3 Different Conversations from the Yellowverse

In the last 12 hours I had very different conversations about Lotus, IBM, Business Partners and Lotusphere.
To protect the innocent will not state my friends names.

One posited that the idea of development is very different today from years ago. I agree, but I, as an admin, did not know some of the ideas tossed about and how they could help a specific issue. Again reminding me why I don't code and why discussing with other professionals, is truly how one learns. Even someone doing this for 20 years like me can learn something new.

Another, an ISV, is unknown to most of you reading this. They want to change this. The problem is they are well known at a level we all wish we are on. So bringing them down to our level, think Fortune 5 vs 1000, may or may not be a good choice. Pricing alone will make a difference for them. Still I like their products and maybe will post about some of them in time.

Lastly, a third discussed the state of development and applications. Is the iStore the answer? Can Domino applications be sold or both $1.99 and $199,000? Where is the true creativity happening? An interesting view as well from someone who has made an effort to do what few others have recently. When asked why I don't produce applications, the truth is I propose many applications to clients, but few get picked up for interest due to costs/expectations. My bad I know, but I work on there are no bad ideas, just bad timing. Seeding the information is sometimes just as important as the idea itself.

What is interesting to me is all three really are about marketing, sales and business decisions and one was about finding the customers. But each sees their world as easy, yet sees the other ones as difficult or at best just different.

It's not about back stabbing or stealing clients, but trying to work together to provide a better future. Some of us see it on a grander scale and some of us have the answer without a question and vice versa.

Either way it all is leading up to Lotusphere and the time when we all get together, put aside various past histories and enjoy hanging out and learning from each other.

What if your SEO gets you the #1spot?

But your sales haven't increased.

An excellent question. One which I ponder as it is quite clear we do come up first on a number of searches in our regional efforts (on various search engines) but some potential customers have not gotten in touch with us.

Evidently if you build it they will not necessarily come. Thus we embark on some testing of various pages, changes to better highlight where the problem lies.

This blog gets more business for us than the website, which while nice, should help feed the other not vice versa.

Recent events made me wonder if our SEO efforts were for naught but they seem to work fine with a few exceptions which will get ironed out.

So we continue to be the most active South Florida Lotus Business Partner with Sametime, Quickr, Domino.Doc(moving to Quickr) and of course Domino upgrades and migrations and with the new Connections 2.5 look forward to some projects with that as well.

Spent some time today with a BP that specializes in VOIP and CRM integration for Domino, but it's big money(100k-1M) and for larger companies, sorry SMB customers.

This may prove to be a better effort than the SEO.

The funny thing, is both are free, my meeting today and our SEO.

So the best things in life really are free.

Business Development the old fashioned way

Centuries ago sales people, known as explorers, were on missions to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one had been before, and reap some rewards.

And pay back their investors too.

A modern day version might be to Twitter your way to some deal. But we have decided that sometimes real people in real situations are better than digital. Like playing online Poker, if I can't see your face or hear you, how does one know if the message is getting across properly.

So I, along with my family, will be in the UK for the summer. From mid June to the first week of August. We have rented out our house so we need a place to go anyway.

Working on some meetings and Business Development from here if anyone would like some consulting, speaking or training, while I am in the UK, please let me know.

Our lunch and learn sessions are always popular,as the summer is a slower time in Europe in general, maybe this is a good time to boost your Lotus awareness in your organization.

Will most likely be in Dublin as well and possibly, if there is enough interest, various parts of Europe. Let me know now so we can plan and book you in. We look to do these in various parts of the world over the next year as we expand our base of business.