Backlogged

January 29 2004

On both edbrill.com and lotus.com/weblog, I've been a bit backlogged, sorry.  Lotusphere is really an immersion experience, and I just simply haven't had time to write.
My session went, according to the evaluations and the hallway feedback, really well.  Lotus VP Ken Bisconti was there for part of it, and he said that one of my charts was the best competitive ammo he had seen in a long time.  Premiering at this session, it was a diagram of the fatal histories of many of Microsoft's previous collaboration efforts.  My point is simply that MS's current strategy may sound good, but so have all the others over the last ten years.


Image:Backlogged

After putting up an impactful chart like this, the best Microsoft could do to fight back was a weasel-y question about how to share contacts in the Notes personal address book.  The fact that one of MS's troops publicly asked a question at all is kind of a grey-line behavior, but this was like dropping way down in the weeds to try to salvage one small ounce of pride.  There was one other question that actually elicited laughter from the crowd -- not that the question was funny, but that apparently most felt that it was off-base.  Otherwise, a quite good session, and certainly as enjoyable for me to present as any I've done in a long time.
Ton of other goings-on yesterday, but mostly I crashed a bit once the adrenalin that builds over a year going into a presentation finally subsided.  The party at Universal was nice enough, but it took a heck of a long time to get over there and get off the busses.  Three rides, a dinner, and that was it.  Had a drink in the Dolphin lobby bar, and then, finally, crashed.  It seemed like a lot of people crashed early last night -- maybe we're all getting old.
See you at the closing session if not before.  The entertainment is a comedian, not sure who, but I'm sure it will be a good time.

Ed Brill | Lotusphere 2004 Category:  Lotusphere 2004  Add/View Comments [16]

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  1. 1  jmichael  | 1/29/2004 12:31:59 PM

    Gee, yeah, the sharing of contacts from the personal NAB is a bitch. But it's certainly not a problem that can't be tackled with a few modifications to the personal NAB and a bit of Lotusscript ;-)

  1. 2  Sean Burgess http://www.phigsaidwhat.com | 1/29/2004 12:35:06 PM

    I would have loved to have seen the face of the MS boys and girls when you put that slide up. Any chance you could maybe make it a little larger in the blog so that we could actually read it?

    Sean---

  1. 3  Gregg Eldred  | 1/29/2004 12:36:45 PM

    Ed:

    Any chance that we will get to see a PDF/PRZ/PPT of this presentation posted somewhere? :-)

    Thanks.

  1. 4  Philip Storry  | 1/29/2004 1:37:29 PM

    Yeah, like I'd want that happening on my network anyway.

    Surely it's better to create a secondary NAB for "external contacts", and integrate it into your email addressing via Directory Assistance and (for your mobile users) the Directory Cataloger?

    Then you get shared storage. One update of the contact will happily replicate out to everyone - rather than having things shared piecemeal?

    In a small organisation, I can see that sharing contacts might be useful. But once you get past, say, 10 or 20 people - the personal NAB should be for personal contacts only. Business contacts should have their own dedicated NAB. It just makes more sense that way.

  1. 5  Quickclix http://QuickClix.servebeer.com | 1/29/2004 4:17:47 PM

    Shouldnt the title of this post be Back-Blogged ? :D

  1. 6  Me  | 1/29/2004 4:57:32 PM

    So, for the fist time in 4 years that I don't make it to Lotusphere, they have Patrick Stewart for the opener, and a return to comedy for the closing? UNFAIR I SAY!!! :)

  1. 7  Mike Brown  | 1/30/2004 2:32:23 AM

    Can't read it!

  1. 8  Tony C http://www.tonycocks.com | 1/30/2004 5:21:11 AM

    Yes...chap can you make it a bit bigger so we can see the details...

  1. 9  Ian McNairn http://www.mcnairn.info | 1/30/2004 8:07:17 AM

    Ed, either a bigger shot of the chart (1024x768) to make into wallpaper! or a link to the full presentation would be greatly appreciated!

  1. 10  Alistair Hughes  | 1/30/2004 11:00:25 AM

    No mention of Public Folders, which have been there all along and are still in Exch 2003. Also, think its a little unfair to show Exchange IM and Conferencing server as having a short life span when they are really continuing as collaboration effort, just being re-engineered to reflect the shift to App server/SQL based architecture that everyone, even IBM are following.

  1. 11  Chris http://www.chrisandraquel.com | 1/30/2004 12:42:50 PM

    Couldn't resist making a little spam joke with the subject line... Seriously though, it would be nice to see that slide a little bigger.

  1. 12  jbwalkup  | 1/30/2004 1:37:49 PM

    Wasn't he the same one who tried to bring it up again at the "Ask the Developers" forum? And was universally shouted down?

  1. 13  Bruce Elgort http://www.BruceElgort.com | 1/30/2004 1:59:11 PM

    I though he said he was from General Motors and not M$.

  1. 14  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 1/30/2004 3:15:33 PM

    I will post a bigger version of this chart soon, along with the whole presentation.

  1. 15  Ned Speed  | 2/3/2004 2:04:58 AM

    Guys, all the presentation slides are available at Lotusphere Online (pdf format)... including Ed's!

  1. 16  Paul Pentony  | 2/3/2004 6:30:57 AM

    One of many possible solutions for the the MS guys pressing problem is to put a replica of the PNAB on a server