"The distance between IBM and me"

January 31 2006

At the birds-of-a-feather entitled "The Lotus Blogging Community" last week, Mikkel Heisterberg made a comment that is worth sharing with a broader audience.

His comment was that, as a result of the blogosphere, "the distance between me and IBM has never been shorter".

His example is a good story.  Several weeks ago, Mikkel wrote a blog about mailbox sizes in Domino.  Though I wasn't reading his blog, blogdigger snared it for me.... and it was off to the races.  I posted a comment asking Mikkel for more details about the support incident in question.  Once he e-mailed me, I involved Kathleen McGivney who involved Susan Bulloch.  We quickly determined that he had been given erroneous data from Lotus support -- a seven-year old technote that was actually marked internal anyway.  Not sure why the support analyst chose to send this out, but it happened.

With Kathleen and Susan's involvement, we were able to get a better document to Mikkel for reference.  We were able to get the support person to update the incident and provide more useful information (for this, and for any future such calls).  And we were able to get the erroneous information pulled from the support database.

Mikkel's story is not the only example of his comment.  Part of the reason that this weblog helps me be successful in my job is simply because of the direct connection to my customers.  It's not even just me -- I've had engineers pore through comments here in the hopes of making their features better, executives rush to edbrill.com to read reactions to announcements, and product managers/marketing people draw ideas (good and bad) through the discussions here.  The number of IBM eyes on this blog is huge -- about 5% of overall hit count.  And that's what makes things cool -- we as a company have another tool to interact with you as a customer and partner community -- our "family".  

This is why I am trying to find ways to draw out new voices into the blogs -- the more the merrier.

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Blogging  Add/View Comments [30]

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  1. 1  Dan http://techandother.blogspot.com | 1/31/2006 10:18:07 AM

    ...is why I started blogging. Just like Ed with IBM, I have people I work with who asking me about my blog every now and then, since I have it in my email sig. It's been a nice way to keep the non-techies around here current on recent technology development. What I've found is that they are interested, but never asked for fear of "sounding dumb". This way, they come and get it as they please.

    As a side benefit, I've found that they're actually more appreciative of the role of IT in business operations. It really is a lot nicer to have them be aware of what IT is capable of, besides "watching their email" or other big-brother views they used to hold. Having a technophobe asking me why we don't have an RSS feed on our website is great!

    Overall, I contribute to the general blogosphere to:

    1) see if I am correct by getting feedback

    2) share information that might be useful to someone else

    3) have an online repository of information that I can link to (when I have the 100th person at work ask me what to do about spyware on their home computer)

    I could go on...

    Now, I only get maybe 20 people per day visiting, and no comments, but for the reasons listed above, I don't see myself stopping any time soon. I'd encourage anyone to start a blog themed on their own personal expertise, etc. If nothing else, just treat the blog as a 'brain dump' or 'artificial memory' for knowledge you pick up, I've found it to be quite useful, both for myself and others.

    I'd encourage anyone to start a blog about something *you're knowledgeable about* and try to post once daily for a month or so.

  1. 2  Mark Dowling http://cork2toronto.blogspot.com | 1/31/2006 10:40:19 AM

    Excellent linked article too...

  1. 3  Carl Fink http://www.seaviewcorp.com | 1/31/2006 11:22:12 AM

    You realize you're setting yourself up as a gripe recipient and problem fixer?

    Speaking of which: can you possibly clarify (or have the responsible person clarify) IBM's incredibly complex terms for licensing Notes/Domino and Workspace? There are what, thirty possible license deals between them? Fifty?

  1. 4  TimsterC http://blog.tc-soft.com | 1/31/2006 11:36:14 AM

    Well Ed, you and a few others I met a LS06 have certainly made me spend a few hours getting a blog set up on my webspace. The only downer is that they don't host Domino, so it had to PHP. But hey, it's a blog.

  1. 5  Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net | 1/31/2006 12:13:36 PM

    Mikkel, unfortunately, is based in Denmark; a market sector that used to be covered by Lotus Customer Support in the UK based in Staines (LCSUK).

