Blog Use - Pros and Cons

A blog is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with frequent entries of commentary, description and discussions on any kind of topic.

A blog can be private, as in most cases, or it can be for business purposes. We will be discussing the role blogs can play in a buisness environment. Blogs can either be used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or public relations purposes in which case they are called corporate blogs. All most all companies, private or public, use blogs as they increase overall communiction in between employees, senior management as well as with customers. For example, IBM has hundreds of blogs dedicated to their managment styles, their software products, communication and so on.

http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/

This website provides a direct link to IBM's blogs, providing an example of blog use in an organizational context.

ADVANTAGES of blogs in organizations.

1. Corporate blogging helps companies to expand their scope world wide as it increases the potential of the company by increasing and improving on its communication structure.


2. Corporate blogs bring a kind of personal touch as well as authenticity to the clients who wish to make any business dealings with the company.


3. It gives a professianl way of presenting a company to the clients or the CEO, investors, or employees.


4. Corporate blogging adds up to save the cost of the company in publicizing as compared to paperwork publicizing.

DISADVANTAGES of blogs in organizations.

1. Corporate blogs should be professionally written as poorly written blogs can be mileading for the public. They may start doubting on the authenticity of the company.



2. Information on blogs can be misunderstood or ill judged by public or by the clients and investors. This can be hazardous to the company.
   

Sources:

http://econx.blogspot.com/2008/05/9.html

(this website discusses the impact of organizations using blogs to communicate with their customers, employees and clients).

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20051101/handson-technology.html

(this website discusses the use of blogs in different industries)

Software Impacts on Organizations

Any application software is only as good as the impact it has on any organization and the advantages it has to offer and the disadvantages that come along with it, if any.

The designers of Lotus Notes planned on building a collaborative application platform where email was just one of several applications that ran in the Notes client software. Lotus lore has it that the first mail inbox application written by Lotus was a proof-of-concept for a sales presentation. The Notes client was also designed to run on multiple platforms including Windows, OS/2, Mac, SCO Open Desktop UNIX, and Linux.

ADVANTAGES of Lotus Notes.

1. Information is located centrally on the Domino server. Centralised storage provides organisation wide access to information for example : the organizational address book , and individual user databases. Thus information stored in various users' Lotus Notes databases are accessible to other users; with the appropriate access, whilst travelling between sites or from anywhere in the world via the Internet.
2. Another advantage of storing information centrally on the Domino server is that if there is a problem with a user’s local desktop application, the Notes database is not lost, but can still be accessed, either at a different workstation, or via one of the web clients.
3. Lotus Notes developers can also develop extremely specialised applications to interact with the information stored in the Notes database. This means that Lotus Notes has the capacity to be customised to a much greater extent than other groupware applications and indeed the implementation of Lotus Notes can be customised to some extent to suit the needs of any organizations environment. Thus improved communication and very customized programming can help businesses achieve a competitive edge over rival businesses.
4. One additional benefit of Lotus Notes is its security. Business security when handling e-mails, and especially e-commerce, is crucial. Lotus Notes proclaims “Lotus Notes provides integrated support for all major industry security standards, including S/MIME v3, Smart Card support (PKCS#11) and X.509 v3. Notes helps protect organizations with the world's most widely deployed public key infrastructure (PKI), with built-in digital signatures and end-to-end encryption.”) Because Notes comes with the security measures necessary, no additional costs are required to meet most corporate standards.
   

DISADVANTAGES of Lotus Notes.

1. Lotus Notes’ size and complexity can be difficult for new users to understand.
2. While having some outstanding features, software that isn’t “user friendly” will have the good features lost among the complexity.
3. Wireless communication is an additional purchase for Notes, which seems to be the same for the competitors (this excludes off-line working). For a business traveler, or a company using handheld PDAs often in business, Microsoft Exchange has a clear advantage in these features compared to Notes. An organization that is not going to use the workspace database features, or build upon the customization potential of Notes, is not going to see the software use a majority of its features.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_notes

(this website gives a summary of the critisims of Lotus Notes and well as how it helps businesses function better via the Lotus Notes).

http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/office-suites/lotus-notes/1004424/

(this website talks about the disadvantages of using Lotus Notes and the features it lacks comapred to rival software programs.

Technical and Training Requirements

Using an application software such as Lotus Notes in any organization, requires all users of it to have the technical knowledge and skill and training requirements in order to use the software effectively.

IBM also provides training for the Lotus Application, including certification. This does incur an extra cost, but has the advantage that it comes from the developer of the software rather than a third party. This is the best kind of training and education that a software company can provide. .The IMB Lotus Notes Home Page on the internet, provides vast knowledge on how to become experts on using this software properly to help one to take full advantage of it. The Lotus Support Technical Exchange hosts Open Mic conference calls and webcasts where technical experts share their knowledge and answer your questions on specific technical topics. Events are even recorded for those not able to attend the live events.

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=475&uid=swg27007909 .

This website gives a detailed discription on the requirements needed on a computer to exploit all its offerings.

http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/nd6forum.nsf.

