Libby Says...

 
 
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 Author: Libby Ingrassia
SNAPPS Quickr Templates Time: 12:00:59 PM
Comments? Add / Read (0) Location: Overland Park, KS

I'm doing a small contract writing gig for my friends at SNAPPS, writing some end-user documentation for their awesome Quickr Templates.

I know from talking to many of you that you're using these templates in production. I'd love to hear how your end users are interacting with these templates, what you're doing with them. Of course, I'd also love to hear if your end users had any questions in their use of these templates - that way I can address those use cases specifically when creating the documentation. Comment here or drop me a Twitter DM or an email...

 

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Friday, October 31st, 2008 Author: Libby Ingrassia
Lotus Collaboration Summit in SA/DFW Next Week Time: 09:56:14 AM
Comments? Add / Read (0) Location: planning mode

My company, WorkFlow Studios, is hosting two Lotus Collaboration Summit events in San Antonio and Dallas next week. The event offers an opportunity to learn about the Lotus collaboration strategy and technology, network with customers, partners, and IBMers, and have a lovely catered meal. Please join us if you're in San Antonio (November 4) or the Dallas-Fort Worth area (November 6).  Full event details, including session abstracts are available at the WorkFlow Studios' Lotus Collaboration Summit page.

 

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Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 Author: Libby Ingrassia
Teaching End User Notes Class: Lessons Learned Time: 08:30:56 AM
Comments? Add / Read (1) Location: in my new chair

I spent Monday and Tuesday of this week teaching a class in Dallas. It was an end user Notes class. To be honest, it's been probably 10 years since I've last taught an end user Notes class (or maybe more). It was a great experience, although more tiring than I remembered. Here are a few things I learned or discovered while teaching this class...
  • My students were, for the most part, existing Notes users who were preparing for a move to 8. There were so many things that I taught in this class that are NOT new to 8, but they didn't know them. This isn't a new realization on my part (Ed and I used to talk about this in our Selling Notes Internally session), but it became clear once again how vital end user training (of some sort - it doesn't have to be instructor-led) gives users the ability to get value from a company's software investment. We got behind on our courseware because the students had so many questions - business processes that weren't working for them because they didn't understand how they worked in the software. So, once again, let's remember that Notes investments can be protected by ensuring that our users know how to do what they want to do... and know what features Notes offers that let them do things they might not even have thought of doing! Here are some specific examples of questions they needed an answer to...
    • Is there a time limit on recalling messages? Yes, there is a time limit on recalling messages. This is a server setting, so the administrator has control over it. The default is 14 days.
    • Where are preferences like spelling stored, especially in cases of a shared mail file? Preferences that you'd find under User Preferences...Spell Check are stored in the user's notes.ini file, so they would be individual to each user. Preferences found under User Preferences...Mail  are stored in the mail file and are the same across all users and replicas of the mail file. You can find out even more details at this link: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=475&uid=swg21283416
    • How does hyperlinking on Notes documents work? By default anything with a URL (including protocol) should work fine. If not, check two things. First, make sure the user preference is set to Make URLs into Hotspots (File...User Preferences...Basic Notes Client Config...Additional Options). Second, check the Web Browser preference to be sure you know what browser is supposed to launch when you click a URL link.
        * Default trash interval is also a user preference. The default is 48 hours.
  • I really still like to teach. When I left high school teaching to come back to the technology world, I was clearly burned out on teaching (well, burned out, period, thanks to two years of working and grad school and etc), but what I realized as I helped students in this class is that I'm not done with the vocation. I also realized how different classroom teaching in a public school is from teaching technology - different hours (a one hour course, repeated 6-8 times per day) versus an 8-hour course. My voice was gone by the time I was done Tuesday. Teaching different aspects of a single topic - deeper focus, rather than the across the board focus high school teaching required. Not sure what that means for me going forward other than I plan to get my CLI active again so I can do some teaching when it fits in to my other duties. ;-)
You probably already knew the little tidbits of technical tips that I added to this, but to me the more important truth is that education is a superb sales and marketing tool - teaching can be, and often is, evangelism. So think about who you're learning from, and who you want your clients, customers, and managers learning from.

 

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Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 Author: Libby Ingrassia
Did You Know... Time: 01:07:01 PM
Comments? Add / Read (3) Location: Home office

That your friendly neighborhood Notesgirl is back in the biz? The Lotus biz, that is. Some of you I saw at ILUG or you've seen me on Twitter or LinkedIn or elsewhere and you probably heard the news there, but for those of you who hadn't yet heard.... When I finished my master's at Rice, I decided it was time to come back to the fold. So, I've left high school teaching and I'm working for WorkFlow Studios as their VP of Marketing and Communications -- doing marketing, PR, probably some training and consulting thrown in for good measure. I'll be working on events, the website, some whitepapers and case studies, and more.

In some ways, it was a tough decision - leaving KIPP was not without its sadness and I had lots of good opportunities on the table when I decided to leave KIPP, both in teaching and elsewhere. In other ways, I've known Lance and the WFS folks for a long time and they're Good FolksTM, so working with them as my way to come back to the IBM Software world made sense.

