I just happened to notice a job ad for Binary Tree posted on LinkedIn.com.  Here is an excerpt:

“Company Description
Binary Tree is a leading provider of software for migrating enterprise messaging users and applications to on-premises and cloud-based versions of the Microsoft platform. Since 1993, Binary Tree and its business partners have helped over 5,000 customers around the world to migrate more than 20,000,000 email users. Binary Tree’s suite of software provides solutions for migrating from Exchange 2003/2007 and Lotus Notes to on-premises and online versions of Exchange and SharePoint. Binary Tree is the preferred vendor for migrating to the Microsoft cloud. Binary Tree is represented by business partners worldwide who provide specialized services and a proven methodology for guiding customers through complex transitions. Binary Tree is a Microsoft Gold ISV Partner, an IBM Premier Business Partner, and was a finalist for Microsoft’s 2010 Notes Migration Partner of the Year award. Binary Tree is headquartered in the New York metropolitan area with international offices in London, Paris, Stockholm, Singapore, and Sydney. For more information, please visit us online at http://www.binarytree.com.”

In this ad as well as their website, you will notice there is no longer any mention of using their products and services to migrate toward Lotus Notes or LotusLive.  A few years back at Lotusphere I suggested that IBM acquire Binary Tree and make it a part of the IBM offering to de-emphasize migrations away from Notes while promoting migrations toward it.  Even if IBM had little to gain in the acquisition, it would have stymied their aiding migrations toward Exchange.  Companies often do this just to keep patents out of the hands of their competition.  This technique was also heavily used by the great college football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant in his achievement as the winningest head coach ever.  He would give a scholarships to every good player he could find because he would rather have them sitting on his bench doing nothing than being on the field playing for the other team.

Based on this info  I expect there is no shortage of work for Binary Tree.
Ironically, much of Binary Tree’s early success came from Lotus Notes tools and from migrating companies TO Lotus Notes.  Mind you I’m not complaining.  In a strange twist of fate, it is those very migrations that are now keeping me quite busy.

The following image shows their solutions offerings.  Notice that for Lotus customers it lists migrating to Microsoft solutions.  But under Microsoft customers it also only lists migrating to various Microsoft solutions.

I grew up in Florida, so I know what you’re all going through with this hurricane.

I live on the west coast, so I know what you went through with the earthquake last week.

At least 15% of my Linkedin connections live in the path of this hurricane.  I hope all of you stay safe and sound.

Open response to Ed Brill’s blog post: “Whatever we call it”

I step away for a weekend and look what happens!  I think it’s time to figure out how to get those RSS feeds into my Outlook client.  😦

Ed, I hope you are more efficient at writing your blog entries than I am.  Such a carefully worded article for me would have taken me forever to write.

To nit-pick: IBM is the “3rd most valuable brand”, not 2nd.  Though I’m still not sure what that means.  If you look at the list (Apple, Google, IBM, MacDonald’s, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, AT&T, Marlboro, China Mobile, GE – See the source: Brandz article on Most Valuable Brands ) All but one of these brands brings to mind a specific product:  IBM.  What good is a brand if it’s product(s) are unknown?

At this point I think IBM has, through its own neglect, done enough damage to the Lotus brand name that I think you are making the right decision to sell it as IBM rather than Lotus. (as if you needed my approval, right?)  But certainly I can provide a unique perspective to this from my vantage point.  I know this region of the world has many IBM customers and they would not be shy to buy IBM solutions, even  here in Microsoft land, where they would be a hard sell on Lotus branded products.  Of course this assumes someone follows through and actually markets and sells those products. (ahem. nudge, nudge, wink, wink.)

I completely agree with you that “product management does not drive branding.”  It shouldn’t.  Product management should be focused on what it knows best: software engineering, not marketing.  Though by default, Ed, you are the mouth and face of the Lotus brand since all of this marketing news is coming from you, not from Sandy Carter, the VP of marketing.  I admit that I am more guilty than most of targeting you with points on marketing awareness when I really should be directing that energy toward Sandy.  But hey, you’re a more visible and accessible person and we all appreciate that.

I can think of no other company that has such a transparent  approach to their product development and direction as IBM has with its Lotus brand.  Even other IBM product communities don’t have such transparency or stir such passion.  But honestly, we don’t so much care about the transparency as we do about results.  It’s much like the way a boss or parent will micro-manage when they aren’t getting the results they expect and will be more hands-off when they do.  Right now the Lotus community is trying to micro-manage IBM because it doesn’t have confidence in your current strategy.  This community wouldn’t be so involved or vocal if their careers weren’t so closely tied to IBM’s success.  It’s no fun to be a stakeholder yet have little voice in the process beyond commenting on your blog or writing on our own blogs.  I believe the American Revolution started for the same reason exactly 235 years ago.  That is the independence theme in “screw IBM, let’s buy the product back from them” .  I didn’t see the post, but I’ll bet the author was an American.

