Saving the world, one Lotus Notes user at a time

Mat Newman July 8 2012 22:33:59

This afternoon while watching my beloved Hawks wipe the floor with GWS (162 point win - if you don't mind!), a lady sitting near me in the hotel noticed the Lotus Notes background image on my Thinkpad Tablet.

"Excuse me, I noticed the Lotus Notes logo on your iPad." (giggle- let that one go!) "Do you know much about it?"

Yep, this was her lucky day ;-)

Let's call her 'Siri'. Siri then asked me why it might take so long for her to open her mail in Lotus Notes.

A quick check, and yep, no local replica of Siri's mail, and this poor lady is accessing server based mail remotely from a third world country with internet connections that would make people yearn for the blistering pace of dial-up.

Why on earth would anyone give someone a Laptop with a Lotus Notes client, and no local replica of their mail????

So a local replica (encrypted, of course!) was quickly created (well, not quickly, it took another 1/2 hour, lucky she was new in the job), and location settings changed to use "local", rather than "server". Thankfully at least Siri has Notes 8.5.2 (where immediate mail replication was introduced).

I asked Siri if she had received any training, her reply: "They showed me how to create an email, replies, forward and folders, but that was it."

Hmmmm. Ok.

A quick '10 minute demo' ensued, a Notebook was created, and then Siri went back to her laptop and glass of wine, while I concentrated on the game again. A few minutes later a beer arrived, "compliments of the lady" according to the waitress.

As I left, Siri called me over: "Thanks, you've really changed my opinion of Lotus Notes."

Just doin' my job ma'am. Saving the world, one Lotus Notes user at a time :-)

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1Fredrik Malmborg 07/09/2012 1:52:57
Saving the world, one Lotus Notes user at a time

Cheers, great work!

2Mat Newman

07/09/2012 10:56:51 Saving the world, one Lotus Notes user at a time

@1, Fredrik: Thanks mate :-)

Mat Newman IBM Champion

3Christian Tillmanns 07/09/2012 16:03:26
Saving the world, one Lotus Notes user at a time

Good job.

What drives me up the walls in anger, is the stupidity of some CIOs or admins. Don't they see, that proper training would enhance productivity and pay itself many times?

4Mat Newman

07/09/2012 19:01:59 Saving the world, one Lotus Notes user at a time

@3, Christian: No mate, I don't think they do. I get the impression that it's treated as a 'cost' rather than an 'investment'.

True story: The organisation that religiously sent new users to me for training migrated from Lotus Notes kicking and screaming in protest (whole of organisation consolidation), while those who never trained their users left with nary a whimper. Even those 'consultants' engaged to manage the project left the enforced training session (on Lotus Notes 6 - mind you!) commenting 'we don't understand why are we moving!'

Mat Newman IBM Champion

5Nick Halliwell 07/09/2012 20:37:25
Saving the world, one Lotus Notes user at a time

Thats a really sad story, but a very common one. One of the people I have the occasional beer with works for a large American contracter who are building a major plant in Eastern Thailand. They use Notes and he has never had any training, I have shown him some basics. He was saying taht Notes is not very good he cant do this and that, I showed him how to do it all. Also gave him a Journal. He was delighted.They also are still using Notes 7.

What is wrong with these companies, just create a You Tube VDO and give everyone a link to it. Its now just so easy to give people knowledge who are remote from Head Office.

6Turtle 07/09/2012 21:26:39
Total win, Mat!

Complete and total win.

7Stephan Kopp 07/09/2012 22:22:06
Saving the world, one Lotus Notes user at a time

Good job :-)

8Keith Brooks 07/09/2012 23:13:57
Saving the world, one Lotus Notes user at a time

Sadly, this is the norm. training? Ha, they can get it online is what I hear always.

I ask them if they would want to learn how to drive online and then go do it?

Some agree, others say, I played video games so driving was easy.

Ah I ask, but in the video game did you have to use turn signals? In Florida I think everyone neglects them, anyway the point is and we all know this that a basic 10-30 minute lunch and learn session is about all people get now. Not enough to even cover the basics.

But bad administrators become the problem because they do not enable (or disable) some options in policies or it never occurs to them to upgrade Holidays since R6 and other basics of life.

Good for you and keep going one at a time.

9Ray Bilyk 07/10/2012 2:59:17
Saving the world, one Lotus Notes user at a time

You just rock! 'Siri' was lucky you were there!

Mat Newman: LIVE from Yellow Central

Saving the world, one Lotus Notes user at a time

Mat Newman July 8 2012 22:33:59

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