Interface | matters

Lotus Knows Twitter Fountain

2009-09-22T08:03:00.002-04:00

Hi Gang...For a visually engaging way to see what is happening with the Lotus Knows tweets and Flickr photos, check out the Twitter Fountain below. Cheers!

Lotus Knows...It's Time To Do It Again!

2009-09-21T07:43:00.006-04:00

It's an exciting day to be sure, as the Lotus Knows campaign officially kicks off here in the United States. It's been a long time since Lotus has had a highly visible nationwide campaign and it's awesome to be on the inside now to see it begin to take off. Lotusknows.com is now (kinda) live and it's pretty cool. It officially launches tomorrow, but I know people started looking for it as early as this weekend. It is certainly is different than your normal IBM site.

Of course, a big part of any marketing nowadays is word of mouth, so as Lotus fans we can help by spreading the word. I typically post updates of a Lotus nature on Twitter and Facebook. Sure...a lot of my network doesn't know what I'm talking about, but I have had various people inquire about certain messages. This usually elicits a response like "Oh...I didn't know Lotus did that" or "Lotus is still around?". All of these are great opportunities to help expand the vision and evangelize, so you can be sure I'll keep it up. I encourage you to do the same.

Speaking of marketing...remember the "Work The Web" campaign? I was cleaning out some drawers yesterday and came across this classic.

Definitely brings back some memories! :-)

Another thing to be excited about is the Lotus Knows Bus, which will be traveling around to various cities across the US. I'm going to get a chance to work on it later in October, showing demos of the various products to those that come aboard. Fun times. I'm sure you'll hear more about the bus in the coming days.

As the Lotus Knows campaign kicks into full gear, we also have the rapidly approaching Lotusphere 2010 registration to look forward to, as well as the call for abstracts. If past years are any indication, the track managers will have an great number of overwhelmingly good session ideas to choose from. People get really excited around this time and I doubt this year will be different. Seems like Autumn will be a great time to catch the Lotus fever!

Add Document Ratings To Your Notes Client Designs

2009-07-31T14:53:00.008-04:00

Way back when I was actively developing stuff on a daily basis, I wrote about a quickly cobbled together idea I had to include a document rating system in a Notes client application (might want to read that first). Document Rating is a familiar "Web 2.0" design pattern that can actually be quite useful. Document ratings allow users to democratically decide on good content and by using this technique the best stuff will bubble up to the top (at least theoretically). In the original post, I wanted to explore the concept of using editable view columns with icons in a little more detail while showing off some cool functionality in the client. With the frequent use of this design pattern in modern websites, I think it is safe to assume that it is a pattern that is around to stay. Thus, I wanted to make the solution a little more robust. As with most of the things I put here on Interface Matters, I've removed a lot of the extraneous code that you really should use in production so that you can focus on the core of the technique, but the sample database below should be enough to get you started.

Before we begin going through the technique, I suggest you read through the Rate Content design pattern page on UI Patterns.com. That page should give you a little more detail on what I am shooting for. For our purposes, let's focus on the following mechanisms:

* Voting mechanism.
* Display the average rating an item has received.
* Display explanatory comments from users rating an item.

I've left off the three mechanisms below, but they seem like a perfect fit for dashboard-like functionality.

* Show the highest rated items.
* Favor quality items.
* Related items.

In the original post, I wasn't taking into account security on the document that is being rated. Thus, this technique really wouldn't work for most real world situations. To overcome this, I decided to use the concept of stub documents to capture each user's rating of a particular document. This offers several advantages. First, I can easily perform a lookup to see if the user has already rated a given document or not. Second, it allows me to extend the original functionality by allowing for additional information such as comments. Finally, this idea respects the security of the main document, as the average rating is calculated by an agent so that the user never has to have edit access to it. Thus, the flow of the process goes something like this:

1. User clicks a star to define their rating.

2. If desired, pop up a dialog box to capture their comments about why they rated the document as they did.

3. Write a stub document that captures a unique key value that corresponds to main document and user, their rating and comments.

4. Run an agent (that executes with proper authority) to update the main document with the new average rating. This agent will loop through all of its rating documents to determine the average.

At the risk of making this post too long, I am going to break this down step-by-step:

Step 1: Add columns to your view. I created a separate column for each star, since I want to know explicitly which one was clicked. Set the column to be editable and set it to "Display values as icons".

Step 2: The column value checks the current average rating of the document and based on the position of the column determines if it should show the filled or unfilled star.

@If(num_Rating >= 1; "star_red"; "star_open") and so on...