I've been a little quiet here while I worked out my job changing situations, but now the hope is that I'll be back to blogging - and, I hope, saying interesting things, more regularly. I'll also be making the rounds of the events, and offering my writing and speaking services as I find appropriate times, ways, and places to do so. I've already had one or two requests for a new certification something - not sure if a book is in the cards, but we'll see. I need to update my certifications (I have been completely away from the business for 2 years, after all), so it may make a lot of sense for me to do some certification writing. You can also expect to see me doing some gadget reviews and commentary as I continue my unexpectedly passionate love affair with my new Kindle and attempt to fall in love with my new MacBookPro. The blog will, of course, continue to share yoga, dancing, running, and other commentary as well. I feel as though I've been dead or asleep for at least the past two years (that's what grad school and a full time teaching job will do to you), and I'm trying to figure out all the things I need and want to do now that I'm alive again.

 

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Monday, February 27th, 2006 Author: Libby Ingrassia
Help for a reader Time: 09:23:46 AM
Comments? Add / Read (9) Location: Houston, TX

As you all know, I have allowed some of my skills, especially in development, to atrophy a bit over the past few years while I've been being an editor and a program manager and etc. So, when a reader sent in this question, I thought that maybe you kind blog readers would be willing to help us both out:

Hey NotesGirl,
Have a question for you.
I am a relative Notes newby/virgin here, so have everyone go easy on
me. We are still on notes 5.0,  and I am developing a Web application, and am
looking for some datepicker(Javascript code) that will work with my notes forms on the web...? any ideas??  The though of having to code a lengthy date edit on my date fields does not thrill me....


So, dear readers and friends, anyone who can lend a hand will be most appreciated!

 

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Wednesday, February 1st, 2006 Author: Libby Ingrassia
What’s in a number? Time: 12:00:27 PM
Comments? Add / Read (2) Location: sick

Ferris has a few things to say about the Lotusphere attendance numbers -- they don't quite believe the 6700 number that I'd heard bandied about, but despite a bit of a "debunking" flavor, the upshot is that:
Overall sense: The numbers were up perhaps 10% over last year. Lotusphere attendence has held solid over the last several years, although it is down from pre-9/11 headcounts of 10,000 for 2000 and 2001. Obvious conclusion: The customer base is solid and continuing to invest in Notes/Domino.

 

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Friday, November 18th, 2005 Author: Libby Ingrassia
Like Buttons? VOTE! Time: 01:52:59 PM
Comments? Add / Read (0) Location: Home

Image:Like Buttons? VOTE! Weren't those 2005 Edition LotusUserGroup.org buttons cool? Help us select which buttons should stay and give us your ideas for the all-new 2006 Edition buttons! Vote now, at LotusUserGroup.org!

 

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Monday, November 14th, 2005 Author: Libby
First 100 Days Time: 01:37:08 PM
Comments? Add / Read (0) Location: home

There's a good Network World article today about Mike Rhodin's first 100 days as Lotus' GM and his challenges and focus going forward into 2006. The most compelling content :
Rhodin's public unveiling as leader is set for late January, when he will deliver a keynote address to thousands of Lotus faithful at the annual Lotusphere user conference. Among other things, he is armed with two numbers that he hopes will send the message that IBM has a strong hold on Notes/Domino.

Those numbers are 9 and 10, as in planned versions of Notes/Domino that will be released after Version 8, which IBM/Lotus began to detail in the fall with its new Hannover client.

Rhodin plans the first public demonstration of Hannover and the introduction of Domino 8, Hannover's back-end companion, at Lotusphere.


Not that I had any doubt, but still: good to hear.

 

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Thursday, April 14th, 2005 Author: Libby
Certified Lotus Instructor News Time: 11:49:24 AM
Comments? Add / Read (0) Location: starbucks

Are you a CLI? If you haven't gotten your certification to teach 6 yet using the CLI upgrade exams, your time is running out, as those exams are being retired. Check the certification private site for more details (registration required).

 

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Thursday, August 5th, 2004 Author: Libby
What Outlook doesn’t do.... Time: 02:16:38 PM
Comments? Add / Read (4) Location: Home, temporarily

Finally.

There've been articles all over the place over the years of what Notes/Domino does and doesn't do, and should, especially as compared to Outlook.

Now, there's an article that lists a Dozen Things Outlook Doesn't Do -- But Should.

Did you notice that a few of those things are things that Notes already does?

 

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Tuesday, March 9th, 2004 Author: Libby
WAS v6 Time: 07:08:07 PM
Comments? Add / Read (1) Location: Somewhere in California

In the realm of things you should be working on and beginning to learn, this ranks fairly high, I'd say: WebSphere Application Server Technology for Developers v6. This is an early look at the next version of WAS.

 

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Thursday, February 12th, 2004 Author: Libby
Thanks, y’all. Time: 06:20:15 PM
Comments? Add / Read (0) Location: Houston, TX

I'm starting to think that the DominoPro's Key To Portal presentation might have some legs. Wild Bill, Rob, and Ed have all linked to it recently -- and I appreciate the traffic and vote of interest/confidence gentlemen, I truly do.

