They say 3rd time is the charm, I will once again be speaking at the Social Connections event scheduled for November 5-6 in Stuttgart, Germany.
However, this time I have been blessed to not do a competitive pitch, nor an accountability one, but a Spotlight session you can read more about here on Friday November 6th.
I look forward to seeing many friends and many more customers at the event.
I will be wrestling with and explaining the at times conflicting aspects of technology evangelism, life and work balance and how shutting down for 25 hours a week, or sometimes more, really is helpful.
I know, not my usual session but they wanted something we felt strongly about and well this hits it on so many levels, hope you all come and listen and appreciate it.
No slides will be shown at this session aside from the thanking the sponsors slide and my contact details. You may be asked to turn your phone off during this session, if you are up to the challenge, see you there.
Speaker, Blogger, Author. Posts about HCL Digital Solutions, HCL Software, Lotus, Management, Collaboration, Competitive Intelligence and Strategy, Productivity, CRM and B2B Marketing.
Showing posts with label Evangelist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Evangelist. Show all posts
Monday, September 21, 2015
Monday, December 29, 2014
Building Competitive Pitches #EvangelistGuide
In my previous post in the #EvangelistGuide series, I discussed writing competitive pitches, but covered quite a bit of ground as well.
As promised, we now move on to the way one builds a competitive pitch. This may take many forms, and formats, with the idea being the same throughout, namely helping the customer say what they need and why they need it.
If you start a conversation with an attack, you put people on the defensive, which is not always in your favor. However, there are times when it not only makes sense, but would be the most direct way to accomplish your task.
Know your audience
If you are speaking to tech people or executives, you need to understand their pain, their business, and their thought process. Many of these people will have logic and minutiae to help them ward off any attack. Your ability to speak their language and work with their fears/loves is key.
Never lose sight of the business aspects, present information in ways that you can say "we provide the option for you to pick which way to implement this solution in house or in the Cloud" instead of "we made this work only in the Cloud" if you are facing companies that cannot go to the Cloud today.
Explain your words
Do your best not to talk down to the audience, but also not talk above them either. It is not an easy line to walk. Please keep in mind, words and terms which the US may use, or think are normal, may not work outside of the US.
Speak so any person in the room, or their company, can understand your intentions and your solution.
Do not use acronyms, unless the audience has already.
Invest your time
Be there at the moment, no distractions, no phone, no Twitter, just you and them. You may use the same ploys every time, but you need to have many ploys in your bag of improvisational responses. Practice other angles, read more, watch more, write more. You also need to relax and take the time to debrief yourself after you are finished each time.
Test new ideas
If you are on a path of evangelism you should have already read or watched or listened to as much as you can on the subjects of sales, overcoming objections, persuasive techniques, hypnotism, poker, body language, non-fiction business biographies, The Godfather, the Bible, The Art of War and The Prince.
If you are still interested in going into the discussions that make sales people cower, now the hard work begins. Just like you need to push people beyond the law of 3 (3 no's, 3 excuses, 3 yes's) you need to be ready with so many more methods for your attack in case you are thwarted early on. It will happen to you, especially in the earlier days, but even later on, you need more ploys.
You can try to reason with the person on the other side, just remember if you are one on one, they will LIE to your face. Never have these discussions one on one, you want their people in there to listen to you and hear their own management make a case for themselves. You can be on your own, in fact, I advocate it should always be one on many. I like them to feel they can gang up on me, I like those odds.
When reason fails, resort to other tactics that match up with your opponent. They may say they want openness, yet are a closed company. They may be happy with their incumbent, but is that because they fear the new, the unknown or just are afraid to MAKE MORE MONEY. Never be afraid to point out the obvious. Push them to think, push them to visualize the problem through a story of your own. If you cannot reference other companies, or provide a good enough story, you need to practice this further and do more research.
Sometimes the simplest method is the easiest. I like to listen to people tell me why they don't like our solution or a specific vendor while I take notes and wait and listen. You then have them telling you what is wrong, what is important to them, and what the largest issue they face is on this topic. If there is a team of people at the meeting, they may all have input, but the executive is the only one we really care about, so watch the executive as the underlings toss out red herrings.
Help them make a decision
The hardest part is having the customer say what you want to hear, without you saying it first. Just like in salary negotiations, the one that mentions a figure first loses, if you or I suggest an outcome, prior to the customer stating it, we will lose all of the time and effort we put into the pitch.
Walk along with them as they explain themselves. Check in with them while they are speaking by verifying what they have stated in their terms. Lead them if you need to, but work on helping them solve their problem, not on you providing the solution. They will love you all the more, and never look back at the competition.
Coming up in this series, why executives lie, why one on many is important and the differences between Enterprise customers and Family owned business/startups.
If your sales or marketing teams are in need of training on this topic please contact me now as Q1 is getting busy.
As promised, we now move on to the way one builds a competitive pitch. This may take many forms, and formats, with the idea being the same throughout, namely helping the customer say what they need and why they need it.
If you start a conversation with an attack, you put people on the defensive, which is not always in your favor. However, there are times when it not only makes sense, but would be the most direct way to accomplish your task.
Know your audience
If you are speaking to tech people or executives, you need to understand their pain, their business, and their thought process. Many of these people will have logic and minutiae to help them ward off any attack. Your ability to speak their language and work with their fears/loves is key.
Never lose sight of the business aspects, present information in ways that you can say "we provide the option for you to pick which way to implement this solution in house or in the Cloud" instead of "we made this work only in the Cloud" if you are facing companies that cannot go to the Cloud today.
Explain your words
Do your best not to talk down to the audience, but also not talk above them either. It is not an easy line to walk. Please keep in mind, words and terms which the US may use, or think are normal, may not work outside of the US.
