Lotus Evangelist

Curbing your social media habits once a week

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 19:09:00 +0000

Imagine you are on an island in the Caribbean, cold drink in hand, sun shining down on you, and your family and friends are with you just hanging out or walking around the island. Sounds nice, doesn't it? No phones in sight, no TV, no car—just you, sand and the sounds of the waves crashing on the beach.

How long could you go before you had to whip out your phone or laptop to get a picture, post to Facebook or answer some office emails? These days, not very long it seems. Based on this article and infographic, 74 percent of vacationers use social media while on vacation, and many are logging more and more work hours too.

Read more over at my guest blog post over at the IBM Social business Insights blog.

Backing Up IBM Sametime Buddy and SUT Phone Lists

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Thu, 30 May 2013 15:18:00 +0000

Did you ever start to work on something only to be deeply involved when someone comes over and asks what you are doing?

You respond and they look quizzically at you and ask why did you not just do X?

X of course is right under your nose and would be obvious to anyone else, except you because you were so involved in your project.

So I found myself when someone screamed about losing their Sametime buddy list. Sure there is a menu item to import/export your lists but you know, how many people remember to do that? Or if they ever do it?

Wrote a batch file to copy the lists to my network server. I included in it both stand alone and embedded options. Why? Because along the way I also realized, as an SUT user, that the SUT phone list was not copied in this, in fact it is stored in a different directory.

Thought it might be easier for people to just have a batch file to back it up than a rather serpentine directory structure to remember.

If you would like the batch files, you can find them here in a zip file with both backup and restore files and an instruction guide.

Suggest adding them to your desktop, that way you will notice them and click on backup randomly which would still be used more often than the default menu option I would bet.

Built using a Windows7 laptop and running Notes9 Embedded Sametime and SUT and also a stand alone 853 Sametime client.

Will update this blog post and the files as necessary over time with tracking details below:
Version 1.1 Added SUT Phone Lists to be backed up as well
Version 1.0 Backup Buddy Lists to Network Drive

Google Beats Microsoft, Yes but beat IBM Notes? No Way

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Google, I love you guys, I really do, you do some amazing things and the Doodles are the best!
But sometimes your business partners really have no clue what they are talking about and should rethink their marketing.

Case in point, a company produced a 3 page document(link to my server, not giving them the traffic) on why Google trumps MS Exchange as an alternative to IBM ~~Lotus~~ Notes.

The opening salvo is hyperbole at the best of times. People move systems back and forth and, although I can not name names, I know of a few well known companies that are coming back or at least increasing their Notes usage.

The document discusses how cloud is the key driver for IT and Mobility is also a trend. Funny, we had mobile apps and mail back in 1999 or 2000 on GSM phones with native Lotus Notes apps. I know because I was there at Lotusphere Europe in Berlin and ran the wireless phone system for the CXO's that came, still have one of the phones we did it on.

What took the world so long to catch up? Just like that chiclet icon map your iPhone and Android uses, came from the Lotus Notes workspace Release 1, 20+ years ago. Say what you want about IBM Notes, it was way ahead of its time.

I do not know about you, but if the word "dope" shows up in someone's advertising it usually implies one thing. A poor choice of words, or genius, given how the Cloud is so enticing, you try a little and beg for more. What? That isn't how it works? I don't know either what they are thinking.

"Gmail is familiar to most work-force as a personal email solution." This may be true, but the Gmail UI SUCKS! Sorry, showing my age there. I mean I am not comfortable with it because it doesn't do ANYTHING except email. Ok, so where is my integrated calendar? How do I schedule meetings? How do we handle archiving and offline email when traveling? Where is my integration into ~~Facebook~~ CRM, SAP, Vacation requests even? Training is only easy because....it does not do much of anything.

"Costing" is saved because "Migration costs, licensing costs and ongoing maintenance costs form a major point of decision. Google has a simpler, lighter cost structure." Yes and no, the basic license may be cheaper, in Year 1, but in Year 2, no way are you cheaper than IBM or MS on support licensing. Google is TWICE the price or more of a Lotus client license in Year 2-whenever. Migration costs are not free either and can become staggering when involved with vendors that are ill equipped to grasp the complexities of a Domino environment. One Google partner told me that Google has no advice for Lotus customers, they basically edited the Exchange checklist title!

"Google ecosystem has got built over time with millions of users adopting it and driving it based on their preferences on personal productivity and collaboration needs." And so few corporations. Personal productivity has nothing on corporate productivity. This is like saying my kindergartener edited my MBA thesis.

They do get two things perfect "MS Office has very powerful set of tools, but still not designed toward collaboration." and "In Lotus Notes alternative scenario, collaboration and groupware requirements trump individual productivity tool preference." WOW, didn't they just start off saying how great Google was for personal productivity? I know, splitting hairs, individual vs. personal, but this is just so much fun.

Notice they are discussing MS Office, not MS Exchange. So this is about Google Apps? Right, so there are Google Apps that handle international workflow processes? No? What about vacation requests? Conference room scheduling? No? And you want to play in the big leagues?

They must know or respect IBM Notes a bit, see this:

Then, there is a case of Business Applications. Large enterprises with an extensive Lotus Notes deployment typically have hundreds of Notes applications that play a key role in keeping the enterprise running smoothly. There could be hundreds of workflow Apps, and few very complex functional Apps (like CRM) built on Lotus over time.