Step 3: Add the code to the InViewEdit event. I've included a bunch of comments to the code so you can follow what is happening. It's here that we first check to see if the user has rated the document previously and decide to allow them to edit that rating or not. I chose to implement this as a flag that you can enable or disable in the code itself for easy demonstration, but you could make this and some of the other options part of the db configuration. If the user hasn't voted yet, the InViewEdit code creates the stub doc, asks them for a comment (if appropriate) and kicks off the update agent.

(Please note I added some line breaks into the code samples. If you want to copy and paste, do so from the sample database)


Sub Inviewedit(Source As Notesuiview, Requesttype As Integer, Colprogname As Variant,
 Columnvalue As Variant, Continue As Variant)
 
 Dim workspace As New NotesUIWorkspace
 Dim session As New NotesSession
 Dim db As NotesDatabase
 Dim doc As NotesDocument
 Dim caret As String
 Dim flag As Boolean
 
 'Set AllowChanges to 0 to keep users from changing their rating.  If set to 1, then can modify their initial value
 Const AllowChanges = 1
 
    'Get the CaretNoteID - exit if it does not point at a document
 caret = Source.CaretNoteID
 If caret = "0" Then Exit Sub
 
     'Get the current database and document
 Set db = Source.View.Parent
 Set doc = db.GetDocumentByID(caret)
 
 Dim ratingsView As NotesView
 Dim ratingsDoc As NotesDocument
 Dim DocUNID As String
 Dim key As String
 
 'We need to check to make sure the user hasn't already rated this document
 Set ratingsView = db.GetView("viewRatingsByKey")
 DocUNID = doc.UniversalID 
 key = DocUNID & "_" & session.CommonUserName
 Set ratingsDoc = ratingsView.GetDocumentByKey(key)
 
 If Not (ratingsDoc Is Nothing) Then
  If AllowChanges = 1 Then
   flag = workspace.DialogBox("dlgRatingsCommentDialog", True, True, True, True, False, False, 
"Enter A Comment About Your Rating", ratingsDoc, True, True, False)
   If flag = True Then
    Call ratingsDoc.Save(True, False)
    Call RunTheAgent(db, doc)                 'Call the agent to update the main document with the new rating value
   End If
  Else
   Messagebox "Sorry...you've already rated this document"
  End If
  Exit Sub
 End If
 
 
 'If we got this far, the user hasn't voted yet, so we'll take their entry.  Here we are creating the new stub document.
 'This document uses a combination of the main document's UNID and the user name for the key value.  This 
 'stub document could capture as much information as you need...just add the appropriate fields.  If you don't 
 'ever plan to show the underlying content to the end users, you don't need an actual backend form.
 Dim newRatingsDoc As NotesDocument
 Dim item As NotesItem
 Dim readersItem As NotesItem
 Dim newValues( 1 To 2 ) As String
 newValues( 1 ) = session.UserName
 newValues( 2 ) = "[Admin]"
 
 Set newRatingsDoc = db.CreateDocument
 newRatingsDoc.Form = "frmRatingsDoc"
 newRatingsDoc.txt_TargetUNID = DocUNID
 newRatingsDoc.txt_RatingComment = ""
 newRatingsDoc.txt_Key = DocUNID & "_" & session.CommonUserName
 Set item = New NotesItem(newRatingsDoc, "nam_UserRated", session.UserName, NAMES)
 
 'To keep ratings private, uncomment the line below.  But if you do this, probably no use asking for comments.
 'Set readersitem = New NotesItem(newRatingsDoc, "read_Users", newValues, READERS)
 
 
 Select Case Colprogname(0)
 Case "Star1"
  newRatingsDoc.num_Rating = 1
 Case "Star2"
  newRatingsDoc.num_Rating = 2
 Case "Star3"
  newRatingsDoc.num_Rating = 3
 Case "Star4"
  newRatingsDoc.num_Rating = 4
 Case "Star5"
  newRatingsDoc.num_Rating = 5
 End Select
 
 'Modify the code for comments as necessary to suit your needs
 
 'Now lets see if the user wants to add a comment
 Call ratingsView.Refresh
 
 'Option 1 - Use this if you want to pull up the comment dialog but don't require a comment.
 'Call workspace.DialogBox("dlgRatingsCommentDialog", True, True, True, False, False, False, 
"Enter A Comment About Your Rating", newRatingsDoc, True, True, False)
 'Call newRatingsDoc.Save(True, False)
 