Speak so any person in the room, or their company, can understand your intentions and your solution.
Do not use acronyms, unless the audience has already.
Invest your time
Be there at the moment, no distractions, no phone, no Twitter, just you and them. You may use the same ploys every time, but you need to have many ploys in your bag of improvisational responses. Practice other angles, read more, watch more, write more. You also need to relax and take the time to debrief yourself after you are finished each time.
Test new ideas
If you are on a path of evangelism you should have already read or watched or listened to as much as you can on the subjects of sales, overcoming objections, persuasive techniques, hypnotism, poker, body language, non-fiction business biographies, The Godfather, the Bible, The Art of War and The Prince.
If you are still interested in going into the discussions that make sales people cower, now the hard work begins. Just like you need to push people beyond the law of 3 (3 no's, 3 excuses, 3 yes's) you need to be ready with so many more methods for your attack in case you are thwarted early on. It will happen to you, especially in the earlier days, but even later on, you need more ploys.
You can try to reason with the person on the other side, just remember if you are one on one, they will LIE to your face. Never have these discussions one on one, you want their people in there to listen to you and hear their own management make a case for themselves. You can be on your own, in fact, I advocate it should always be one on many. I like them to feel they can gang up on me, I like those odds.
When reason fails, resort to other tactics that match up with your opponent. They may say they want openness, yet are a closed company. They may be happy with their incumbent, but is that because they fear the new, the unknown or just are afraid to MAKE MORE MONEY. Never be afraid to point out the obvious. Push them to think, push them to visualize the problem through a story of your own. If you cannot reference other companies, or provide a good enough story, you need to practice this further and do more research.
Sometimes the simplest method is the easiest. I like to listen to people tell me why they don't like our solution or a specific vendor while I take notes and wait and listen. You then have them telling you what is wrong, what is important to them, and what the largest issue they face is on this topic. If there is a team of people at the meeting, they may all have input, but the executive is the only one we really care about, so watch the executive as the underlings toss out red herrings.
Help them make a decision
The hardest part is having the customer say what you want to hear, without you saying it first. Just like in salary negotiations, the one that mentions a figure first loses, if you or I suggest an outcome, prior to the customer stating it, we will lose all of the time and effort we put into the pitch.
Walk along with them as they explain themselves. Check in with them while they are speaking by verifying what they have stated in their terms. Lead them if you need to, but work on helping them solve their problem, not on you providing the solution. They will love you all the more, and never look back at the competition.
Coming up in this series, why executives lie, why one on many is important and the differences between Enterprise customers and Family owned business/startups.
If your sales or marketing teams are in need of training on this topic please contact me now as Q1 is getting busy.
Friday, November 21, 2014
Writing Competitive Pitches #EvangelistGuide
Once upon a time, people would have discussions with one another and argue the finer points of The Beatles Vs. The Rolling Stones, beer vs. wine, blended vs. single malt scotch, or is Eric Clapton really God? Should we be in Vietnam or Korea, or do we colonize Mars? iPhone vs. Android, Jobs vs. Ford, 72' Dolphins vs. anyone.
"The thing I worry about is some guy in his garage
But the fun and good times eventually give way to serious business discussions at work when you are in sales, and now you not only need to have a good argument, you also need to know information, not the type your Google search, but real data and details. As much as you can recite every word in your favorite song or poem or The Princess Bride movie, that is how prepared you need to be when you get into these discussions.
Except when you won't. Then you may freeze up and do what I try to train every salesperson in the world NOT to do, which is lie to the customer. You make up stuff that even Vizzini would call BS on, but you get away with it because you think the customer knows less than you.
Your customer is not so stupid. You might be, though.
If you can't say, "I don't know the answer to that question, but I know someone who does, and I will get an answer for you by ..." you are not a great salesperson.
What does this have to do with writing competitive pitches? Evidently, quite a lot based on some I have been reading lately. They are the equivalent of lying. Not Competitive pitches.
I will admit, if you are in a strong and dominant position in your market, you probably do little competitive work because you do not need to. Yet. You will because:
"The thing I worry about is some guy in his garage
inventing something I haven’t thought of."
- Bill Gates, Microsoft
For everyone else that is in second, third, fourth, or tenth place in their market, you need to do competitive position papers and research. Salespeople will think of it as handling objections, but it is more than that and less at the same time.
What do you need to be in the competitive space? You need to...
- Be a strong improviser. You never know what will be thrown at you.
- Have international or at least regional knowledge to understand the nuances of culture and other influences on people.
- Know about your products/solutions and the competitions inside and out. Like Sun Tzo (Vito Corleone for you nonreaders) said, "keep your friends close but your enemies closer."
- Read, listen, and watch as many things as you can on topic and off-topic, so you have more angles to work with when involved in different industries. (Your examples should be just as relevant and helpful as your knowledge)
- Be fearless.
- Not be arrogant.
- Have friends in weird, odd, far out, and local places that you can reach out to at random times and days.
- Have a sense of humor.
- Think like an executive or an assistant or a CFO or the person on the 4AM support shift.
- Know you will not win every discussion, and that is okay. Really. It is.
- Think out of the box, especially when revisiting clients you already saw. No one likes repeats.
- Wear a black suit. ( Just kidding)
If you have all of this, you can start to work on your first pitch or presentation for a product or solution...or against one.
Once you get the slides and presentation done, then you can move up to writing white papers or bigger efforts.
Finally, you can get to the big leagues and go speak to people in person and do battle. It is a battle, of wits, just like in The Princess Bride. The stakes, not a princess, but potentially millions of dollars on the line.
