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| Bill Malchisky January 28 2012 09:12:29 PMDue to a non-cooperative calendar, we are regrettably unable to provide the attention needed for this year's SkiLUG event and thus, I must cancel it at this time. I did speak with several people at Lotusphere about this as well; they understand and gave me their support. I appreciate having good friends in the Lotus Community. Thank you to everyone who expressed interest in attending, speaking, and helping make the event rewarding. Additionally, I want to acknowledge New England Lotus User Group for partnering with us and LotusUserGroup.org for their interest in promoting our event. I also want to thank the team of volunteers who gave of themselves to assist me this year. Having stated that, there exists some good news... We will be back in March of 2013! Yes, that is correct, we are just pausing the event for one year. Look for announcements throughout 2012 regarding exciting updates, the agenda, speakers, dates (of course), and the new location. Also, you can follow us on Twitter with the #SkiLUG hashtag and @skilug account too. SkiLUG 2013 will be a winter LUG unlike any other in North America -- well, at least north of Florida. Thanks for reading and we'll Ski Ya next year! Have a great 2012. --Bill Bill Malchisky January 16 2012 01:00:00 PMToday Lotusphere 2012 started with a new format for the opening session. IBM listened well to the feedback last year, and even handled the transition from guest speaker to next segment with humor. Alistair Rennie (@alistair_rennie) paid tribute to the IBM Champions then had Rob Novak (@LotusRockStar) appear on stage to help decide the $1000 question: "Demo or No Demo"; he chose well. Nice short segments, panels of one this year sprinkled in the OGS and after the demo -- key, plus Ron Sebastian back on stage, rather than taking from the back stage com center was welcomed, Brian Cheng (@quasifu) and Suzanne Livingston (@suzielivingston) did a great job with their demos as well. Saw another Sametime Unified Communications demo (fourth successive year +-).Witnessed a Notes and Domino reference with logos on the screen, then they demoed the Notes browser plug-in with Doc Link capability, so you can get to your internal apps seamlessly. Very cool technology. The nagging question for some was, "The demos are nice, but what is behind it?" I think IBM intentionally left that to the attendees to learn throughout the week. IBM Awards were sprinkled throughout the event, also allowing for short segments which helped to keep the audience engaged. And for those playing at home, yes, they went long once again. Dr. Burns from the Child's Hospital in Boston, MA gave a compelling customer story of collaborating with IBM. Alistair Rennie --- in a brilliant move --- dispelled a huge concern for many frequent attendees and partners: What will Lotusphere be called next year? He provided the name as Lotusphere2013 along with dates. Those that were concerned will get more out of the conference now. Overall, great job, IBM. One bonus point made clear on Sunday, was that IBM is making Traveler HA (High Availability) only available with either DB2 or SQL Server rather than a nice simple Notes DB and native Domino clustering technology. So it appears if you want HA, you need to invoke software complexity for what should be a simple add-on. Takes out smaller shops from having enterprise caliber tools. Few people tweeted --- that I read --- appreciated this approach. Stay tuned for updates as they are known... Bill Malchisky January 16 2012 07:27:50 AMThrilled to be giving the only session on compliance in the Best Practices track. With scores of new regulations coming out of Washington and eDiscovery lawsuits climbing dramatically year-over-year, this session is quite timely. Join me today in the Swan Toucan, at 5:00 PM EST for an entertaining and information session to learn about the current trends and why you should take it seriously, lest your firm end up as a front page story for the wrong reasons. Title: BP204 Smart Plays with Compliance Abstract: Straight from the pages of THE VIEW Journal series on Compliance and the Lotus Admin, comes an enhanced session on the subject for Lotusphere. What is your company’s e-discovery plan? Do you even have one or is it sorely in need of a facelift? Together we will review current trends in compliance and team structuring to achieve success.  Bill Malchisky December 2 2011 02:45:15 PM This week Linux Journal released their best of Linux Readers' Choice Awards 2011. The poll offers a winner and runner-up in 45 categories of products, ranging from various hardware to software segments. Examples include: Best Graphics Chipset, Best New Office Suite, Best Distribution, and Best Desktop Vendor. For the Best Linux Server Vendor -- IBM took the top spot. Having used the runner-up and their support, plus other vendors over the years, I can absolutely testify to the quality hardware that IBM servers provide and the unparalleled hardware support they offer their customers. They honestly make the best quality servers in the industry and fully support Linux on every platform -- for almost ten years. Well done and congratulations. The second award is an indirect but positive acknowledgement
