Notes on Productivity

Hey Gmail, Lotus Notes did it first

Ryan Heathers — Thu, 2 Sep 2010 16:00:00 -0700

Guest post by Ryan Heathers. You can follow Ryan on Twitter.

I’ve been reading the many articles on the new Gmail Priority Inbox with great interest. People are praising this “innovative” Gmail feature all over the place. And it is pretty cool. But as Alan Lepofsky pointed out, Lotus Notes has had similar inbox categorization features for over a decade. But apparently, few people know that. Or maybe, few people care…

The Lotus Notes categorized inbox provides many of the features that everyone is raving about in Gmail’s release. In Notes, your inbox can sort emails according to high priority marks, calendar invites, and the unwashed masses of regular emails. It’s helpful. If you’re a person who receives critical calendar invites interspersed with stacks of regular emails, it can be a life-saving feature.

Source: TechCrunch

The one feature that the Gmail Priority Inbox provides that’s unique is the learning algorithm that trains itself to know what emails are most important to you. But I can see the value of this feature swinging all over the place. The jury is still out on whether Gmail can accurately predict what's important to me.

Using the Lotus Notes categorized inbox, the only emails in the Important category are one’s that people have sent to you with a high importance mark. So you know that email is there because someone else felt it was important for you to see it. (As a side note, I know people who really dislike how high importance marks let the sender dictate your email processing prioritization. I don’t have a problem with it.)

But with Gmail, what’s considered “Important” is a little more mysterious. There are lots of factors such as who the sender is, the frequency that you open emails from this person, what keywords are in the emails you open the most, and more. You can also click buttons to help train the Gmail importance algorithm.

So I think the value of this feature depends entirely on how accurate it will become over time. If you can trust it to display ALL "important" emails, great. Otherwise, you won’t trust it and you’ll still have to look through your other emails. In that case, it wouldn’t offer anything over what Lotus Notes currently offers.

A GTD Perspective
I also come at this story with a GTD perspective. GTD espouses the principle of making decisions about your email on the front-end. It’s most efficient to process each email once and move it out of our inbox onto its final home in the trash bin, your task list, or a storage location if it’s reference. Reading an email and then leaving it in the inbox is highly inefficient, because then you have to reprocess it each time you look at your inbox.

To use an analogy that I’ve heard along the way and really connect with: “Your email inbox is a highway. It’s not a rest stop”.

Now David Allen, the creator of GTD, wrote a short article addressing if Gmail’s new Priority Inbox was “anti-GTD”:

Having email sorting/filtering would be anti-GTD if you use it to avoid decision-making, but not if it’s just for evaluating what kind of attention to put on something. Using colors for certain people’s emails in Lotus Notes (as I do) would also be “anti-GTD” if you never dealt with the non-colored ones. We’re not officially endorsing or recommending this. Just saying it’s something that you can make work. – David Allen

I understand what David’s saying. It can be great to have a tool to help you direct focus on what’s most important, first. But it’s really easy to let your use of that tool morph into only addressing what’s “important” and leaving the rest to languish.

Maybe you don’t consider those unwashed masses of emails to be important, but consider the productive – and stress-relieving – benefits of having an empty inbox. It’s huge.

The human tendency to morph a tool like this from “help me focus” to “help me avoid all that stuff” is why I don’t think the Gmail Priority Inbox will be the email panacea that people seem to think it is. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s helpful just the same that I think the Lotus Notes categorized inbox is helpful. It’s just a feature that needs to be used with eyes wide-open.

How to implement a Categorized Inbox in Lotus Notes
The first step to implementing a categorized inbox in Lotus Notes requires that the 'Pick Inbox Style' agent that Lotus provides be revealed so that users can select their preferred inbox style. This is quick and easy to do, but unfortunately IT has to get involved if it’s not yet implemented for your company. So that’s a drawback. Lotus provides a single categorized inbox folder design, however, it's possible to add additional designs to the list of options.

At eProductivity where I work, I use the eProductivity for Lotus Notes application rather than a regular Lotus Notes mail template. That's because eProductivity allows me to process my email quickly and effectively.

