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Don’t get me wrong. I love the iPhone. I still consider it to be the most important computer device launched in the last few years. As a famous quote once stated:

“For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.”

I believe in the power and impact the iPhone can have for lots of people – including enterprises. And rather than explain why (again) I’ll just defer to the quote above and suggest you go get one yourself if you’re still wondering why this device is so important.

But… let’s get real for a second about the iPhone 3G. I’d be willing to bet that some of you are thinking the following thoughts but, like me, not wanting to say them out-loud (which is why I’ll blog about them instead):

• Battery life is annoyingly bad – when I stopped using a Treo 650 I was grateful that I no longer had to recharge every day. Now, I’m back to that once-a-day charging routine (sometimes more frequently).
• The new “backup” routine is a great idea but takes WAAAY too long. I’ve seen some support postings saying that people are getting mixed results with this. Mine takes a good 7-10 minutes. And it happens EVERY time I plug it in.
• 3G signal strength is bad just about anywhere. I actually like it when it flips to 2G because the signal is always much stronger.
• 3G speed is good – but I’m surprised how many places I use it that have WiFi, so I really don’t need 3G as much as I thought.
• GPS is cool – but until there becomes a de facto standard “find your friends” application (and until those people sign up and share their screen name), I won’t get as much use out of this as I thought.
• Applications (which is really more of a 2.0 O/S topic) are very cool, often flakey, often crash without warning or explanation.
• Push email, contacts and calendar is nice. MobileMe is flakey, but does the job for what I need. Cleanly connecting this to my Domino world still is an issue.

Bottom line: I’m just not convinced the 3G is better than my old one. Infact, there are times where I seriously consider going back. The iPhone represents a lot of cell phone “firsts” – now I can add: first phone that made me think about going back to my old phone.

All that being said – I still LOVE the device and I’m going to stick with it. The fact that the 2.1 software is being talked about a lot suggests that Apple is working on it. In the end, I know this device is better than my last one – its just that it may not be better right out of the gate (like the original iPhone was).

I attended an IBM event last week where I had a breakthrough epiphany: IBM struggles to communicate the breadth of their product and service offerings in the same way that IT departments struggle to communicate the tools and applications they’ve deployed to their user community.

This problem is compounded by the following facts:

• New employees are always coming on board – thus you need to find a way to continuously communicate your products/services/applications/etc.
• People are busy – so however/whenever you communicate to them, you need to make it relevant at that moment, or they’ll forget it or ignore it.
• Names change – IBM changes product names frequently. IT shops do the same with applications, or merge applications which essentially has the same effect.

So here’s the question: how do you communicate everything you have to offer in a way that’s memorable, continuous and relevant so no one gets missed.

At this event, a lot of discussion was had around this topic. Lots of suggestions were offered: website listings, application catalogs, company newsletters, printed materials, meetings, training sessions, etc. There’s no shortage of possible solutions – but which one is the right one?

The answer: communicate in as many ways as possible – and as often as possible. That may seem like a no-brainer, but let’s face it: we’re all busy.

As I thought about this topic I realized that one group that really does an exceptional job at addressing this problem is the Lotus group within IBM. Here’s a (short) list of the ways I get info about Lotus products/services/etc.:

• Lotusphere – an excellent event that’s entertaining, fun and broken into lots of sessions & tracks making it easy for me to get into the right type of session for whatever my needs are or whatever my function in an organization is.
• Lotus.com – while I think there’s room for improvement on the site’s navigation, its still a great resources.
• Lotus bloggers – an excellent community of people who share code, ideas, successes, failures and all sorts of candid comments about how they use Lotus software in their daily lives
• Wikis – a great source for best practices, documentation, etc.
• Redbooks
• Greenhouse
• OpenNTF.org – a great place to stop by for some application jump-start action
• Events near you – proof of technology events, Lotusphere comes to you, etc. — all great resources to attend to get more information

… the list goes on and on. However, its a great example of how people within the Lotus community share information in a variety of ways. Perhaps the fact that there are so many ways to get information on what’s going on with Lotus products only makes us all that more passionate and vocal about what we want (need) and fuels debates like “how the iPhone should work with Lotus Notes” but, at the end of the day, I think you can agree that the coverage Lotus provides on their offerings is really impressive.

And… perhaps its a model for distributing information about my own company’s IT systems. Now if I can just get them to spring for a company-wide trip to Disney World, we’ll be all set.

Tags: blogs, communcation, it systems, lotus, openntf, wiki

This is in no way a comprehensive list, rather its just the results of random postings that my feed reader turned up when I searched my “Notes/Domino” category for “iPhone.” I found it interesting:

• IdeaJam has lots of people who want native iPhone/Notes support.
• Jeff Gilfelt is working on Notes view rendering for the iPhone.
• Paul Mooney not only has an iPhone now, but has some great screen shots of DWA uber-lite (ultralite) on one.
• Alan mentions that iPhone 2.0 now has a Notes-esque selection method.
• Various posts show people have a renewed interest in PocketMac. In my experience, this is a great idea but never works completely/consistently. And good luck getting support on it.
• There’s now a petition for Apple to work with IBM on providing iPhone and Notes integration.
• Karen Hobert saw my post about some of my thoughts on providing iPhone support in a predominately Notes-based organization.
• Meanwhile, Lotus Nut suggests my company might be the first casualty due to the iPhone (I think its too early to call it that, unless it helps move things on the Domino front forward – in which case, go ahead and call it that).
• The guy with my favorite text-based logo (vowe dot net) has a good article on the iPhone and Notes.
• Starfish has a multi-part series on this topic and a “call to action.”
• (this one’s not Notes, but…) even Disney’s WALL-E likes the iPhone.