Workflow apps by the way are complex usually, it is not just forward an email and click yes. They suggest the Google App Engine could replace these apps. If this were really true, IBM would not be spreading the news about XPages and the advances in the IBM Domino server that let it integrate into so much of that precious Cloud world they mentioned. IBM knows they have a product unlike anything else and it makes them quite a bit of money on an annual basis.

This was obviously another attempt by a vendor to portray their migration apps in a better light. But really, better subterfuges must exist than this SEO heavy document of theirs. If you are facing Google as competition, you have more than enough weapons about messaging and now you have some about applications too. No doubt other fellow bloggers and IBM Champions will give their input as well.

As an executive, your role is NOT to waste shareholder value or reduce your bonus by your stock dropping which is what happens to companies in the throws of a mail migration, no matter to/from whatever. Put those millions to better usage.

R.I.P. Lotus Organizer+

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:54:00 +0000

Sad to see and hear that the end of the line, officially, is coming to Lotus Organizer, Lotus 1-2-3 and Lotus Smartsuite itself on June 11, 2013 with support ending September 30, 2014.

Organizer was so far ahead of us when it came out, easy links to guide you directions, call from a contact and straight to a web site with one link, an awesome calendar and scheduling tool, and it connected with Lotus Notes and some people still leverage it that way.

All from one UI! I can't get anything to be that useful, without coding it somehow. Can you?

Picture from http://www.os2voice.org/VNL/past_issues/VNL0102H/Organizer_Day.gif

I still use it occasionally for various reasons and every time I think, if only we had a newer version. But no matter what we want, somethings must move on. The latest version does run on Windows7, I have not tried Windows8.

I still use SmartSuite sometimes because it still handles some web sites and various document translations better than MS Office. There is also some importing issues with a certain product that still only imports 1-2-3.

Me and Lotus 1-2-3 go back to 1.0 DOS version. I wrote some great macros back then, Wall Street banks asked for some, a Broadway Theatre ran their subscription database and nightly finances on spreadsheets I wrote and numerous other bits of work through the 80's and 90's.

If all good things must come to an end, then here is a list of Easter Eggs found in the products for those that never knew about them. See more eggs from almost everything here http://www.eeggs.com/

Lotus organizer 2.0
1. Type the text "Flame" into any wordprocessor(e.g. Notepad)
2. Highlight the text and copy it to the clipboard(CTRL+C)
3. In Organizer 2.x, you will see that the clipboard icon(left of
4. Drag this picture icon to the trashcan.
5. A list of developers will replace the main Organizer book.

Word Pro (Lotus) Easter Egg - 3D World by Spelling "Possum"

1. Start WordPro
2. Go to the Help/About WordPro... Menu
3. On the yellow Lotus WordPro banner at the top, click on the P in WordPro
4. Then click on either O in WordPro
5. Then click on the S in Lotus
6. Then click on the S in Lotus again
7. Then click the U in Lotus
8. When the possum comes out and sits down, click on it's butt right next to it's tail
9. If you did it in the right spot, it will poop out an M&M.
10. Click on the M&M and a screen will pop up, use the arrow keys to move around

The Art of Troubleshooting...The Video

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Tue, 07 May 2013 19:00:00 +0000

Live from IBM Impact in Las Vegas this was recorded April 30, 2013.

If you want the slides, they are here.

Thank you to Ryan for setting the Ignite talks up and Daphne for letting me know about it.

It was fun, 20 slides that automatically roll over every 15 seconds for a 5 minute talk.

What if Darth Vader won?

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Sun, 05 May 2013 02:53:00 +0000

May the Fourth Be with You!

Ever wonder what it would be like if Darth Vader won?

Could Darth Vader have won instead of the Rebels? Could it be that a strong network of Sith Lords could control the masses through social media efforts using The Force? These may be strong words, young Padawan.

There is an amusing Twitter account I follow called @DeathStarPR that brings my point forward. What if social media was used as an insidious effort to gain the upper hand against the Rebels? What would the Star Wars universe look like decked out in only black and white?

To read more hop over here to the IBM Social Business Insights Blog.

I'm an IBM Champion Video

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Wed, 01 May 2013 20:16:00 +0000

The video from the IBM Impact keynote this morning that has all of the IBM Websphere Champions who could make it to the video shoot.

See me and my friends do a "I'm an IBMer" type commercial.

Thanks to Daphne and Justin for editing and making it all happen.

Day 2 of Impact 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Wed, 01 May 2013 16:31:00 +0000

So what did I do on Day 2 of Impact? Today was The World in Motion.

Business calls most of the morning, bad wifi upstairs, bad wifi in OGS and the exhibit hall. A frustrating problem because if you needed 30,000 IP addresses or so, what would you do?

Duh, grab a Z series! Okay not exactly but it is a problem which should have been addressed Sunday.

Which brings me to what I did Tuesday, meetings, interviews, an ignite speech and a session I did with 3 other IBM Champions and a night cap of Matchbox 20.

So the OGS had BMI, one of the music publishing and royalties companies, explaining what they do and how they leverage IBM products while dropping song snippets from numerous artists. As an ex-ASCAP person it was nice to see and hear the industry has come a long way since the paper trails I used to audit.

Westjet had a video that explained what they needed IBM for and how they accomplished so much in such a short time. Nicely done.

Today's 4 things to know are:

3.6B $ is spent on process reinvention
25% productivitry improvement due to social interactions and software
47% cloud process growth
$100B big data business

There was also a demo of what a mobile app could be doing in the near future around auto insurance and an accident of a viper.