We’ve made the categorized inbox available inside of eProductivity and we’ve built upon it to offer a number of additional styles. It’s been a popular feature.

Whichever way you choose to go, just know that Lotus Notes provides powerful tools for managing your email.

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

Subscribe to the new "Getting Things Done with Lotus Notes" Podcast

Eric Mack — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:30:00 -0700

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

Time to upgrade server to Domino 8.52: 10 min. Peace of mind: priceless.

Eric Mack — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:16:55 -0700

Seriously, there aren't many production database server applications that you can do a full in-place upgrade on in 10 minutes or less.

Well done, team Lotus.

This should be SHOUTED FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOPS which is exactly what I am doing, since I live near the top of a mountain.
[Originally posted on the Notes on Productivity web site. (http://www.NotesOnProductivity.com)]

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

Does your employer allow you to use productivity Apps on your Blackberry, iPhone or Android?

Eric Mack — Sat, 7 Aug 2010 12:42:20 -0700

With the recent discussions about Apps and how consumers want the freedom to find, evaluate, and purchase Apps for their Smartphones, I wonder how many users are able download and use a productivity application and how many have policies that prevent them from doing so.

If you found a productivity application for your mobile device that was proven to increase your performance, would you: a) be allowed to install it? b) encounter resistance (or refusal) from IT to allow you to install it? c) make a business case to management for why this App should be allowed?

Please take a moment and vote in one of the two quick polls below, then scroll down to share your comments.

Poll Creator Progreat free widgetsWidgetboxMore info

I'm not asking whether you think Smartphones connected to enterprise systems should be locked down or not - there are many valid arguments for both sides of that discussion. What I most want to know is what the current climate is like when it comes to productivity applications on mobile devices and what organizations are doing to encourage/permit or discourage/restrict users from downloading and using productivity applications on their mobile devices.

Update: I split the question into two separate polls because otherwise the results could be skewed in favor of the iPhone/Android as these devices are often unmanaged/uncontrolled in the enterprise.

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

It’s all about the APPS baby....

Eric Mack — Tue, 3 Aug 2010 15:48:26 -0700

This weekend, I was reading the comments in a discussion thread on Engadget about RIM's BlackBerry offering. Many commenters were quick to showcase their stupidity and inability to spell while blasting every aspect of the BlackBerry in order to show how much they hated RIM and how badly they wanted an iPhone or Android.

Since I'm working on productivity solutions for all three, I was trying to read between the lines of the comments to see if there were any valid arguments that I could learn from. Among the large volume of useless drivel attempting to pass for comments, one commenter had this to say:

His concise statement summed up much of what many in the discussion thread were trying to communicate.

Do you agree? Is it all about the Apps?

If so, what are the implications for Lotus Notes in light of recent discussions around an App Catalog or an App store for Lotus Notes?

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

A new record: 20,626,644 Notes Databases Replicated

Eric Mack — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 18:59:31 -0700

That's strange. I don't even have one million databases on my laptop!

If I replicate a second time, it all works nicely, as it should.

No idea why this happens; I've lived with this for years on versions 8.x and 8.51x, (and even 8.52 CD5 from which I made this screen shot).

It's certainly not a show stopper. It could even be my laptop for all I know. For now, it remains an unsolved mystery.

Now that I have your attention, I have two other Notes UX issues that I cannot explain...

Notes Blue Screen
Perhaps you have seen this problem: In Notes 8.52 CD5 (but also in 8.5.1). I'm a big fan of using the ESC key to close a window - it's one of my favorite Notes shortcuts and I use it all day to close Notes windows. With the introduction of Notes 8, however, I've noticed that if I accidentally press ESC while on the workspace, the workspace disappears and I end up with a blank workspace:

This happens to me several times a day. The only way that I have found to recover from this Notes "blue screen" is to click on the workspace bookmark that I created and then be careful not to press ESC or it the workspace will disappear again.

(Sorry, I'll give up Lotus Notes before I will give up the workspace. It's an important innovation in information organization and I've been productively using the Notes workspace for almost 20 years and I see no productive reason to change.)