At PACLUG I had a chance to talk with several people who seem to think “Hey, IBM has adapted to survive for the last 100 years, that is longer than anyone else in this business.  We know what we’re doing and we will continue to succeed.”  I say to that, if IBM has a 64 year jump on Microsoft, 65 years on Apple, 85 years on Google, and an incredible 93 year jump on Facebook, then why isn’t IBM way ahead of all of them?  As the stock purchasing disclaimer goes “past success does not indicate future performance.”  Or as the customer’s mantra goes “It’s not ‘what have you done for me?’  It is ‘what have you done for me *lately*?'”

Ed, in all of my studies and research on marketing, there are 3 books that I have found that stand out to address this issue best.  You already know the first one: “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion”.  The second is “Neuromarketing: Understanding the Buy Buttons in Your Customer’s Brain” by Renvoise and Morin (terrible title, great content).  Don’t read it unless you’re interested in expanding your knowledge on selling, but do at least share it with Sandy.

I’m just glad I branded myself as “The Notes Guy in Seattle” instead of “The Lotus Guy in Seattle”.

Cheers,
-David
The nice thing about being on the dark side is “When it’s dark enough you can see the stars.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I too am not a bit tamed,
I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.

–Walt Whitman

https://foursquare.com/venue/1757764

The times, they are a changin’.

Looking forward to a large audience for this community webcast/phone cast posted on Lotus Greenhouse:

https://greenhouse.lotus.com/blogs/586f4bb8-2edf-48cd-892f-17e59d246240/entry/ibm_community_meeting_is_the_lotus_brand_going_away_june_28th_10am_et?lang=en_us

OK, I’ll tell you right up front.  I now work at Microsoft.  No, I’m not throwing away 17 years of experience with Lotus software.  I’m just taking on new challenges and developing other skills.
This new challenge will involve BlackBerry, Exchange and much more.
I am following my own mantra:  “Eliminate your weaknesses and turn them into strengths.”  (Read my recent post on this.)
My Lotus skills are already a strength.   While I certainly have room to improve those skills, it wouldn’t make much difference.

Over the past few years I’ve been working on a variety of other skills and turning them into strengths:  marketing, public speaking, and web development to name a few.
Not that I was bad at public speaking, but it wasn’t a strength.  I joined Toastmasters and my skills have greatly improved.  (see my speech at the 140 Characters Conference)  I still have much room for improvement, but I have come a long way.

I recognized marketing as a weakness one day when I observed the C-level executives at my company make a decision to switch email from Notes to Exchange.  They had no interest in seeing a cost analysis.  They had no interest in understanding the impact.  They just knew they wanted Microsoft software and they were eager to spend whatever it took to get there.  When it was all over, they spent more than $1 million at a time when the company was losing money and they were laying off staff.  And  what did they have to show for the money and effort?

Email.

Actually, it’s worse than that.  They now have 2 systems to pay for and maintain instead of one.  Watching this seemingly irrational behavior made me wonder:  what could possibly influence these leaders to make such a costly and unproductive decision?   In the process of finding the answer I did enough research and studying on my own about sales and marketing that I could have earned an MBA.  I turned that weakness into a strength.

Yes, I will continue to be The Notes Guy in Seattle.  But I am, and have always been, much more than that.  The brand “The Notes Guy in Seattle” has proven very effective in marketing that particular skill set and it has created great opportunities for me.  Yet it fails to represent all of who I am whether I work at Microsoft or not.

Friends have been describing this new job using phrases like “Know your enemy” or “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”  I like to think of it more like being a free agent in Major League Baseball.  I may have a favorite team, but I’ll hit home runs for whichever team pays me.  Let’s keep in mind Microsoft is not “the enemy.”  Microsoft is just the competition.  And since IBM has chosen not to compete in Seattle, my options are limited here as a Lotus professional.  And you certainly can’t say I haven’t done my best to try to change that.  That’s too bad too because this is a target-rich environment for potential new customers.

Will I change how I write?  Probably not.  But just in case you think my perspective has been tainted, you can always go to Mini-Microsoft’s blog for an entertaining perspective from the inside as written by an anonymous author who would probably be fired if they could figure out who it is.

The nice thing about being on the dark side is that you can see the stars.

Whether his prediction comes true is irrelevant.  Harold Camping has done a phenomenal job of marketing the Rapture.  For the price of a few minutes worth of Superbowl commercials, he has created a very successful marketing campaign that has drawn the attention of much of the 1st world.  What’s more, when it doesn’t happen, HE WILL GAIN EVEN MORE FOLLOWERS!!!  Mark my words, this will happen.

So if one man could sell his idea so successfully to the world, why can’t IBM, owner of THE THIRD MOST VALUABLE BRAND, sell Lotus software?  Perhaps brand recognition does not equate to sales as much as they would like to think?   IBM spends huge sums of money on brand recognition.  But in all of their advertising, have you ever seen a PRODUCT?  Brand recognition has become the sole objective of their marketing strategy.  NOT sales.
Here is a word association challenge.  For each of these top 10 brands, (taken from the WPP report)   what is the first thing you think of?

