I watched the OGS yesterday. First: For some reason we were not allowed to see a live stream of some guy named Seth Meyers. I had to google him, to find out that he is some actor and does something with Saturday Night Life. I don’t think that IBM has something to do with this. Probably Mr. Meyers legal department came up with that idea right before the start of Connect and IBM had no choice to accept. IBM certainly knows, that this is quite an affront towards those not able to attend in person. If William Shatner or Michael J. Fox accept a live stream, why not some rather unknown guy like Seth Meyers? We will never know why, but if Stuart McIntyre says that he is funny, but not brilliant, that’s good enough for me. For all those blocked out, we haven’t missed a lot.
What came next? Cloud, Analytics … and so on. Collaboration for success … pioneering … tools and best practices … ROI … change the way you work … same procedure as every year. I just checked if I am not listening to last years Connect, but no, that’s 2014 alright.
Sika is telling what they did. I wrote about that last year at the Snoug event LSCTY.
That guy was funnier last time and much more interesting. Probably nervous.
Pepsico’s Fern Johnson and a Pepsico add … curious, I don’t use any of their products.
Madam, you are talking way too fast and you read too much from the teleprompter, but IBM is certainly happy to have Pepsi there. Pretty cool implementation anyway. But has anybody an idea what they are using? SharePoint? But now I skip the customer experiences … it’s always the same and you can watch that by yourself.
Let’s look at the demos. I again agree with Stuart. Greenwell Bank must have a huge IT department. Many, many developers. That is probably not the impression they wanted to make.
Actually … I didn’t see any demos. If the room there was full of developers, half of them would be sleeping by now. It’s all about what you can do, but now how! Once in a while a product name comes up. Are customers happy to see that? I am not sure about that. Isn’t it about showing IBM’s products? I can only assume, that they use IBM stuff, but I didn’t see anything that explained the how and why? Did I just nod off?
Mail Next, browser-based and offline capable. Oh yessss. Looks like I wasn’t far off last week. An easier way of building apps, too? Getting even closer. Notes Client gone? Dunno, but I for the matter look forward to Mail Next. Count me in on the beta.
I also watched the session about Notes and Mail Next. Now I think Scott and Kramer should take the stage at the OGS. They made a very good interactive session. If they used the teleprompters, I did not feel it. The way they present, you actually believe it. Passion shows. If the two of them show up in the yellow bubble a bit more and pamper us partners, I am pretty sure the Ed’s shoes are not as big as they might think. A lot of the negative feelings among partners – I mean outside those exclusive circles that get invited to sign NDA’s – come from the lack of interaction.
On the other hand, I am still confused. There will be a Notes Next Client? Or not? Right now I am not even sure if IBM knows it.
It would be a good idea to register Kramers blog on PlanetLotus … and please open the comments. We want to tell you, when you are wrong, but also when you are right. Don’t be afraid, we normally do not bite too hard. Ed’s blood losses were acceptable and he was thinner then.
Now to wrap it up (as they say at the end), the OGS was boring. Frankly, I prefer somebody who can speak freely, if necessary just with a few cards in his/her hands. They all walk back and forth like tigers in a cage, and you just see, that they read from the teleprompter. Just once for heaven’s sake, watch a key note from Apple. That’s how it is done. Yes, it takes more time, yes, you have to rehearse it several times, but it is YOUR SHOW OF THE YEAR. Act like it is as important to you as it is for the audience. They come from all over the world to see you and hear news. They are passionate. Give them the show they deserve.
And way too many customer success stories. And for the Greenlife show, if you are not an actor, don’t act like one. It does not work. It does not look professional. You do not need to pretend somebody of an imaginary company. We all know you guys. We want to see YOU and not see you acting. Spare that for the Karaokee night. Whoever had that idea should be transferred to Nome for a winter season of penguin counting.
Now let’s see what the rest of the week brings.
Hi Christian,
Interesting and good summary. I have not been to a Lotusphere for many years, as you can tell by what I call it.
Yes the OGS was as boring as hell, I remember the days when there were 12,000 of us there. Not less than 5,000 as now. People like Lou Gerstner got a standing ovation. Notes products had lots of new and exciting things.
IBM appears to be removing all traces of fun from Lotus life and making sure everything is plain vanilla. Sametime is Sametime its a brilliant name and tells you exactly what the product does, IBM Connect Chat and ….., yes tells you what it does but are you going to say to some one oh lets IBM Connect and chat. I wish IBM would stop messing with names, they must spend so much money thing of boaring corporate name, that money would be better spent marketing Notes. Connections is all well and good. But for small companies its way to big and requires too many resources and therefore too expensive. Notes/Domino is a brilliant product for a small business (less than a 1,000 users), does not nee full time staff etc.
Strange that there were no live demos never seen that before the whole point of the conference is that it allows you to SEE whats coming.
Keep up the good work.
Nick