Runaway Progress Indicator
Here's the last one. Every day or so, the progress indicator takes off...

... and it stays there until I restart Notes. Clicking on the orange ball shows a blank progress page. I wonder if this is a background process like an indexer? In any case, it's not a big problem; its just an annoying distraction like the new message waiting indicator that lowers my productivity except that there's no way to make it go away.

Fortunately, none of these issues prevent me from getting my job done. But they are bothersome enough to blog about in the hope I will learn about a fix.

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

Configuring the Lotus Notes Client with Gmail

Eric Mack — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 22:14:16 -0700

If you use Gmail for personal email, this article form the IBM Notes learning Wiki may be of interest:

Configuring the Lotus Notes Client with Gmail

I haven't tried this yet, but it looks promising. If you decide to implement this, drop me a line and let me know how it worked out.
[Originally posted on the Notes on Productivity web site. (http://www.NotesOnProductivity.com)]

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

Today we sold....

Eric Mack — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:06:57 -0700

Continuing on the theme started by Vaughan and picked up by Lotus Evangelist...

today, as we do most every day, we sold customers on the extraordinary value that comes from using Lotus Notes for collaboration and personal and team productivity (with eProductivity of course).

It doesn't take much; you just have to help the customer (whether CEO, CIO, IT, Manager or end-user) see how this decision will benefit them personally.

Most people we speak with really want to stop living interrupt-driven lives in the inbox; they want to stop being addicted to stress, and they dream of going home with an empty inbox (paper & digital) at the end of each day.

We show them how; and, we show them how to reclaim 30-60 minutes each day. It's fun.

OK, Who's next?
[Originally posted on the Notes on Productivity web site. (http://www.NotesOnProductivity.com)]

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

TWiL: Lotus Notes Catalog/App Store & User Adoption Strategies

Eric Mack — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 03:00:00 -0700

I've just wrapped up a long podcast as guest on This Week in Lotus, the weekly round table discussion all things Lotus with hosts Stuart McIntyre,and Darren Duke.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my guest was none other than collaboration and end-user adoption strategist and author Michael Sampson.

An interesting podcast - you can read the show notes over at TWil. Most of the discussion was around the concept of a software catalog vs. app store, who are we trying to reach?, and end-user adoption strategies.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Links:

This Week in Lotus 005: If we build it, will the come?
Michael's book, User Adoption Strategies
Eric's blog on Is it Actionable or is it Reference?
[Originally posted on the Notes on Productivity web site. (http://www.NotesOnProductivity.com)]

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

Is it Actionable or is it Reference?

Eric Mack — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:04:54 -0700

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

Some thoughts on an App Store/Catalog and self-serve Lotus Notes Applications

Eric Mack — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 01:11:30 -0700

Eleven months ago, I shared my thoughts on how to make Notes personal. I explained that we've found that once a tool becomes personal the objections/complains go away and people want more of Lotus Software.

I've been following with interest the many discussions in Planet Lotus this past two weeks and more than once someone mentioned that "we need an app store for Lotus Notes applications." This weekend , I got caught up with the excellent and informative This Week In Lotus podcasts and the topic was brought up again. On the podcast, opinions were shared as to why or why not an app store or catalog would or would not work. At point, Darren Duke even said something to the effect of, "you guys should talk to Eric Mack because his company's already done it with eProductivity."

There are three current solutions available that I am aware of today: OpenNTF , the Lotus Software Catalog, and the Notes App Store. OpenNTF is great, but it's geared toward developers. Lotus launched the Lotus Software Catalog at LS10 and it's beautiful, but I honestly have no idea if it is being promoted in any way that a potential customer could find it. The Notes App Store is really a catalog -- you can't buy anything yet -- but it's designed to make it easy for the end user to be able to browse through available Notes applications. This is probably the closest thing I've seen to the original printed Lotus Solutions Catalog from the early 1990's.