Again, not a comprehensive list by any means. But as I read through my RSS feed reader this morning, I suddenly wondered how many items I’ve read that deal with the topic of Notes and the iPhone. For what its worth – I had to run to a meeting before I could get through the rest of the list and post them here.

“Mad props” to Ed Brill, who’s responsible for introducing me to the SlideShare.net website.

When I first saw the site I thought it was clever, but had a flaw that would make it short lived: I didn’t think that enough people would contribute presentations to it. I thought about how many presentations I’ve seen with a “confidential” disclaimer at the bottom and wondered how many people would really post helpful content to this site.

Not long after seeing it for the first time, they had a contest to find the best designed presentation. It was at that point that I thought my belief was being confirmed. I thought the site would become a design center and an ad space for people to store bland PowerPoint slides in the hopes that they drive some leads back to their company’s product or service.

And yes, it has a fair amount of that. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how many people have contributed truly unique content that’s helpful to others. If you work in IT, design or marketing – I highly suggest spending some time looking through this site. I’m confident you’ll find something helpful!

With sites like this, I’m reminded of some of the unwritten rules of on-line communities. One of which is that if you take something from it, you really ought to give something back. With that in mind, I set up a profile and published a presentation of mine that gives a great example of how to use “Lean” (often referred to as “Lean Manufacturing”) techniques applied to an IT system that most people would agree could use some improvement.

I probably don’t need to tell you that yesterday was the launch of the new 3G iPhone. If that’s a surprise, may I suggest moving on to your next random blog.

Ah, you’re still here. Great.

Yes, I did go to the AT&T store near me Friday morning. No, I didn’t wait in line (like I did last year). Infact, I got there about 30 minutes after the store opened and saw a line that was nearly twice the line I stood in when the original iPhone launched a year ago.

As I called various friends to catch up on their iPhone experiences, everyone had the same report: more people in line this time, the line moved slower and their store of choice ran out of phones sooner.

Sounds like a good launch for an Apple product. Plenty of interest. More people that expected. Taking orders for the next round of deliveries. All par for the course.

But blogs suggested another key point to this story: a tough day for Apple/AT&T. I lost track of the official answer to “does everyone need to have the phone registered in the store?” Some said yes, some said no, others said they did, but were told to just go home and do it themselves.

It wasn’t just the 3G iPhone, either. The 2.0 software was “found” ahead of its launch (by the way – its awesome – I already have found applications that are suddenly “must have’s” for my phone) and MobileMe has been plagued with startup problems. The brief bit I was able to get into MobileMe looked really impressive. I can certainly see the value of having all my contacts, calendars (home, work, subscription calendars, etc.), bookmarks, pictures, files, etc. all on-line.

And yet, access to MobileMe wasn’t given until I did an update in iTunes which allowed Safari to see the service. What?!?!

Regardless, it looks great but is clearly still having some difficulty. This morning, my RSS reader showed that there’s already an update required on my Mac for the service. Its been very un-Apple thus far.

Now, I’m chalking all this up to the fact that they’ve got a lot launching right now. But, as I reflect on the level of which I’m usually critical of Lotus/IBM for similar “growing pains” I felt compelled to take a moment and recognize the 3G iPhone and MobileMe situation for what it really has been in the last 24 hours: promising, but troubled through the early launch.

Tags: at&t, iphone, mac, mobileme

Before leaving for vacation, I had the chance to attend an IBM event all about Sametime. Two years ago, during Lotusphere a colleague of mine said (after seeing a similar demo): “you know, I can see a world where internal email almost entirely goes away – everything is based in Sametime, Activities, Quickr or some combination – we simply… collaborate, anywhere on any device.”

I have to admit: I see it too!

First, let’s review what Sametime has to offer. — Wait, better idea: let’s review what it DOESN’T have to offer. The answer: not much. Its really a very complete tool. The only thing I’d like to see (of course) is iPhone support – but that IS (at least at the moment) Apple’s hold up. By their own admission, they’re working on a way to improve an IM-type application so it doesn’t have to stay in memory the same way others do today.

For a more complete list of what Sametime has to offer, check out the graphic. It’ll do a much better job than I did in the paragraph above.

Here’s what else I love about Sametime – its one product that really does have the same experience on Macs. We’ve been hearing about Eclipse for a while now and Sametime is where it really is clear why IBM is committed to that. My Sametime client on my Mac (pictured) is nearly identical to its Windows counterpart.

Normally, when I say that, its followed by an “except that it doesn’t have…” but with Sametime, I’ve got none of that! I can even integrate side-shelf applications into the Mac Sametime client. Shown in the graphic is my Cisco Voicemail application.

I shouldn’t need to explain to anyone how powerful it is to have one utility that shows all of my contacts, their contact information, their picture, their on-line or meeting status, my voicemail and lots of other tools all in one easy, intuitive application.

Nice work, Lotus! I’m anxious to see what’s next because this application is so complete – its almost hard to envision room for improvement!

Tags: lotus, mac, sametime