Apple
Google
IBM
McDonald’s
Microsoft
Coca-Cola
at&t
Marlboro
Chiina Mobile
GE

Every single one of these brands equates to specific products except IBM.   IBM is the only company in this list to have no tangible product or service to identify with unless that would be “mainframe computers” which any IBMer will wince at.  Can you find any other business that relies exclusively on brand recognition to sell without actually associating it with a product?  IBM is totally focused on brand recognition and is ignoring the rest of the content in the complete report.    It takes much more than brand recognition to sell something.  Re-branding Lotus software as IBM software may seem smart, but  it’s the same thing as killing Lotus.  At least the Lotus brand had a product associated with it.  The PRODUCT had an identity.  As IBM software it will become obfuscated in the amorphous, intangible blob that is IBM.  In a manner of speaking, the Rapture has come for Lotus software.

This article is based on a speech I gave at Toastmasters.

A few years ago, I entered a multi-sport race that involved a 25-mile mountain biking leg, a 12-mile kayaking leg, and a 6-mile run.  In preparation for the race I biked to work 40 miles round trip, 3 to 5 days/week.  I paddled 2 to 3 times/week.  I didn’t do any running because I didn’t like to run and I was already cycling which also trains the legs, or so I thought.

For the mountain bike leg of the race, I was the 4th fastest racer, 4 minutes behind the leader.
I was the 3rd fastest kayaker, 15 minutes behind the fastest kayaker.
I don’t know where I placed in in the run, but it wasn’t pretty.  I finished the 6 miles in 58 minutes.
Overall I finished in 6th place.  A major disappointment.  After doing so well in all the other legs, it felt more like last place.  If that were a job interview, I wouldn’t get the job.

The next year I was motivated to improve.  As I evaluated my training from the previous year, I figured I couldn’t do much to improve my cycling.  I was already riding 200 miles a week and in the 1-hour ride I was only a few minutes behind the fastest rider.  There wasn’t much room for improvement in the kayak either, except to get a faster boat.  That leaves the running leg, my greatest weakness.  As much as I disliked it, I decided I would just have to suck it up an do some running.  I cut back on my cycling days and started running at lunchtime for 30 minutes a day, 3 days a week.  That’s running 15 minutes out and 15 minutes back.  I trained this way for 6 months leading up to the race.

Race day comes around.  The race starts with a 1/2 mile sprint to the bikes, running out 1/4 mile on a gravel road, around a marker, and back to the bikes before heading down the trail.  The purpose is to spread the racers out so there isn’t a huge mob of cyclists going down the trail and crashing into each other.

I lined up in the front row of racers at the starting line.  The gun fires and we all start running.  I’m at the front of the pack.  I happen to be wearing an eye patch over one eye (that’s another story), so I don’t have any peripheral vision.  I can’t look around to see the racers beside me.  I’m just focused on watching where I’m running so I don’t trip.  Gradually the sound of the mob of 200 other runners tromping on the gravel starts to fade.
As I round the marker I can finally see that I’m way ahead of everyone.  As we reach the bikes I am in first place.  That is, ahead of all of the relay team racers too. This photo was taken just as we were getting back to the bikes.  I’m the guy in front with the yellow helmet and eye patch.  The guy behind me in the bright red running shoes is the race favorite in the relay team category.  He is an elite cyclist and his team was sponsored by runningshoes.com.  He still had to change his shoes when he got to his bike.  I am running in my mountain bike shoes.

Like the year before, I was the 4th fastest mountain biker and shaved 2 minutes from my previous time which was about how much faster I ran at the start.
In the kayaking leg there was a strong headwind, yet I still cut 5 minutes off my time.  That was good enough to be the fastest paddler not racing as a team.
Cutting 2 minutes in a 1-hour bike race and cutting 5 minutes in a 2-hour kayak race are both great improvements in their own right.  But the most impressive improvement came in the run.

In the previous year, I averaged 9:30 minutes per mile.  This time I ran my first mile in 5:35.  I finished the run in 38 minutes, a 20-minute improvement.  That was the fastest individual time and only 4 relay teams had a faster runner.  I finished the run 3 minutes faster than the next fastest individual runner.  That is a full 1/2 mile ahead in a 6 mile race.  Keep in mind I only trained for running 30 minutes a day, 3 days a week.  I changed running from my weakness into my strength.

Like a multi-sport race, most things we do in life require several skills.  If you are the best at one only of them, it won’t set you apart.  Being good at most of them won’t put you at the top either..  However, if you focus on your weaknesses and put the effort into eliminating them, you can turn them into a strength.  If you do this, you will surely be differentiated from everyone else.

If you apply this philosophy to your professional skills, it can make the difference between a no-thank-you letter and a salary negotiation.

What skills should you focus on?  Usually your weaknesses will also be those things that you least enjoy, like running was for me.  I hated running.  Now I look forward to it.  Don’t just focus on variations of skills you already have.  Look outside your core roles.  Diversify.  Generally, the skills that will advance you the most are those that can be applied to any job. If you’re a programmer, don’t just learn a new programming language.  Consider skills in system administration, technical writing, project management, or public speaking.
Whatever they are, as you eliminate your weaknesses and turn them into strengths, you will always set yourself apart.