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IBM developerWorks: Lotus

IBM developerWorks: Lotus (or notes.net to the long time Lotus fans out there) is IBM’s portal to all the information you could ever need. There are links to tons of learning resources like articles, documentation, tutorials and more.

One of the pieces that really makes this a community however are its forums. If you go to the site and click on the Forums & Community link on the left side of the screen, you’ll find forums for pretty much every single IBM Lotus product. You can ask questions or join in the discussion yourself. It’s a great way to get information and support.

There are also links to IBM Bloggers, Wiki’s with product information for the various Lotus products and RSS feeds covering pretty much everything you can imagine. If you’ve never been to developerWorks, you definitely need to check it out.

IBM Greenhouse and Bleedyellow.com

I’ve mentioned both of these in a previous article, so there’s not much I can add here, but both of these sites allow end users to try all of the various Lotus technologies and create blogs, share documents and even attend web conferences and send instant messages.

These communities are growing on a daily basis, so you can get interaction with all of the latest and greatest in Lotus technology as well as some great people.

Ideas and Open Source

Another relatively new site is called IdeaJam. Now IdeaJam is actually a product for sale from Elguji software, but IdeaJam.net itself is a community where you can vote on ideas for improving Lotus software products. If you think there is a feature missing, you can post it as an idea, and other members can vote on it. If people like the idea, the score goes higher, if they dislike it, the score goes lower.

IdeaJam.net is the place to submit your feature requests

Think of this as a digg.com designed specifically for Lotus products. The nice thing is that IBM engineers are keeping an eye on the site, so your idea could someday become a reality in shipping products!

OpenNTF.org is another site I’ve written about before, but I would be remiss if I didn’t include it in an article about Lotus community. OpenNTF.org is a repository of open source Lotus templates and code snippets. If you need Lotus to do something in your organization, check OpenNTF.org to see if a solution already exists. You’ll be surprised at how many useful things you can find there, many of which I’ve written about before.

You can also post your own code, participate on many projects and talk about the many templates in the forums.

Why care about community?

You may ask yourself, why do I care about any of this? Well the reasons are simple. By becoming part of the Lotus Notes user community you can easily gain access to some of the best minds ever to wield a Notes client. You can make contacts with these people, interact and learn a lot.

For me, if you join in the fun, I get to hear another voice, another perspective and ultimately we all wind up stronger as a community. It may be pure unbridled selfishness on my part, but in this case, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

About this Series

This series of articles on intranet solutions with IBM Lotus Notes/Domino and it's companion products is intended to help readers understand the fundamental methodology and capabilities of the product and how to utilize it to deliver a feature-rich, secure, and functional corporate intranet solution. It will include implementation strategies, case studies, industry-tested tips and tricks, and, with your input, true value to the administrator or developer who wants to utilize IBM Lotus technologies to deliver winning intranet solutions.

If you have any questions on the series, Lotus Notes/Domino, or if there's something you'd like to see addressed, visit the Intranet Journal Discussion Forum.

About the Author

John Roling is the Senior Groupware Administrator for a North American trade-show exhibit company and a certified Lotus Notes Administrator, Developer and all-around geek. You can keep up with him at his blog (www.greyhawk68.com) or drop him an e-mail at jroling@gmail.com.

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