I have learned a life lesson over the years - change is not only good, but sometimes required.
For example, I have a friend who lives near the Mississippi River. Every couple of years, the coming of Spring brings flooding to his city. The spring rain storms and the melting of the snow north of them in Canada and the US sends more water into the river than it can normally contain. Every couple of years, his city would call out for help to make sandbags and battle the rising waters of the river. Some years they won the battle, some years the flooding would damage the town. Everyone had insurance, but the costs went up. Some folks got a bit creative with barriers and other methods of keeping the water from getting into their homes. Others bought boats and rafts so they could navigate the waters when they covered the streets.
This went on for years until someone got an idea. Why can't we move the river? Well - this is the Mississippi - you don't just move a river like that. So they moved the town. The town was relocated over a mile farther away from the city and to much higher ground. The next time the river flooded, it did not effect the town at all. Sure, there was cost to move the town - but it was a one time cost. When the river floods, the people of this town go and offer help to other towns - making sandbags and whatever was needed. They also offer suggestions on what to do in the dry season to prevent the problem long term.
Morale of the story - just because you have been doing something every year to react to a problem, doesn't no mean there is not a better solution out there. Think outside the box. Be creative. React ahead of time instead of when the river floods over.
Why am I writing about this and how does it apply to IBM Lotus?
Guys, there's nothing really here to respond to. Seriously. There's some assertions about how Exchange 2010 (beta, mind you) is great and wonderful and will solve world hunger. There are a few jabs at how it's better than Notes. There's a link to an old case study. There's a link to a comment on a blog entry of mine from many moons ago.
In some ways, it's validating that despite MS using bogus market share reports that claim we have as little as 10% (versus Gartner Dataquest or IDC that put it at 35-40%), you have to wonder what they are so afraid of that they have to proactively attack with a beta product.
You also have to wonder who the audience is. Right now, this report has been on microsoft.com for two weeks. I've had 12 referrals to the blog entry from it in that two week period. Yes, I understand that the page is being printed out and passed around and whatever, but we're not likely to reach those readers regardless of where or how we respond.
Last, the point of some of these competitive attacks is to waste the time of the opponent. Distract 'em with a small tactic here to avoid the larger battle there. Not everything either side publishes results in a point-counterpoint. At least not a direct response.
It's not a matter of not being able to respond. I could fire off a response in an hour or so and have it on ibm.com in several places within a week. It doesn't cost me anything to do that. But this tactic isn't new and it hasn't been successful in the last, oh, five years.
I appreciate the "we need help" feeling in the comments here. I'm not invalidating your feeling upon reading this. I'm just asking you to see it in the bigger picture.
These are Ed Brill's comments (comment #9) that were posted on Tom Duff's blog. With apologies to Ed, this needs to be brought up. At Lotusphere, we saw Bob Picciano take a whole new approach to communicating the IBM message. Even before Lotusphere, we saw Bob be aggressive in 2008 with this comments about the marketplace. So why does Lotus think its OK to do the same thing year after year? I see these documents that Microsoft puts out at customers all the time. Microsoft sales reps bring them out on sales calls. And because IBM doesn't respond, the customer takes it as fact.
IBM - it is time to stop doing the same thing every year when your competitor attacks you. Do something new. Do something different. Do something they won't be expecting. Get a message out there that stops these kind of attacks. I am not asking for TV ads, but I am asking for Lotus to react like its 2009 - not do what they have been doing since 2005. Heck, try new things and fail. I would be far more willing to accept a "we did this and it didn't work but we will try something different next time" vs. the same old "we are IBM, we don't do that, we all know the truth" kind of answers. Ed is no longer the World Wide Sales Leader for Lotus Notes, but he is still the strongest voice out there for the product. Where are the other sales and marketing folks who work for IBM? Where is the message being delivered so customers can find it when the are searching on-line?
I would love to see Lotus move the town, or better yet, move the river instead of sandbagging against the flood every year. I will be the first to cheer about it here.
(and for the record, that 'friend' story was a built from a true story but I do not know the person ... fables don't always have to be 100% true to get the point across).
An excellent post, John, and one that I think captures the mindset and attitude of many out here in customer-land...
Good, man.
To your analogy, the most expensive part about moving the town is the costly engineering effort, infrastructure, utilities, ... the good news here, is it is about how we communicate, ... per one definition of the sell/marketing terms
"to persuade or induce (someone) to buy something:" , We have done wonderful things to our products of late. Notes 8.5, Domino 8.5, ... User Experience, platform for extending, integrating, TCO, .... True the biggest thing my customer, BPs, ... come at me with is "Why are you getting this message out there?". To that, I think there are a lot of changes that HAVE and still are happening here, but we need to push faster.
For my own part, one my interest for my Blog - Esoteric, ... :) , and I need to be more focused on helpful there as well. Which coincidentally, I was writing something similar in response to the MicroSoft view above, as a challenge. However, need to look at the holistic approach, we all do.
In short, we have added walls, not sandbags. The town is now a canal, we are getting business (Alloy, 2 BPs today with new products, RIM. ...), moving business/shops into our shopping attractions, ... We need to convince those people to come and join us, and evangelize this. ...
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@2 Brent - to be as blunt as possible, I have no issue with the technical side of the current state of the Notes & Domino products. To be specific, I think what I saw at the SDR and in discussions with you directly shows me that the technical aspect is in safe hands. What you have done since taking over the development team - I am super pleased. Sure, there are a few details that you and your team need to get fixed, but overall - things are good.
This is a discussion around sales and marketing tactics. Things have to change or all the hard work you doing is for not.
@John - or even for naught. ;-)
John, you and I agree about as often as we have a solar eclipse, which is perfectly fine with both of us and doesn't stop us from enjoying each other's company.
So you're gonna have to sit down for this one: there is no imaginable universe in which it would be possible for me to agree with anything more strongly than I agree with this post. There, I said it.
Kudos on being constructive and polite, by the way.
John, These are times when IBM, our team, our partners, and our clients are looking at doing things differently. Smarter. We gave a small preview to some of this when we released the trailer around Working Smarter Together at LotusSphere. We recently did a follow-up with the creation of a YouTube channel. The thought is part of the overall Smarter Planet theme which has been helping our clients, from many new disciplines and demographics, think about IBM differently. But hey, where's all the smart people in this world? 8 ) This is where Lotus comes in to play as it relates to this overall theme. The capabilities that we have been delivering to market are central to the themes of Smart Planet and helping people with the great challenges of today. Without going into too much detail, you are soon to see more on this specific topic, much more. Part of the difference for us will be include different amplitudes, but also different leverage of related parts of the business. This expands audiences and changes perceptions. We have new ideas and new actions along these lines.
It is an evolving story, but you'll see it start soon. Yes, I'm impatient too... And yes, I stay very focused as to whether it is helping make the difference for our partners and clients, so I will stay tuned...
All the best...
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I've suspected that there hasn't been a real marketing budget for Lotus for some time. This explains the "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" approach that Lotus often takes to refute numbers that either aren't accurate, or that Lotus doesn't like.
I appreciate Ed's comments on what we can do together (Lotus + Business Partners), but it often sounds to me like Lotus is running a grass roots campaign and MS is running an actual marketing campaign.
Granted, grass roots campaigns can work, to a certain extent, but the lack of advertizing / marketing presence / mindshare really makes being a proponent of Lotus products difficult.