Best IDE -- Eclipse IBM released the first version of Eclipse in 2001 and then help create the Eclipse Foundation as a vendor neutral not-for-profit steward to evolve the product in 2004. IBM is still involved and provides code to the open source project. As such, I felt it fitting to also acknowledge their accomplishments with this product too. Keep up the great work with your Linux support!  The IBM logo is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. Bill Malchisky November 21 2011 05:30:00 AM Linux Today featured an abstract to a full article in the Ostatic blog covering some updated resources on GIMP -- the highly advanced and capable open source image editing tool. It's free and it's fantastic. But, with all of the included features, the learning curve can be quite daunting for many. The open source community responded with some pretty impressive documentation, which is getting better with each release. The original resource comes from the source itself, GIMP GIMP Documentation site and contains tutorials, translated guides, and a FAQ Additional Sources The one-page Ostatic article contains the links to some good information. Don't Have GIMP? Nice and easy... Linux will pull the file and install automatically with one command -- faster than surfing the web. Just open a terminal window, copy/paste the command and you are all set. Ubuntu or Debian: apt-get install gimp OpenSUSE: yast -i gimp or zypper in gimp --> depending on the distribution version. Fedora: yum install gimp Bill Malchisky November 17 2011 02:30:00 AMWell you probably guessed or even knew that the main product sites at Lotus and IBM have been recently updated to handle the new re-branded products. Unfortunately, the execution is missing some URL redirection, which leaves people like you the reader, to find the flaws and report them back to IBM -- for free. I will focus on one aspect of a greater issue for brevity purposes. Know that I have no problem providing substantiated feedback in a professional manner; but there are times when the issues found really insult the intellect of the target audience. These matters are resolved with some very basic testing in most cases. Of course, ibm.com is a massive site with scores of pages, so of course, dead links will appear occasionally. This post highlights a different situation. Ultimately, it leaves the end user to contact their IBM/Lotus BP (if they have one), contact IBM directly (expensive for both parties) or go to a competitor. If they really lack the desire to perform proper internal testing --- and I have zero information that they do, but providing a conjecture based perception here --- then they should hire partners and select customers to perform simple usability testing. Because in the end, the absence simply irks their partners and can deflate their customers' zeal, leaving us in the community, to help the customer find what they need. (But that point commences deviation into matters outside the intended scope of this post.)
Where I am Going With This Post? A long time ago, in an internet far, far away, one could type lotus.com/ and you would get to the product page--quickly and easily. In fact, the main IBM site also did and does this well. Two of my favorite site conventions are ibm.com/servers and ibm.com/linux. As expected, one arrives at the main systems product page with the former, and the IBM Linux portal when using the latter link. With the re-branding of several Lotus products, many of the new expected URL conventions are counter-intuitive, if they work at all. Here is a table of my findings this evening. It is hardly an exhaustive list, but illustrates the point sufficiently.
UPDATE: As per the comments, I added eight more URLs to the table to illustrate their point. Yes, prefacing "www." before some of the URLs does yield different results. | Product | URL Shortcut | Results | | Notes | Lotus.com/notes | Redirects to Lotus.com | | | Ibm.com/notes | Redirects to the Lotus Notes product page on IBM.com | | | Www.lotus.com/notes | Redirects to the Lotus Notes product page on IBM.com | | Domino | Lotus.com/domino | Redirects to Lotus.com | | | Ibm.com/domino | Redirects to the Lotus Domino product page on IBM.com | | Sametime | Lotus.com/sametime | Redirects to Lotus.com | | | Ibm.com/sametime | Redirects to the IBM Sametime product page | | | Www.lotus.com/sametime | Redirects to the IBM Sametime product page | | | Www.ibm.com/sametime | Redirects to the IBM Sametime product page | | Quickr | Lotus.com/quickr | Redirects to Lotus.com | | | Ibm.com/quickr | Our apologies…
The page you requested cannot be displayed | | | Www.lotus.com/quickr | Redirects to the Lotus Quickr product page on IBM.com | | | Www.ibm.com/quickr | Our apologies…
The page you requested cannot be displayed | | Connections | Lotus.com/connections | Redirects to Lotus.com | | | Ibm.com/connections | Our apologies…
The page you requested cannot be displayed | | | Www.lotus.com/connections | Redirects to the IBM Connections product page | | | Www.ibm.com/connections | Our apologies…
The page you requested cannot be displayed | | Traveler | Lotus.com/traveler | Redirects to Lotus.com | | | Ibm.com/traveler | Our apologies…
The page you requested cannot be displayed | | LotusLive | Lotus.com/lotuslive | Redirects to Lotus.com | | | Ibm.com/lotuslive | Our apologies…
The page you requested cannot be displayed | | Support | Lotus.com/support | Redirects to Lotus.com -> click on Support in left pane -> IBM Support | | | Ibm.com/support | Redirects to IBM Support page portal | | | Www.lotus.com/support | Redirects to IBM Support page portal |
Yes, some of the products that were Lotus originally, have been re-branded as IBM now. They are reachable via the IBM URL convention and that is all fine and well. The products that do redirect to Lotus.com are accessible under the Featured Product section in the rightmost column. But is this the correct approach?
