Lotusphere 2011, BP106: Where is the Love, How to get your users to fall in Love with Lotus Notes, the slides and the key concepts that I spoke about

Mat Newman  February 8 2011 10:34:39

Here are the slides from this years presentation at Lotusphere 2011 (#LS11). #LotusKnows You don't have to wear a yellow suit, but it does help :-)

Key points to convey if you are going to run this yourself in-house:

General:

BELIEVE in what you are talking about!  I am passionate about IBM Lotus Notes.  I sincerely believe that Lotus Notes is the best software available to users to increase productivity - as attested to by David Allen (@gtdguy) of 'Getting Things Done' fame, and Eric Mack (@ericmack) developer of eProductivity for Lotus Notes - and to improve collaboration, communication and coordination. There simply is nothing comparable to Lotus Notes.

It's that belief and passion that combines with this presentation to make it's message so powerful.

Section 1, Where is the love:

Key points:

• You know there are users who hate Notes,
• They have their reasons,
• You can assign blame to anyone for this situation - and the slide gives you some examples - but remember at the end of the day: IT'S OUR (YOUR) FAULT!
• Every single time I come across users with this attitude it always comes down to a lack of: Training, Knowledge, Experience, or Desire,
• You personally can influence the first three!

Section 2, Feature vs Functionality:

In my session I used the following analogy to explain how important this is in perception and understanding;

"A couple walks into a car dealership. They see the car they like, and because there is no salesperson available they climb into the front seats. While looking at the features in the car they notice the stereo system does not have a slot to insert a CD.
'Honey, we can't buy this car, the stereo doesn't have a slot to play a CD.  There's no way we can take the kids on a long trip without playing the Wiggles!'
'I agree, what a stupid car, lets get out of here!'
Now the couple believe that the car suffers from a lack of functionality, because of a lack of an obvious feature, and they're telling all of their friends how stupid that car is, and that they - also - should not buy it.
What they don't realise, is that they only had to open the glove compartment to see a 10 stack blu-ray/dvd/cd loader that automatically pops up tv screens around the passenger compartment whenever a movie is played. Wow - what great functionality!
If only they had stayed around to have someone show them what powerful features and functionality the car had!
The car the couple are now giving bad reviews about IS Lotus Notes.  Notes IS extremely functional, but sometimes because the features aren't staring you in the face, users get the wrong perception.

When you understand that concept, you're ready to change the view users have of Notes.  When your users understand that concept they will be more willing to explore what they can DO with Notes!

Section 3, Create the environment for the user driven revolution:

Key Points:

• Unstructured documents created in spreadsheets and word-processors will undermine your business processes and IT systems, leading to anarchy,
• Users don't know what to call them (unstructured documents), where to file them, or how to find them,
• Users WANT Solutions,
• Collaboration IS NOT emailing unstructured documents (this slide includes hidden code specifically for Paul Mooney {grin}),
• The most powerful platform is the one you already own (read Bruce Elgort's discussion-paper),

You can change this, by putting in place the components to create the user driven revolution:

• A little bit of knowledge +
• An understanding of the functionality +
• An awareness of the capabilities +
• A desire for simplified work processes
• = A Notes driven USER REVOLUTION

Section 4, Bring back that Lovin' Feelin':

What makes you think your users are any different from those of us that attended the LS11 OGS (opening general session)?

Demo, Demo, Demo!!!!

• Introduce Notes PROPERLY,
• Unleash the POWER,
• Show users the MAGIC,
• GIVE users the extras,
• Be prepared to answer the questions

Conclusion:

Yes, I will record the #10MinuteDemo, in the meantime, here are the slides from BP106: Where is the love, how to get your users to fall in love with Lotus Notes:



If you enjoyed my presentation and saw what I can do with Notes in 10 minutes, imagine what I could do for your users in a couple of hours.  I am available for hire ( mat at matnewman dot com ) feel free to contact me.

Hugs.

Mat.

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