    There he was looked after by a large group of English and Nordic speakers who weren't quite in their time zone but did a pretty decent job. Many of the staff had been in Staines for many, many years and offered a wealth of experience from backgrounds in Notes, cc:Mail and Smartsuite support.

    In 1999, as part of the "big blue is the new yellow" project, somebody had the bright idea to close this support centre along with those in Paris and Munich to be replaced by a team at an IBM call centre outside of Dublin, Ireland.

    If my facts are right, correct me if I'm wrong , all staff were offered the opportunity of a move to Dublin but just one junior staff member took the option and has since left IBM/Lotus Customer Support. All the rest were either made redundant or redeployed internally.

    As one of the people who left to go external at this point, the loss of internal skills was very clear. Nobody in the Dublin call centre could possibly offer assistance on a technical issue without calling back and every one of my calls was either escalated to the US or resolved by myself in the time I was made to wait for escalation.

    I appreciate the costs savings and tax benefits to IBM, but to Lotus customers in Europe it was painful. I'm not the only one who basically gave up calling LCS when I had an issue and instead relied on my network of contacts.

    Was it pure co-incidence that LCS Support contracts were thrown in with Passport Advantage free-of-charge not long after that reshuffle? I know I for one refused to pay for support that simply wasn't available in the EU time zone except for a few call centre people.

    It's customers like Mikkel who are suffering. He ends up dealing with a support analyst who relies on poor technotes for backup in the absence of experienced staff.

    We're many years on from 1999 and one would hope things had changed but I know from recent experiences that IBM support still have a big habit of burying calls in red tape and collating irrelevant information before escalating.

    It's painful and I know customers and partners including myself have been suffering for years.

    Still, I know how to get things fixed now...I know where you live ;O)

  1. 6  Irv Schor  | 1/31/2006 1:24:34 PM

    Ed, I read your plea and won't be apethetic, so here is a response to this blog: In the past I had used Lotus Support (pre IBM) and then the newer (IBM) support ...I think it was in the 2001-2003 period or so. At the time, I was a jr. level Notes admin, but noticied considerably a drop in the quality of phone support provided after IBM took over in terms of the '1st level response' team. Basically when I called in for support I had IBM support staff reading to me items from the knowledgebase that was provided to customers on CD-ROM, but the problem is that it was offered without getting the full background on the issue to even know if the solution they were reading had been applicable. Maybe I didn't push hard enough, and my experiences post IBM acquisition were few because of the experiences. I've stayed with my career in Notes/Domino over the years and found that I've gotten my best support from the notes.net R5/R6/R7 forums by being able to search through them and identify the exact (or very closely related) issue on my own as well as my peers. More imporantantly, these resolutions comes (shhhh, please don't pass this on to anyone wanting to sock more revenue out of the faithful customers) without charge.

  1. 7  Carl Fink http://www.seaviewcorp.com | 1/31/2006 1:31:57 PM

    This strikes me as very silly.

    There is no way to find a Lotus distributor using ibm.com. Searches for phrases like "ibm distributor" and "lotus distributor" find random links to ten-year-old Technotes. The words "distributor" and "buy" don't exist on the Lotus home page.

    Um, why? Aren't you trying to sell these products? My employer is an IBM business partner (as developers) that's thinking of becoming a reseller, but we would need to work with a distributor AND YOU WON'T TELL US WHO THEY ARE.

    Again, why?

  1. 8  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 1/31/2006 1:34:16 PM

    @7 perhaps you should start at IBM.com/Passport or something like that.

  1. 9  Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net | 1/31/2006 1:41:12 PM

    @8 Our apologies...

    The page you requested cannot be displayed

    Glad you're not the only one who has troubles finding the Passport Advantage site...

  1. 10  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 1/31/2006 1:43:02 PM

    By design, I didn't link -- I'm not online to check the actual link. Sigh.

  1. 11  Carl Fink http://www.seaviewcorp.com | 1/31/2006 2:01:57 PM

    Ed,

    Not to pile on, but not being able to find the Passport site kind of proves my point.

