The Return of Lotus.. Notes, yes Notes goes Blog, Wiki, profiles

Ha-ha, here is a funny "ghost" from the past, which should sit very naturally in the Web 2.0 space. Lotus Notes (now owned by IBM) is a corporate/enterprise application for collaboration.

I remember when I worked in the IT/computer industry in New York when Notes came out in the 1990s and I felt it was revolutionary. Our company was too small to really benefit from it, but I was sure that was the way of the future. Collaborate online, wow. Remember this was the time when managements were still pondering whether to invest in e-mail or... fax!  So Lotus Notes was a radical vision.

But then when I was finally using it at Nokia in about 1998-1999, found, like so many others, that the Lotus Notes database (knowledge base?) of colleague-collaboration was more like the ultimate swamp for data. It swallowed everything, but it was nearly impossible to find anything. We all got mandates from bosses to put stuff into Lotus Notes, but then when we tried to find something, it seemed like our colleagues had not done their work. After lots of tedious legwork (often real legwork, walking to the colleague's desk and have them dig the stuff up, we'd find out the info had, in fact existed, only my way of searching for it did not correspond with how my colleague had thought of filing it. Etc.

As my career took me ever more into mobile technologies, I lost track of trusty old Lotus Notes. Being alone as a consultant, I can't really benefit from a corporate collaboration system ha-ha, so yes, I had almost forgotten Notes. Even as Alan and I were researching the book and started to bump into this collaboration like blogging and wikis, and even as we then interviewed experts in corporate employee collaboration. I didn't remember Notes.

So, Monday's International Herald Tribune (Jan 22, 2007) has a big story about IBM resurrecting/re-focusing Notes. It apparently is in use by millions of corporate users. Now it gets a Web 2.0 facelift. Corporate Blogging, Wikis, User Profiles. Wow. This is a major play.

Suddenly Six Apart has a real rival. This is not unlike the PC industry, which Apple had almost to itself until IBM launched its PC with the Charlie Chaplin ads in 1981. And funnily enough, its again IBM coming to go corporate and serious and business-like with this "new technology" (of blogging, wikis, social networking; digital communities).

Very good news. It means that blogging is going to go mainstream business/corporate real fast. As will wikis. Collaboration at work. It will usher in the Connected Age also at the office. Like we write in the book, always through history and up to the networked age, witholding information was power. But in the Connected Age, SHARING information is power. We see it in the blogosphere where a meritocracy soon emerges, the real experts will be respected by their peers. Now as this thinking enters forcefully into the corporate space - after all, when IBM starts to push this (and the upgrade to the Notes system, of course) - then it will be a massive change in corporate data and knowledge management. And ha-ha, of course our book is still the ultimate guide to this all. Remember our blogging chapter already talks about corporate use of that technology and methodology. This was when there were only 4 million blogs, and probably under 10,000 corporate blogs in the world.

But yes, a cool ghost from the past. Lotus Notes. Wishing this iteration of that software will truly make the big success. Notes was into this Web 2.0 much much much before its time. It would be poetic justice for Notes now to become the dominant blogging, wiki etc platform in the corporate/business world.

Comments

[Robert Schless]

Let's see, you wrote a book on corporate collaboration and didn't "remember" about Lotus Notes? Must be a great book, since Notes is current used by a sizeable percentage of the major corporations in the world for collaboration, in one application or more.

My company has been, and continues to develop, world-class Notes applications for the Notes marketplace. Three out of the Big-4 accounting firms, for instance, use us (the other one develops their own Notes apps). So where did you get your research?

[Belstaff outlets]

Even if you are the only one who wants to save your troubled marriage you can do it alone once you know what you need to do. So, relax, take a deep breath and let's get started with some things you can do to get started on saving a troubled marriage.