Wits, not geek-speak. If you are involved in development competitive situations, you may have no other way to do this, but geek speak, but since I am not a developer, I will let others who know this field better provide some details or links.
Wits mean you do not go pointing out "we have a one-click interface" or an "open status bar" unless that is all you created.
You want to aim higher.
Set your goals in alignment with the executive you are meeting with and what they need. CRM, project management, payroll, whatever it is, there are numerous ways to point out the benefits of your solutions without reverting to geek speak.
You must speak the executive's language, finance to finance, marketing to marketing, sales to sales. Meet them on their terms, not yours. Don't sit in their seat, but if you walk into a conference room, do try to take the seat at the top of the table. Mind games are fun, even if meaningless to you at the time.
Take time to think about your answers, especially when presented with unknown data. Ask more probing questions, find the nugget they hide and let them know it is okay to let you see and hear about it from them, in their own words.
Never put down your competition, Microsoft likes to use the term "legacy" on every other company's products, yet mysteriously they never say that about their own, which are now quite old as well. You can say our competitors do this or that, but we take a different approach. I know, I sound like the startups pitching to VCs, but they learned fast the need to differentiate themselves from the competition. Which is what you should be doing as well.
If you are the only person writing these types of documents, you MUST, I cannot stress this enough, you MUST get input from people inside and outside your organization in order to provide well thought out documents. The last thing you want is for someone to rip your doc apart and start something like FUD Buster Friday posts to show how bad your work was on the topic.
A follow-up post in this #EvangelistGuide series will look at various ways to build a competitive pitch. Until then, if you need someone to help you with your competition, my consulting fees are reasonable, and my time is flexible.
Monday, February 3, 2014
There really is a Dark Side of The Moon
IBM lost a strong proponent of openness and collaboration at an unprecedented level.
On the bright side Luis Suarez will bring us all much more soon enough.
Thank you my friend. I eagerly await your future announcement.
On the bright side Luis Suarez will bring us all much more soon enough.
Thank you my friend. I eagerly await your future announcement.
Friday, August 15, 2008
The Mojave Experiment....FudBuster #2
I got side tracked this week and wanted to look into this.
The Mojave experiment as Microsoft called it was an interesting idea.
For those not in the know,
100 people off the street, so to speak, were shown a "new" Microsoft OS after some questions about how they viewed Vista. Of course what they saw was Vista.
And low and behold, eye candy makes them decide to go with Vista.
Because in Microsoft's world, it's all about Eye Candy.Even if it takes sometime to produce it.
In the real world, well at least the business world, it's about business, expenses, revenue, ROI, and a million other things, but because software looks good? Nope.
It should integrate well with other software, yes.
It should run on multiple solutions, from Macs to Linux to windows to PDA's, phones, sunglasses(hey a guy can dream), blackberries and evidently nowadays on your refrigerator, dish washer and other appliances. Oh and a coffee table, thank you Microsoft.
Fahrenheit 451's author, Ray Bradbury would be either ecstatic to hear this or ashamed.
So you should go buy and use Vista because it looks good.
I use Vista. And aside from a few VPN clients rarely have problems. Ok recent times were Microsoft updates to Vista, so maybe I have some issues on occassion.
But really no worse than my XP machines after updates break all my mailto options and other security settings.
So where am I going with this? Easy, the UI sucks label on Lotus has to stop.
If you are in a company still using R5,6 or even 7, go yell at your IT staff or CIO who is paying Lotus big money to get updates and they shoulsd install them and use it.
I can show you in 5 minutes of a web conference everything you are missing!
Can your Outlook allow windows to float on their own?
Can your Outlook you so desire stop opening a ton of windows just because you are trying to do a simple task?
Why doesn't your Outlook do name lookups properly? My biggest gripe with Outlook 2003 at least.
Wouldn't you liek to not have a full AD directory all the time?
I can show you in a side by side demonstration that if nothing was branded you could not tell them apart, Mr. CEO.
BUT if you have a mixed environment of Lotus and Exchange shame on you! Spending twice the amount of money to get what you already pay for from Lotus, just because of a UI? Butthat's another post, past and future for another day.
The Mojave experiment as Microsoft called it was an interesting idea.
For those not in the know,
100 people off the street, so to speak, were shown a "new" Microsoft OS after some questions about how they viewed Vista. Of course what they saw was Vista.
And low and behold, eye candy makes them decide to go with Vista.
Because in Microsoft's world, it's all about Eye Candy.Even if it takes sometime to produce it.
In the real world, well at least the business world, it's about business, expenses, revenue, ROI, and a million other things, but because software looks good? Nope.
It should integrate well with other software, yes.
It should run on multiple solutions, from Macs to Linux to windows to PDA's, phones, sunglasses(hey a guy can dream), blackberries and evidently nowadays on your refrigerator, dish washer and other appliances. Oh and a coffee table, thank you Microsoft.
Fahrenheit 451's author, Ray Bradbury would be either ecstatic to hear this or ashamed.
So you should go buy and use Vista because it looks good.
I use Vista. And aside from a few VPN clients rarely have problems. Ok recent times were Microsoft updates to Vista, so maybe I have some issues on occassion.
But really no worse than my XP machines after updates break all my mailto options and other security settings.
So where am I going with this? Easy, the UI sucks label on Lotus has to stop.
If you are in a company still using R5,6 or even 7, go yell at your IT staff or CIO who is paying Lotus big money to get updates and they shoulsd install them and use it.
I can show you in 5 minutes of a web conference everything you are missing!
Can your Outlook allow windows to float on their own?
Can your Outlook you so desire stop opening a ton of windows just because you are trying to do a simple task?
