Increasing the focus

It's been a busy few weeks since my last blog. I've been with IBM at various events, working with the Sales team on some enablement, doing (lots of) admin on the IBM Partnerworld websites, and most importantly, meeting customers and talking to them about Connections and Social Computing.

In the past, it's been quite easy to generate a "value proposition" around a software product. Document Management software does what it says on the Tin - you wouldn't buy it if you wanted to run a helpdesk. Likewise, a Firewall is great for providing security, but it's not much use for data archiving.

But Connections is different. Every customer I speak to sees value in different areas. The Borough Council sees an HR solution for managing "soft data" about employees and providing a basic authentication tool/ The Petrochemicals Company sees bookmarks as being the answer for their worldwide team of Geologists to share links to interesting information. The University wants to build cross functional research teams.

This is great of course - it means that there is a good conversation to have with almost any potential user. But there are challenges as well. It's hard to develop a coherent go-to-market strategy when you're saying that this software can be all things to all users. So this is an area where I must focus over the coming weeks. Any ideas gratefully received!

The Woman Who Speaks Portuguese

Have you seen the new(ish) pieces on YouTube about Connections? Look here http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw2j0YOqKoo and here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q83utEQsHRM . I think they're really good - in fact I think they are the best pieces of marketing I've seen out of the Lotus brand in years. We're using them with everyone, not just customers. Our Telemarketing agency, our sales team, our senior management - anyone who needs to get the message about how good this product is.

Watching these short pieces reminded me of a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a Local Government Authority. They're not yet a customer of ours, though of course we'd like them to be, but they do like the Lotus product family, and as a result three of their people rocked up to a recent event organised by IBM, focused on Connections. They were interested in the Social Collaboration pitch delivered by Brendan Tutt, and they got stuck into the hands-on session as well. After lunch they listened with great interest and enthusiasm to a customer presentation, and then it was our turn. The last session of the day. We're the only thing between them and the drive home. Always an "interesting" slot for a presentation.

So, we didn't do a presentation. Well, not in the traditional way. We used a bunch of slides and delivered what we hoped were some key messages, but we also asked a lot of questions about how the audience viewed Social Computing, what their problems were and how they thought this stuff might help them. And as we went on, you could (almost literally) see the lights coming on!

We started talking about the issues that this Local Authority faced, and two things came shining through. The need to be more efficient (I liked this one a lot, as a tax payer), and the need to know more about the workforce, and to engage with them more effectively. What opportunities, we asked, are currently being missed in terms of getting the best out of your people? And the examples started to surface.

• They have a big education department, but no way of connecting with the large number of their employees who are School Governors. Wouldn't it be great if these two communities could share?
• They have buildings all over the place that the public need access to at odd times of the day and night. How good would it be if they could identify employees who live locally, and who would be prepared to carry a set of keys?
• And, to refer back to the title of this piece, who speaks Portuguese? Or Tagalog? or Hungarian? Who can speak Sign Language? They know that these people exist amongst their employees, but they have no way of profiling the skills, knowledge and abilities of their people, other than in the strict context of their every day job. So they pay interpreters when they might not need to, and sometimes struggle to help their customers - the public - as efficiently as they might.

Of course, there were other things as well, but you get the drift. Simple issues about helping people to work better together. So, the last session of the day, the "graveyard" session, actually went really well, and bizarrely we actually talked about graveyards. It was the language thing again - they try to help families who'se first language isn't English, by providing real-time translations during burial and cremation services.

And, just as they left at the end of the day, one of them said "I loved the YouTube clips. They really helped me to understand what Connections is for". Which is great.

Starting to think about Lotusphere

It's nearly that time of year again. Lotusphere registration time is just around the corner. The 2010 event looks like it will be particularly interesting to me. There should be plenty of coverage around Lotus Connections - the social collaboration tool that I'm convinced is the "next big thing" for the Lotus brand. I'm hoping that there will be some good business sessions as well as the uual techie deep dive content. I'm also hoping that there will be opportunities to get stuck into some of the IBM Execs (in a positive way) about the current "Lotus Knows" marketing campaign.

Now it has to be said that decamping to Florida for a week, in January, to get re-energised about the Lotus brand is not the worst way of spending ones time. Unfortunately, it's not the cheapest either. There's the cost of registration, the flight, the hotel, and all the incidental expenses as well - typically there's nochange out of £2,500 per head once all the costs are added up. Here at Portal Partnership we always try to send a good sized delegation to lotusphere - there are customers to chaperone, IBMers to meet, business Partners to catch up with, and that's before you even think about the huge breadth and depth of sessions that are presented. All of this means that I end up with a lot of interest in attending from a number of colleagues, and then of course this leads to an "interesting" negotiation with our Finance Director about the cost!

So, I was very interested to read this piece by Sandy Carter of IBM in B2B magazine http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090929/FREE/909299982 In particular, her comments about Social Media being a driver for on-line events caught my eye. If, as stated in the article, IBM are investing heavily in the area of virtual events, complete with keynote sessions, breakouts etc., then the days of events like Lotusphere might be numbered. That will be good news for FD's around the world, but it would mean that January would be a little duller for those of us who have over the years become regular attendees.

Personally, I think the cost argument on it's own is likely to be very persuasive, but there are negatives as well - the act of travelling to a different location tends to focus the mind, and the absence of all the distractions of the normal workplace is a big benefit. I guess we need to see how this trend develops.

Here we go then....

I've been involved in the IT industry for a long time. Some of my friends and colleagues would say it's been too long, and others would argue vociferously that I'm not really involved at all, because nowadays I don't get particularly close to the technology coal face.

After leaving the corporate world in 1992 I set up a business with a couple of friends in 1992. we called it ALTIS, and we started to make a bit of money. In 1994, one of our customers came to us:

"We've just bought 50 licenses for something called Lotus Notes. We're not really sure what it is, but the sales guy said it would change the way we do business. Can you help us?" Now this was a big, defining moment for ALTIS. We didn't realise it at the time, but now, 15 years and a major business merge later, I can look back and apply some perspective.

And now, as Portal Partnership (where I am Business Development Director) enters a challenging fourth quarter selling IBM software and related services, I can sense that something like that event in 1994 is just around the corner once again. And what is it that's going to be the game changer this time around? Well, I think it's Lotus Connections. It's been a looooooong time since I've felt this excited by a Lotus branded offering (indeed, at my age it's pretty tough to get excited about much in the industry), but I really do think that this is a new wave.

Now those who know me well are aware that my major interest in IT is how to make money out of it. I want to make money for my customers, by helping them to have top quality stuff that they can use to improve efficiency, or support users, or develop new opportunities, or just do things better. I want to make money for Portal Partnership, so that I continue to get paid, and we grow as a business and generally prosper. And I really think that Connections is a great new way to do this.

So, I'm going to start sharing my thoughts with anyone who might be interested. I've been a "consumer" of other people's blogs, Tweets and what have you for a long time now, but I've not felt compelled to become a contributor until now. After all, I doubt whether the world is really all that interested in what I said to my mates down at the pub last night, or how last sunday's round of golf went. Hopefully however, some of you will have some interes in my thoughts and ideas around how Social Collabotation tools in general, and Connections in particular, can help drive improved organisational efficiencies.

There will of course be diversions along the route - no doubt I'll want to share the hassle of planning for Lotusphere, the good (and the less good) of partnering with IBM, and a whole lot of other stuff as well.

So - er - watch this space!