    On this page: https://www-304.ibm.com/jct09002c/partnerworld/mem/pat/pat_sw_passport.html

    it says "Go to ibm.com/software/passportadvantage and choose Reseller Site from the right navigator."

    There's no "right navigator" on that page.

  1. 12  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 1/31/2006 2:15:34 PM

    @7,8,9,10 - Try { Link }

    For Products and Services enter Software:Lotus, and for Partner Type enter reseller. You can narrow the search more if you would like with things like location on the second tab.

    One way to locate this page is via { Link } and clicking on Locate Partner. Or, from the Lotus home page, the first link under communties is to the IBM Partner Page. Also, when looking at any of the product pages (like Domino) there is a link on the left called "How to buy", which takes you to { Link } where you can select "Locate an IBM Business Partner worldwide."

    I hope this helps. Alan

  1. 13  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 1/31/2006 2:18:08 PM

    Sorry, some typos in my urls above... in the second link the comma was in the wrong place, it should just be www.ibm.com/partner. The third link is { Link }

  1. 14  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 1/31/2006 2:35:09 PM

    Ug, again.. not sure where the commas are coming from... the third link should be:

    { Link }

    Sorry about that!

  1. 15  Carl Fink http://www.seaviewcorp.com | 1/31/2006 2:40:39 PM

    Thanks, Alan. As I posted, I had found the PartnerWorld site, but it isn't obvious how to get to a list of distributors from there. I promise you that unless you already know it, it is NOT obvious that "distributor" is a subtype of "business partner".

    Currently, the "Search for an IBM Business Partner" site ({ Link } is not responding!

    In any case, isn't it a bit odd that two IBM executives plus a very knowledgeable user community reading these blog comments can't actually find that list without all this flailing around and all these errors? Isn't "let the customer buy stuff" a basic marketing principle?

  1. 16  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 1/31/2006 2:44:26 PM

    @15 Carl - not to be smart, but for a customer -- the answer is to click the "how to buy" link. For example, every product listing on this page: { Link } has such a link.

  1. 17  Bill Brown  | 1/31/2006 2:45:11 PM

    As a customer, lotus.com/passport gets me close enough to find the downloads page.

    Suprising that ibm.com/passport doesnt mirrror the lotus URL.

    Support seems to be more dependant on the person who gets the call. Sometimes I call with a problem that seems pretty off the wall, and I get an answer in 5 minutes after connecting to the tech. Other times I have an experience as in #6 above. A coworker has resorted to calling back and opening another call to try to get another tech on the problem... In these cases, it takes some pushing to get the problem solved.

    I feel I've got pretty good access to IBM through this blog and Ed's email address for concerns and suggestions that are not support related.

  1. 18  Carl Fink http://www.seaviewcorp.com | 1/31/2006 2:59:30 PM

    Ed,

    Granted, that would work for an end-user patient enough to find it. (It's about five clicks away from the main IBM page, if you happen to be a very good guesser.) Still can't find a list of DISTRIBUTORS that way.

  1. 19  Ben Poole http://www.benpoole.com | 1/31/2006 3:05:39 PM

    Don't equate the IBM websites with IBM. I know from first-hand experience that there are STACKS of excellent helpful people within IBM. But IBM is a huge company, and so getting to the right person is difficult, and their websites are -- ahem -- variable.

    Such is life. I take heart from the fact that IBM are at least investing time, money, and effort in developing the tools that can lead the right person to the right person -- and some of these tools are even trickling out to the marketplace.

    I'll stop crawling now, and try to balance out this post: some of the IBM websites SUCK! :o)

  1. 20  Chris Doig chrisdoig.net | 1/31/2006 3:18:34 PM

    After reading all the problems with the IBM web site (and experiencing them first hand over the years) I find it fascinating that Jacob Nielsen can rate the IBM web site in the top 10 best Intranets of 2006, see { Link }

    I think this illustrates how difficult it is to "get it right".

  1. 21  Carl Fink http://www.seaviewcorp.com | 1/31/2006 3:39:56 PM

    I agree with both Ben Poole and Chris Doig. IBM *people* are on the whole talented, skilled, and helpful. The web site needs a top down redesign.