 'Option 2 - Use this if you want to require comments before a rating can be saved.
 flag = workspace.DialogBox("dlgRatingsCommentDialog", True, True, True, False, False, False, 
"Enter A Comment About Your Rating", newRatingsDoc, True, True, False)
 If flag = True Then
  Call newRatingsDoc.Save(True, False)
 End If
 
 
 'Call the agent to update the main document with the new rating value
 Call RunTheAgent(db, doc)
 
 
End Sub

Sub RunTheAgent(db As NotesDatabase, doc As NotesDocument)
 
 'Call the agent to update the main document with the new rating value
 Dim agent As NotesAgent
 
 Set agent = db.GetAgent("agtCalculateRatings")
 Call agent.RunOnServer(doc.NoteID)
 
 
End Sub

This LotusScript was converted to HTML using the ls2html routine,
provided by Julian Robichaux at nsftools.com.

Step 4: Add the agent that updates the main document with the average rating. This agent is called by the InViewEdit code as described above. This agent will take the main document, find all of the stub rating documents based on the UNID of the main doc and then loop through the collection, simply adding the values of the ratings and then dividing by the number of ratings to get the average. This average value is then written back to the main document. Make sure that this agent is set to run with an id that has access to all of the main documents, not as the current user.


Sub Initialize
 
 Dim session As New NotesSession
 Dim db As NotesDatabase
 Dim agent As NotesAgent
 Dim ratingsView As NotesView
 Dim mainDoc As NotesDocument
 Dim ratingsDoc As NotesDocument
 Dim ratingsCollection As NotesDocumentCollection
 
 Set db = session.CurrentDatabase
 Set agent = session.CurrentAgent
 Set ratingsView = db.GetView("viewRatingsByUNID")
 Set mainDoc = db.GetDocumentByID(agent.ParameterDocID)
 Set ratingsCollection = ratingsView.GetAllDocumentsByKey(mainDoc.UniversalID)
 
 If (ratingsCollection.Count = 0) Then
  'Whoops...something went wrong and you'd do some good error trapping here
  Exit Sub
 End If
 
 Dim ratingsCounter As Long
 Dim numberOfRatings As Long
 Dim averageRating As Long
 
 ratingsCounter = 0
 numberOfRatings = ratingsCollection.Count
 Set ratingsDoc = ratingsCollection.GetFirstDocument
 
 'Let's add up the total of all ratings first
 Do While Not (ratingsDoc Is Nothing)
  ratingsCounter = ratingsCounter + ratingsDoc.num_Rating(0)
  Set ratingsDoc = ratingsCollection.GetNextDocument(ratingsDoc)
 Loop
 
 'Now, we average the ratings by taking the total and dividing by the number of votes
 (assuming all have the same weight)
 averageRating = ratingsCounter / numberOfRatings
 
 'And now we can set this on the main document and be on our way
 mainDoc.num_Rating = averageRating
 Call mainDoc.Save(True, False)
 
End Sub

This LotusScript was converted to HTML using the ls2html routine,
provided by Julian Robichaux at nsftools.com.

There are a lot of ways in which you could flush this technique out even more. For example, I added an embedded view to the main document form that is used to show the stub document ratings. This way, when you open a particular content document, you can see in detail who rated the content and why (via their comments). This is a nice way to provide users with real meaning behind the values. I'd be interested in hearing about other ways you might use this functionality as well.

The sample database is available below. You've likely seen this before, as it contains a variety of sample design patterns, some of which I haven't talked about yet. You can switch to the "User Ratings" view by using the selection box in the lower right corner of the main screen. Yes...this database is a bit ugly. I was playing with some different theme ideas and didn't want to make another boring looking Notes app. ;-)

Have fun, let me know what you think and please share with the others if you find a use for this in your company's applications.

I'm Already Stressed Enough, Thank You...

2009-06-02T07:47:00.006-04:00

As I was once again forced to use one of the most horrible software products I have ever laid eyes on, it occurred to me that it's worth repeating one of my favorite mantras, even at the risk of sounding like a broken record (do any of you kids even know what that means? ;-) --> Simplicity in your design is your goal. If you can get to the point where the interface "disappears" and the user can just get in the flow and do their work, then you've really got something there.

So many of the things we use on a daily basis, both software-based and not, are way more complex than they have to be. We're all too busy to be wasting time with complicated systems, yet in many cases this has become the norm. As an example, I recently had to replace my kitchen blender. A trip to Williams-Sonoma quickly became an exercise in frustration. Most of the blenders had so many features and functions that I was surprised they didn't contain a microchip or two. Multiple buttons, gadgets and add-ons all to accomplish a single purpose...blend some stuff up! In the end, I found the perfect blender for me...a replica of an old model that has a single switch for two modes: hi and low. When I want to blend something, my choices are simple and I can immediately get down to business without thinking about all the different options I have. It's actually pretty liberating to simplify like this. We use an old-fashioned manual can opener in the kitchen too. It works wonderfully and we don't ever have to worry about it breaking. Stuff used to have a singular purpose and did it without a lot of fuss and choice. I use this idea as the guiding principal in the work I do.

