"I’m sorry, for those of you who didn’t make it into the cloud, we’ve moved on,"

Mark Benioff, Salesforce.com CEO, speaking at Salesforce’s Cloudforce 2011 event in Boston:

“I’m sorry, for those of you who didn’t make it into the cloud, we’ve moved on,

We want to welcome you to the social revolution, because this is where people are increasingly spending their time today. Our employees are social and our customers are social.”

Link: CRN:Salesforce CEO Benioff: The Cloud Is Passe

Happy 100th Birthday, IBM! (They were there)

Happy 100th Birthday to IBM and all who work (or have worked) for the organisation!

Whatever my occasional niggles with the organisation (for lack of advertising or commitment to the Lotus brand etc), they are dwarfed by the respect I have for the heritage, innovation and ethics of IBM.

I grew up with an uncle that worked for IBM’s PC division, had a hand in inventing SGML (the precursor to HTML and XML) for the organisation and later ran the IBM Forum centres in the UK.  My aunt design processor and logic boards for PS/2s.  I then used an IBM 6150 RISC system during my industrial placement year, and then graduated to work at an IBM RS/6000 business partner where I specialised in AIX and other IBM software solutions, including Lotus Domino/Notes.  I’ve worked for various IBM business partners for the last 16 years.

In short, my experience in the IT industry has always been through IBM-coloured glasses.  I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

So, I raise a toast to the now century-old institution that is  the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company International Business Machines IBM!

May you be around for many many more years to come.

In the meantime, enjoy the movie below (featuring IBMers telling their stories) – I did!

The IBM Software business

Two interesting new videos have been released on YouTube, telling the story of IBM’s Software business:

IBM Software: The Early Days

IBM Software: A Culture of Innovation

Interesting stuff – great to see Bob Picciano heavily involved in the storytelling.

’Blogging is largely dead’

Great quotes by the always interesting Jason Calacanis:

“Blogging is largely dead.”

“There are a lot of stupid people out there … and stupid people shouldn’t write.”

“There needs to be a better system for tuning down the stupid people and tuning up the smart people.”

He goes on to describe a new phase of social media, Web 3.0 (I hate the term already!):

“You have to have a deep understanding to be a blogger,” Calacanis said.

Calacanis thinks that Web 3.0 will be the “Age of Expertise.” Blogging brought about the era of Web 2.0 where people who may not have had a voice before could publish whatever they want. The rise of kittens on the Web, for instance. Add the ability to comment on stories and then share them through social media and Web 2.0 was the Age of Interactivity.

“The concept of journalism is going away,” Calacanis said. “It is not enough to be a writer. You need to be a writer and an expert.”

Fascinating thoughts…

What do you think? Are we reaching an age where both blogging and journalism become less important, to be replaced by a demand for intelligent, reasoned and well researched expert analysis and comment?

My manifesto on product naming

You may have seen my tweet from yesterday:

Honestly, if it hadn’t been such a public forum I’d have hit my head on the desk several times… I can’t say what the product name was as the discussion was under NDA and I don’t break those.

However, it made me think about what makes a good product name – you know, one that means something to users and customers (examples: Notes, Domino, DB2, Quickr, Facebook, Twitter, Cortina, Corvette, etc. etc.).

Here’s my manifesto for future IBM product naming:
1.        Must be less than two words, excluding IBM.
2.        Must not include a description of what the product does in plain language (examples: Lotus Instant Messaging, Tivoli Intelligent Metering Network Management)
3.        Must not contain current industry buzz words that will be out of fashion in less than 18 months (example: IBM Service Manager for Smart Business, anything containing ‘Cloud’, ‘Social Business’)
4.        Must be 95% likely to return the first result when googled (examples of failures in this area: i – the latest name for AS400, access manager, application server)
5.        Must engender some form of bonding from those it is aimed at (or at least not complete antipathy!)

Any more requirements that you would add?

So what is ’the Lotus community’?

Seth Godin makes some important distinctions:

An organization uses structure and resources and power to make things happen. Organizations hire people, issue policies, buy things, erect buildings, earn market share and get things done. Your company is probably an organization.

A movement has an emotional heart. A movement might use an organization, but it can replace systems and people if they disappear. Movements are more likely to cause widespread change, and they require leaders, not managers. The internet, it turns out, is a movement, and every time someone tries to own it, they fail.

A philosophy can survive things that might wipe out a movement and that would decimate an organization. A philosophy can skip a generation or two. It is often interpreted, and is more likely to break into autonomous groups, to morph and split and then reunite. Industrialism was a philosophy.

The trouble kicks in when you think you have one and you actually have the other.

I think these definitions are useful in all sorts of discussions.

However, I am really taken by Seth’s definition of a movement, particularly, the mentions of ‘an emotional heart’ and requiring ‘leaders, not managers’.  There is no doubt in my mind that this community fits that description.  Finally, I think that at times in the past, certain individuals have felt that IBM owns the community – this is not the case and does damage when it happens.

