Make Lotus sexy to businesses. No one has been able to figure that one out yet. All of the partners have been beating their chests for years trying to get that point across to IBM and us folks down in the trenches keep seeing opportunities pass on by.

Just a thought.

Can't wait to see how many of my own blog posts and comments would end up recycled on such an IdeaSpace.

What a brilliant time. All the negative vibes that it's being done terribly, etc, can be turned right around into ... ok, so how can we make it amazing? :-)

Nice one Ben!

Mark

having just attended Lotusphere Comes to You in London, I can only agree. I came out buzzing with excitement (alright not literally) about 8.5/Symphony etc but as soon as I get back to work, I almost feel as though I am alone in trying to get the messaeg across.

Appreciate the sentiment, but it's clear that IBM / Lotus are not interested in what people think they should do.…

Another idea, along the same line:

{ Link }

Don't fight against Microsoft....but accentuate what lotus is doing good. Bashing is not appreciated by customers.

Stop campaigns nobody understand....and if you start a campaign do it consequent in ALLL countries. In the Netherlands we hardly see any campaign....Also verry poor LSCTY sessions. Create a LotuSphere like event (maybe smaller) in europe. Our Ine lotus day per country. Invite companies....but maybe more important students (they are our future and only know MS by now). We are driving circles within our own community and if we don't do anything this community is getting smaller and smaller.

Make the community interesting for more (and younger) people.

an addition

I don't like the sales target model of IBM. Sales is focused on new business. Existing customers seem not important (at least in the Netherlands). They don't mind to lose a 10.000 license renewal...if they can get a 1000 new users.... divide sales with target on renewals and sales focused on new business.

Is see customers running away form Lotus Software almost daily..

Keep the ideas coming folks. This is good. Sander, some great points.

We *do* need to make the community interesting for the 'web' crowd.

On that note, can we have a dedicated Lotus 'Marketing' Ideas section?

- Bilal

Get the same company that does the Mac commercials. They are humorous and point out the many problems with Microsoft.

{ Link }

We’re entering an era of radical change for marketers. Faith in advertising and the institutions that pay for it is waning, while faith in individuals is on the rise. Peers trust peers. Top-down messaging is losing traction, while bottom-up buzz is gaining power. Dell spends hundreds of millions each year on promoting its quality and customer service, but if you Google “dell hell” you’ll get 55,000 pages of results. Even the word “dell” returns customer complaints by the second page of results. The same inversion of power is now changing the marketing game for everything from individual products to people. The collective now controls the message.

From “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson

An idea space is a good idea.. problem is Lotus Marketing now actually need to have an idea about marketing for Lotus.. (Sorry it was a low blow... but I have seen too many lame ad's from Lotus over the years..)

The best ad's were the eBusiness solutions.. { Link }