Lotusphere Comes to You - Milwaukee
I attended Lotusphere Comes to You in Milwaukee. It was a partner sponsored event (as opposed to being sponsored by IBM). I must admit that I was a little disappointed.
The one thing this event was dreadfully short of was demonstrations. To be honest, there were none. Sure, “George” (aka for pre-taped video) did a few demos during the Opening but that was it. It was a lot of Powerpoint slides.
I attended CDW/Berbee’s Lotus demo in Miller Park last fall. I think it was the speakers (Paul Culpepper was one) and the demonstrations that got me excited for Lotus and got me into blogging again.
What did IBM bring us for our “Lotusphere Comes to You?” Ed Brill. Which was cool. I’ve never seen Ed Brill speak before so I was pretty pumped for that. But all of the other speakers were old or didn’t seem to have a grasp of their own technology. You’re trying to sell me all of the cool 20’s flicker/facebook/del.icio.us technology… don’t send me the guys who say “my kid’s using flicker.” Give me the IBM people who are excited by the technology and are actually using it.
I was disappointed on Thursday and I spent a lot of time explaining to my co-workers that the R8 is cool and they should have gone to the CDW/Berbee demo.
Once again… it’s up to the developer to sell Lotus to the corporation. Thanks for the help IBM.
3 Responses to “Lotusphere Comes to You - Milwaukee”
1 Jaime 21 April 2008 @ 8:04 am
Ouch. Brutal, but honest.
I must agree Tom. Seeing Ed speak helps you understand why he is where he is. Very charismatic and gets you pumped up. But the rest of the demo left me wanting.
I, like many in the crowd, was looking for ammo. When William Learned (Lotus Messaging and Collaboration Leader) asked the crowd who used del-icio.us (Facebook, etc, etc), the answer was deafening….silence. He joked a few times about his unrequited Q&A and the new collaboration tools. But his questions spoke to a larger one: “Why do we need this?”. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a business (ROI) answer. Even James Ringbloom (Quickr Marketing Manager) added in his opening lines about Quickr that (paraphrase) “if you are asking me to show you how much this tool will save you, it’s too hard.”. Unfortunate to say the least because that is what my boss wants me to show him.
Ed played one of the commercials that aired during the Master’s tourney. You know the one where the 20-something is telling his boss how many “friends” he has and the boss’ response is to gun him down with her “how does this apply to work” question. Unfortunately, this conference didn’t help.
2 Ed Brill 21 April 2008 @ 8:13 pm
Tom, thanks for the feedback.
This was my third LCTY so far. Really, it was the same basic agenda as the others. The problem for us is that there are too many products now, and it is hard to fit everything in a day. That means the demos typically get cut. I understand why that is a problem and will provide that feedback. Some of the new stuff is really cool so we need to show it… “code talks”.
Re the comment about the TV ad, actually Bill showed that one. I showed one of the ibm.com/lotusnotes viral videos.
Tom, next time, introduce yourself!
3 tom 22 April 2008 @ 11:43 am
I think some real-life examples need to be given if you guys are not going to do demos:
Mindy from Marketing wants to start mass emailing her customers. She asks around for who to consult with for the project but nobody knows. She then uses a 3rd party vendor at 20x the cost of going internal.
With Lotus Connections, Mindy from Marketing wants to start mass emailing to her customers. She types in “marketing email” and finds the Mail (Domino Administrators) and four other people in the company who have done the same type of project.
Tom is a Notes developer who discovers a group running a “dotNetNuke” CMS application on a server. It looks insecure and he thinks his group can do something better. He knows the sales group owns the application but the Employee Directory is so poor he can’t find anyone to talk to. He then gives up.
With Lotus Connections, Tom finds a guy in the sales team who seems to be the “technology guru.” They discuss a more secure and complete application that saves his group time and money.
I can think of a million examples where users have started doing their own thing (Microsoft Access, outside vendor, Excel spreadsheet) because they didn’t know who to “connect” with. I see the value of the software but probably because I’ve seen the presentations three times.
You talked a great deal about how to please the 20-somethings joining big corporations and boasted how IBM doesn’t have offices. Well… we’re completely different from you guys (and if we’re hiring 20-somethings… it’s not in my building) and we need to hear real cost/benefit.
I hope this feedback helps in other cities. I also apologize for not introducing myself (or Jaime). It was a Lotus Development family reunion there and I should have made time to talk to the best Lotus Notes “evangelist.”
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