I have a tendancy to post blog entries that people read as negative. Its not that I’m trying to be negative, I’m trying to offer constructive critism. I also subscribe to an old CEO philosphy: “don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions.” With that in mind, any time I critique something, I try to offer solutions for how to fix it.

But … sometimes it all just sounds negative, I suppose. So, let’s balance it out.

Lotus had some big announcements at Lotusphere this year. The two I’m most excited about are Notes 8 and Quickr.

Why I’m excited about Notes 8:

Its not the Eclipse stuff, although I can appreciate why that’s important (and just hope they can speed it up a bit - or that the beta version is just really really slow), its mostly the new UI. Notes 8 finally looks as good as Outlook/Exchange, if not better. I really can’t say enough good things about the UI and I think it’ll make people WANT to use Notes. And that’s important because of the second reason I think Notes 8 has a lot of potential: built in editors. — The ability to edit your documents, spreadsheets and presentations (or Word, Excel and PowerPoint files) within the Notes client is HUGE! Its easier, its more convenient and it costs less! As an IT manager I am willing to explore any chance of getting rid of Microsoft Office license fees out there!

And I haven’t even commented on composite applications! That is going to be HUGE. I think any company that’s had Notes in house for 5+ years probably has a few applications that really ought to be tied together. The idea of redeveloping these applications to consolidate them is a nightmare. With composite applications, you don’t have to. You can simply add some development effort to tie together the pieces you need. Brilliant!

Why I’m excited about Quickr:

My company has needed a product like Quickr for a long time. It solves the problem of not having a check in/out document storage area. It solves the problem of how to search for documents. And it organizes documents in a way that doesn’t require us to spend tons of time thining about a taxonomy that can be applied to the whole organization (which has historically been the thing that kills this type of project in the past).

In addition, the fact that its a Lotus product sweetens the deal big time! Notes 8’s UI is nice and clean and it has productivity editors … but now I can add to that all the “stuff” that Quickr does and I suddenly have a powerful suite of Lotus apps. And they’re clever apps that, too. For example, this dialog box will solve one of the biggest issues we have on a daily basis: where to store documents using the least amount of space/bandwidth possible.

I think the Standard editon of Quickr will be a great tool for us. But I’m also looking forward to the “pay-for” version which adds the promise of team spaces that look nice and are easy to use. Project collaboration is a big deal in our company and we’ve built a lot of Notes databases to manage parts of our overall process. Adding composite applications in Notes 8 will give us the ability to begin to thread these together. But there will still be missing pieces. These pieces are “team” elements (calendars, blogs, file repositories, etc.) that we don’t have a home for today (or that exist in one or more email files … visibile only to the owner).

So … I can’t wait for Notes 8 and Quickr. And that’s at the heart of why I’ve been so vocal about wanting to ensure that someone is paying attention to the marketing end of these products. I honeslty believe that these products could be the solution to some of the most common problems other IT managers have and its important to get the message out infront of these people because they’ll need to be armed with lots of details (and a fair share of hype) if they’re going to stand infront of their teams, employees and CEOs and say “I think we should switch to Lotus.”

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Not more than 2 minutes after my last post, I found the problem. There’s an issue with how my template handles gravitars. So … I deleted that part of the code. Not idea, but it fixed it.

I’ll revisit that issue later since I’m working on the same thing with another WordPress install for another site I maintain.

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I just realized that something in the way my blog is handling comments is all messed up. I’ll get on that and try to fix it ASAP.

Sorry for the technical difficulties.

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I’ve been very busy the last few weeks and find myself just now catching up. As I do, there’s a few articles and blog posts that grabbed by attention.

It all started with a few posts (like this one) about Lotus Notes 8 splash screens. What’s wrong with that? Nothing. Except that it made me realize its the closest thing to “marketing” that I’ve seen come out of IBM/Lotus on this new product.

Now, I’m a Notes 8 beta user and I can tell you that its a big advancement. I totally get the roadmap that’s inherint in this product. The use of eclipse is smart and the ability to have productivity editors (light versions of products like Word, Excel, etc.) built into the application is awesome! I think that one feature alone could draw some serious attention to Notes 8. — The problem: IBM/Lotus isn’t drawing attention to Notes 8.

Sure, blogs are talking about it. Sure, there’s a couple of news articles out there on it. But nothing on the scale of the “R5″ release … and there should be! This version has some huge potential for people. And when you add things like Quickr and Connections to the mix, Lotus quickly becomes a brand that IT Managers should be paying attention to.

Which brings me to this article from IT-Director.com. In short, the author thinks that IBM shouldn’t continue to use the Lotus brand because its not helping to draw attention to their new products. And yet, even though Information Week didn’t mention it, Lotus DOES have a strong cult following. And that probably started because people who worked at the original Lotus clearly had passion for what they were doing, be it 1-2-3 or Notes or whatever.

So let’s recap:

• Notes 8 = potentially one of the greatest versions of Notes in a long time
• Connections & Quickr = potentially great new additions to a company that IT Managers should pay attention to
• IBM = recognizing branding power of “Lotus” and continuing to use it
• Lotus = has a cult following

So … why aren’t there more ads? Maybe IBM doesn’t think that Lotus products (which fit in any organization but fit particularly well in SMB’s) aren’t attractive to small-medium business. No, that can’t be it.

I’m not sure why the only “hype” about this product is limited to blogs, trade rags and splash screens on Flickr. While the beta still “feels” like a beta, its very very promising. I say: hype it up! Let’s see some ads! Let’s see some TV time for Notes 8, Quickr and Connections. Remind IT Managers why they should continue to invest in Notes, or better yet, why they should ditch Microsoft (or other email programs … my wife’s office is still on GroupWise!) software and adopt Lotus. Its a great decision … you just need to explain to NEW customers WHY its a great decision. And it all starts with attracting their attention … in an ad.

I’ll even get you started. What about … “I am, 2.0″ - clever, eh?

Now … I’m not endorsing a redo of the “I am” ads, they had sizzle, but no steak. I think there ought to be a campaign that has some element in it that appeals to the existing Lotus cult following (thus the “I am, 2.0″ thing), but more importantly, the ads need to clearly tell NEW customers why they should consider Notes 8. Its got to have a balance of “hey this is cool and looks great” and “wow, this will make my organization faster, better and more powerful.”

Also … I know that Notes 8 is still in beta, thus running an ad right now might be premature. Then again, maybe not. There’s something to be said for hyping a product LONG before its ready to come out. If only I could think of an example of a company that does that… hmmm…..

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