Each time I see some historic exhibition it often is fairly obvious that the situation for women, ethnic minorites, gay and lesbians, transgendered, disabled people was a lot worse than it is today here in Sweden. I have a hard time disregarding the fact that it would have been a real tough for me to live in that era and that gives me a feeling of sadness. I think that is why I find it very hard to be fascinated by historical reenactments, historical cities and exhibitions. I have no interest in either taking part in nor watching people reenacting an era where women in general and lesbian ones in particular had such a hard time.

This also seems to overflow to my feelings when I see news segments from other parts of the world where it usually feels like travelling back in time in terms of respect for human rights. However, my feelings in these case are different because I feel an urge to do something to change the current situation. Still, it also seem to give me reminders of “old times” which makes me even less interested in history.

Of course we also have the aspect of my own history which I find myself struggling with now and then. I have chosen to be completely open with my background since I desperately don’t want to get back in the closet again. On the other hand it is hard to relate to my own history which represent a time where so many central things were wrong. It is sometimes even hard to relate to the fact that it was me doing this stupid things back then. I also find myself more uncomfortable to be reminded about what it was like then, my old name and things like that. It nearly makes me shiver sometimes.

Finally I think I have a tendency to be charmed by new novel ways of solving problems and that I think is the final nail in my history coffin. Playing with a ten year old computer isn’t actually that much fun and I fail to be charmed by the thoughts of that time. One of the few exceptions is that I actually enjoy going to the National Air & Space Museum where there obviously is a lot of old aircraft. Still, I often skip the oldest parts of the exhibition and move to the newer aircraft and of course enjoy future-oriented exhibtions the most.

So, history seem to make me feel there wouldn’t be any place for someone like me in that setting and the sad part is that it is probably true.

In preparation for the upcoming mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope there is now a unique sight at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Space Shuttle Endeavour has been moved to 39B as a rescue vehicle if something goes wrong with Space Shuttle Atlantis during the servicing mission. It is truly a unique sight and will never been seen again since the pad is turned over the next generation rocket program at NASA and Shuttle missions will end in 2010. The sight is almost like a real version of the motion picture Armageddon which also has two shuttles on the pads, although some spaced-up future versions

Here is another great picture of them

Tomorrow Tuesday I am heading off to the United Kingdom again. Maybe I end up behind the steering wheel of our rental again. Driving on the “wrong side” is still an interesting experience that sometime requires all my attention to avoid my driving habits from the right side of the road.

Most of the LGBT people I know they usually try to explore the LGBT-scene when they are visiting a city. Sure, most of them travel privately with LGBT-friends or partners so I guess it is a little bit different than for me. I usually end up travelling to nice places in the line of my work and that means spending time with heterosexual collegues nighttime. It is no problem really, I like to have the company and evening discussions are sometimes more productive than the formal meetings during the day. However this time was the first one in a long time where I will not have the company of a collegue all the time so I at least started to check out the local scene here in DC.

Generally, I still can think it is stressful to sit by myself at a restaurant. I guess it is because I project that I am a strange person that is sitting there by herself because she has no friends. Still, looking back 10 years I would have been terrified by going to a restaurant by myself and now I can just be uneasy at times.

So I found two cool places for lesbian women here in DC. The first one is called Lace and is an upscale bar-restaurant-nightclub which seem to be something I have not seen before. The other is a bar and nightclub called A Different Kind of Ladies Night and seem a bit more casual. I thought about going there but the whole concept of going there alone seemed a little bit too scary. I don’t really know if it is that I don’t trust my social skills of havinga at least a decent time or if it is because of my transsexual background. Sometime I feel that if I go there with another woman I am unconciously “vouched for” that I am ok because I have company and by another female. So I ended up staying at the hotel. I wonder if I should dare more or if I am just too hard on myself…on the good side is that I definately could see myself at both those places in somebody’s company. That is at least some kind of progress…

First I was happy for her just for the chance of being a model because ten years ago I have to confess that I dreamt a little about being a model. I guess it is the ultimate affirmation of beauty and femininity. I got to know a photographer back then who took at a thousand images of me and I believe doing those photoshoots and seeing all the images meant a lot for my process. Then I thought about that this meant that she actually got a chance to follow her dream just as the other girls on the show. That is really something for a group of people unfortunately used to being treated badly (read the comments on the USMagazine page if you want to see ugly comments…).

However, I wonder if the biggest things isn’t that fact that transgendered people actually are starting to see someone who are like them in the media. Invisibility is a hard thing to handle. The review from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) notes that a positive trend is that more transgendered characters are appearing in film and television. We have of course Alexis in Ugly Betty (left image) but she is played by a genetic female. In Dirty Sexy Money however the transgender character Carmelita is played by Candis Cayne (right image) who went through her transition 10 years ago. Not only a transgender character but also a transgender actress that has a successful career.

Further they noted transgendered Laverne Cox in VH1’s I Want to Work for Diddy and in America’s Got Talent Dorae Saunders, a transgender woman and Tina Turner impersonator, appeared. I had not heard about it but there apparently was a romantic reality series Transamerican Love Story which featured transgender actress Calpernia Addams as the bachelorette, and included a transgender man among the contenders vying for her affection. Read what Out&About wrote about the show.

Sure, there is always the argument of whether or not these are “good” representations of transgendered people but I guess it must not matter. It IS important to be visible and sooner or later people themselves find out that all transgendered are not the same while we shared some common experiences and problems in life. I think the future looks promising. It does not hurt that these women are stunningly beautiful either – seeing that your dream can become true!