Why doesn't your Outlook do name lookups properly? My biggest gripe with Outlook 2003 at least.
Wouldn't you liek to not have a full AD directory all the time?
I can show you in a side by side demonstration that if nothing was branded you could not tell them apart, Mr. CEO.
BUT if you have a mixed environment of Lotus and Exchange shame on you! Spending twice the amount of money to get what you already pay for from Lotus, just because of a UI? Butthat's another post, past and future for another day.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Exchange to Domino and Vice Versa
Does it make sense? In either direction? Of course not, even if one is just discussing email.
Go ask The White House if it was worth it.
Unless your job as CIO depends on having a major project under your belt and you figured this is easier than implementing SAP you are just wasting your companies money and that is just not a good reason to do anything.
Shame on you if you are that type of CIO. But your CEO is probably like that as well so you are safe, sadly, for the year or 2. And if you are that kind of a person please let me come in as your understudy, I promise to give you all the credit you are due but move the company forward once you leave as well.
It does not make financial sense from almost all angles.
You still need admins, servers, networks, firewalls, licenses, support, etc.
Yes one could argue there is a long list of Microsoft products required to do what one Domino server does, but that is not the issue for the moment, if we are truly discussing only email.
Does it really make sense politically? Yes there are Microsoft and Lotus evangelists and we love our jobs and possibly as well too much our respective companies.
The problem is what happens when you get in the middle.
Is it politics that dictates wasting a million dollars or 5 just because of a UI? Or a personal hatred of IBM or Microsoft or Sun or Oracle?
Sure Outlook is unimpressive, it's 5 years old, unless you use office 2007 and then what is so exciting about it, the ribbon? Yes the Notes client looked about the same for the last 12 years but the R8 client really is very different and more functional than Outlook, as discussed in a previous post.
You could train the users in the new product.
Stop laughing everyone reading this. Some companies do believe in training, they just tell you to do it on your own time. Pay for training is almost unheard of today.
Does it make business or operational sense? Will either one help you go forward faster, see an ROI or allow your sales force or manufacturing plant or research staff to be more productive faster? That is the key question in my mind, one which I have held since around 1991 when I first not only experienced Notes but started working on Windows 2.
If, in a 10,000 user company you can replace Domino with Exchange for email at the same price as it costs you for Domino, maybe you have a winner bet there. Although if you wanted to go from Exchange to Domino you would see an immediate ROI and cost savings. It just costs less to not need CALs for every piece of software and licenses, all esle being equal.
But I am quite confident it is not possible to save money moving to Exchanegf rom Domino and in this age where economics are out of line, budgets are in limbo from quarter to quarter if not week to week, you want to push through a swap of your email system you either have too much time on your hands or too much money because I can think of better ways to spend that money... and so should you.
Go ask The White House if it was worth it.
Unless your job as CIO depends on having a major project under your belt and you figured this is easier than implementing SAP you are just wasting your companies money and that is just not a good reason to do anything.
Shame on you if you are that type of CIO. But your CEO is probably like that as well so you are safe, sadly, for the year or 2. And if you are that kind of a person please let me come in as your understudy, I promise to give you all the credit you are due but move the company forward once you leave as well.
It does not make financial sense from almost all angles.
You still need admins, servers, networks, firewalls, licenses, support, etc.
Yes one could argue there is a long list of Microsoft products required to do what one Domino server does, but that is not the issue for the moment, if we are truly discussing only email.
Does it really make sense politically? Yes there are Microsoft and Lotus evangelists and we love our jobs and possibly as well too much our respective companies.
The problem is what happens when you get in the middle.
Is it politics that dictates wasting a million dollars or 5 just because of a UI? Or a personal hatred of IBM or Microsoft or Sun or Oracle?
Sure Outlook is unimpressive, it's 5 years old, unless you use office 2007 and then what is so exciting about it, the ribbon? Yes the Notes client looked about the same for the last 12 years but the R8 client really is very different and more functional than Outlook, as discussed in a previous post.
You could train the users in the new product.
Stop laughing everyone reading this. Some companies do believe in training, they just tell you to do it on your own time. Pay for training is almost unheard of today.
Does it make business or operational sense? Will either one help you go forward faster, see an ROI or allow your sales force or manufacturing plant or research staff to be more productive faster? That is the key question in my mind, one which I have held since around 1991 when I first not only experienced Notes but started working on Windows 2.
If, in a 10,000 user company you can replace Domino with Exchange for email at the same price as it costs you for Domino, maybe you have a winner bet there. Although if you wanted to go from Exchange to Domino you would see an immediate ROI and cost savings. It just costs less to not need CALs for every piece of software and licenses, all esle being equal.
But I am quite confident it is not possible to save money moving to Exchanegf rom Domino and in this age where economics are out of line, budgets are in limbo from quarter to quarter if not week to week, you want to push through a swap of your email system you either have too much time on your hands or too much money because I can think of better ways to spend that money... and so should you.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Lotus Evangelist BoF
I popped in to see, hear and listen to friends Greg and Duffbert in their BoF on Lotus Evangelism. Never too old to learn and never underestimate what people need I went in search of new ideas, issues from people.
They gave out an excellent cheat sheet about how to be an Evangelist(no religous training is necessary) which helps new people and even those who have been to multiple Lotusphere's.
Always remember, it's too late(well usually) to save the ship if your boss already invited microsoft in to visit.
Like vampires that supposedly have to be invited in to someone's house before they can attack, so it is with MS, once you let them in, they never leave without blood and you should start on the path of evangelising early and often.
I am sure they will post their cheat sheet somewhere, so check on http://www.lotusviralmarketing.com/.
Great meeting you both in person finally!