As far as how we sell our product, I'm not sure I would call what we have done an "app store." We have only one item available for purchase, so I can't even call it a catalog. Still, it's the only completely turn-key Notes solution I am aware of that allows someone (an administrator, executive, or end-user) to visit the site, download a stand-alone demo of the application, try it out five minutes later, download the template, apply it, evaluate it, purchase an activation key, and activate the software -- all with minimal user intervention. It wasn't easy to build, but I have some of the brightest people on my team and what we have created works and works well every day. (As I write this, people are downloading, evaluating and purchasing our software on their own.)

But this post is not about my company's product - it's about the process we use to deliver it. The people that use our product are administrators, executives, and end users -- all of them are busy people that want to save time. We've worked to lower the barrier to deployment by improving the method of delivery for our Notes app. We made it fast and easy to evaluate, apply, and purchase.

I know that it is possible to create something similar to the one stop shopping experience that end-users have come to expect with their phones. It's not quite built into Notes (as I hope someday it will be) but it works and people use it every day.

Anyway, if there's interest, I would be happy to provide an overview of how this was done and some of the lessons we've learned along the way.

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

A few words and a diagram can make you more productive

Eric Mack — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 14:00:00 -0700

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

Peter Presnell: "Why I love Lotus Notes"

Eric Mack — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 11:16:24 -0700

I've had it on my mind for some time to blog about this topic, but Peter beat me to it with an excellent post today.

While my consulting work puts me in touch with end users, pacesetters, and decision makers, I rarely consider Notes from the development perspective. The only developers I interact with are those on my team. Written from a developer perspective, "Why I love Lotus Notes" is Peter's effort to share the features of Lotus Notes that he loves and the value he gets from the community. It's an excellent post and I hope it will inspire others to blog about what they love about Notes.

There are many things I love about Notes. Near the top of my list would have to be: ease of use and customization, replication, off-line access, and security. I'll try to blog about these from perspective soon.

Meanwhile, I see great value in multiple perspectives and I'm glad Peter shared his. I'm collecting thoughts from my own perspective to share. I hope you will consider sharing yours. Perhaps we can start a meme.

What do you love about Notes?

Note to my readers: Please help me keep the comment thread on-topic, in this case, on the productive use of Lotus Notes. If you want to post a comment about something you like, you are welcome to do so. If you want to rant, I invite you to articulate your feelings and opinions on your own blog. Please do not use this comment thread for that purpose. Inappropriate comments will be removed. I'm interested in reading about the value people are getting from Notes and how they are using Notes to improve their personal and work group productivity.
[Originally posted on the Notes on Productivity web site. (http://www.NotesOnProductivity.com)]

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

"You could’ve heard a pin drop!"

Eric Mack — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 12:10:37 -0700

An executive recently shared with me that David Allen had come to speak to their multi-national organization to share his Getting Things Done� (GTD�) approach to stress-free productivity.

Early in David's presentation, he acknowledged that this organization uses Lotus Notes, to which he said, "I love Notes!", something he's not afraid to share in any venue.

The exec told me, "Eric, you could've heard a pin drop!" He said he looked around the room to see the dropped jaws and astonished faces as David then went on to explain why he thinks Lotus Notes is one of the most powerful information management tools for individual and workgroup productivity he's ever seen. David stayed after to share how he uses Lotus Notes and eProductivity to get things done. Not only did he leave the audience with the methodology of productivity - GTD - he showed them that the very tool that they already had deployed could be readily adapted to become a productivity powerhouse. (We will soon be working with this organization to further increase the value they receive from their investment in IBM Lotus Notes.)

This is not an isolated story. In my work, David and I speak with mid, senior, and C-level execs on a regular basis and I love showing them how, equipped with an approach for high performance knowledge work, they can transform their organization by transforming the way that they think about and use Lotus Notes.

I'm working to collect some case studies that I can share, although this takes time. I hope someday to add a "success stories" section where we can showcase what people are doing with and why they love Lotus Notes. There are a lot of them out there.

Apart from this blog, you may not hear stories like this often - there was no huge sale made, no competitive "win" away from Microsoft, and nothing for IBM to put into a press release.

