The Wednesday Night Party was a great fun night. A few of us ( Terri, Bill, Warren, Kitty and Wolter ) left the Dolphoin early and got a cab to the park for a few drinks beforehand. Being early meant that when the doors opened at 7pm we were right at the front and could go straight to the rides.

First stop was Dualing Dragons. I’ve been suffering from a really bad back all week so didn’t get on this one myself but all the others went straight up and went around around 3 times, though Kitty only managed it the once. After that it was around to the Jurassic Park water ride. It was a bit slow at the start but the water drop at the end was cool, didn’t get too wet but the people at the front got a little soaked. Onwards to Spiderman. This was really cool, the 3d effects were fantastic and they really know how to mess with your perceptions and make it feel like your being thrown around and falling. We did this one twice taking the shortcut so we didn’t have to queue again.

Next on the list was was Doctor Doom. I skipped out on this one because of the back again and from what I was told I was really lucky I did as the g forces were quite extream. After this it was around to The Hulk. I decided that I couldn’t leave the park without doing at least one coaster, backpain or no backpain. Now I’m not a big fan of coasters and normally need to be dragged on ( which I needed this time also ) but after the first time around I got off and went straight back on. Then, much to everybodies surprise, I went around twice more. This really is a great coaster. Normally coasters go to the top of the hill and then drop over but this one is different… Half way up the launch hill the coaster suddenly gains speed and at the top turns immediatly upside down. WOW. If you ever get a chance to try this coaster out then don’t shy away.

After the themepark closed and we had plenty of free beer and food we headed over to the Hard Rock Cafe for a few more and then taxi back to the hotel for yet another couple. What a great night.

Wes Morgan is always a great speaker and I just had to go to this session to see what his new area of responsibility had brought him to. This time last year Wes was know as SameTime guy but during the year he moved jobs to a new networky type position. If it was the words network and collaboration in the title then it ends up on his desk.

The session was all about how the network is very important to collaboration. He went to explain how the positioning of servers is very important and how to place users and servers in different sections of the network to make it faster and more secure.

One important thing that came of of the session was how network problems are always noticed by users of realtime collaboration systems quicker then users of other systems, while a web browser will sit and wait for traffic other applications like Lotus Notes and SameTime will fail fairly quickly.What this means is that the next time you have an apparent failure then always check with your network team to see if they are having any problems because 9 times out of ten it’s a network issue and you can route your helpdesk calls the correct way.

This was a great session and well worth getting the slides from if you missed it

Following on from Ed’s earlier session on how to sell Notes internally within a company this session deals with the different approches that the MS guys will approch the CIO with and how to explain the benefits of the Notes solutions and how to counter the MS guys arguments.

The Microsoft Collaboration Graveyard slide was replaced this year with a new version of it. The Checkerboard History of the MS collaboration suite was great to see. It’s nice to see all the canceled and unsupported MS collaboration options up there, like MS Exchange Public Folders or the more recent MS Edge server which was announced last year and pulled at christmas. Lets see, Lotus Notes has been around 15 years, apps written in the original version still run on todays version, it runs on a multitude of operating systems and doesn’t need a rip and replace upgrade. ever. How many OS’s does Exchange run on again… oh yeah, one.

All in all this was a great session and I can’t wait to see it again next year, Ed will probably need more squares on that checker board by then.

Selling internally is an important way of expanding the reach of the Lotus family of products within your organisation. Sell doesn’t mean new licensing or new products but defending the Lotus notes outlay and becoming an evanglist for the product. IBM have created a great product but there are always detractors and these are the people you need to sell to internally.

Many people forget about the differences between home and work environments. Just because you use Outlook Express at home it doesn’t mean thatyou should use it in the office. Just like how you use a key to open your hall door at home and a swipecard at work. They are different environments and users adapt to the environments that they are in.

So who do you sell to? Well the end users are always a great start, help the users, find out what they don’t like about Lotus Notes are and then show them the solutions. A lot of the time the users just need a little one on one traning and bingo the lightbulb will go off and they may start understanding Notes. You can also sell to the top, Influence the decisions.

There are normally two main factors you need to combat, the competition and the fact that Notes gets blamed for everything. Competition normally comes from the top when a high up manager decides that he or she wants outlook just like at home. There are over 15 years of of Lotus Notes and it can carry with it a history and bad preceptions. Lotus Notes is one of the most frequestly used application in a company and this is one of the main reasons that it gets blamed for most problems. The realisty is that training is required not just for the end users but also for the helpdesk. Just because somebody rings the helpdesk with a notes issue it doesn’t mean it’s notes, just because notes can’t print don’t blame notes immediatly, try printing from word and excel or another app to see if the problems if widespread.

Selling Notes internally is sometimes a cost or budget issue. The Cost Vs Value is very very important. just because exchange uses less diskspace per user then Notes it doesn’t mean that there is value. Ever hear of an exchange shop with no quotas, nope neither have I.

To reduce costs you can have a look at the different logs available on the server. The server logs may show databases replicating across the servers that are no longer required but still take up bandwidth, the helpdesk logs can show the areas of concern by looking at the different cals, classify them into notes problems and other problems incorrectly assigned to notes. User surveys and design audits can also help.

But don’t take my word for it, Lotus Notes has won many many awards over the past year. where’s the MS Exchange awards.. Actually where’s the MS Exchange roadmap.

While selling Lotus Notes internally then the new features avaiolable in the new versions can be very important. Features like the integrated IM in 6.5 can lower the TCO of the system, there is no need to go out and buy another product that required another server that needs another administrator to look after it and that needs training and spending.

Some ideas for end user training can be simple to do. Maybe feature of the week training on your internet, lunchtime training sessions, just simple ways to get users up to speed on the environments and answer their questions. Maybe after a few months of this have a look at those helpdesk logs again and see if there is reduction in calls. If there is then you’ve just reduced that cost of ownership yet again.