What is Lotus Notes? what is Lotus iNotes?

Mary Beth Raven  August 16 2010 09:21:13 PM

Compassionate constituents,
I've received a request to aggregate a set of statements describing the products within the Lotus portfolio. Essentially, if someone were to ask "what is ?"...what is your answer -- in one to 3 sentences?

So. What is YOUR answer? What is Lotus Notes and Lotus iNotes to YOU???
Here are sample responses-- most of which I've pulled from our web site.  So don't look there-- I already have. I want your gut reaction.

Here are some drafts from me:
 Lotus Notes is a desktop client for email, calendar, group scheduling and applications  http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/category/email/
Lotus Notes is a collaboration platform that provides a rich client, web client, and developer tools for mail, calendar, contacts, Tasks and many custom applications.
Lotus Notes is the social networking platform that you already own.


IBM Lotus iNotes is a rich web client for Domino email, calendaring, tasks, and contacts.
I eagerly await your contributions!

• Comments [38]

Do you use the Lotus iNotes Nome page? if so, how?

Mary Beth Raven  August 5 2010 03:58:08 PM

Happy Home page users,
When you use Lotus iNotes (aka Domino web access), do you use the Home page? If so, how have you customized it?
For example you can add a panel that display any web page,  and/or you can add a list of quick links from there. Does anybody use that? Why or why not?

If we were to  redesign the Lotus iNotes home page, what would you want?
Conversely, should we ditch any home page and simply let you choose which app (mail, calendar, contacts, notebook, tasks) to open by default?

Here's our current Lotus iNotes home page, which simply invites you to set things up:

• Comments [36]

Results from the Contact Management survey we asked you to complete back in May

Mary Beth Raven  July 26 2010 08:05:34 PM

In May, we asked for your participation in a survey to help us gather data on your contact usage and thoughts on the future of contact management.   Thank you to everyone that filled out the survey!

We received a lot of great information from your responses and would like to share some of what we heard:

• 92.4% of respondents maintain contacts in a collaboration application or mobile device.  Lotus Notes and mobile devices rank 1 and 2 as the places thought to contain their main contact lists.
• 67.7% have a combined list where both personal and professional contacts are kept.
• Users are generally satisfied with creating/editing/removing contacts.  A couple examples of concerns with contact functionality include importing/exporting and better integration with other products.
• There is interest in a unified area for Lotus product contacts, but with a flexibility in how the contacts are displayed, which contact lists are included (whether Lotus product or external) and how this unified area should be kept current.
• Almost half (45.2%) of the respondents have a daily need to access contacts from another application while performing a task (some multiple times per day).

• Comments [0]

What do YOU want from OpenNTF? Tell us using the Ideajam

Mary Beth Raven  July 14 2010 01:49:28 PM

OpenNTF users,
You have until July 16, at GMT+1 to tell us what you want from OpenNTF.  Go to the specific OpenNTF IdeaJam here: http://openntf.org/ideajam/ideajam.nsf/ProductByAreaMostRecent?openview&restricttocategory=July2010
Make sure that the default IdeaSpace of "July2010" is selected (shown in the screenshot below), and type in your idea.

• Comments [0]

How to turn off all your toolbars

Mary Beth Raven  June 28 2010 08:23:36 AM

 A colleague of mine bemoaned the fact that he wanted to turn off all his toolbars in Notes, but cannot.
Actually, He can, and here is how to do it:
Simply go to View - Toolbar - and choose Hide All Toolbars

We added this in Notes 8.5.1.

• Comments [9]

Welcome to Feedback Friday - Collaborate outside your organization?

Velda Bartek  June 25 2010 06:51:19 AM

The Lotus User Experience team is looking for people who collaborate with people outside their company, company, institution, agency, university, etc.

If you work with clients, partners, colleagues, or service providers outside your company or institution, we are interested in understanding your goals and the tools you are using to collaborate.

Please take a few minutes to complete a brief survey (https://www.ibm.com/survey/oid/wsb.dll/s/ag2cd).  In 5 – 10 minutes, you can provide us with invaluable insights into your goals, the tools you use to collaborate for work, and the importance of various collaboration tools.

If you know others who would be interested in participating in the research in organizations such as sales, marketing, customer relations, or procurement, please forward this invitation to them.

Thanks in advance for your help!
Velda Bartek
Lotus User Experience Research

• Comments [0]

Lotus knows you need this Wimbledon sidebar panel for your Notes client

Mary Beth Raven  June 22 2010 01:09:35 PM

Here's a Wimbledon widget for your sidebar.
Save the .xml to your hard drive and then drag it over into the My Widgets sidebar panel.  Then the Wimbledon Sideline panel should open in your sidebar.

• Comments [5]

Today, we’re celebrating the "Grand Opening" of our new site in Littleton, MA and having a press/analyst event about IBM’s mobile computing initiatives and strategic direction

Mary Beth Raven  June 16 2010 08:00:00 AM

As many of you who follow this blog know, we (meaning much of Lotus  development) moved from Westford, Ma, USA  to Littleton, MA, USA back in February. Our move was part of moving many IBM development teams together.  Since 2003, IBM has acquired 14 companies in Massachusetts. Now that we're all together in one campus, we're having an official celebration, complete with a ribbon cutting by Software Group VP Steve Mills.

The ribbon cutting will take place here at the main entrance  pictured below.


After that, the rest of the day will be spent on presentations and demos about IBM's mobile computing. All of the software brands will be present and demoing their mobile solutions. I'll be demoing Notes, Sametime and Connections on my Blackberry (Ok, and probably Ubertiwtter or OpenBeak by accident because I plan to tweet about the event). We prepared our demo areas yesterday afternoon, and as folks from other brands started preparing theirs, I got excited and I hope I have time to see what they are doing-- the business process and business analytics mobile demos sounded particularly interesting- and potentially a good place to explore some integration with the Lotus collaboration capabilities.  

Follow the #IBMLab tag on Twitter if you want to  learn more.

• Comments [0]