 

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Thursday, February 12th, 2004 Author: Libby
Permanence, or Not Time: 02:20:23 PM
Comments? Add / Read (0) Location: Houston, TX

I loved Eric Lundquist's Feb 9th column. It was interesting in general, but the section that talks about What Won't Go Away, look for joy for all Lotus-followers in this:
The Lotus name. At the recent Lotusphere conference in Orlando, I asked Ambuj Goyal, general manager of IBM's Lotus Software division, if the Lotus name will be subsumed in the IBM effort to promote its WebSphere and on-demand offerings. <more...>



So, I'm happy to hear someone outside of my magazine (and in the wider IT press) verify what I've been saying for a while: Lotus is important to IBM.

Of course, the larger question of what will and won't be around in terms of IT is interesting. This isn't quite like saying nobody will ever need more than 640K of memory but might have some of the same resonance.

What will be around (of course, this all depends on your timeline, but go with me for a minute...):
  • spam
  • spim
  • various ongoing security problems that need patching
  • e-mail
  • IM
  • the need for collaboration
  • the need for inhouse developers and administrators
  • open source
  • open standards
  • blogging
  • RSS
What won't be around:
  • the argument of domino vs. exchange? maybe? dare I hope?
    This one's harder for me (the optimist that I am)... What do you think?

 

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Tuesday, February 3rd, 2004 Author: Libby
developerWorks Live - the real story Time: 11:24:58 AM
Comments? Add / Read (2) Location: Houston, TX

I just did a Q&A with IBM's GIna Poole, the VP of Developer Marketing and Web Communities for IBM's ISV and Developer Relations group -- the exec in charge of the developerWorks site, among other things. One of the first questions I asked her was whether there was going to be a developerWorks Live conference this year, since although we broke the story a while ago, we haven't been able to find much additional detail other than about the Rational User Conference. Well, here you go:

The Rational User Conference will contain some additional sessions and branding this year that will take the place of what had been branded the IBM developerWorks Live conference over the past few years. The Rational group already had the Gaylord Conf. center in Grapevine (yes, in July) set for their user conference, and it made the most sense to them to merge the shows.

This year, the merger favors the Rational brand a bit, although Gina promises that there will be a significant number of sessions covering broader developer technologies, such as XML, service oriented architecture, and web services. There will also be content covering Eclipse and WebSphere Studio. So, according to Gina, this merger is to ensure the Rational developers (probably quite as fanatic a group as we Lotus developers) have their user conference experience this year, although other IBM software developers will definitely have a significant place at the show. Next year, she implied that the show might be a bit more general, as it had been for the past few years.

I asked whether Lotus developers and WebSphere developers should attend the show. Gina says it's an easy yes for WebSphere developers. For Lotus developers, well, she says this is why we might have noticed a bit more development content at Lotusphere than we might've seen in previous years -- while the show will have content that will have bearing for Lotus developers, especially those who are planning to embrace Workplace development or are working with Eclipse, XML, or Web Service, it won't have the same level of depth on traditional Lotus technologies as dwLive has had, or as DevCon once had.

Look for more from my Q&A with Gina in the April issue of e-Pro Magazine.

 

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Thursday, January 8th, 2004 Author: Libby
Dang, I think Ed beat me to the punch... Time: 04:37:31 PM
Comments? Add / Read (3) Location: Houston, TX

But  I know where the Lotusphere 2004 party is!
Yep, Universal Studios Florida.
At least it's not Wide World of Sporks, right?

 

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Friday, December 19th, 2003 Author: Libby
Southern CA User Groups Time: 07:34:58 AM
Comments? Add / Read (2) Location: Carlsbad, CA -- looking out at the ocean!

Over the past two days, I've been speaking at the southern California user group meetings in Orange County and here in San Diego (yes, I shared the stage with Ed). Since I moved here almost four years ago, I've been fairly involved in these user groups, attending meetings, speaking, sharing rides to events, and etc. Both groups have a lot of great folks in them and since I'm moving, well, this was sort of my swan song appearance with the group. I'm going to miss you all. Thanks for everything and happy holidays!

Other than that, things have continued being pretty busy here, although I didmake time on Weds night to see the movie... I was very jealous of John and Chris and whomever else got to see it before me. I've read the books approximately every summer since I was, oh, in fourth or fifth grade, so you can see that this is serious stuff for me! And yes, it was wonderful. I'm ready to queue up another showing, just to wallow in its wonderfulness. I'm pretty picky, and the movie version of the Two Towers originally disappointed in the number of places it veered away from the books, but I also rented the version of that movie with the extended scenes as a set-up to the RoTK movie -- much improved. And so, when you look at all three movies together -- a fabulous telling of the tale. They did have to make some sacrifices (or what I think are sacrifices) due to time, but most of the time, I think they finessed those very well and made good choices. This is especially true, I think, in the 3rd movie.