First of all I think the gender roles are a bit more accentuated in the US especially among the business (or military) people that I normally meet. It is something about how people dress I think. Women are in general a little bit more formal (during daytime) than what is common in Sweden and also in general a little bit more makeup. Match that to a style which favours sneakers (during leisure time) together with pink colors and it fits me like a glove So I actually think I blend in better in terms of my looks in the US. All of this are generalisations of course but still. I actually feel a little less stared at in the US which of course is a big relief for me.

However, what really affects me is the constant affirmations I get everyday when I am being adressed as “Miss” or “M’am”. Lately I seem to have became more of a “M’am” than “Miss” actually I think I feel rather good about that. The first times years back I noticed this of course and became very happy but I guess I became used to it over the years while forgetting the effect it had on me. It is very good for my mind to get these affirmations when being addressed on the aircraft, at the hotel reception and at lunch. It secures me on my “pink cloud” where I feel secure and proud of myself.

Actually there are very few wrong pronouns when I am in the US also. I can hardly remember when anybody over there used the wrong one for me the last time. Here in Sweden it happened just a few weeks ago at the Headquarters in the middle of a meeting.

So I guess America is good for my self-esteem. Fortunately I am flying back there on Monday morning and will stay in the Virginia area for two weeks.

Note to non-Swedes: In Sweden the equivalents of Mr/Miss/Mrs are hardly used any more. Maybe if you get a very formal invitation from the King, otherwise it is usually done with some kind of humorous remark. It is very informal conversational climate.

It was very clear that the Microsoft Marketing department had a lot to say about the conference and what messages that were to be conveyed. Somewhere behind all that you could still see some of the old FAST mentality but it was really toned down. To me the conference was about convincing existing customers that MS is committed to Enterprise Search and to give Sharepoint customers some idea of what Enterprise Search is all about.

It is clear that the product line is diversifying in a common Microsoft strategy:

Solutions for Internet Business

Solutions for Business Productivity

FAST Search for Sharepoint won’t be available until Office Wave 14 (incl Sharepoint) will be released so in the meantime there will be a product called FAST ESP for Sharepoint that can be used today and will have a license migration path towards FAST Search for Sharepoint. That product will have product license of aroudn 25 000 USD and then additional Client Access License (CAL) will follow in a standrad MS manner.

So what does all of this means for us who like to see FAST ESP continue as an enterprise component in a heterogenous environment? Well, MS has commited to 10 years of support for current customers, I guess in a gesture towards those who are worried. Over and over again I heard representatives talking about how important those high-end installations on other operating systems are. The same message appeared when it came to connectors and integration with Enterprise Content Management systems like EMC Documentum. Still, most if not all demos was connected to Sharepoint and/or other MS-specific technologies.

The technical roadmap means that the past year has been devoted in rewriting their next generation search platform from Java to .Net. The first product that will be released is the Content Integration Studio (CIS) which consist of Visual Studio (I guess earlier in Eclipse) component and a server-side execution engine. This will only be available on Windows since it is deeply connected to the .Net-environment. It looks like a promising product with support for flows instead of linear pipeline to handle the processing of information before it is handed of to the index engine. CIS therefore sits in-front of FAST ESP and a combination of actions in flow and in old pipelines can be executed. Information from CIS is written to the ESP which then creates the index and also processes queries to it.

What I think we can expect is that new innovation is focused on creating a modular architecture where CIS is the first one. Features in ESP will the be gradually reengineered in a .Net-environment and thus creating a common search platform some years into the future. It will likely mean that we will still see one or two upgrades to the core ESP as we know it today to enable it to function together with the new components. Content Fusion will most likely be the next module that will extend ESP but on a .Net-architecture.

When it comes to the presentation logic where we today have the FAST Search Front-End (SFE) we will see them either as Web parts for Sharepoint or as AJAX Aerogel from MS. These are currently developed using Javascript but will include Silverlight later on.

These will initially be offered in both a IIS and a Tomcat flavour and possibly others if there is demand. They will intitially integrated with ESP and Unity and thus opening up for a new approach of developing a search experience on top of them.

I general I don’t like the Microsoft approach of insisting of owning the whole technology stack by themselves and refusing to invest in other standards-based projects. Instead of developing their own AJAX libraries they could have used ExtJS or even Google Web Toolkit. While it is not open source MS argues that it is a very Permissive licence from MS that has many of the same qualities. A good thing is that MS was comitted to make sure that this framework works on all major browsers including FireFox, Safari and Chrome. It is interoperable with JQuery.

In summary I think it is kind of a mixed experience. The new features being developed are truly needed to make FAST keep being one of the most advanced search engines available. I think many of the features look really promising and I can’t wait to get my hands on then. On the other hand it is clear that things are going proprietary (FAST ESP had a lot of open source in it), it is being aligned in a Microsoft stack and thus gradually minimizing options. That includes how new technologies are being implemented (MS-ones instead of open source), what operating systems it will run on and how the support for developing presenation logics look like. It means I have to have people how know both Java and .Net, both Flash and Silverlight (possibly JavaFx) and both ExtJS/GWT and MS AJAX/Aerogel.

We are deeply invested in the EMC Documentum Platform and would of course like to continue use ESP as a way to add advanced capabilities and performance to our architecture. However, I think I will over time get sick and tired on Microsoft sales people trying to convince me to use Sharepoint instead of Documentum. For anybody who know how both platform work it is almost a joke but I will most likely have to keep explaining and explaining. I just hope that we can have decent connector developed for Documentum.

Too read more you can go to the FAST Forward Blog which has many interviews, look at videos at the Microsoft Press Room and check out the chatter on ffc09 tagged tweets on Twitter. An finally here is what CMS Watch has to say about it.