I then ventured off to the Social Playground, great name given we are in Las Vegas, and powered up my now worn down laptop and phone. Caught up on some emails met some people, committed to do another Google+ hangout and prepared for my Ignite talk.

The Ignite talk was fun, for me, and was not supposed to be a sales thing, but others did do it that way. I think I had the best slide though (see the slides here):

Afterwards I spent the rest of the afternoon in meetings or doing interviews with the Redbooks team, GWC (Global Websphere Community), Websphere Socmed team all before heading to my session.

We had an open panel on mobile plans and services. Fellow IBM Websphere Champions Yuki Kurosawa, Andrew Paier, Ashraf Souleiman and myself were joined by Phil Kelly of IBM as the moderator. Hope no one took my "Buy Apple" as a forward looking announcement or stock tip.

We left there and headed to the BP reception which preceded the Matchbox20 concert. We had great VIP seats upfront, thanks Daphne! The band played for about an hour and a half and I now have Matchbox20 Twitter groupies following me. No doubt they are also following the other 9,000 people that tweeted tonight.

And the day ends with me finding out The Venetian does not do late checkout. Really? In Las Vegas? Oh well what can you do. Tomorrow I head home on the red eye. A day of meetings and hopefully some sessions is ahead of me.

PS - The video we shot on Sunday debuts at the OGS on Wen. morning.

My Impact Ignite Slides "The Art of Troubleshooting"

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:04:00 +0000

I gave my ignite talk today and when the video or you tube is released will post it as well.

Here are the slides from slideshare.

The Art of Troubleshooting from Keith Brooks

Opening Day...of Impact 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:38:00 +0000

Today started out like every other day, you know phone ringing at 5am and 6 and 7. Went to meet frineds for breakfast and then went over to the OGS where Champions had prime real estate. 4th row center.

Today was Business in Motion day.
Opening was a drum set and horn section that were quite good and then the star attraction a white Ford took the stage and proceeded to talk to us all.

Just kidding, the car said nothing, didn't even start, but Robert Leblanc came out along with a Ford executive to discuss why 16 million lines of code were in that rolling data center as they called the car. Video for the EVOS makes you want one. Gull wing doors and skeletal seats, it's still a concept but a great looking one.

Next generation of services and change coming for us to be a catalyst for the change.

We heard about 5 things business must embrace:

Put mobile first
Reinvent your business and design process
Adopt flexible and secure integration models
Be insightful and data driven
Build on open architectures

Then the GM for IBM Websphere Marie Wieck came out and laid out that MobileFirst, is the first point of contact for much of the underdeveloped world. They only have cell phones and in Africa they use them for everything and it is the only source of connectivity. There are over 4,000 PURE systems installed in over 90 countries.

The keynote was from Forest Whitaker who was discussing his partnerships that are aimed at bringing peace to various parts of the world through his Peace Earth Foundation. They leverage Skype for their interactions if anyone wondered.

Before closing Marie said that 71 countries are represented here at Impact in attendance and over 170 countries are watching or listening in on the internet.

After lunch I was in the Reference Lounge to give a Champion talk and we shot some more video interviews. I made it out to a session or 2 and later did a hands on Worklight class. While it was not development, luckily for me, it was how to publish apps to a Worklight service and have your own App Store. I also spent time with the Worklight and MobileFirst teams today.

Seeing more friends I know from all over at the conference. Just amazing how it works out.

Tuesday I do my Ignite talk during lunch hour at the Social Playground on The Art of Troubleshooting and then at 5:15 I and 3 other IBM Websphere Champions will be hosting a mobile panel.

My First Impact Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:00:00 +0000

As a long time Lotusphere person, I am reminded of Bruce Springsteen after he played, and won, the Academy Award in 1994 for his song the Streets of Philadelphia and said this "And thank you all for inviting me to your party."

I came out to Impact not sure what to expect. At times Websphere is my friend and at times a hard companion, but I found a great community of people here so far that rival my friends in the Lotus/ICS world.

My journey to Impact 2013 held in Las Vegas at the Venetian hotel, started at 5:00am Sunday morning. Head over to the airport and got through security just in time to board my flight that left at 7:30 am and on time I might add. We landed in Dallas on time, waited about half an hour and filled up with a few people, but most of the flight was empty. I guess everyone was staying in Dallas. We got to Las Vegas on time, my bag was the fifth one off the plane. Off I go to catch a shuttle and....my first delay. We waited almost 45 minutes for a shuttle to take us to the hotel and then it took about 30 minutes. Those of us hanging out already knew we were going the right place because Lotusphere backpacks, IBM paraphernalia was attached to each of us.

Obviously, I did not get that "I'm home" feeling, as I do when I walk into the Dolphin hotel in Orlando. My bewilderment at where things are and how to get there reminds me just how hard Connect must be for someone new to the conference. The Venetian is a beautiful hotel and all I can say is WOW! The Dolphin and Swan rooms have nothing next to the Venetian hotel! Vegas really knows how to take care of people. Once you get your bearings, you should be fine.

By the time I got registered and charged some devices, I missed lunch and most of BP day. Picked up my badge, business partners have blue pouches, and my Champion ribbon. Off I went to find where we were making a commercial shoot with the other 34 IBM Websphere Champions coming to the conference. What seems like a simple thing, repeat your line 3-4 times, turns into a lesson in elocution and stage voices. I think the Redbook video I did over the summer was easier, because it was less formal. Either way, I look forward to seeing how we all come out and hope you enjoy the videos too at some point once we can post them.