Now trying to compare a kitchen blender to enterprise software is a bit of a stretch, but I think you understand what I am getting at. There is quite a paradox at work when we give our users too many choices in our applications. When faced with a lot of choices, we actually find it harder to choose because we are wired to evaluate all of the potential options. Have you ever felt paralyzed looking at your To Do list because there were so many tasks you didn't know where to begin? This same feeling of overwhelm hits a lot of our users when they are faced with a complex interface, especially one that provides them with many paths to go down.

If you are building a business-facing application that will be used by actual humans, then you have a targeted objective you are trying to achieve. The interface should facilitate this process and it should provide the path of least resistance to do so. If it's easier to do it the old-fashioned way, users will ignore your app. It's important to focus on your interface so that it gently guides the user to their objective without getting in their way. One way to completely fail in this regard is to provide too many choices and ways to accomplish the same task.

So how can you practically apply these ideas? Evaluate each and every element you place on the screen. Make features and functions fight for their lives. If an element does not have an explicit reason for being on the screen at the time a user is performing a particular task, then it shouldn't be there. Keep controls very simple and related to the context the user is currently in. Generously use whitespace.

These basic ideas seem to be simple common sense (and they are!), but I've seen far too many applications that break these rules. I don't know a single person that wishes their life was more complex than it already is. Keep the concept of simplicity at the forefront of all of your designs and I promise that your users will thank you.

Implementing A Tag Cloud In The Lotus Notes Client

2009-05-11T15:20:00.004-04:00

Welcome back. It's been awhile. I'd ask you why you haven't visited or called lately, but I know...it's me. I haven't been giving much to this relationship lately. I'll try harder...I promise. How about starting with a new post about creating a tag cloud in a Lotus Notes client application? That sounds good? Great...thanks for giving me a second chance! :-)

Way back at Lotusphere 2009, Nathan and I delivered a presentation on Web 2.0 design patterns for Lotus Notes. He focused on the web side of things (with XPages) and I worked on the client UI side. Unfortunately, some technical difficulties got in our way and the session wasn't nearly as good as it could have been. However, the content is still worth digging into, so I thought I'd start out with one that is useful for injecting the idea of topic popularity into your application: The Tag Cloud.

I'd guess that most people have at least seen a tag cloud by now, given that it is a pretty common Web 2.0 pattern. A tag cloud is used as a navigation mechanism to allow users to browse information and see at a glance what content is most popular or prevalent in an application. A tag cloud is simply a list of tags (be they user added or generated from categories) where the physical size of the tag represents the weight (frequency) of that information within the application. An important aspect of the tag cloud is that you can click on a tag and this action will filter the data list to show only the content with that tag. Here's an example from one of the Lotus products, Lotus Connections:

Tag clouds can be very useful in situations when a user wants to discover information rather than search for it. I've gone on and on before about the fact that most business applications are such that a user has a targeted objective when they use the app, so the UI should be designed to facilitate getting them to the info they need as quickly as possible. There are certain classes of applications, however, where browsing of information is more meaningful. A discussion database is a great example of this, as are apps such as product reviews, policies and procedures and so on. When discoverability will add value to your application, then a tag cloud might be a good choice for a UI component.

Before we jump into the implementation, let me put forth a few caveats. First, when I was initially coming up with this, I went through about four different methods of creating a tag cloud. These methods ranged from quite simple (like I'll be showing you here) to insane hackery. While it's pretty easy to build a tag cloud on the web and there are tons of code samples to do so, it was a bit of a challenge to implement one in the Notes client. Each of the different techniques I tried had strengths and weaknesses. I decided to go with the method shown below because it was the most straightforward and will work in R6 and above, so it's not limited to the latest and greatest version of Notes. It's not elegant, but it works. I'm a fan of clean, elegant design, but sometimes it's necessary to create something less than beautiful behind the scenes to make the end user experience better. As long as you are not creating a maintenance nightmare, I think it is OK that we work harder so our users don't have to.

The way I approached this technique was to make use of the category field in an existing Notes database. Exposing existing categories as a tag cloud is a very easy way to get started and introduce this functionality to your users. Personally, I find that tag clouds work best when the number of entries is not overwhelming. They do take up a lot of valuable screen real estate, so you'll need to make the call as to whether they add enough value to justify use or not. Of course, the ideas presented here can be applied to any data captured in a discrete field on your documents.