This website is part of the home page for Lotus Notes and is a discussion forum hosted by the company (IBM) itself and lets users interact with each to help solve any problems.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/notes/.

This website is one of the most important sources on this blog as it has a step-by-step approach to learning how to use Lotus Notes. It has demo videos and instructions for using IBM Lotus Spreadsheet, IBM Lotus Documents, Lotus Presentations and so on.

Furthermore, there is a section on Reference Cards where users can relate problems to, as well as find on the spot solutions. Another section on " How do I? " serves like a FAQ on the Lotus Notes webiste and that provides reliable solutions and tips.

'http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/notes/education.html?S_TACT=105AGX13&S_CMP=LP'

As far as technical training is concerned, the link above has a section dedicated to technical education that basically offers various courses ranging from 5- 30 courses that allow you to get all the information needed to use the software to its fullest extent. 8 core courses for example D8420 - Exploring new features on the IBM Domino Designer Server 8, allows the user to develop a systematic way of thinking and operating this application software.

These 8 courses are required by any user to allow him to take full advantage of the software and range from being a one day course to a maximum of 4 days.

Users of Lotus Notes

Lotus Notes, is used by several different types of users in all organizations.

For most employees and workers, Lotus Notes is an email system. Even though email is not this application software's largest strength, it is the most recognizable feature.It has most or all of the features of the other popular e-mail products on the market, including calendaring and scheduling, and it uses standards-based mail protocols such as POP3 and SMTP. Because Notes has both a client and a server piece, users can use it to read and respond to e-mail, and administrators can use it as an entire e-mail environment.
For all practical purposes, Lotus Notes is an entire database. Individual users have their own e-mail databases, and different sets of users can share application databases that can display, add, or manipulate information. Moreover, a database can also contain modules of programming code that will perform background, scheduled, or on-demand tasks for a user.
Lotus Domino databases are built using the Domino Designer client. A key feature of Notes is that many replicas of the same database can exist at the same time on different servers and clients, across dissimilar platforms, and the same storage architecture is used for both client and server replicas. Lotus Notes helps drive business value through composite application technology that allows you to integrate and present line-of-business solutions and data from multiple systems into a single view for end-users.
Notes' integration with IBM's Sametime instant messaging allows users to see other users online and conduct chat sessions with them. A chat session can be with one person or multiple people. Beginning with Release 6.5 this functionality is built into the Notes client and presence awareness is available in email and other Notes applications for users in organizations that use both Notes and Sametime.

Sources:

1.http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/notes/features.html

(this website discusses the features and users of Lotus Notes)

2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Lotus_Notes

(this website talkes about various porgramming methods and different users)

Basic Information about Lotus Notes

Lotus notes is a collaboration software that emprowers people to connect, collaborate and inovate while optimizing the way they work. The Lotus Notes client is a desktop application that organizes and displays databases on a user's local workstation. Lotus Notes has many functions other than being an e-mail application. Its main selling point is it “Integrates your most valuable messaging, collaborative and personal information management (PIM) resources—like e-mail, calendar, to-do list—to allow users to access them while connected with or disconnected from your network” (IBM, “IBM Lotus Notes”) This means that, unlike some other applications, any user of Lotus Notes can “work offline” without interruption. Business travelers can access functions on their laptop while on a plane, for instance, and when they connect again to the network, unsent e-mails and invitations will be sent and new e-mail and invitations can be received. Lotus Notes also has a global directory which can list valuable data about all members in your organization. Along with that global directory is the calendar system. Lotus Notes claims to “Provides industry-leading calendaring and scheduling functionality, which lets users easily collaborate and schedule meetings with colleagues across the world.” (IBM, “IBM Lotus Notes”) Scheduling meetings, checking availability, and planning trips are made easier with this large scale integration. Most competitor’s calendar, scheduling, and directories are limited to their local servers and often do not include satellite offices or other holdings.

Developed and sold by the IMB software group and having been used by companies for over 20 years ago, this client server is an integrated desktop client option for accessing business e-mail, calendars and applications on an IBM Lotus Domino server. In recent times, Lotus Notes has gown down in ratings and other new rival softwares have entered the market and gained market share.

Lotus Notes are used widely by businesses of all sizes i.e. small, medium and large. IBM Lotus Foundations Start provides the essential software to run a small business: file management, directory services, firewall, back-up and disaster recovery, IBM Lotus Notes and Domino mail and collaboration platform and Lotus Symphony office productivity tools. Conduct business in real-time with colleagues, customers, partners and suppliers using the market-leading, integrated IM and Web conferencing solution. IBM Lotus Sametime software has been used by millions of people worldwide to help increase employee productivity and foster customer relationships and thus is used by large organizations as well.

Sources:

1. http://www.nsftools.com/misc/WhatIsNotes.htm

(this website disucsses different software programs and offers tips and advice on how to use them effectively)

2. http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/smb/

(this website talks about the different versions of lotus notes)

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Lotus_Notes

(this website gives a detailed history of Lotus Notes)

4. http://www.lotus.com/products/product4.nsf/wdocs/noteshomepage

(this webswite gives a detailed introduction to Lotus Notes)