But I submit it was a huge "win" -- a win in the minds of the people who attended David's presentation because they walked away with the skills to become more productive and the knowledge that they were using one of the most productive information, communication, and collaboration tools available -- Lotus Notes, by IBM. You might even say it gave them a new outlook on Notes.

Update: David and I recently presented two webinars on the topic of getting things done with Lotus Notes. We received several hundred questions from the almost 2,000 participants. I'm in the process of editing and merging these to make them available for replay, soon. Meanwhile, here are a few related videos for you to enjoy:

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

Two features that would make my Notes workspace even more productive

Eric Mack — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 00:15:00 -0700

This afternoon, I worked with a client and I was showing him the new features of Notes 8.5.1 after we upgraded him from 7.0.3. The first thing he. like all of my clients asked for is to restore their workspace and bookmark bar. (Why these are now disabled by default continues to baffle me - they are such productive features of Notes!) OK, that was easy enough. Workspace and bookmark bar restored.

I then stepped back and watched as my client began to work with Notes and set up his environment as we teach for maximum productivity with Notes. Then, he did something unusual - at least he tried to... he dragged an icon from his bookmark bar to the Notes workspace. It didn't work of course, but when I asked what he was doing he said that if we could drag book marks from the workspace tabs to the bookmark bar then why shouldn't he be able to drag things from the bookmark bar back to the workspace. This then led into a discussion around usability. The conclusion of the conversation and similar observations I have made before left me thinking about two workspace features I'd like to see:

Ability to drag a bookmark from the bookmark bar to the Notes workspace. From an end-user point of view there's no difference between a bookmark and a db icon on the workspace - both represent an a target. This way, I can have icons that represent databases (Applications) and icons that represent anything else I want - documents (e.g. doclinks) or URLS (web sites) etc. After all, if it is MY workspace, let me put anything on it anywhere I want it. I can do that in Windows/Mac/Linux - why not in Notes?

Ability to clone icons on the Notes workspace so I can drag them to other workspace tabs. Let me explain. I currently have icons for 400 Notes databases across 15 workspace tabs. Each are organized by context - as any good GTD Boy would do. The problem is that some of these icons have meaning in multiple contexts. If I could clone these icons (effectively making shortcuts to them) I could have EVERYTHING I want in the context I want to see it. If you are a GTDer you will immediately understand the cognitive and productive benefit of this capability.

What do you think? (Don't limit yourself to the way Notes has always worked before.) What would like to see you do to make the Notes workspace even more productive? As an add-on questions, how are you using the Notes workspace to better organize how you think about your work?

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

Ipad & iPhone accessing same Notes account via Traveler?

Eric Mack — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:18:02 -0700

I have a question for my friends using their Ipads with Lotus Traveler to access Lotus Notes information:

Is there any risk with having multiple devices associated with a single Notes Mailbox using Traveler?

I have a client that is about to deploy both devices and their goal is to have ubiquitious access to Notes from either device. Apart from the normal replication conflict issues that might ensue, are there any other known issues? Have any of you done this yet? How is it working for you?
[Originally posted on the Notes on Productivity web site. (http://www.NotesOnProductivity.com)]

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

"You cannot know how truly horrible Lotus Notes is until you’ve been forced to use it" (via Twitter)

Eric Mack — Wed, 26 May 2010 20:02:48 -0700

It's no secret that my colleagues and I love using Lotus Notes and we think it's one of the most powerful platforms for information and knowledge management, collaboration, and personal productivity. Of course, not everyone shares our view, including IBM's Technology Strategy consultant, Jon Mulholland, who describes himself as a "Passionate mobile geek and lover of beautiful web design" on his Twitter profile. I found this today in my daily search of all things Lotus Notes...

via Twitter

If Jon's remarks about Lotus Notes are based on the UI, then compared to some stunning web sites and applications I have seen, I could see where he might reach that conclusion. Notes isn't the most beautiful UI, but it's getting better and I don't use Notes for the UI anyway. I use Lotus Notes to create value - value for myself, my team, and my company.

While I'm always envious of the latest eye candy that I see from Apple, I'm more interested in what the application will DO for me on an ongoing basis. I love shiny things and cool user interfaces and shiny baubles but not as much as I like tools that work really well. For me, Notes is about being productive and getting things done.