Aside: I would be remiss if I didn't point out that there is a Tag Cloud component available on OpenNTF that you can use in a Composite Application. With this component, you can add tag cloud functionality to your application within minutes. There's a good tutorial on doing so here.

The first step in building the tag cloud component for the Notes client is to create the view that will be used to get the tags (categories). Here's a screenshot showing the view in my demo database.

The first column includes the count of all the tags in that grouping, which I find useful to display along with the tag cloud in some cases. We'll use this view to lookup the tags and display them in the tag cloud.

The next thing we need is to create the form that will serve as a container for the tag cloud. I decided to use a form as it gives the flexibility of having the tag cloud generated on the fly or via a process such as a scheduled agent. I'm also trying to make these techniques easy for newer developers, so the form and field idea works pretty well. Because we need the tags to be clickable, we need some sort of hotspot on each one. This could be likely by accomplished by using Lotusscript or a third-party product like Midas to build the tags in a rich text field and then put links around them but this seemed a little complex for my tastes. Thus, I decided to implement the tag cloud as a series of fields. Each field holds a single tag and then I created an action hotspot around each field. Let's break it down bit by bit:

Click to enlarge

First, the top of the form houses some computed fields that are used to lookup the tags and the quantity each of the tags. These values come directly from the tag cloud view.

Next are the various tag fields themselves. Now...before you start going off...I know that this is cumbersome to build the first time. However, I decided to strike a balance between functionality, ease to maintain and ease for the developer to understand, so it is what it is! :-) If you decide to use this technique, it would be a good idea to try to gauge how many tags you have before you build it. My personal preference is to limit a tag cloud to no more than 40 or 50 tags (I like less). Beyond that number is just too much visual noise for my taste. However, this could expand to as many fields as you want to create.

The field values themselves are populated in the PostOpen event. This event holds the meat of the code, as it implements the tag cloud algorithm to allow us to determine how large (from a font size perspective) each tag should be. There are variety of these algorithms available on the web, and I won't belabor them here. For our purposes, just know that I selected a common one and implemented it in formula language. The code loops through each value of the num_CategoryTotals field, determines how many entries there are for that tag and then uses that number in the algorithm to set the font size, plugging the value of the current tag into the txt_Tag# field that corresponds to the counter in the loop.
If you'd like to use a different tag cloud algorithm, just substitute your code as necessary.

The final part of the equation is to add a hotspot around each tag field. This hotspot will filter the view that you are displaying to the end user so that it only shows the given tag (category). In order to do this, we make use of the @SetViewInfo command. If you are not familiar with this command, it was added in R6 and allows you to display only documents from a given category in a categorized view. Armed with this tool, we open the view in question, make sure all the categories are expanded (or else you can end up with what appears to be a blank view) and then perform @SetViewInfo, using the given tag as the filter string.

One other note: You may want your tag cloud to have different colors. Not only does this provide visual interest, but it also can provide another clue as to the relative weight of a given tag (i.e. tags with the same color have close to the same number of entries). You add color in one of two ways. You can set the color values using formula language in the PostOpen event, or you can just apply color to the individual tag fields. The advantage of the first option is that it does respect the concept of relative weight of tags, but the disadvantage is that you are limited to the 15 colors allowed in @Command([TextSetFontColor]). With the second option, you can use any color you want, allowing you to make the tag cloud fit better with the design of your application. What you lose here, however, is the idea of relative weight since you are randomly choosing the colors. As always, it's a judgment call. Use whatever concept works best for you.

Once you put all of this together, all that is needed is to drop your tag cloud form into a place that makes sense. In most cases, a tag cloud will be most compelling when included alongside a view, so if you are building a frameset with navigation elements in one frame and a Notes view in another, the tag cloud should be included in one of the navigation frames.

When complete, the generic, non-styled version looks something like this:

But a little more work integrating it into the design of your application can give you something like this:

Now that is all said and done and I know what you are thinking: "Give me the code and sample database already!". OK, OK. Here we go:

I've included two downloads below. One is the complete design pattern database that was used at Lotusphere. This has all of the code and you can see how it was customized for the specific database in question. (This is a database that is about 10 years old...created in R4.6 or R5, I think, and I reskinned it for use as a demo). The other download is the very generic implementation of the tag cloud with just the tag cloud components in it. The idea is you should be able to grab these design elements, throw them into your database and be up and running with a tag cloud in a few minutes. I've included the instructions to add the tag cloud to your application in the Using This Database document. Download the database and dig in to give it a try.