    Chris, note: *intranet*. Not web site. Two different things.

  1. 22  Ben Poole http://www.benpoole.com | 1/31/2006 4:32:44 PM

    I'd be happy to help IBM out with this. My rates are very reasonable. :o)

  1. 23  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 1/31/2006 4:35:31 PM

    @15 "flailing around and all these errors"... wow, sorry that I made a few typos while trying to assist you. It is my second day back from two months off, I guess my typing fingers are not back from vacation yet! As for the list of resellers, using New York as the search location (based on your web site), I was able to find 23 Lotus resellers for you. Yes, I will admit the search site was way too slow! Rather than post the resulting list, I've emailed them to you. I hope this helps.

  1. 24  Susan Bulloch http://notesgoddess.net | 1/31/2006 6:11:02 PM

    @ 20 - I think the IBM INTRAnet rocks....really.

  1. 25  Thomas Schulte  | 2/1/2006 5:54:46 AM

    Well as a developer the distance between me and IBM is sometimes a big one, especially when it comes to using functions of the software which are not complete or only working under certain conditions. I do not know if this would change if i would start blogging. First, because i am a native german speaker so writing a blog in a foreign language is not so easy.

    And if i would write in german. Would these entries show up on eds radar? I think the answer is a big NO.

    So while i will perhaps be a blogger sooner or later, this would will for sure not affect the distance between IBM and myself.

  1. 26  Carl Fink http://www.seaviewcorp.com | 2/1/2006 8:29:15 AM

    Let me apologize publicly to Alan Lepofsky. I didn't mean errors you made, I meant web site errors, like directions to nonexistent "navigators" and pages that don't open.

    The "Find a Business Partner" page still isn't working, by the way. Currently it's BLANK except for some comboboxes.

  1. 27  Carl Fink http://www.seaviewcorp.com | 2/1/2006 8:37:10 AM

    I apologize again. The page is fine, there was a temporary problem on my own computer (which blocked some of the content from that page in both IE and Firefox). All fine now.

  1. 28  Pete www.corefusion.com | 2/1/2006 9:47:50 AM

    As with Ed, I am not trying to sound smart, but as a long time BO, I look on the web site first and if I don't find an answer to a question in a reasonable amount of searching, I call my BP Rep. That is what they are there for.

    As an Advanced or Premiere level BP you have access to this resource. If you are a "Member", you will need to dig. Use the "Call me now" links all over the IBM web site. Can't even find the right area of the web site? Find a call me now link and use it. Someone will call you and you can ask them. IBM does use different terminology than others at times, but it is usually pretty easy to get synched up.

    Also, use Google, I have found IBM info on IBM web sites faster and easier on Google, than from the IBM web site.

    IBMers are great resources, Ed, Alan, 1-800-IBM... Go to Lotusphere, launch events and 3rd party events and meet the IBMers, seek them out and introduce yourself. Tell them what you do, and ask them what you need. If they don't know the answer, I have yet to find an IBMer that couldn't or wouldn't help you get an answer.

    If you are a BP and have access to Partnerworld Online, use it, get familiar with it. If you don't have access, ask your internal people for access.

    My $0.03 CDN

    --Pete

  1. 29  Maria Helm  | 2/2/2006 9:43:45 AM

    @25 - Thomas - You should definitely create your blog in German. I am sure there are other German speaking Domino/Notes people who would appreciate a blog in their native language. This may just be your niche! Ed doesn't need to be your audience, but if you want you could include some English postings occasionally, and of course link to Ed's blog and include trackbacks, etc...

    For an example of someone who blogs in more than one language quite successfully, see vowe: { Link }

  1. 30  Mathias Persson  | 2/3/2006 6:26:49 AM

    @5 I totally agree! We're based in Sweden and there is problems with support (even though it has slowly become better over the last year) but also with the [lack of] attention from IBM in Sweden. And now with the new Sametime 7.5 coming up it is absolutely important that we can get help to be able to make use of it as much and as fast as possible!