 

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Thursday, December 11th, 2003 Author: Libby
I Predicted This Time: 08:44:25 AM
Comments? Add / Read (3) Location: Houston

When IBM bought Rational, of course we had an internal pow-wow over what it would mean to Lotus and WebSphere users. My prediction at the time (shoulda written it down!) was that all the development tools, such as WSAD would be put under Rational's auspices. Love it when the crystal ball is working:

From CRN:
IBM is turning over the care and feeding of its WebSphere Studio toolset to its Rational group, the company said Wednesday.
.
IBM executives said the shift will help clarify what solution providers say is a sometimes bewildering array of IBM tools, most carrying the WebSphere label.

"There is some redundancy and overlap and we'll try to eliminate that. Will that cause us to change the packaging of some things? Yes. Do we know today what those changes will be? No," Mike Devlin, general manager of IBM Rational told CRN.

Rational's portfolio already comprises the Rational Rose modeling software ,ClearCase change management software. The J2EE-centric WebSphere Studio now joins that portfolio.


 

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Thursday, December 11th, 2003 Author: Libby
I Quite Like It When... Time: 08:33:10 AM
Comments? Add / Read (2) Location: Houston

Something I've been saying in presentations and asking authors to write about is reconfirmed by people who are termed "tech visionaries." In this case, it's about the importance of IM and awareness (of course, IBM has also been saying it quite a bit).

OTOH, I would probably never say that e-mail is dead, even though I'm ready to start playing with the reinvented e-mail client, regardless of what some of those people at Slashdot say.  (both via Ed)

Here's an excerpt from the VAR Business Insider article:
Instant Messaging
Heinzen:
The problem with technology, in general, is if it isn't easy to deploy and if it isn't easy to use, then people don't embrace it. It is wonderful that we can send things at the speed of light, essentially. But what's missing in most of the applications is realizing someone has received the data that you just sent. This is called presence, and it makes you and your applications aware that somebody is online and receiving that data. Did the customer understand the message? Did they get the context of the message?

E-mail has been dead for over a year--as a medium, it's ineffective and expensive. It's not real-time, and it's not the way business runs today. Presence is where the value is really understanding whether someone is there.

Lang: IM removes some of the social expectations we have in terms of conducting a conversation and makes it more efficient. If I just call you up and say, "Do you have any hamburger buns?" that's inappropriate. Whereas with IM that's less of an issue; in fact, it's pretty typical--you give the answer and move on with your work.

Klasson: It used to be 10 years ago you'd go to work, learn something new about technology and run home and tell your significant other, "Look what I can do!" It has actually gone the other way. And it hasn't gone the other way a little bit--it has gone the other way a lot, where the consumer is on the leading edge of technology. There are companies that are optimizing network routes based on multiplayer games. A lot of technologies will be adopted because [the consumer adopts them] first.

Heinzen: The whole groundswell of instant messaging has happened from the consumer side and has been completely ignored by the enterprise. IM has worked so well because it didn't take an IT person to make it work. It just works. IM is where it is at--today and in the future. As an application, you determine who you talk to and when and to whom you make yourself available to.

Gartner estimates that if you put instant messaging in at the enterprise level, you'll reduce your long-distance charges by 30 percent and your e-mail infrastructure cost by 40 [percent]. There is a very large national hamburger chain using IM to talk to individual stores so they can ship products around the region. If they're short on something as simple as hamburger buns, they can IM the store next to them to see if they've got extra. It's just really amazing. I'm going to use IM whether the IT guy wants me to or not. I'm going to use IM because I'm embracing that medium.

Lang: We use IM during conference calls for out-of-band conversations. It is a way to re-create hitting the "mute" button on a speakerphone during a call and being able to talk privately.

Klasson: One way to extend IM is to take bots or small programs and create replies to natural-language queries. So you are not just chatting with people, you are chatting with apps.

Heinzen: It feels very personal for your customer. You also get a chance to understand what customers are asking for in real time and adjust your support effort accordingly. And you find that customer satisfaction can improve dramatically because people don't want to wait in a queue with music on hold, but want to talk to somebody right now. VARs who can understand what customers want will succeed.

 

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Wednesday, October 1st, 2003 Author: Libby
Have you registered already? Time: 03:58:55 PM
Comments? Add / Read (0) Location: Carlsbad, CA -- looking out at the ocean!

All kinds of important Lotus-related things happened this week and I've been so heads down with real work and etc that I haven't blogged them. Of course, many of the rest of you took care of all of that for me, but since over half my googles for this week were for Lotusphere 2004, I thought I'd spend just a moment talking about it.

LS2004 registration is open. You can register, get hotels, put in an abstract for presenting, and nominate your favorite business partner for a Lotus award (formerly a Beacon award). You can also check out the unoffical Lotusphere page at the Turtle's site -- yes, he's back, and I know we're all grateful for the surely soon-to-ensue hilarity that the Gonzo site always provides. As for registration -- pay attention -- you now have some discount options -- register by December 2 for $1395 and by Jan 23 for $1695.  If you're a CLP, if you will wait until October 7th, you can get a $200 discount. Go to the Certification Zone (requires registration -- you must be an IBM Certified Professional for Lotus Software) for details.