I know there are a lot of improvements that can be made here, but my hope is that this gets the ideas going. I haven't seen an implementation of a tag cloud in the Notes client from the blogsphere yet, but I can't wait to see what you all come up with based on this skeleton. Please let me know and if you'd like, I can share your results here.

*Download the complete Lotusphere Demo

*Download the tag cloud design elements database

Cheap UI Trick: Add Whitespace With Borders

2009-03-25T12:32:00.002-04:00

When I'm building a new UI or composing a document to send to an audience, I like simple elements that make a big difference in the final presentation. I thought I'd share a trick that I use to add whitespace to designs when using graphics with wrapping text in Lotus Notes.

If you've not tried it before, first let me point out that you can paste or import an image into a Notes form/document and set the properties of the image so that text can wrap left or right. This is analogous to using floats in CSS on the web.

While this can spice up your formatting quite a bit, in the Notes client the text butts right up against the graphic, so this doesn't look particularity nice. By way of example, the other day, I wanted to send my latest blog post to some internal folks through Notes and I wanted to retain the formatting (as close as possible) to my web entry. Thus, I made use of the text wrap property. This ended up looking like so:

Notice the lack of whitespace around the photos. Here's a close up to show what I mean:

So how do you fix this? Simple really. Most elements have a Border property which can be manipulated. This doesn't necessarily mean you have to have a physical line around your element. A border can be used to emulate padding. If an element has a border, you can also define the space between the inside border and outside border and between the outside border and the elements outside of that. Click the drop down in the border properties box to choose between the border thickness, the inside spacing and outside spacing.

For the purpose of this e-mail, I thought a spacing of 7 looked about right, so my properties box was set accordingly

This quick update produced the following results:

and close up once more

A very subtle effect, but a powerful one. Remember that whitespace is very important for guiding the eye and providing a feeling of space. It's a little thing that people may not be able to articulate if you ask them to point it out, but I guarantee that they'll think the option with good use of whitespace looks better ever ytime. Whether it's really true or not, if it looks better, people will think it is better. When dealing with the UI, often perception is reality. I hope this helps. Cheers!

The Inaugural GTD Summit...Did It Change The Way The World Works?

2009-03-23T08:20:00.005-04:00

After attending the GTD Global Summit a little over a week ago, my mind is still swirling with all kinds of thoughts. I wanted to write a final post to close things out earlier, but I hit the road to visit customers literally a couple of hours after I arrived back from San Francisco. Now that I've been back for a day, it's time to process my inboxes, update my lists and get some things done. One of the main items was to write this post, so here we go. First, I'll try to distill down some of my notes from the opening keynote, then wrap up with my overall impression of the event.

The conference kicked off on Thursday morning with the opening keynote session, although there was a social mixer the evening before. For those who could make it, it was a great treat. As Eric Mack told me it would be, it was a classy affair. Nothing fancy...just nice. A jazz band played while people mingled and introduced themselves to fellow GTD enthusiasts. There was great food and drink available as well, and the atmosphere was very casual. It was kind of funny to see so many people with capture tools (pen, pad, etc.) in one place, scribbling things down to remember later as people talked about books, other GTD tools, etc. I met more than a couple Lotus Notes customers and people from around the world, which I found exciting. My wife and I met a guy who had come up from Chile while we were in the elevator, and during the evening event, we met folks from Hong Kong, Antigua, Spain and other exotic locales. I think it speaks to the power and efficacy of GTD that even in a tough economic climate, these people felt it was beneficial to come to San Francisco to attend this gathering. The Wednesday evening event set up a promise of a great two days to come.

Thanks to the David Allen Company (and to Eric, of course), I was fortunate enough to attend the GTD Summit as a guest blogger. While I endeavored to live blog the breakout sessions, there was just too much info flying during the keynote to do it justice. I was given a press pass and took advantage of the area they had set aside for us to capture the action.

David is an unassuming, yet compelling speaker. Its interesting that in our society, our expectation of a "celebrity" (and he certainly is in this circle) is one who is standoffish and self important. David spoke with an ease of one having a conversation with the audience rather than presenting to them, which was really refreshing. He also has a great sense of humor. During his opening remarks, David talked about the phenomenon that is GTD. His original book, "Getting Things Done" has been published in 28 languages and has sold close to 2 million copies. There are over 150 software applications to support GTD. It truly is a global phenomenon. He jokingly shared that "Getting Things Done" was published during the dot bomb phase and his new book, "Making It All Work", was introduced at the height of the sub-prime crisis, prompting him to promise "For the right amount of money, I'll guarantee I will never write another book". He also shared stories of groups using GTD in their lives and work. The Simpsons writers, for example, are big advocates of GTD. Many other corporations are evaluating GTD and determining how they can inject it into the organization.