They gave out an excellent cheat sheet about how to be an Evangelist(no religous training is necessary) which helps new people and even those who have been to multiple Lotusphere's.
Always remember, it's too late(well usually) to save the ship if your boss already invited microsoft in to visit.
Like vampires that supposedly have to be invited in to someone's house before they can attack, so it is with MS, once you let them in, they never leave without blood and you should start on the path of evangelising early and often.
I am sure they will post their cheat sheet somewhere, so check on http://www.lotusviralmarketing.com/.
Great meeting you both in person finally!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Training is Done! What did we learn?
I hope the people I trained over the last 2 days retain some of what we discussed. Sure they have the books and notes but will they make changes?
I tried to impress upon them that they, and their manager, can change the world. But it gets done in a process one step at a time. Can't do everything in a day.
What was interesting was the feeling from them that they are just the IT guys and have no input to the workings of business, even if they may know h0w to perform many of the non-IT jobs in the company.
If they decided to propose a solution to something to the proper(and listening) executives they would probably get further in their careers. I hope they follow this path, it leads to great rewards and at least a Lotus Exige(MSRP $56,990) in their future like the one we saw at lunch.
It's a shame when good people can't see their future.
Many of us have this, we can't see how we can make a difference or produce more revenue, sell more tickets/seats/cars/licenses.
Few have the ability to see the open seas amid the storm, find the correct route and lead a course to a better life or way of working.
Still others are perfectly content in their livelihood or place in life and that works as well.
As we edge closer to Lotusphere, my thoughts are of course on business development and you can't gain clients in Orlando if you just have the feeling your "just a Lotus guy or girl."
Open up your mind and see the Evangelist inside and realize everyone you meet is also and that is a bond which does not come easy in many other software brands. You are your companies evangelist, gather your knowledge!
Lastly, for all those that complain there is no corporate solution for iPhones....
Lotus gets hip again by being on the iPhones as a corporate solution, this should get interesting very quickly now.
I tried to impress upon them that they, and their manager, can change the world. But it gets done in a process one step at a time. Can't do everything in a day.
What was interesting was the feeling from them that they are just the IT guys and have no input to the workings of business, even if they may know h0w to perform many of the non-IT jobs in the company.
If they decided to propose a solution to something to the proper(and listening) executives they would probably get further in their careers. I hope they follow this path, it leads to great rewards and at least a Lotus Exige(MSRP $56,990) in their future like the one we saw at lunch.
It's a shame when good people can't see their future.
Many of us have this, we can't see how we can make a difference or produce more revenue, sell more tickets/seats/cars/licenses.
Few have the ability to see the open seas amid the storm, find the correct route and lead a course to a better life or way of working.
Still others are perfectly content in their livelihood or place in life and that works as well.
As we edge closer to Lotusphere, my thoughts are of course on business development and you can't gain clients in Orlando if you just have the feeling your "just a Lotus guy or girl."
Open up your mind and see the Evangelist inside and realize everyone you meet is also and that is a bond which does not come easy in many other software brands. You are your companies evangelist, gather your knowledge!
Lastly, for all those that complain there is no corporate solution for iPhones....
Lotus gets hip again by being on the iPhones as a corporate solution, this should get interesting very quickly now.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Lotus Sametime 8 THE Mobile IM Standard
If you have not done it yet, get Lotus Sametime 8 installed because if ntohign else, the only thing you want is the mobile client.
It's light years faster then the 7.5.1 version(logging in only took a few seconds, a huge advance over what seemed to be an eternity or about a minute on 7.5.1), with some better UI enhancements which make it all the more useful.
I have not set up all of the options yet but so far it just ROCKS!
One caveat, when installing it from your website(sametime.server.com/mobile) is if you have a
Windows Mobile device, be careful which option you choose.
Although I have a Windows smartphone from At&T, the HTC 8125 the proper option would seem logical to me to be Windows Mobile Smartphone/Standard(no idea what Standard refers to here). I tried fruitlessly to get it to work and then decided to try the other option, Windows Mobile PocketPC/Professional (again what does Professional refer?).
This time it worked 123 and in a few seconds I was IMing my office buddies(note to self and Lotus, it owuld be nice if the mobile client could login to ALL of my communities like the full connect client, not just one).
Then once you have it running, setup your location, call back info, auto response if you prefer.
The look of the UI can bemade smaller or larger for the text type.
It woiuld be nice if the location page did not get cut off under the horizon of the phone window, but I managed somehow to getthe right info into the unseen box. You can see the title of the box, phone number, but can not actually touch the box.
This is going to make Lotusphere much easier for people in sessions so they don't have to take calls while listening.
And in my case when I am in the car and clients want me I am now available even when not at my desk. This alone is worth the price of admission.
Bottom line, if you do not have Sametime you are limiting yourself and your company from being more productive and if you have Sametime but did not update to even 7.5.1 yet(you should since otherwise you are not DST compatible 2 times a year for a week at a time) go download ST8 and update your environment.
I updated 8 servers this week to Domino R8 so could you.
It's light years faster then the 7.5.1 version(logging in only took a few seconds, a huge advance over what seemed to be an eternity or about a minute on 7.5.1), with some better UI enhancements which make it all the more useful.
I have not set up all of the options yet but so far it just ROCKS!
One caveat, when installing it from your website(sametime.server.com/mobile) is if you have a
Windows Mobile device, be careful which option you choose.
Although I have a Windows smartphone from At&T, the HTC 8125 the proper option would seem logical to me to be Windows Mobile Smartphone/Standard(no idea what Standard refers to here). I tried fruitlessly to get it to work and then decided to try the other option, Windows Mobile PocketPC/Professional (again what does Professional refer?).
