matnewman.com

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.
Comments

1BillMal  02/10/2011 14:32:52  
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

Excellent summary and session. The only thing I would add to the first section bullet --

"Every single time I come across users with this attitude it always comes down to a lack of: Training, Knowledge, Experience, or Desire,"

is a bad install by an IT department that went for the easy (for them) solution rather than the best (for the user).

I have seen this a lot in and it always irks me. Thwarted a few when on the project team early enough.

Had dinner with a group of friends traveling through Manhattan. "I hate Notes...too many clicks," was heard a few times from one of the guests. Naturally, I inquired. After dinner she grabbed her laptop at my suggestion and brought it to the lobby where we all enjoyed some beverages. Took :15 to review and tweak it to her firm's standards. "Wow! This is a great product. Too bad we are migrating."

Why did they migrate? The IT department got tired of hearing complaints from their flawed install, so rather than spend a small amount of cash to fix it, they forced all six major divisions to migrate to Exchange...because they wanted to save face avoid the blame game. Idiots. (My opinion, for the record.) But that is another story for another time.

Again, great job at LS11 and good to meet you.

Cheers!

2Mat Newman

02/10/2011 21:29:19  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

@1, Bill: Excellent example Mate. It's not always the users, and that was one of the point's I was trying to make: It's OUR fault!

When WE provide the platform for the user driven revolution (thanks Craig) and inform our users of the features and functionality, the love will flow.

Really great to meet you, looking forward to doing it all again next year.

Mat Newman IBM Champion

3Martdj  02/18/2011 2:30:34  
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

"The Notes 8 code-stream is the first in Notes' History where point.point-releases have NEW features!"

7.0.2 with TNEF conversion and output as JSON was actually also a good one in that area :-)

But otherwise I love your presentation! I'm thinking of writing a blog post in Dutch on it. Thanks for the great session!

4Blonde  02/19/2011 1:56:34  
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

Hi Mat,

your session was the BEST of this LS!

Thanks for your time, idea, drive, 10 minutes demo..... for all.

Blonde

(we speak together after your session)

5Cali  03/01/2011 1:55:15  
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

I wasn't at Lotusphere this year but heard great things about your presentation and managed to watch Stuart McIntyre's upload of the session. Would love to see the recording of the demo as it was tricky to make out the details...

Mat Newman

THE Notes (formerly IBM/Lotus Notes) Guy. Productivity Guru. Evangelist. IBM Champion for IBM Collaboration Solutions, 2011/2012/2013. Former IBMer. HCLite. Views are my own.

#GetProductive #GetHCLNotes

Mat Newman




Home  | 

Get Serious. Get Domino.