When David started putting together the ideas for this Summit, he generated a list of speakers, panelists and moderators that he wanted to attend. He figured only a small number would commit, but 85% of them said yes to the invitation, all coming to the conference on their own dime. I think that speaks volumes to the respect that this community has for David and his ideas. These speakers are all masters in their field, thought leaders and entrepreneurs. In the end, even with the best systems and best intentions, however, we can all be victims of circumstances beyond our control. David was very candid and chose to share that he had to lay off 40% of his staff recently due to the huge drop in training budgets from companies. I was impressed by the fact that he shared this. It implied a trust with his audience that even amidst all of this trouble, he believes that all of us as practitioners of the GTD methodology are on the right track. In fact, David believes that the tools of GTD are more important than ever now that we are in survival mode. To quote David as he finished his opening remarks, "Now is the time that this is in it's time". Very interesting times indeed...

For the second half of the keynote session, David introduced Guy Kawasaki, serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and founder of Alltop. David invited Guy to serve as moderator and to interview David for the remainder of the session. They dove right in to a frank and open discussion. It was obvious that nothing was rehearsed ahead of time, which was another refreshing touch you don't see at too many conferences. Of course, this also meant the conversation took some unusual turns and tended to meander a bit, but overall it was a stimulating conversation. I loved how one of Guy's first questions was about Twitter and he asked David if Twitter gets in the way of our productivity. David's reply, which probably comes as no surprise to the GTD crowd, was that Twitter doesn't get in the way at all if Twitter is what you want to be doing. :-) At this point, David commented about the phenomenon of Twitter, how intimidating it is in some ways to be "followed" by 75,000 people (now over 126k!) and that he was fascinated by the number of people who were using Twitter. It was at this moment that he pointed out my blog post in which I was gathering a list of people tweeting at the conference and asked "where's my IBM guy" (which I thought was totally cool). I was sitting at the press table in the back and told him we only had about 30 or so names on the list. He asked the audience who was using Twitter and at least 1/2 the hands went up. It seems we have a way to go to get the GTD community following one another, much like we do in the Lotus community.

Guy and David had a great rapport. Guy is an unnaturally good moderator, combining humor, self-deprecation and fun questions to keep the audience's attention. He had a lot of great soundbites, and I could see during my peeks into the #gtdsummit Twitter stream that people were enjoying capturing them. He ribbed David about not using a Mac, asked if the key to getting things done was not having kids, and suggested that claiming e-mail bankruptcy is perhaps key to being productive! I do think one of the more humorous quotes to come out of the whole conference was when Guy told David, "I don't see how anyone that thinks they are going to get things done uses Windows". After the initial playful banter, Guy settled into some more serious questions. He asked David what he felt was the greatest barrier to GTD. David's replied that it was "addiction to stress". In order to solve this problem, according to David, it is necessary to get your mind clear. By being more aware of the stress, you will be much more interested to alleviate it quickly.

The conversation continued with a few more questions and answers before moving into the second half of the session, the plenary panel. One additional comment was made that I think was worth mentioning before moving on. David noted that he believes small communities have the best chance of having GTD take hold. If we could build this up as a mind swell, we could start to have a big impact. I think this is very true, as I've seen GTD work very well as a grassroots effort and spread by word of mouth. It's my hope we'll start to see these ideas introduced to kids in school. In fact, I'm starting to work with my son this week to give him the GTD basics.

The plenary panel was up next, and this was a special treat. The panelists represented some of the top thinkers in their field and it was a pleasure to listen to each of them. The panel consisted of Maj. Gen. Randal Fullhart, James Fallows, Paul Saffo, and Marshall Goldsmith with moderators David Allen and Guy Kawasaki. Each panelist took a bit of a different approach, talking about various topics from the work they do to a general overview of how they "do" GTD. Of particular interest was Marshall Goldsmith's talk on the idea of peer coaching and the concept of "daily questions". As a way to stay accountable, the two peer coaches ask each other a series of questions every single day. Each question is structured to be answered with only a "Yes" or "No" and is designed this way to make you focus on living your values. I heard more than one attendee express interest in this idea and I expect we'll be hearing more about this from other GTDers in the coming months. (For more information, I found this great document at the Marshal Goldsmith Library.