I think this year's Lotusphere will be an important one -- okay, I probably say that every year -- I've been going since 1998 or 1999 and I love the heck out of it -- but my point is that there are a lot of changes and growth in the Lotus industry this year and we all need to hear from the horse's mouth what their plans are so we know what our plans should be. While you can stay home and get the information from me, you'll get more out of it if you can make the trip yourself. Plus, one of the arguments I've heard in the past against going is that it wasn't technical enough -- from what I've heard and seen in the descriptions of the tracks, you won't be able to say that this year. The Best Practices track looks like it will be expanded and you'll also be seeing some hands-on sessions at the show -- how could you miss it?

 

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Sunday, September 14th, 2003 Author: Libby
SF, Lotus Workplace, more... Time: 09:11:52 AM
Comments? Add / Read (5) Location: United to SD, seat 4A

I may have brought the good weather to Houston, but I brought the opposite to San Francisco this week -- it was HOT. I've turned into a big heat wimp (especially when I'm expecting something completely different), so it was somewhat uncomfortable in the usually cool and breezy Bay Area. I flew in early Tuesday and high-tailed it to the IBM offices in downtown SF for the SF User Group meeting. David Stephens gave a good presentation on preventing spam in ND6 and I talked replication. I'll be reprising the session at an upcoming SD User Group meeting as well. A different version of the session (longer, more in-depth) will be airing at the View's Technical Exchange conference in Amsterdam in a few weeks (I'll be in Europe October 11-19th).

The rest of the SF week was spent visiting vendors with one of our sales team, capped off with a Friday afternoon interview with IBM's Larry Bowden, and some nice visiting with some of my best friends, who now live in SF. We ate dinner out, had some blueberry cosmopolitans, bought the 2nd season of Angel on DVD, and had an Angel-a-thon complete with too much food and intermissions spent playing Soul Caliber II. The friends I have in SF are ones I've been close to since college -- and it's amazing how close-knit we can still be as a group despite marriages, divorces (or the serious relationship comparable version thereof), living at times in multiple cities (Houston, SF, SD, Ivrea, etc), and the 10+ years that have passed since graduation. I'm so lucky to have these folks (well, to be less self-effacing, we're lucky to have each other). I guess it's that shared history thing that makes us all so comfortable and secure with each other. (For anyone curious, Angel's 2nd season is very good -- I didn't see it the first time around and enjoyed the first half of the season immensely -- dark and funny at the same time, which seems to be a Joss Whedon trademark.)

You'll hear more about my conversation with Larry in upcoming articles on e-ProMag.com, but here's something of a preview. First, let me say that Larry is always a very engaging person to talk to -- he's smart and well-informed. One of the nicest traits is either that he's got a heck of a memory or does his homework before he walks into a meeting -- he always remembers me, the previous times we've talked, and has something to say about the recent issues of the magazine. The feeling that the exec you're talking to you is familiar with you makes the process easier and more comfortable and isn't the kind of respect awarded to our magazine by all the IBM execs we meet with (although Larry is certainly not the only one who does it).

We talked mostly, as you might expect, about the Workplace product line. Larry hit the nail on the head when he said that he expects it to take 7-8 hearings for the Workplace strategy to really start to resonate with customers and business partners (and, although he was too politic to say it, press). For those of use who have made our careers with Notes and Domino, it continues to feel very unfamiliar and we're not sure whether to send our Domino expertise to the scrap-heap and start over or to ignore the oncoming train, confident that there's a second track for it. It seems that the truth of the matter is this: It depends.

If you work for or serve (or want to be) large enterprise customers, you need to be changing your skillset. You need to learn WebSphere -- Application Server, Portal, Studio, etc., including all the attendant products, languages, and platforms. In fact, from the way it sounds, you're already well on your way to doing so.

If you have more of a small-to-medium business focus (or you are a line-of-business user who also does some development), you may not need to jump into the new learning to far or so deeply. Your first step is probably to upgrade to the soon-to-be-released Notes and Domino 6.5. That doesn't sound so painful. I can't announce all the things I know will be coming with that, but trust me that it's your first step down the path of the future, but in a good way. Suffice it to say that you won't have to throw away all your skillset and knowledge just to use the new workplace products.

And of course, as Larry was quick to say, Domino and Notes as they are now will continue to be supported and maintained for the forseeable future.

In any case, more on Workplace, products to look for in the near future, and other details on my talk with Larry in an upcoming editorial.

 

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Monday, August 25th, 2003 Author: Libby
Lotusphere 2004 and other news Time: 06:30:08 PM
Comments? Add / Read (4) Location: Carlsbad, CA -- looking out at the ocean!