After the shoot, I went to listen to a session on leveraging IBM Worklight for your mobile needs. More on Worklight over the week. We have a break, when I went to call home and then down to the conference floor for the BP reception and first look at the exhibition hall. From the diagram it looks huge and it is. Inside the hall is "The Social Playground", in the back, where I will spend some time doing smaller talks and answering questions about being a Champion. I ran into a few old friends, met some new ones and joined the GWC, the Global Websphere Community, The GWC had a remote control car field setup and a race car sitting by their area.

I am amazed at how many people there are here and the number of tracks and sessions. I thought Connect was over filled, this makes that look like kids play. There are over 40 sessions running concurrently at some points! It would take weeks to catch up to every session you missed. My guess is they can't really do this as a 2 week conference, but seriously, how do people get anything out of this when they are so overwhelmed with options. And great options usually too!

Looking forward to Monday, Forest Whitaker, a great actor and film maker, is the guest, THEY TELL PEOPLE in advance at IMPACT who is the speaker. Lotusphere and Connect we have had to wait to see who we run into in the Dolphin Rotunda due to the secrecy. Which actually to me is better due to the various betting and anticipation that we all work on up to the moment they take the stage.

Look for more tweets, posts and details over the next few days but I can feel the love of other Champions. Off I go to find the general populace and where they hang out instead of ESPN, Kimono's or the Dolphin bar.

PS - There is a contest on for everyone to take a picture with an IBM Champion and post them with a #ibmchamp if you want to find me, follow me on Twitter and 4Square as @lotusevangelist.

Blogging Time: Why it Matters

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:19:00 +0000

My latest post over at the Social Business Insights Blog has been published.

What is it that makes people read one of my blog posts? I write two primary blogs and guest write on at least three others, but then people say to me, “You have way too much time on your hands”—presumably because they feel I am just sitting here writing these blog posts for eight hours a day.

Sorry to disappoint you all but I only spend seven hours a day writing them. Kidding, just kidding. For more read it there

Going to Impact2013? Here's My Schedule

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:46:00 +0000

This will be my first time attending Impact2013 and I look forward to finding out all the great things that I have taken for granted at Lotusphere and Connect over the years and now see how it all translates to my Impact2013 experience.

There is so many sessions, but there are also so many more pieces of the puzzle at this conference. I think the app showed over 900 sessions. This page will get edited up until Sunday evening with any updates.

I will most likely be in the Social Playground off an on. I have some video interviews to shoot and a round table or 2.

SUNDAY
Business Partner Day and I get in around lunchtime. IBM Champions have ribbons on their badges so make sure to stop by and say hi to us all. We want to met you as much as you want to meet us.

MONDAY
Champions’ Corner: Stop by the Client Reference lounge for the rest of the schedule.
My Time is Monday 1:00-1:30PM Like to Discuss Competitive Situations, but open to other topics

TUESDAY
Ignite presentation, The Art of troubleshooting, Lunch time on Tuesday at the Social Playground 12-1pm
My formal session, and Impact’s first All-Champion Panel is on Tuesday:

TMU-3299 Panel Discussion: Driving Mobile Innovations with IBM Business Partners

5:15-6:15 PM Venetian, Delfino 4003

Speakers: Keith Brooks, Yuki Kurosawa, Andrew Paier, Ashraf Souleiman

WEDNESDAY

Nothing formal yet, more sessions for me and then a late night red eye back to Florida.

Easiest way to find me at the conference is through Twitter, DM me so I get notified or follow me on 4Square, both use @lotusevangelist.

Google Hangout CRM Discussion Recording

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 15:21:00 +0000

The IBM Midmarket Hangout I did recently around SugarCRM, and CRM in general, highlighted not just details from SugarCRM and Sugarcon, but also customer adoption and marketing automation discussions.

The Google+ Hangout was recorded and here it is.

IBM Midmarket CRM Google+ Hangout Wen 1-1:30pm EST

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 17:48:00 +0000

I will be on a panel which is bringing together a group of CRM thought leaders to discuss the industry and how social media contributes to the success of your business.

Wen, April 16th at 1pm EST on Google+, go there now and get connected properly before the Hangout starts, https://plus.google.com/100114568100087952904/posts

Panelists, their linkedin profiles and blogs.
Paul Gillin (Moderator) of Profitecture
Lori Richardson and blog of Score More Sales
Paul Foucher and blog of SugarCRM

Steve Lokam and blog of OpenLogix

Keith Brooks and blog of VoiceRite

Some topics will include, but
SugarCon 2013: News and any interesting trends or themes?
Is there an industry in particular that we see a growing demand for CRM?
How do we use social media to keep up with what’s happening in the CRM industry?

Please tweet me or leave messages at the Google+ hangout location for more topics.

Analytics and Crickets

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:40:00 +0000

While hanging out at #Sugarcon this week with good friend Stuart Mcintyre we were struck by what we saw as a lack of socialness (made that word up) from the attendees. Granted this is in contrast to the obscenely over the top socialness of my fellow IBM friends which can be zealous in their path to be social.

SugarCRM itself is fairly active as are Larry Augustin CEO and Clint Oram CTO on Twitter. Keeping in mind we can only really see the tweets or posts if #sugarcon was in the tag or discussion. So where is everyone?

