There are many people that I have met and interacted with through the Lotus community who have helped me personally and professionally. One of these people is an IBMer: Stephan Wissel.
From: Eric Mack/ICA
To: Stephan H Wissel
Date: 12/07/2010 09:23 AM
Subject: Year end reflections - Stephan, thank you for your tremendous support in 2010
Stephan,
An email is hardly adequate to express my thanks, but I was reflecting on the people I know who have contributed to our success with Lotus Software this year and I keep coming back to you.
Your help navigating through the technical challenges we faced with IBM/Notes getting eProductivity to market was invaluable. When I could not get others at IBM to listen to my reports of bugs found, you not only confirmed the bugs but helped me find solutions and work-arounds. In the same way, when I became discouraged with IBM/LOTUS you were always there with some words of encouragement. Stephan, you're a great connector, both to people inside IBM and out. I appreciate your stream of introductions and I always try to follow-up on yours first, as a result. Finally, your thoughtful suggestions about features that we should add have contributed to the product as well.
With heartfelt thanks for 2010 and looking forward to a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year.
Thank you,
Eric
From a productivity perspective, Stephen is one of the people that contributed to my productivity this year. He's not the only one - there are too many to acknowledge in this post. If you know Stephan, then you know that he is one of many excellent people in the Lotus community that tirelessly reaches out to others to offer support, encouragement, and at least 1000 reasons why they should create an xPages or Composite app.
Discussion/Comments (5):
Stephan is the technical equivalent of your grandparents. Just MAD wisdom; like you just go to him and he HAS THE ANSWER.
It's just the way a sensei should be, and Stephan is fully deserving of the title.
Ethann Castell (http://www.caliton.com): 1/15/2011 4:12:42 AM
I couldn't agree more. Stephan is a valuable asset to IBM.
Peter Presnell (http://www.gbs.com): 1/15/2011 6:56:14 AM
Well said Eric... Imagine a world in which we had 100's (if not (1,000s) of Stephan Wissels. Always sharing their unique perspective about Lotus products, always able to find the positives from any situation, always there with a helping hand. Something for us all to aspire to.
Karl-Henry Martinsson (http://www.texasswede.com): 1/15/2011 8:12:01 AM
I was lucky enough to hang out with Stephan during Lotusphere 2010, we took a tour down to Downtown Disney to raid the Lego Store together. :-) We had a very interesting conversation, and I learned several new things that prevented me from implementing a solution i thought were brilliant, but that Stephan explained had some issues because of the Domino architecture. He probably saved me many hours of work that I would have just thrown away.
Stephan is a great asset to IBM, and I can't agree more with Nathan, Stephan truly deserve the title sensei.
Eric Mack (www.ica.com): 1/15/2011 10:58:10 AM
@Ethann, @Peter, @Karl, @Nathan - I couldn't agree more. There are several excellent examples of IBMers who go above the call of duty that I can think of and I do not mean to exclude them. This particular email just reminded me of the value I've received. But I agree with you. Have a great weekend.
Discussion for this entry is now closed.