April 6th, 2008
How I Got Started with Lotus Notes
In 1992, I was working in Strategic Planning at a large company. We reported to the new CEO and were tasked with getting the opinions of the great minds (the 13 SR VPs) about how to navigate what was becoming an uncertain future, using the methods outlined in The Art of the Long View. We were to set up meetings for these men to discuss the issues – but a problem arose because a lot of these people didn't like or trust each other and simply wouldn't talk in the meetings. We were getting nothing.
Our IT guy Terry suggested we use something called "Notes" and a "Discussion database". He had heard about it and played with it a little, so he grabbed a piece of hardware, loaded OS/2 and Notes 2.0 on it, shoved it into a closet, hooked up our coaxial cables and loaded up clients.
After loading the software on the VPs machines, we were able to post ideas and suggestions using our own names, and since we were staff weenies, the Veeps felt at ease arguing with us and giving their own opinions. From these responses, we were able to formulate discussion points for the later meetings which had threads of each person's ideas in them, allowing them to discuss ideas in a less tense environment, and we came up with a really good set of scenarios. After seeing the magic that this 'groupware' could perform - making these uncooperative people actually do good things, I fell in love with the product and what it could do. We didn't use it for email (we had PROFS and ccMail for that), and many of these executives had the documents printed by their Admin Assistants and dictated the answers back to the AAs, who then typed up the response documents. Much has changed, but much has not.
Two years later, I took a voluntary buy-out offer and left that company and a 13-year career as a mechanical engineer. I used the retraining package to take Lotus Notes developer classes, and took a contracting job at a bank. I hated the job, so when a recruiter called offering more money for a Notes Admin job, I called Terry and asked if he thought I could do Notes Administration. He said, "Sure, drop by my office, I'll give you the book". So with my Notes 3.0 Yellow Book in hand, I reported to duty at a place where the Notes Admin had walked off the job, left the Notes servers down, and with a shared Organizer system and something called LN:DI to run. I was in WAY over my head, but was too stubborn or dumb to admit it. I learned a whole lot in a short period of time and I never gave Terry his book back. Five years and several jobs later, I landed my dream job at Lotus (yes, my ID badge still says Lotus on it), and I've been here since then.