Example 1: If a customer uses IBM Connections, seeks the main product page at ibm.com via redirection, they are unable to do so. Two options to solve: (1) they can either hunt for it on the main IBM site, (2) or go to Lotus and find it there. So, the IBM Connections product is accessible via Lotus.com but not via ibm.com. Fascinating.
Example 2: Lotus.com/Notes goes to Lotus, but the same convention on the IBM site takes one to the Notes product page -- which is the expected result, but on the Lotus side. This is a counter-intuitive web experience which creates frustration.
The table really highlights that the URL redirection table is missing some entries. If IBM is in a hybrid state for naming products, then add a few entries to ensure that your sales audience can find what they need easily. Very simple items for the proper administrator to create easily.
Solution
The customer is really not going to know at a moment's notice what product is owned by which division. What was Lotus yesterday may be IBM today or tomorrow. People refer to Lotus Quickr simply as "Quickr". It is surprising to me that when all of its sister products have ibm.com redirects due to re-branding, that Quickr does not. Allowing smarter, web savvy customers or partners an intuitive design with time-saving conventions is important and well, expected in today's market. So if the site user wants a particular product, take them directly to the respective product page. Simple.
I really no longer care what IBM names the products, just as long as they have a future. But whatever they do with this effort, the implementation should be common, complete and consistent. These URL shortcuts are also a feature that IBM has provided successfully previously. The competition understands this too and has done it well for years. Guess where hp.com/drivers takes you? Or how about microsoft.com/exchange? Thanks for reading. Enjoy your day.
Bill Malchisky October 20 2011 11:00:00 PMRecently, I had the privilege to observe a couple of hours of Paul Mooney's mobile management seminar covering Lotus Traveler. Like many people covering such a topic, Paul went through the software requirements, hardware requirements, architecture decisions, plus recent patches and issues--ensuring currency. What I really liked was his emphasis on covering the vast arsenal of customizations that are possible with the product. This facet allows administrators the ability to lock-down and provide security for their environment. The most interesting component is that seemingly the best parts of Traveler are undocumented. Paul's session covers extensively, this facet well. It is quite extraordinary how much of what the Traveler product can do is so lacking any, let alone proper documentation. You would think IBM would provide some information in this regard, to better promote their great product and increase adoption, particularly with development... but I digress. Now keep in-mind his session is not a pro-Traveler or anti-BES session. Quite the opposite. Paul carefully provides what the Traveler server can do well along with opportunities for improvement, and also where Research In Motion's (RIM) Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) excels. For example, one aspect mentioned there exist approximately 500 policies that a BES administrator can set to manage their mobile hardware and over 400 for the express version of their server product. Whereas the Lotus Traveler has only 100+ rules that can be applied. Additionally, BES is optimized for more users on each respective server, due to its longevity--allowing for finely tuned code. However, as most of you know, BES really only works with its own brand of hardware. So, there are points to consider with your mobile strategy and these are articulated with lucidity. Unlike most sessions, Paul ensures that people expand their sphere of knowledge with hands-on configuration experience on mobile devices they typically do not use or know. He brings to the session an assortment of phones worthy of making any border customs agent think twice before letting him pass. One of the fun aspects of being a technical administrator in the modern era. (Fortunately, he passes through every time.) The best part of this session is that you can bring Paul to your place of business and get your team up-to-speed on the deeper particulars of Traveler. He also offered this unique opportunity as the administration component for the IamLUG Tack It On event back in August 2011. Although intended for business, I am almost certain that if you wanted to bring Paul to your home and train your kids on Traveler that could be arranged as well: for a fee, of course. Besides his bag of mobile phones will keep your kids busy for hours. You can contact Paul here or email him for further information on pricing and availability for this worthwhile session. Bill Malchisky October 12 2011 12:15:00 AMWhat I love about the open source community is that they can quickly respond to industry/user demands in a small fraction