In this graphic on the left, courtesy of NextPrinciples, which by the way you can click on and move any of the links and connections, a very nice benefit, you can see who had tweets retweeted or was the primary creator of the original tweets. You can see about 30+ accounts were pretty active although over 700 tweeted something, see Engagement below. If I presume about 1,200 people attended then about 2-3% are active socially. And since I know many of the names, they are business partners. Begging the question, where is the audience? Where are the customers? The lines to the small balls in the graphic are more customers but still the audience was not heavily active. Even at the voting for the AppTakeDown winner it was about 25% that voted. See graphic on the right.

How do we engage people better? Are we happy with this little or this much engagement?

Let's look at this information, again from NextPriniciples. Keep in mind these are just for the few days of the show and do not imply anything other than what went on at the show. In some cases SugarCRM people themselves or their accounts were excluded in these graphics.

Sugar7 is announced, but no you tube videos for it? Lost opportunity. Customers like videos, social media people love graphics. perhaps they were posted, but just not included in the analytics.

This is hopefully untrue, but only 10 blog posts? I wrote 2 and Stuart 1, but surely there were more. maybe my friends at NextPrinciples can help with this. A lack of primary bloggers may be hurting. then again, if we look at a week long view, will we see better details?

The last graphic is probably not as helpful because I do not believe @sugarcon is an account on twitter so it is not surprising that there was no growth in followers.

Large numbers of followers, attendees that are social, bloggers and more all help to provide proper analytics but I was surprised at the details for the conference. If you can't get people excited enough at your annual show, I wonder what the analytics look like during the year.

Now look at this graphic that shows the top 20 7 Hashtags:

IBM was a Diamond sponsor, no doubt this helped raise the Hashtag, but also many people expressed there impression that IBM was not the older IBM. Nice to see IBM getting that traction and awareness.

We were probably too small to get #sugarcon to trend on Twitter, but then I don't think the keynotes were livestreamed for those that could not attend which could have helped grow more awareness.

I'd like to see more reach out to the world by SugarCRM. Their product is great, they have a great executive team, they are priced appropriately. How will they reach the goals that Larry Augustin mentioned at the opening keynote? Without leveraging their social customers they are missing a great opportunity to enhance the brand and value of the product.

Sugarcon Day 2

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 13:27:00 +0000

The second day of #sugarcon opened up with Terry Jones (slides are at the link under downloads) of Kayak, Travelocity fame reminding us all that just because we mean well, doesn't always mean we get it right. Sending out emails with wrong subjects, sending an email that has no one to reply to and more derivatives of marketing aloofness.

The afternoon sessions, 7 at a time in parallel, spanned many topics and from discussions many felt the 2nd day sessions were what they came for as they felt the 1st day were more sales pitches from vendors or marketing. Personally I was very happy in the discussion on Hillel houses using SugarCRM and the preview of Sugar7 (#Sugar7). The latter session really should have been in the ball room given how stuffed in the room, doorway and hall it was for people.

Back to the 2nd day. My demonstrations at the IBM booth went well of the VoiceRite integration with SugarCRM and IBM Connections. There were numerous exhibitors and they could be found across 3 different rooms. In a separate post I will cover some of the vendors.

My session in the afternoon was up against some strong competition but the feedback from the attendees was well worth it and I am happy to hear I hit on a key issue for many of them.

The afternoon had the Application Throwdown looking for some new and better toys for us to use found Callinize was very impressive but ProcessMaker won the event.

At the end of the event, it was announced that Stuart Mcintyre had won an iPad Mini for his tweeting efforts. Not very shocking to those that know him. For the record, I came in 4th. But analytics is another story. You can see some excellent analytics, for a few days, over here from the NextPrinciples team. If you do CRm, marketing, social media you should look at their analytics. You could be doing the same, ask me how.

Congratulations to all the winners of the various giveaways and the Faye Business group for the Patron.

Next year Sugarcon moves back to San Francisco April 27-May1, 2014 hope to get invited back to do a 3rd edition of The Boss is Anti-Social. Thank you to SugarCRM for another great show and IBM for letting me present at their booth.

Business Anti-Social: The Sugarcon 2013 Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 20:52:00 +0000

For those interested in my Sugarcon 2013 slides, subtitled, Business Anti-Social: The Boss Needs SugarCRM, Give it To Them! It is on SlideShare at this location:

Business Anti-Social: The Boss Needs SugarCRM, Give it To Them! Presented by Keith Brooks

Thank you everyone who came, shared their ideas and comments or questions.

Don't forget the Spottify list of CEO Billboard Hits!

SugarCon 2013 Day 1 - Synopsis

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Sugarcon 2013 opens with some strong riffs. Guitar riffs that is, care of the SugarCRM band, playing in the same ballroom as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame plays their introduction ceremonies here at the Waldorf Astoria in New York.

Unfortunately one can not go to the basement, they have 3, where the Presidential train and "secret" railway station lies. Read more here.

Larry, Clint, Lila rock the house with Sugar7 details around social and collaboration efforts, mobile client improvements, inline editing and more. The theme for this year is:

Every Customer, Every User, Every Time

The belief is there is an under served population of workers who should be using CRM and SugarCRM wants to grab that market. This led to a keynote that was one of the best I have heard in recent months.

Paul Greenberg, His book, CRM at the Speed of Light: Social CRM Strategy, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers, is in its fourth edition and been called “the bible of the CRM industry”, gave an excellent keynote which left many of us in the audience wishing he could continue through lunch and afterwards. When I caught up with him at the evening event he said he would have spent lunch with us if we asked. One opportunity lost, but I had a great discussion with him and look forward to getting the slides from his session.

