off the Hook - 911s Chief Lotu...

I have recently been watching the public twitter stream of the word Lotus (some might say obsessing). First, it is amazing how many people twitter about the lotus flower, lotus position, clubs called "Lotus", and the Lotus automobile line. Side note: If you want a decent Twitter search string, try lotus -position -elise -flying -flower -yoga -lounge

I was specifically looking for complaints about Lotus software. There are far fewer than I thought there would be. I am only finding about 3 or 5 per day from the public stream. In fact, the praise outweighs the complaints significantly. Almost all of the complaints have been generic, like "Lotus Notes sucks". But hey, you only get 140 characters so I didn't expect a lot of detail. Each time I spotted one, I would reply to it and offer assistance if they would provide more detail. Most people didn't respond. My hypothesis is that most people don't want to have their minds changed about something they "like to dislike." However, most that did, quickly revealed that their complaints were not actually legitimate "suckage" of Lotus Notes, but rather poor implementation, poor management, or lack of training. Many were running 6.0, which is 6 or 7 years old now. Now wonder they're displeased. The only legitimate complaint with 8.5 was about sluggishness on PC's with less than 2 GB RAM, which I'll acknowledge. In almost all cases, I'd say that I was able to significantly diminish if not completely resolve their complaint, or at least inform them that they should upgrade to a more recent version before giving up on it. 

So I encourage you. The next time you see or hear someone complaining about Lotus Notes, ask them why, then help them realize the truth.

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