Lotusphere session evaluations

February 10 2006

Finally had a chance to review my Lotusphere evaluation verbatims yesterday.  I didn't do the actual math, but for both sessions, it looks like about 80% excellent and 15% good ratings on both content and speakers.  Considering that these sessions are necessarily provocative, I don't ever expect to score 100% excellent.  So, this is good.  I do appreciate the feedback.

I always enjoy reading the written comments on the evaluations.  There's not a ton of them, but there are some funny comments and some good ones (and a few that the ego appreciates).
 
The Boss Loves Microsoft: Where does that leave Lotus?

  • "Great use of up-to-date sources and third-party quotes"
  • "Best session I've attended so far"
  • "Great knowledge, passion, humour"
  • "The highlight of Lotusphere"
This one puzzles me, though: "Stop bagging the competition.  Its not a good business practise."  I think the abstract for the session makes it clear that it is going to be a discussion of the competitive landscape, right?

How to 'sell' Notes/Domino inside your organization
  • "Speakers gave more ammo to convince upper mgmt to take another look @ Notes.  Excellent info."
  • "I am now 'armed' to for selling LN 7.0"
  • "Both Ed & Libby are seasoned pros -- they were born to do sessions like this!"
  • "This information should be even more readily available to the community -- such is its importance"
Interestingly, the PDFs of both sessions are posted, but there have been very few comments posted about them.  About 800 downloads of "How to 'sell' Notes/Domino"...not a word.  And with somewhere around 5000 downloads of "The Boss loves Microsoft...", the electronic silence was somewhat surprising.  Then again, a number of those downloads came from *.microsoft.com IP addresses :)

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Lotusphere ’06  Add/View Comments [13]

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  1. 1  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 2/10/2006 11:17:37 AM

    I think 5000 is low-balling it Ed ;) Trust me ...

  1. 2  Matthew Evanson  | 2/10/2006 1:12:01 PM

    I attended the session and while I did not leave written comments, I'd agree with the statement left about "bagging the competition".

    I'd agree also that it is to be expected to some extent based on the topic at hand.

    That said, however, a significant portion of the session (and often this site) is dedicated to talking about the latest "failure" or the difficulty of migrating. Rather than focusing so much in that direction, I'd recommend speaking to why Notes/Domino/Workplace are better. By focusing on the negatives of the competition, you don't have as much time to focus telling the story of your own products.

  1. 3  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 2/10/2006 1:14:19 PM

    One of my beliefs is that Lotusphere otherwise provides an attendee with hundreds of reasons why Notes/Domino/Workplace are better. Maybe the session does need to include more content in that direction...it's a good thought. But it's also the -only- session to cover the competitive landscape, so that's why I've traditionally allocated more time to the competition and debunking them than to our own story.

  1. 4  Simon Barratt http://apps.fmc.com/blog.nsf | 2/10/2006 2:20:48 PM

    Maybe the cumbersome PDF format mutes your audience!?

    I struggled to find the time to view your slides after downloading it, as it was so slow to view with Acrobat reader. Not sure if it was due to 2 slided being compressed per page or what, but it was sooooo slow.

    I did make the effort (after your email), and was pleasently surprised to see one of my quotes had made it on to your slides!

  1. 5  Colin Williams  | 2/10/2006 3:20:56 PM

    Yep, I had similar problems with the PDFs being slow - the first one published was so bad I couldn't view it at all. Anyway, the PDFs are great but I feel like I need something more...

    What about a video cast of some sort so we see the slides and hear Ed talk!?

  1. 6  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 2/10/2006 4:02:22 PM

    I was going to say that. Ed, you need to build something which scales better than dragging a few hundred people into a room.

    How about a movie with the presentation slides with voiceover? You have a mac so it is pretty simple:

    1. Look at your own presentation while recording a podcast.

    2. Export the slides as graphics files and drap them into iPhoto.

    3. Open iMovie and drag the podcast on the audio track. Drag the "photos" from iPhoto on the Movie timeline.

    4. Save the whole thing as a movie. It will compress very well, since there are hardly any changes in the graphics and the audio will be mp3.

  1. 7  Bruce Elgort http://takingnotes.openntf.org | 2/10/2006 5:14:48 PM

    @Ed,

    As per Vowe's suggestion I would be more than welcome to help you with this :-)

    Bruce

  1. 8  Tony S Lee  | 2/10/2006 5:17:15 PM

    Yeah, what Vowe said....

  1. 9  Adam Brown www.isw.com.au | 2/11/2006 3:27:18 AM

    I know I get a lot of requests from our Govt clients for speakers that can present the competitive landscape with Microsoft. State Govt hear is about 50/50 Lotus/Microsoft so there is often much debate. We have had a few good speakers over the years from IBM however getting @6's suggested would be great. I am sure it would help the cause.

  1. 10  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 2/12/2006 6:41:16 PM

    OK OK OK when I get back state-side i'll do the recording...

  1. 11  David Russell http://www.russellsphere.com/blog | 2/15/2006 10:58:59 AM

    This session has always been my favorite while attending lotusphere and I regret not being able to attend this years conference. (I had some twins due at that time, so good reason!). Its also good to see feedback on evaluations, sometimes it can feel that perhaps they are not read, but obviously they are!. Last year I got the opportunity to present, and can't wait to return next year. Love reading the blog.

  1. 12  Walter Fletcher http://www.sagitta.org | 2/19/2006 12:17:01 PM

    I like the following title:

    "The boss loves MONEY so where does that leave Microsoft?"

  1. 13  Walter Fletcher http://www.sagitta.org | 2/19/2006 12:19:05 PM

    So as not to confuse @12 with the MS MONEY software, a better title could be:

    "The boss loves PROFIT, so where does that leave Microsoft?"