Paul reminded us that it is just as much about what customers want from us, as what we want from them. I could spend paragraphs on his session.

Back to SugarCon. IBM is a Diamond sponsor and has a mini theater at their stand where I have been doing a mini session on how VoiceRite integrates SugarCRM and IBM Connections.

The vendors here are very into social, marketing automation and analytics. It is all about CRM after all. For the estimated, by me, 1,200 attendees, there should be enough for everyone to find something they are missing.

Sessions in the afternoon, an average of 5 sessions running at the same time, were all well attended and provided best practices, experiences, coding examples and beyond.

The evening event was held on a rooftop bar in NYC and luckily it was a beautiful night, no clouds and reasonable temperatures prevailed. We had an excellent view of the Empire State Building and the skyline from north to south.

Looking forward to today's sessions and my own session at 3:40 in the Morgan room.

iNotes Redirector in Domino 9 Cool Detail

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:07:00 +0000

There is a new version on the server. Time to replace the design and upgrade it.

You can find the file by name, iwaredir.ntf, which is called IBM iNotes Redirect.

I had to enable the show in advanced template list for the template for it to come up.

The first thing I got when replacing the template was this awesome language window!

Very cool, this did not come up when I replaced any other templates yet, so I will presume it is special to this db, but not unique I am sure as the only time. You can set the default here or in the properties box for the db afterwards.

I wonder if it reads your OS version and defines the language as my tests it only showed up in English. Or does it read the OS language default? I changed browser language and defaults and it didn't pick it up.
Anyone know?

Usual click, ok, let it do it's thing.

Test it all out and go on your way.

30 Minutes to Upgrade to IBM Notes & Domino 9

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 15:02:00 +0000

This morning, like so many others, I downloaded a few GB of code so we could install and upgrade our server and clients to IBM Notes and Domino 9.

Along the way, also had to grab Traveler, Swiftfile 4.2 (Oh I missed you during beta!), Install SHield tuner (No changes in it, but always like to have it), readme file, MAC client, 2 different Linux clients, Multiple server codes and the OpenSocial Extensions piece too.

This is a P4 with 2GB RAM and handles a bunch of websites, blog links, internal Sametime, Traveler plus multiple directories and at one time also Quickr, since moved to a different server.

First thing you realize is Notes is much faster than it appeared previously. Every version gets that much better.

Love the multiple color schemes for calendars and as posted previously, enjoy having secondary languages in my contacts list.

Speaking of contacts there is now a duplication option. Under the More toolbar option when you have Contacts open is a "Remove Duplicates" option.

and then shows this window, because you may be worried...

For you to safely maintain the duplicates, just in case, because you know, you don't trust these computers anyway.

For those that want newest mails on top, or on bottom, that preference setting is found in the Preferences-Mail-last option at the bottom of the page, you may need to scroll down to see it. Looks like this:

Domino side there is a warning to Upgrade your Directory, you have been warned. So if you do not say Yes or No, you will be waiting a while.

So many new things to look at and watch. I like the checks it ran against Domino during install. Nice little warnings I saw too, pays to watch your console, doesn't it?

03/21/2013 10:21:52 AM Lotus Traveler: WARNING *system Status change from Green
to Yellow: Disk space for C:\Lotus\Domino\data has 5 percent free.

iNotes Init: Credential Store Configuration not enabled, less secure mode.

03/21/2013 10:26:36 AM HTTP JVM: 14797 [Traveler-InitConfig-a24] WARN - Notes
Traveler server will use 1.2.3.4 which may not be the correct address for
your environment.
03/21/2013 10:26:36 AM HTTP JVM: 14813 [Traveler-InitConfig-a24] WARN - Please
configure NTS_HOST_IP_ADDR in notes.ini to specify the correct host address to
use.

Notes Browser Plugin works only with Windows (I believe) and is installed when you install the Notes client. Try it by typing notes:home in the browser. (NOTE: Notes client should NOT be running. also you will need to logout or close the browser to start notes again)
You get prompted for a login/password and poof, just like you would be in a notes client. EVEN YOUR WORKSPACE!

My home page links are there, click right to everything and within a browser, who needs a Notes client now? No doubt more will be written on this benefit from any angles.

I have not configured the Open Social Components yet, sorry, those too will be forthcoming in a post.

Some simple and great things to see, play with and that upgrading is not as bad as people say it is. Just remember to test it all first, before you do anything to break your environment and it's special needs.

Don't Game your Employees

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 12:48:00 +0000

I want to talk about a 12-letter word that really drives me crazy. It’s the buzzword of the year: Gamification. Gamification was coined by Nick Pelling in 2002, according to Wikipedia. What does this word mean, and is it really the way of the future? Or has it jumped the shark?

Gamification, as defined by Wikipedia as "Gamification is the use of game-thinking and game mechanics in a non-game context in order to engage users and solve problems. Gamification is used in applications and processes to improve user engagement, ROI, data quality, timeliness, and learning."

How exactly does Gamification improve engagements? Sales teams have always used a form of Gamification—they call it sales incentives, but let’s not be nitpicky. Yes, sales incentives are a nice goal or target, but money, vacations, cars? At a certain point the incentive desire runs out. Staying employed however never goes out of style.

Picture yourself working for a large company that has offices around the world. You love your job and your company (stop laughing), and yet you find yourself going through the motions of your day-to-day work. You do your job well, and customers love you, and your blog is top notch. What does the company offer you to keep you interested? Maybe they promote you but there is no game in that (well, there is, but let’s not talk about politics).