This time it worked 123 and in a few seconds I was IMing my office buddies(note to self and Lotus, it owuld be nice if the mobile client could login to ALL of my communities like the full connect client, not just one).
Then once you have it running, setup your location, call back info, auto response if you prefer.
The look of the UI can bemade smaller or larger for the text type.
It woiuld be nice if the location page did not get cut off under the horizon of the phone window, but I managed somehow to getthe right info into the unseen box. You can see the title of the box, phone number, but can not actually touch the box.
This is going to make Lotusphere much easier for people in sessions so they don't have to take calls while listening.
And in my case when I am in the car and clients want me I am now available even when not at my desk. This alone is worth the price of admission.
Bottom line, if you do not have Sametime you are limiting yourself and your company from being more productive and if you have Sametime but did not update to even 7.5.1 yet(you should since otherwise you are not DST compatible 2 times a year for a week at a time) go download ST8 and update your environment.
I updated 8 servers this week to Domino R8 so could you.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Microsoft Lies, Lotus Laughs, Support Rules
Ed Brill quotes from an email he received:
"I was just in a Microsoft presentation where our company's decision makers were told that the Microsoft share in email has grown from 52% to 86% here in the [sub-region of the USA], and that while companies are constantly converting "from Notes to Exchange" there has never been a conversion in the other direction."
Now I am not privy to the sales of either company let alone sales to a region or state.
But it's an interesting usage of statistics.
I am however interested in which region it is. Surely MS would like everyone to think they own the messaging world, and maybe they do, but why do so many companies admit to not liking Exchange but not liking Domino either?
Is there a better soluton out there? Yes and no.
Simple answer is yes there are always other possibilities. And depending on your size business some may make sense for you.
But the reality is NO for most companies. Why? Because of one word, Support.
Love 'em or hate 'em, Microsoft and IBM have robust and excellent support for their products, until they end of life them, and then us business partners come into play.
But let's talk about the other support. Personnel resources support.
Doing a simple search on Dice.com for Lotus Notes Administrator gets 26, Domino gets 15, Exchange gets 73, Outlook gets 2. Total for their database just now.
So a total of 41 vs 75. Or in statistics terms(stats lie?!) 35% for Lotus and 65% for Exchange.
Some discussions have centered around the lack of jr admin available for Domino. And others argue in a similar light that the senior people move on and leave an organization without a proper evangelist or just move on for greener pastures.
Some argue long time professionals ask for too much money for work that could be done cheaper, IF you can get someone.
So what is happenning is eerily similar to the Mainframes. Now you can't find younger staff to code to it, so IBM made it accessible to Linux and other OS's. Brilliant by IBM, really it was. Saved a whole business line and gave younger coders an opportunity to possibly do more.
What can Lotus do for software? R8 is the answer, today. Based on the Eclipse platform and clients which can/will run on Mac and Linux, browsers and phones makes a push to the younger generation. BUT the younger generation still does not care about Lotus. Or do they? I look to Lotusphere 2008 for some insight.
Where's the love? What's in it for them? Do they like learning new languages every 2-3 years or prefer a stable platform? I would guess they prefer a stable platform as they get older but only time will tell.
They do want a fully customizable experiencee, note to car manufacturers, get with the program if they want black seats and black paint with a yellow lightning painted on the hood, you better be offerring it to them, price is what it is, they don't seem to care.
So, for instance, why is it so difficult to change the grey workspace background?
Why do I only have a choice of which pieces to look at it from my start page instead of SIMPLY setting them up?
No one wants to code their email client, well most of us don't.
So help the jr admins grow, find them and train them and ge them interested.
But the bottom line is if you are in a company that has Notes and you hear the MS guys are coming, call IBM or your Business Partner now. Why roll over for them? It will only hurt productivity, waste money AND put you out of a job(possibly).
"I was just in a Microsoft presentation where our company's decision makers were told that the Microsoft share in email has grown from 52% to 86% here in the [sub-region of the USA], and that while companies are constantly converting "from Notes to Exchange" there has never been a conversion in the other direction."
Now I am not privy to the sales of either company let alone sales to a region or state.
But it's an interesting usage of statistics.
I am however interested in which region it is. Surely MS would like everyone to think they own the messaging world, and maybe they do, but why do so many companies admit to not liking Exchange but not liking Domino either?
Is there a better soluton out there? Yes and no.
Simple answer is yes there are always other possibilities. And depending on your size business some may make sense for you.
But the reality is NO for most companies. Why? Because of one word, Support.
Love 'em or hate 'em, Microsoft and IBM have robust and excellent support for their products, until they end of life them, and then us business partners come into play.
But let's talk about the other support. Personnel resources support.
Doing a simple search on Dice.com for Lotus Notes Administrator gets 26, Domino gets 15, Exchange gets 73, Outlook gets 2. Total for their database just now.
So a total of 41 vs 75. Or in statistics terms(stats lie?!) 35% for Lotus and 65% for Exchange.
Some discussions have centered around the lack of jr admin available for Domino. And others argue in a similar light that the senior people move on and leave an organization without a proper evangelist or just move on for greener pastures.
Some argue long time professionals ask for too much money for work that could be done cheaper, IF you can get someone.
So what is happenning is eerily similar to the Mainframes. Now you can't find younger staff to code to it, so IBM made it accessible to Linux and other OS's. Brilliant by IBM, really it was. Saved a whole business line and gave younger coders an opportunity to possibly do more.
What can Lotus do for software? R8 is the answer, today. Based on the Eclipse platform and clients which can/will run on Mac and Linux, browsers and phones makes a push to the younger generation. BUT the younger generation still does not care about Lotus. Or do they? I look to Lotusphere 2008 for some insight.