Some interesting blog fodder in my travels through the Web today:
  • And so it begins -- the first hint of what will be for Lotusphere 2004 is posted on Lotus.com today, although the www.lotus.com/lotusphere site still shows LS2003 information. And while the Turtle seems to have come back to life, the Gonzo Lotusphere site, also, is still set at 2003. How are you feeling about Lotusphere? The last two years, it has been much smaller than it had been for a few years before that, with much discussion over the relative merits of whether it's technical enough (versus a devcon, I guess) and worth the money. Will you have trouble convincing your bosses to let you go? It may seem early, but I suspect this is a good time to start getting the feelers out there. I think in the current environment, it's more important than ever to be on top of what's going on with the vendor that supports so many of our careers. While we will of course do our best to make sure the reports get to you quickly and accurately, we can't be everywhere at the show and we can't always hit what's important to everyone. So, I encourage as many of you that can to come join the fun and work at the 'Sphere.
  • Even though it's been out for a while, I hadn't looked at CRN's certification survey results or report  -- there's some interesting stuff there, although, as often, I'm disappointed by how little attention they pay to Lotus or any IBM certifications.
  • A few months ago, I wrote about rules in Notes mail as part of a push to combat the other kind of spam -- all that mail that we get from coworkers that we don't actually need -- some of it is purely personal (jokes, invitations, etc), some of it is work-related information, but secondary to your immediate tasks, and some of it is related to your current, immediate, i-need-to-take-care-of-it-now tasks. So, of course, I've been playing with my rules to try to keep some of the current virus e-mails out of my in-box and more coralled. I just love rules. I had 350 virus-related e-mails in my "spam" folder this morning when I opened my mail file and only about 120 in my actual inbox. Of course, that clearly indicates there's more work to be done on my rules themselves, but in general, they work wonderfully. In case you're wondering, the rules right now are just of the simple "if it has thissubject, move it to this folder" variety -- nice and easy.
  • For those Lord of the Rings fans among us -- there's joy to be had in December. To run up to the Dec. 17th release date, not only are they re-releasing the first two flicks to the theaters, but on the day before the 17th, some theaters will be showing all three flicks (start Fellowship at 3 pm, Two Towers at 7 pm, and the premiere of Return of the King at 11 pm, which pushes it over into the official premiere date of the 17th. Oh yeah. I'm so there. Ten hours of pure LOTR joy.  (Thanks to Brian for the link.)
  • A reason I will not be spending my hard-earned gas money at Exxon-Mobil any time soon: they score in the 5 lowest companies on their level of support for being gay-friendly. I don't like to support companies who are bigoted as a corporate policy. Ok, to be fair, the spokesperson says they don't discriminate, but there must be a reason they score so low. (Again, thanks to Brian for the link.)

 

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Thursday, August 21st, 2003 Author: Libby
What’s in a name... (Updated) Time: 10:00:39 PM
Comments? Add / Read (14) Location: Carlsbad, CA

Usually, I try to be really good about using the name for things that a company wants used. Okay, let's be specific -- I have tried very hard to use Lotus's product and/or brand names as they want them to be used, even going so far at one point as to ask Chris Reckling what the preferred capitalization style was for the product he product managed. I have always been one of the people who used "Domino" to mean the server, not just the HTTP/Web server (although that's what it was the original code-name for). And I stopped using Notes to refer to the server right away (well, mostly).

But I'm having the hardest time getting used to using the new set of new names... They don't exactly seem to be catching on quickly -- none of the authors for the magazine want to use the new names -- they all use the new name the first time, put the old name in parentheses, and then use the old name through the rest of the article they write. Not that I can blame them... You go from a nice, easy, one-word name to a mouthful of 4 or 5 words.

For a full list of Lotus products, including all the names, go to Lotus.com/Products.
Old Name New Name
iNotes Lotus Domino Web Access
iNotes Lotus Domino Access for Microsoft
Sametime Lotus Instant Messaging
Sametime Lotus Web Conferencing
QuickPlace Lotus Team Workplace
Domino.doc Lotus Domino Document Manager





I mean, ok, I get (kinda) the stated point of making the name more descriptive of what the product does. I mean, god knows, we've been trying to explain Notes/Domino to the world at large for 10 years now, with limited success. But everyone knows instant messaging is, right? Ok, I get that. But come on, guys, a catchy name is a good thing in the world of branding, isn't it? Or.. is it? By the way, in terms of fairness, I know that successful branding is not necessarily all science -- and it's a bit of a crap shoot -- there's art and luck to it as well.

It makes me think of how the Kleenex people want you to use the phrase Kleenex-brand tissues, and the Band-Aid people want you to use Band-Aid-brand bandage strips. But consider -- we all know what a Kleenex is, don't we? How many of those are there -- brand names you use to refer to the generic item?

Some examples I can think of:
  • Kleenex tissues
  • Band-Aid bandages
  • Xerox copying
  • Pepsi and Coke -- people in different parts of the country use these to mean any sort of soda
  • Bic lighters

I'm sure there are more, but I'm sleepy and can't think of them right now...

 

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Wednesday, June 11th, 2003 Author: Libby
Webcasting, Blogging. Linking.... Time: 04:48:56 PM
Comments? Add / Read (4) Location: Carlsbad, CA -- looking out at the ocean!

Ed did a Webcast for e-Pro Magazine today on Exchange vs. Notes/Domino -- great as always. Lots of good questions and a good number of attendees. If you're interested -- it'll be on our archives soon, available for replay. Have any of you been coming to our Webcasts? What do you think? I'd love to get feedback, although if any of you have feedback of the "Why aren't you using Sametime?" variety -- I've already told you my thoughts on that.