What would you suggest they do to keep you engaged? And what if your company has 10,000 or 100,000 people in it? Do you think HR can keep up with the individual Gamification-type incentives for each person? Some companies have found a way to reward everyone along the way, but blanket “gifts” are not the same as ones deserved by individuals. But this is the crux: what if you don’t care? Gamification doesn’t necessarily succeed in improving this user's engagement.

Gamification: the way of the future?
I am not so sure that Gamification really works in other areas either. Martin Keen from the great IBM Redbooks organization recently wrote on this blog how his view of Gamification can make you do almost anything, but I take the opposite view.

My view is shared by Jane McGonigal, who recently spoke at the IBM Connect 2013 event in Orlando. McGonigal, according to Wikipedia, “has distanced her work from the label Gamification, listing rewards outside of gameplay as the central idea of Gamification and distinguishing game applications where the gameplay itself is the reward under the term ‘gameful design.’”

Playing a game, and doing so until you beat it, may make you feel great. We all do this at some point, but then what if we do not? It took my son three years to beat my high score on our pinball machine, but do I now have a need to beat his score? Not really, because maybe I am not that competitive. This is my point: Gamification may not work in the ways expected because your staff or your customers may not care about your Gamification. They may care only if there is a truly valuable prize at the end. PS - my son asks me daily when will I play again and beat his score.

Can Gamification work for someone who is not interested in winning or lacks a competitive drive? Klout tries to encourage people to be more active in social media. Their system is in my opinion not valid, let alone even based on a practical algorithm, because it measures your social ability. What if you just use LinkedIn, for instance, as much as others use Twitter or Facebook? You lose, or have a low Klout score, so there are no perks for you. What if you take vacation for two weeks and do not login anywhere or anytime?

In business, I believe feedback is actually more important than Gamification in providing incentive for workers. Unlike say a sporting game, in the workplace you usually don’t have the option to do a task over or try again. If I win or lose it makes no difference in the grand scheme of the company or my bonus. While I enjoy some competitive situations, what I like to see from a company is better training and development of employees. Useful feedback trumps Gamification for me.

What if I am a Type A personality for only a few items in life instead of everything? Are you trying to use Ggamification to change habits or get check boxes ticked off on your goals for 2013? I made everyone write a blog post, do a youtube video and open a Linkedin account, there we got social. Check.
Gamification to develop skills

I don’t think gamification works well for skill development either. You can pay for training, set up an online learning system and watch everyone’s progress to completion. Hopefully the employees actually watch it and don’t just answer the questions at the end because they were written for easy passing. Certification tests can be cruel or they can be easy—but in either case what you get at the end if you pass is usually a digital certificate to print. Or, maybe a bonus if your company does that type of reward for the effort. What should you get? I don’t know, but something more rewarding than that. (We should put this one up for crowdsourcing, I bet we could get some great ideas. If you think crowdsourcing works, this is possibly another blog post topic someday.)

Since most people are sheep and follow their leaders or do what they are told, we can’t fault the companies for trying to impose Gamification to incentivize them. However, for those of us who are on the fringe and are more vociferous and less easy to manage, we may need a stronger level of Gamification. Reining us in will cut against the grain, but letting us run amok may not work either. But as long as we are producing, bringing in more sales or views to our blog posts, the only game in town is our jobs, I guess.

Want to use gamification with better design to enhance your applications? Brian Burke, research vice president at Gartner, predicts that by 2014, 80 per cent of current gamified applications will fail to meet business objectives primarily because of poor design:

“The challenge facing project managers and sponsors responsible for gamification initiatives is the lack of game design talent to apply to gamification projects. Poor game design is one of the key failings of many gamified applications today.”

And I agree wholeheartedly. If you run a sales game, are the only people that can win in sales? What about your customer support reps who keep those customers happy? What do you do to help them? A virtual badge? I don’t think so. Plan your games corporate wide, but be realistic, so anyone can win and be a part of it.

I do what I do because I enjoy it; no Gamification comes into play or likely would if I was exposed to it. If you need to incentivize me, the Gamification reward should include a free trip to IBM Connect in Orlando in January. For that I would be game to play.

SugarCon is Coming to NY and I am Speaking Again

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:43:00 +0000

Hard to believe it has been a year since Sugarcon 2012 but here we are and this time we are going to be in Manhattan. Yes, New York City at the Waldorf Astoria.

You can find more information about the event, including the agenda, here.

IBM are the big Diamond sponsors, which means I did not have to do my pitch on IBM integration with SugarCRM like I did last year.

I will be speaking on Wen. the 10th at 3:40-4:15pm slot under Customer Engagement Strategy.

This year's session is an update from last year's successful session,
Business Anti-Social: Why the Boss Doesn't Get It

This year is:

Business Anti-Social: The Boss Needs SugarCRM, Give it To Them!

After the huge success you had following last year's session, your executive now uses SugarCRM right? Probably not all of you won that battle, ready for this year's? You need to be doing more, faster. Did you get messages out before and after the storms hit? What does this have to do with CRM? Everything! You need to help your CEO look good to the outside world, not just help the sales teams with business development. What other ways can you help your company look better to the outside world? Come listen as we revisit the mind of the executive and provide a few options to keep them even happier with your efforts. Leave the session with a new song list and a better understanding of how to help your executives, and yourselves, but most importantly your customers.