Where's the love? What's in it for them? Do they like learning new languages every 2-3 years or prefer a stable platform? I would guess they prefer a stable platform as they get older but only time will tell.
They do want a fully customizable experiencee, note to car manufacturers, get with the program if they want black seats and black paint with a yellow lightning painted on the hood, you better be offerring it to them, price is what it is, they don't seem to care.
So, for instance, why is it so difficult to change the grey workspace background?
Why do I only have a choice of which pieces to look at it from my start page instead of SIMPLY setting them up?
No one wants to code their email client, well most of us don't.
So help the jr admins grow, find them and train them and ge them interested.
But the bottom line is if you are in a company that has Notes and you hear the MS guys are coming, call IBM or your Business Partner now. Why roll over for them? It will only hurt productivity, waste money AND put you out of a job(possibly).
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Evangelists United
More poeple have begun to blog about evangelism and that is good, Lotus always needs it.
I prefer not to follow them on marketing, everyone can read about IBM's sales targets and revenues (Lotus was up 12%) in many places, I like to discuss competitive situations and hard sells.
Today I was on a conference call and there was a person who either does not want to do any work or is a MS lover. I say that because whenever someone picks on Lotus software for being slow or using bandwith too much I just like to laugh, its the odlest MS trick in the world.
It's not Lotus really, check it, sniff it, do whatever you want, Lotus uses whatever you have or as little as you want if you maintian thresholds/ratios for ports.
Why do the MS people keep harping on what has been proven wrong? Because they have ruin out of other routes to defense.
Remember in selling, if a person provides any defense at all, they are interested, just not ready, if you can drop their defense, (may not be exact)85% of the people do not have a 2nd reason and 98% do not have a 3rd.
So nip it in the bud, get it out there and then walk them through it all.
A good counter is perhaps showing how slow a Windows box is no matter how much memroy it has compared to a linux box or phones mobile to symbian.
There are always possibilities.....choose wisely!
I prefer not to follow them on marketing, everyone can read about IBM's sales targets and revenues (Lotus was up 12%) in many places, I like to discuss competitive situations and hard sells.
Today I was on a conference call and there was a person who either does not want to do any work or is a MS lover. I say that because whenever someone picks on Lotus software for being slow or using bandwith too much I just like to laugh, its the odlest MS trick in the world.
It's not Lotus really, check it, sniff it, do whatever you want, Lotus uses whatever you have or as little as you want if you maintian thresholds/ratios for ports.
Why do the MS people keep harping on what has been proven wrong? Because they have ruin out of other routes to defense.
Remember in selling, if a person provides any defense at all, they are interested, just not ready, if you can drop their defense, (may not be exact)85% of the people do not have a 2nd reason and 98% do not have a 3rd.
So nip it in the bud, get it out there and then walk them through it all.
A good counter is perhaps showing how slow a Windows box is no matter how much memroy it has compared to a linux box or phones mobile to symbian.
There are always possibilities.....choose wisely!
Thursday, July 19, 2007
So far so Good
Not finished but the 1st competitive crisis of my new partner went well.
Money is always the issue, right?
Licenses would cost $20K to upgrade to R7/8 but MS wants to give them way for $1,000.
Great deal, save big money for the non-profit, right? Wrong!
Licenses, in the Lotus case is all it requires, yes some admin time, but since they have the staff it is not an issue.
Hardware, in the Microosft case is seriously required. 64-bit servers are not cheap, $8,000 for the one I looked up to configure andthat was without support contracts!
So if thy wanted an Exchange 2007 server they have to buy 2 servers of the exact same specifications, one for production, one for backup/drp. Cost so far $17,000.
But wait, they also need to update their AD infrastructure to 2007. More software licenses.
Plus they would want OWA which would mean more servers too!
Not going to continue this you get the idea...
Money is always the issue, right?
Licenses would cost $20K to upgrade to R7/8 but MS wants to give them way for $1,000.
Great deal, save big money for the non-profit, right? Wrong!
Licenses, in the Lotus case is all it requires, yes some admin time, but since they have the staff it is not an issue.
Hardware, in the Microosft case is seriously required. 64-bit servers are not cheap, $8,000 for the one I looked up to configure andthat was without support contracts!
So if thy wanted an Exchange 2007 server they have to buy 2 servers of the exact same specifications, one for production, one for backup/drp. Cost so far $17,000.
But wait, they also need to update their AD infrastructure to 2007. More software licenses.
Plus they would want OWA which would mean more servers too!
Not going to continue this you get the idea...
Monday, July 9, 2007
Politics and IT don't mix
YEs, it's true, fire and water don't mix. IT and politics are almost as close.
Many company IT groups are run to just fix the problem, rarely creating the solution.
This has changed in the last few years, yet we still hear and read about companies that make a decision, then justify it on the public side.
Why do they do this? Why can't they just come out and say, hey Apple said they would personalize one in gold for me so we are buying 10,000 iPhones for the company.
Who cares if there is no great integration to our email and calendar I only cared about the personalized gold phone!
Now this may be reality for some people(I hope not) but for most ofus the truth is someplace in between.
So how can we play fair or cunningly at least so IT can trounce politics?
Well you could start by shutting the executive BES server down for 5 minutes to get their attention. :-) (just kidding, but you know the next time you need to work on a weekend..)
Now who holds the upper hand?
Should IT hold a company up because of a bad political decision? I don't know, but I would be willing to try it, perhaps in a different way.
In one client I recently finished a project their BES went down, HARD and so did a server of execs email. Bummer for them they were running Exchange and had NO way for the 100's of them at a major corporate event in Las Vegas to connect and they were very upset.