Read Doc Searls' Weblog today -- he talks about the idea of "Good enough for Top 40" and compares it to blogging:
Anyway, the "close enough for Top 40" line comes to mind when I think about blogging. Doing what I'm doing now feels like doing Top 40 radio to me. It's not "professional" in the older sense of the word, although it involves a degree of invention and skill. Most important, mistakes are okay. Being real (in the unprofessional sense of the word) is okay. And moving on to the next thing often matters more than Getting It Right.

This discussion took me back to our earlier discussions about the differences between professional journalism and blogging, and how "professional" we need to be in our blogging, regardless of what our professional job is or how closely we intend our blog to mirror or personal persona or our professional persona... He seems to have one additional vote on the "it doesn't have to be perfect to be worth something" side (which, in case you're wondering, is also where I come down on the voting -- I may be a perfectionist, but if you're too much of a perfectionist, especially when you're busy, you'll never get anything done. Especially blogging.)

Big apologies -- yesterday's blog link was via Joi Ito's blog and I forgot to credit it b/c I couldn't remember where I'd seen it by the time I finally blogged it. So, there you have it.

Not much else of interest... My personal trainer kicked my ass today -- I ran a little late getting to the gym this morning, but that's no reason not to get all the usual exercises in, just in half the time -- whew! I'm going to be in Houston for the weekend (my best friend since fourth grade, Julieana, is getting married in November, and the engagement party for her and her fiance is Saturday night -- I wouldn't miss it!) and then over the next two weeks, I'll be in Denver from Thursday through Wednesday. Since one of my laptops has had it's screen die a fiery hot death recently, it may be that my blogging is slightly interrupted during this time -- we'll see what I can do.

 

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Sunday, June 1st, 2003 Author: Libby
How Important Is What Software You Use? Time: 09:21:42 AM
Comments? Add / Read (3) Location: Carlsbad, CA

WARNING: I may say some things in this blog that you won't like. In fact, you may want to throw things at me. Let me state at the beginning that I am as much of a Lotus supporter/yellow-bleeder as I have always been. Now, on to the blog.

Ironic, isn't it? I was just about to blog about Lotus Developer Domain and their interesting use of WebSphere Portal as part of their product pages when lo and behold, I get hit with about 4 different e-mails (some more fiesty/bitter than others) over the past week from various sources (including some at Lotus/IBM) about e-Pro Magazine's use of technology in our Webcasts and Web sites. So. Let me say a few words about the use of technology...

e-Pro Magazine (which is part of Penton Media, a much larger company -- and one for which I am not an official spokesperson -- everything here is mine and not theirs, most especially the opinions, and etc.) uses Notes and Domino as our internal mail and intranet systems. We use Sametime for IM and meetings within the company. There is a portion of our company still migrating from Exchange and Outlook to Domino.

Our public Web sites don't use Domino, for the most part (although the LotusPro section of e-ProMag.com still does, including for our forums).  ColdFusion is the standard our team uses on the Websites -- a corporate decision; not mine.

Our public Webcasts don't use Sametime; they currently use WebEx. While we've tested Sametime, and have at least one hosting option in our friends at Connectria, the technology doesn't yet support easily what we need to do with it. For Webcasts, we need the ability to host meetings not only with people within our corporate firewall, but outside it, and more importantly, within their own. These meetings need to use not only whiteboarding, but VoIP. (The cost of conference calls is prohibitive to making money on Webcasts.) The technology doesn't easily support these needs. If you think I'm wrong or you don't believe me, check with any Sametime expert who's tried it (there are definitely some, and you probably know some of them). While you can make the technology work, it takes fiddling with the firewalls. And for a public Webcast, where we want customers to sign up and be able to attend, that's not a reasonable requirement. Don't you agree?

So. Does e-Pro Magazine'suse of WebEx mean something specific? Did our one-time use of Exchange? Does it change anything when you take into account that Penton also publishes Windows & .NET Magazine? How does forcing them to use Domino reflect on them? Now, the two most common arguments are that we should be specialists in the technology we publish  and that we should practice what we preach don't necessarily hold water. In the first case, while I happen to be a good Notes/Domino technologist, most of authors and technical editors aren't employed by Penton -- they're experts in the technology who work for business partners, customers, consultants, ISVs, etc.  In the second case, one of the things that we will always espouse in our publications is that you have to do what makes sense for your business. There must be a business case and good ROI for your technology investments. Is it good business to invest in a separate technology, including hardware, software, and expertise, for a single business unit, and to use different technologies for each business unit? One additional consideration -- our magazine covers both Domino and WebSphere technology. Which one should we use for the Website? The Domino faithful will say Domino. The Websphere folks will say WebSphere. Now I need to run my site on multiple technologies just to make everyone happy? Not gonna happen.

Now. All that said. Let's go back to the original topic I was going to write about -- Lotus Developer Domain's use of WebSphere Portal (WPS). Some folks are all up in arms about it. Fine. But have you considered that WebSphere Portal Server now lives under the Lotus umbrella? That's right -- it's actually part of the Lotus product line, although with a Websphere brand. So, by the same logic that folks are beating me up using, doesn't that mean that Lotus should be using WPS and showcasing their technology expertise and flexibility? Hasn't that been the point of LDD in the past? To show off how the technologies work together, etc?