See you in New York. If you are coming, let me know, and if you are in town and want to meet up let me know as well.

IBM Connections Videos for User Adoption

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 14:34:00 +0000

Saw this and wanted to make sure others know about it.

These are videos from IBM that outline each part of IBM Connections. If you are looking into Connections or trying to explain it for people this may help outline the functionality found in each section.

These have been useful for people just getting to use the product understand all the ways they can utilize the options.

Activities - http://ibmtvdemo.edgesuite.net/software/lotus/uxid/connections/activities40/activities_demo.html
Activities allow you to organize your team's work around project tasks. Creating an activity is a useful way to share information and resources, assign and track to-do items, post team information, and organize meetings. You can add new members to an activity at any time, allowing you to quickly pull together the resources you need for a project.

Blogs - http://ibmtvdemo.edgesuite.net/software/lotus/uxid/connections/blogs40/blogs_demo.html
Blogs are online journals that you can use to share information with the rest of your organization. A blog is a great way to communicate your latest news and views in an efficient, dynamic style. By posting regular entries on a specific subject or theme, you can make sure people are kept up-to-date with the latest developments in a particular area.

Bookmarks - http://ibmtvdemo.edgesuite.net/software/lotus/uxid/connections/bookmarks40/bookmarks_demo.html
Use Bookmarks to store and retrieve bookmarked Web links from a central space. You can share some or all of your bookmarks. You can also see other people's bookmark collections, giving you the means to connect with people who have similar interests or the expertise you need.

Communities - http://ibmtvdemo.edgesuite.net/software/lotus/uxid/connections/communities40/communities_demo.html
A community is a group of people who share a common interest. Communities provide an excellent way to connect members of a team and help them to stay in touch and share information. Communities can be public or restricted, allowing community owners to control who can join the community and access community content.

Files - http://ibmtvdemo.edgesuite.net/software/lotus/uxid/connections/files40/files_demo.html
Files offer a convenient way to upload and store files in a central repository. You can share uploaded files with selected people, giving you the means to collaborate on content without having to send large files through email. You can also like and comment on files, organize files using folders, and track different versions of files.

Forums - http://ibmtvdemo.edgesuite.net/software/lotus/uxid/connections/forums40/forums_demo.html
A forum is an online discussion board with a focus on a particular topic or theme. You can participate in a forum by posting questions or responding to existing discussion threads. Want to find the solution to a problem that's been blocking you? Forums are a great way to brainstorm ideas, gather feedback, and leverage the expertise of others.

Profiles - http://ibmtvdemo.edgesuite.net/software/lotus/uxid/connections/profiles40/profiles_demo.html
Profiles is a directory of the people in your organization that allows you to find and connect with the right people fast. You can search for people based on their contact information, background, or expertise. Let people know who you are by filling out your own profile. Build up your own set of contacts by adding people to your network.

Wikis - http://ibmtvdemo.edgesuite.net/software/lotus/uxid/connections/wikis40/wikis_demo.html
A wiki is a collection of web pages about a particular topic. Wikis are a great way to share information centrally and encourage collaboration within your project team. Wiki members can add their own pages, and edit and comment on existing pages, thereby ensuring that information is always kept up-to-date.

Can you Social Business Opera?

noreply@blogger.com (Keith Brooks) — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:17:00 +0000

Wen night I was one of the lucky ones, for a second time, to live tweet a dress rehearsal of the Palm Beach Opera's latest show, this time it was La Cenerentola. For some of you, it is Cinderella. And NOT the Disney version. A common mistake, no thanks to Disney. Opera rocks! Well, Tommy does, but still it is something impressive to hear a hall full of the singers voices with no microphones or amplification.

Pictures here for those interested.

The live tweeting of the opera is a genius move by the PBO. With a cross section of Tweeters that have various sizes of followers, we had TV personalities, magazine editors, writers, social media people, store managers, owners of their own businesses, men, women, older, younger to see if there was a thread and correlation to produce some help for the opera.

I think they could gain more benefit by having us tweet about the show a little earlier than the night or two before opening but I also understand how hard it is to get everything right and practiced in time.

So I went to the opera last night, tweeted all about it, but we had few retweets, so was it our tweeting? The opera itself? Me or us? The timing, 7:30-10:30pm? The night before Valentine's day? These questions are at the heart of every marketer and social media effort. Last time we had many more followers, possibly due to the leads. When I worked on Broadway it was similar problem. the title of the show helps but a known star or lead is really what brings people in, whether the show was good or not, they want to see the star. No doubt this is a similar situation for the opera. I wonder if IBM would let me borrow Watson to do some analytics to help the PBO?

So we were up against TV. Big deal. On the other hand, I don't expect everyone to be staring at their phones or monitors all night either. But this is the question, not just for opera but any business that works on a live or spur of the moment effort. What is the best way to get people to see, hear you?

Has America lost it's ability to respect the arts and music? Is it this generation which was limited in it's music classes or rather better promoted sports efforts because one can be a winner instead of a singer, dancer or artist? It is the arts which provide encouragement to many and also inspire greatness from others.

This show still has tickets, unlike the last one, La Traviata, which sold out. if you want to go and are in town, link was posted above. No doubt they have a sizable subscriber group and patrons, but in many cases they are older and as the curtain falls on their lives, few are behind them to fill int he gaps.

If you have some ideas about how to bring opera to the masses or at least how to help spread the word, let Amanda Kahan know or leave me some comments.