Eric Mack On-Line

I've just pressed SUBMIT on my abstracts for Lotusphere. It took two hours to write the proposals and a few more to get them to fit within the allowed word counts. If I had more time, I would have written shorter abstracts. ;-)

Based on the positive feedback we continue to receive, I felt that it would make sense to offer a session that will build upon the successful sessions that I presented in February with David Allen. I decided to keep the title the same because it clearly communicates the theme. If you read the justification, you'll learn more about what will be presented. For those that missed last year, it will provide a good foundation and for those that did attend, there will be some new content as well.

Best Practices Session Proposal:
Lotus Notes and Me: Maximizing Personal Productivity with Lotus Notes

Session Abstract:
Most people think of Lotus Notes as an "organizational" tool; that’s the way it’s marketed and it’s often the way organizations deploy it – as a top down solution. Seldom do you hear about Notes being used for "personal" productivity or knowledge management.  As a consequence users see Notes as a “company” system and not “their” tool. Lotus knows when tools become “personal,” productivity increases, and when personal productivity increases so does the productivity of the workgroup and the organization.

Lotus also knows my Inbox is overflowing; I could be better organized; and my real work is outside the inbox. This session will show you how you can use Notes coupled with proven best practices to become more productive and get things done.

Why I think it is important that this session be included on this year’s Lotusphere agenda:
If you follow my blog, you know I hate hearing folks complain how they “hate Lotus Notes” -- especially when most of their complaints are easily addressed in five minutes or less. (Current releases of Notes already address their valid concerns.) In most cases the underlying problem is that they haven’t made Notes personal. As a result, they are quick to complain about anything and everything. I like to see how fast I can turn people around and I’ve found that the easiest way to do this is to show them how to make Notes personal. In fact, to truly transform an organization, I’ve found that a bottom-up approach works best. This session will give attendees some tools they can use to do so.

I’ll share how I help organizations get more from their investment in Lotus software by helping them change the way that their users think about and use Notes, and I will give the audience practical tools and skills they can put to use immediately. The business world has embraced David Allen’s GTD methodology and I will present GTD in the context of Lotus Notes and show people how they can get things done with Lotus Notes.

With Lotus’ recent push around productivity tools and the individual, a session on user productivity will round out the Lotusphere agenda, helping developer, administrator and enterprise managers alike get the most from their Notes deployment.

I know the conference organizers have a hard job ahead of them to evaluate and select the proposals that they feel will best fit the theme of the conference and best serve the interests of the attendees. I hope to add the what I know will be an already impressive pool of abstracts.