of the time of their closed source counterparts. Here is a great example. Netbooks are useful devices, slightly less popular now with the advent of the tablet, but they are still selling and have their place. To that point, many of the operating systems that run on them tend to force users to make a decision between two mutually exclusive capabilities: features vs performance. You either lose a significant amount of features or everything seems like it takes eons to complete. How do you handle that? Linux. Enter lubuntu, the Lightweight Ubuntu version running a smaller version of the X Window version 11 environment, or LXDE specifically (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment). Thus, you receive a full feature rich desktop environment with the quickness of a full desktop all on a smaller lighter form factor. The main site has some nice screencasts covering some of the key features. Know that because it uses LXDE you get a desktop environment rather than the simplified netbook Unity variant. Lifehacker did a nice review on lubuntu which has a few tech tips as well. You can find it here. For more information, check out these sites: Lubuntu Desktop Project Wiki LXDE main site Take it for a spin...  Bill Malchisky October 10 2011 11:00:00 PMJust wanted to alert you to the progress made with IBM marketing and also to an opportunity to provide feedback. IBM marketing is listening and are open to learning what is wrong with an eye towards fixing things. How long that will be and what that entails remains unknown currently. But, I am pleased to state that they are serious about understanding the core problem; I am serious about working to remove the disconnect between what senior management feels is happening and what we experience.
Brief Update I am quite pleased with the positive feedback I received this summer from my post on IBM Marketing. Thank you again, one and all. While at IamLUG and MWLUG, I spoke to several partners from multiple continents, all supporting the position that the multi-faceted relationship between IBM and Lotus partners does need to improve. To IBM's credit, they expressed interest in making a difference therein. I met with three executives and they are listening. Of course a large ship does not change direction immediately, and I know that many have spoken over the years, only to stop providing certain types of feedback as few if any changes were ever implemented. In that regard, I am most empathetic and thank the ones that did reach out to me and have sought change before me. We definitely have several underlying issues that need to be either addressed or finalized with a direction: any direction, even no direction, but something so partners can plan and remove uncertainty within their business. I had a great meeting with a VP of Sales at IBM on Friday, 7 October. Everyone with whom I have spoken appears sincere in wanting to learn what the core issues with their sales and marketing strategy beyond their larger customers where they work directly. Years ago, such feedback would just go to /dev/NULL and you would never hear about it every again.. The renewed approach experienced is reassuring. Talk is nice, but unless followed by action, it just wastes everyone's time. Thus, I am continually working with IBM in that regard. From the aforementioned meeting on Friday, the following feedback opportunity presented itself.
Feedback Request This week, I will be attending the IBM Leadership Alliance (LA) in Massachusetts. In addition to several one-on-one executive meetings, covering marketing and sales in the SMB space, IBM asked me to collect feedback from partners in these areas. So, if you are a Lotus Business Partner and not attending LA , I want to hear from you. Kindly provide feedback in one of two ways: 1) Create a comment to this blog post which will potentially allow for discussion amongst the readers; 2) for a bit of privacy, you can send me an e-mail to me here. To keep the scope manageable, kindly provide specifics regarding pain points you feel from IBM Marketing that impact your business and what can they do to better help you with your customers? How can the relationship be improved? I know I covered what I would like to see in the areas of SMB marketing and sales in July, but what would you like to see changed? If you provided me this already, there is no need to be redundant. Just want to ensure that if someone chooses to be heard, you have a solid opportunity to do so. Thank you for your interest and for reading. Let me know what's on your mind. I will present all the feedback received to IBM on Thursday, 13 October. Bill Malchisky September 29 2011 02:15:00 AM  Yes, SkiLUG 2012 --- The Skiquel --- is live. After several weeks of long nights with our team of quality Lotus community volunteers, we are pleased to get things moving. Registration for attendees, speakers and sponsors is open. Take a look at http://skilug.org and sign-up. Ski ya! |
Bill on 
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