Being the Lotus evangelist that I am, aside from trying to help, I suggested in my report and to a few people that had they kept Domino as their mail server not only could I have rerouted all of them to their backup server (passthru options, cluster backup, many routes would have done it and even load http so they could webmail) in minutes, they might not have ever known there was a problem.
True story, ending was 5 hours later they got back on line. Estimated loss of business functional time in salary alone($45,000+) and lost revenue from the deals going on estimated because it was a 5,000 suppliers meeting to be anout $850,000.
That my friends is lost revenue, accounts, business, time you can add more to this cost.
And a cost which I would not want to be told by my CEO. Does Domino crash? I will not deny it can, but the built in and properly configured redundancy even if you only have 2 servers is excellent.
Did this change their perspectives, yes and no, some IT managers asked me more questions and we discussed possible scenarios, all of which I had covered already because they are BUILT IN TO DOMINO. Few of which had been done on the Exchange side, if at all possible because it required more pieces of the MS puzzle.
The SVPs were not impressed but then why would they, they either never sat in front of a admin screen or if they did it was too long ago to care.
Sadly sometimes it does take an emergency to make people sit up and think about their "corporate solution", politics have no where to go if your IT kills you for 5 hours.
Many company IT groups are run to just fix the problem, rarely creating the solution.
This has changed in the last few years, yet we still hear and read about companies that make a decision, then justify it on the public side.
Why do they do this? Why can't they just come out and say, hey Apple said they would personalize one in gold for me so we are buying 10,000 iPhones for the company.
Who cares if there is no great integration to our email and calendar I only cared about the personalized gold phone!
Now this may be reality for some people(I hope not) but for most ofus the truth is someplace in between.
So how can we play fair or cunningly at least so IT can trounce politics?
Well you could start by shutting the executive BES server down for 5 minutes to get their attention. :-) (just kidding, but you know the next time you need to work on a weekend..)
Now who holds the upper hand?
Should IT hold a company up because of a bad political decision? I don't know, but I would be willing to try it, perhaps in a different way.
In one client I recently finished a project their BES went down, HARD and so did a server of execs email. Bummer for them they were running Exchange and had NO way for the 100's of them at a major corporate event in Las Vegas to connect and they were very upset.
Being the Lotus evangelist that I am, aside from trying to help, I suggested in my report and to a few people that had they kept Domino as their mail server not only could I have rerouted all of them to their backup server (passthru options, cluster backup, many routes would have done it and even load http so they could webmail) in minutes, they might not have ever known there was a problem.
True story, ending was 5 hours later they got back on line. Estimated loss of business functional time in salary alone($45,000+) and lost revenue from the deals going on estimated because it was a 5,000 suppliers meeting to be anout $850,000.
That my friends is lost revenue, accounts, business, time you can add more to this cost.
And a cost which I would not want to be told by my CEO. Does Domino crash? I will not deny it can, but the built in and properly configured redundancy even if you only have 2 servers is excellent.
Did this change their perspectives, yes and no, some IT managers asked me more questions and we discussed possible scenarios, all of which I had covered already because they are BUILT IN TO DOMINO. Few of which had been done on the Exchange side, if at all possible because it required more pieces of the MS puzzle.
The SVPs were not impressed but then why would they, they either never sat in front of a admin screen or if they did it was too long ago to care.
Sadly sometimes it does take an emergency to make people sit up and think about their "corporate solution", politics have no where to go if your IT kills you for 5 hours.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
How Lotus Notes & Domino R8 could be launched
KABOOM!! Yep it's that time of year when everyone imitates Walt Disney World at 10pm. Just kidding, but for all you Lotusphere attendees you know what I mean.
Now I don't know about you, but where I live there are a plethora of firework stores and tent sales. Why? So people can go to the ER without fingers or eyebrows? No, because you would not know where to buy them if you did not see them, or in my case remember July 4th was around the corner.
What does this have to do with Lotus? Or R8 of Lotus Notes & Domino being launched? Because I would love to see a tent pop up on every corner with the big Lotus logo we all know and love on the day R8 comes out. But that will never happen (by the way anybody at Goodyear, can we borrow a blimp ).
However, if you are a BP out there reading this or an IBM Sales rep/SE/IGS consultant, get moving on figuring out how to have a Lotus R8 bash at every client, give out stuff left and right, show clients we support them and Lotus. Bring in doughnuts, coffee, cookies, anything yellow.
Just get out there and show your clients how much they mean to you and Lotus and IBM.
I would love to see responses to this as I plan some ideas myself. Yes I know we don't know yet what day it will be, but that is not important right now.
Lotus marketing, where are you, help us to help you!
Now I don't know about you, but where I live there are a plethora of firework stores and tent sales. Why? So people can go to the ER without fingers or eyebrows? No, because you would not know where to buy them if you did not see them, or in my case remember July 4th was around the corner.
What does this have to do with Lotus? Or R8 of Lotus Notes & Domino being launched? Because I would love to see a tent pop up on every corner with the big Lotus logo we all know and love on the day R8 comes out. But that will never happen (by the way anybody at Goodyear, can we borrow a blimp ).
However, if you are a BP out there reading this or an IBM Sales rep/SE/IGS consultant, get moving on figuring out how to have a Lotus R8 bash at every client, give out stuff left and right, show clients we support them and Lotus. Bring in doughnuts, coffee, cookies, anything yellow.
Just get out there and show your clients how much they mean to you and Lotus and IBM.
I would love to see responses to this as I plan some ideas myself. Yes I know we don't know yet what day it will be, but that is not important right now.
Lotus marketing, where are you, help us to help you!
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