While I thoroughly enjoy the latest UI features of Notes 8.5.1 that the Lotus Notes UX team has provided, truth be told I could easily go back several versions of Lotus Notes and still be almost as productive. (In fact, when I demo eProductivity to enterprise clients I will often do just that - I will downgrade my Notes from 8.5x to 6.5x and show that I can still be productive and stay on top of my game.) The Lotus Notes UX team has done an awesome job at enhancing the visual and usability elements of the Notes user experience, but it's the ability of Notes to facilitate how we communicate and collaborate that really shines for me.

Still, we have this differing viewpoint from Jon, which makes me wonder how Jon's experience differs from mine. Is he using a really ancient version e.g. Notes 4, 5, or 6? Did he get any training in how to maximize his use of Notes? Perhaps he has access to some really cool technology that makes Notes pale in comparison? As an IBMer, I would expect that he has access to some of the finest technology and people that can help him. If not, I'd be willing to do my part and help. I'd really like to help him convince himself that Lotus Notes doesn't really suck.

Productivity expert, David Allen had this to say in an comment thread on Ed Brill's blog:

Ed, as Eric wrote in his blog post and as I have said for years, most folks simply don't understand the power of what Notes can do for them. I'm constantly amazed when I'm in companies that use Notes that the average person has no idea of the power of what they have, which is probably why they complain or whine and pine for something bigger and better. I think there's a large segment of the market that doesn't even know Notes still exists (or is thriving).

I won't speculate further on the reasons for Jon's comment today. It's clear that he's not happy about having to use Notes at work. I wish I could change that - I love giving people a new outlook on Notes.

In any case, Jon has a blog and he appears to focuses on design so perhaps he will write a post to share his Notes experience with us so we can all learn more. I hope so.

Related Posts:
IBM Lotus Notes Sucks People into Two Camps
Does the world really hate Lotus Notes?
I Hate(d) Lotus Notes
Ed Brill: Eric Mack has made a Notes convert through GTD and ...
Listen to how I help people convince themselves that Notes doesn’t suck
Lotus Notes Sucks? Not so much (A happy ending)
"I’m a Mac and a PC and I love Lotus Notes"

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

Working From Home - 3 Things I’ve Learned

Eric Mack — Fri, 21 May 2010 14:53:52 -0700

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

An app closer to the LotusLive tipping point?

Eric Mack — Mon, 10 May 2010 20:10:55 -0700

We use GoToMeeting and GoToWebinars extensively to manage our company events. I have been following with interest the announcements coming from IBM about LotusLive and as a long-time Yellowbody I really want to use LotusLive. My concern has been that many of our events, like the recent world wide Notes & GTD event with David Allen, have close to 1000 participants and I don't know how LotusLive would handle an event of that size.

It's not about $ as both services are very competitively priced -- it's about stability and features and I really don't have much time or justification to investigate either. No point venturing into this area when what we have works so well for us and there's no visible ROI to switching. So, I continue to sit back, waiting for someone to blog about hosting a large meeting on LotusLive to convince me to switch.

Today, IBM just added another reason to consider. They just announced an app for the iPhone that will allow mobile users to participate in a LotusLive meeting. I'm not an iPhone user yet so that's not terribly exciting to me yet but something Darren mentioned does have my interest - apparently IBM has a mobile app for the BlackBerry in the works, too. As a BB user, that would be cool. A tipping point? Probably not. But value add? Yes.

I've never attended a webinar on a mobile device so I can't speak to how effective this is or isn't, but it has potential as a mobile productivity solution. I don't know how many meetings I would attend this way, but It would be great to manage my meetings and view details from anywhere.

You can learn more about the IBM app for LotusLive and iPhone here.
[Originally posted on the Notes on Productivity web site. (http://www.NotesOnProductivity.com)]

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity

Lotus Notes gets an App Store. Finally.

Ryan Heathers — Mon, 10 May 2010 12:05:13 -0700

Originally posted on Notes On Productivity