I hope that the movement will continue for many years to come, what ever we call it…

Lotus Foundations returns from the dead?

An intriguing IBM announcement letter released today:

Effective on June 17, 2011, IBM will reinstate part numbers from the following product release licensed under the IBM International Program License Agreement:
Program
number      Program release name
 
5724-V16    IBM Lotus Foundations

Part
number    Program name
 
5724-V16  IBM Lotus Foundations
 
D0CKLLL   IBM Lotus Foundations Start Authorized User License + SW
           Subscription & Support 12 Months
E08LKLL   IBM Lotus Foundations Start Authorized User Annual SW
           Subscription & Support Renewal
D0CKMLL   IBM Lotus Foundations Start Authorized User SW Subscription &
           Support Reinstatement 12 Months
 
D046NLL   IBM Lotus Foundations Start Server License + SW Subscription &
           Support 12 Months
E04XHLL   IBM Lotus Foundations Start Server Annual SW Subscription &
           Support Renewal
D046PLL   IBM Lotus Foundations Start Server SW Subscription & Support
           Reinstatement 12 Months
 
D0CPLLL   IBM Lotus Foundations AntiSpam Authorized User Initial Fixed
           Term License + SW Subscription & Support 12 Months
E08N4LL   IBM Lotus Foundations AntiSpam Authorized User Subsequent Fixed
           Term License + SW Subscription & Support 12 Months
 
E08N5LL   IBM Lotus Foundations AntiVirus Authorized User Subsequent
           Fixed Term License + SW Subscription & Support 12 Months
D0CPMLL   IBM Lotus Foundations AntiVirus Authorized User Initial Fixed
           Term License + SW Subscription & Support 12 Months
 
D08UELL   IBM Lotus Foundations Branch Office Server License + SW
           Subscription & Support 12 Months
E06SSLL   IBM Lotus Foundations Branch Office Server Annual SW
           Subscription & Support Renewal
D08UFLL   IBM Lotus Foundations Branch Office Server SW Subscription &
           Support Reinstatement 12 Months

So what’s going on there then?

About to send an email? Check this list

About to send an email or do a Reply To All?  Seth Godin suggests you don’t:

Three years ago this week, I posted this checklist, in the naive hope that it would eliminate (or perhaps merely reduce) the ridiculous CC-to-all emails about the carpool, the fake-charity forwards, the ALL CAPS yelling and the stupid PR spam.

A guy can hope, can’t he?

Feel free to send this to those that need to read it:

Before you hit send on that next email, perhaps you should run down this list, just to be sure:
1.        Is it going to just one person? (If yes, jump to #10)
2.        Since it’s going to a group, have I thought about who is on my list?
3.        Are they blind copied?
4.        Did every person on the list really and truly opt in? Not like sort of, but really ask for it?
5.        So that means that if I didn’t send it to them, they’d complain about not getting it?
6.        See #5. If they wouldn’t complain, take them off!
7.        That means, for example, that sending bulk email to a list of bloggers just cause they have blogs is not okay.
8.        Aside: the definition of permission marketing: Anticipated, personal and relevant messages delivered to people who actually want to get them. Nowhere does it say anything about you and your needs as a sender. Probably none of my business, but I’m just letting you know how I feel. (And how your prospects feel).
9.        Is the email from a real person? If it is, will hitting reply get a note back to that person? (if not, change it please).
10.        Have I corresponded with this person before?

The list goes on to point 36, well worth reading and printing out for future reference!

Why Signature Mortgage chooses LotusLive

Signature Mortgage explain why they chose IBM LotusLive to speed their loan application process.

My comments:

• A great reference for both LotusLive and Silanis e-SignLive – this shows the benefits of IBM’s campaign to sign SaaS partners for the LotusLIve suite.
• $35,000 of additional revenue per month – that’s real ROI.
• I’m guessing that Signature Mortgage has less than 1,000 users, making it an SMB in IBM’s eyes.  Great to see a public reference for such an organisation.

Thoughts from the Apple keynote – best-of-breed email

Did you see the new slick Mail client built into OS X Lion?  

I love the new conversations view:

So here’s my thought…

Wouldn’t it be great if Lotus Domino supported non-Notes email and calendaring in a modern way such that users could choose to use their own choice of client in a sophisticated and intuitive way?

That they could use best-of-breed desktop and mobile clients completely seamlessly?  For me that means supporting IMAP with all the latest features such as IMAP IDLE, calendaring using Caldav and so on.  Perhaps even, shudder, properly supporting Microsoft’s own standards such that clients like Apple Mail can use their in-built support for Exchange to get the best access to Domino (as IBM has with Activesync for Traveler support for iOS).

As the suggestion seems to be that the Notes rich client will be going away at some stage in the future (though Ed has now stated that this is not the case), the time seems to be upon us for Domino to beef up its support for other clients, particularly on the mail and calendaring side…