 

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Tuesday, April 15th, 2003 Author: Libby
She’s baaaaack! Time: 04:31:45 PM
Comments? Add / Read (2) Location: Carlsbad, CA -- looking out at the ocean!

Yes, stipulated, I've been a lazy blogger. But. I'm back now. And you can resume listening to me blog rather than my oh-so-kind guest blogger. Thanks, Chris, for keeping my spot warm for me.

New Orleans was good. You've heard from Ed  (on his Lotus.com blog) already on the basic news from the show, so all that's left for me is to talk about my impressions. There was an interesting mix of people. At first I thought that there weren't very many attendees interested in Lotus. But after talking to some, and having lunch with folks, I decided that while there may have not been that many Lotus attendees, the ones that were there might've been attending WebSphere sessions in addition (or instead of) the Lotus sessions, making it harder to see which users had which brands installed.

I'll write about Doug Wilson's (Lotus's CTO) "keynote" in more depth in a column, but one of the things he mentioned include the Lotus Domino Toolkit for WebSphere Studio (now in beta), which promises tools for using Domino objects in J2EE apps. In addition, we saw a demo of the RAD tools for WebSphere Studio Application Developer -- those look really awesome. Bringing so many of the innovations from Domino Designer into the WSAD toolset.

I met some great vendors at the show. If you haven't looked at Bowstreet and you use WebSphere Portal Server, you might want to take a look.

Of course, as Chris guessed, I drank my fair share of hurricanes, but we didn't get too out of control on Bourbon Street. The beignets were another matter, of course...

More to say, but not tonight! Now it's off to dinner...

 

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Tuesday, March 4th, 2003 Author: Libby
Perky, happy, positive Libby Time: 11:00:22 AM
Comments? Add / Read (0) Location:




So, I worked pretty late last night. As I was hitting my stride on an article I was finishing, I got not one, but two IMs from some of my "work friends." Work friends are defined as people I met because of work, but who I consider friends regardless of what we end up doing for our respective companies. It's these folks I look forward to seeing when I travel. I'm so lucky to know them!

Anyway, I promised one of those folks (who shall remain nameless for the moment, but who was in *rant* mode) that today would be positive, happy blog day. It's actually pretty easy for me to do that, too, since while he was ranting, I was seeing something I could say happy things about.

Many times in the past I've ranted about IBM/Lotus not having their marketing heads screwed on straight. One of my columns (sheesh, from longer ago than I realized) talked about how IBM's advertising group was not paying Lotus the respect it deserved in the ads arena. While I was looking at news stories yesterday for writing my column, I noticed a ton of Lotus ads. There're even (yay!) banners up on e-ProMag.com. There's Alex the Collaborator banners, Lotus Instant Messaging (Sametime) banners and medallions, and others, at sites as diverse as BusinessWeek Online and eWeek. Yay! While I don't have any of the print magazines around at the moment to confirm whether they're there also, I think it's great when the software we care about and many of us have built our careers on gets advertised out to the rest of the IT and business world.

There. Perky, happy, Libby. :-) Just for you, Mr. Rant.


Articles that may be of interest:
CRN's Rob Wright thinks Lotus (and Lotusphere) are on a downslide. I'm not sure I agree with all he has to say in terms of why Lotusphere's attendance was down and what the executive movement means.

CRN's Rober DeMarzo talks about IBM's Beacon Awards from PartnerWorld. I just have to say Congrats to Boom Vang. A few of ePs regular contributors work for Boom Vang, so we're happy to see them doing well.

I'm really not sure how I feel about the spin that cnet.com has put on the move of the Portal group into Lotus. I'm think that integrating Lotus's features into the portal software is a good thing, but they imply that it's a bad thing for Lotus software products that this is happening -- a sort of ending -- where I see it as a much more positive recognition that Lotus's strenghts are in the same area -- human work/collaboration.

Here's an InfoWorld interview with Ken Bisconti that talks about NextGen and the future of Domino.

 

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Friday, February 28th, 2003 Author: Libby
Layoffs Time: 03:06:01 PM
Comments? Add / Read (0) Location:


You'll read this in our news coverage, I'm sure, but IBM had some serious layoffs this week. Of course, I say serious, but if you look at the exact numbers, it was more like 1/2 of 1 percent  (in terms of the layoffs in software group) or something miniscule like that. It's serious to me because of some of the people who were affected -- some of them are my close friends and have been a part of my life in the Domino market almost since the beginning.

Part of me wants to ask what the heck Lotus is thinking. The other part of me understands that despite the cult of personality thing that Lotus has going, especially with many of its more public spokespeople, they are a business and have to do all the things that businesses do, which in today's market often translates to layoffs. Still, they say that the layoffs are due to restructuring their skills -- that they're trying to get the folks with the right skills in the right positions. Hrmph. Not sure if I buy that particular spin in this case.

Of course, those folks have 30 days to look for another job within IBM, if they are so inclined. Good luck to each of them! I hope they find something, based on my own selfish desire to have them around, but also because I think they're great folks (the ones I know personally, at least).

 

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