The remainder of the two days of the GTD summit were filled with some amazing panels. You can find my thoughts from some of these sessions in my earlier blog posts and entries on Twitter. I found it pretty amazing that so many of the attendees were sharing their thoughts in real-time via Twitter. Most were using the #gtdsummit hashtag, so you can go back through and get a feel for how the GTD Summit unfolded through their eyes. The conversations in the hall between events and in the exhibitors hall were all equally stimulating. I hope that we'll see this event repeated in the future and that it will reflect by it's growth the corresponding growing awareness of GTD in the public at large.

Of special interest to me was the fact that I found many people who were surprised to find that David Allen uses Lotus Notes to manage his own GTD system. In fact, he has been using Notes for about 15 years in all aspects of his business. For his GTD implementation, David uses the eProductivity template developed by Eric Mack. I know that based on some of the conversations I had, people who were unaware of Lotus Notes are going to be taking a look at it. I think this is a great opportunity for us in the Lotus community. We have a champion in a well-known figure, a person being followed on Twitter by 126,000 people and counting. It's natural for people to want to use the systems their "heroes" are using (sports stars, musicians, etc.) and the same is true for GTD. On a personal note as an IBMer (but certainly speaking for myself), I hope that IBM/Lotus can figure out a way to team up with David to get the word out about both GTD and Lotus Notes. I think it would be a win-win for both sides.

Another cool aspect of the GTD Summit was the vendor exhibit area. All of the exhibitors there were focused specifically on GTD or personal productivity in some way, shape or form. I was very pleased to see that the eProductivity booth was usually busy. Eric and his daughters Wendy and Amy did a fantastic job demoing the software and I saw many people walk away very impressed by how it all works. Special shout out to my friends at Mindjet...it was great to meet you all in person!

The GTD Summit was all about "Changing the way the world works". I think that it certainly met this promise and started to instigate the change needed to bring this methodology to everyone. It's up to us as attendees to now take it as a next action to propagate these ideas in our circles of influence. In doing so, we'll help keep the spirit of the GTD Summit alive.

Wrap up and final comments from GTD Global Summit

2009-03-13T19:34:00.004-04:00

Always loved to watch Peter Drucker on stage. Admits to not being able to live up to what he did.

Great tip to relax quickly: lower your standards! ;-)

Shout out to the audience about how we're all "crazy like him".

88,000 people now following David Allen (@gtdguy) on Twitter. Amazing...22,000 in the last couple of days. All that from zero in a few weeks.

What he didn't hear during the conference: That anyone has the silver bullet.

Structured thinking can make profound change in your life. GTD isn't a system, it's a systematic approach.

David is asking the audience what we heard or didn't hear over these days, or what did we notice.

Amazing comments from audience. Hard to capture it all, but there was a lot of energy in the air. It was exciting to feel this spirit and the desire of everyone to not only help themselves but to help others as well and talk about embedding this into culture, education, etc.

Best Practices to Good Habits: Can I Make GTD Stick?

2009-03-13T15:54:00.006-04:00

Live blogging from the GTD Global Summit.

Panelists: Meg Edwards, Dean Hering, Alan Nelson, Jim Whitton

Moderator: Danny Bader

First hearing about the panelists and how they got started with using the GTD methodology.

Hearing common themes throughout the conference such as "it's easy to fall off the wagon, but easy to get back on as well" and "the weekly review is the hard but essential part of GTD"

Why keep it going? We know why...but let's talk about how to keep it going?

"The Brain that Changes Itself" - Book recommendation from Jim. 3 preconditions to remap brain: (1) Thing has to be relevant, (2) Some feedback mechanism to see positive try from negative try, (3) There have to be multiple tries.

Relate to these three things to make it stick. Jim has started doing a mini daily review (just going through project lists). Breaking weekly review into three chunks. Trying to get more iterations.

What are the biggest challenges/obstacles? From her coaching, saw patterns over the years where people were getting stuck. Tool hopping a big problem (trying to find the perfect tool rather than doing).

What is critical to staying on the wagon? Dean - Having the ability to adapt is going to keep you sane. Then build the habits that will make it stick.

Bundle your 2 minute tasks or you'll spend all 24 hours a day doing 2 minute tasks.

Add some artificial constraints.

TURN OFF EMAIL ANNOUNCEMENTS!

Meg - Make a distinction between scanning e-mail and processing e-mail. Scan with purpose. Don't fool yourself...that's not processing.

Alan - Puts a date after every next action (to see how long its been on his list).

Another common theme. You have to keep reevaluating your commitments with yourself.

What's so scary about really doing GTD? Feeling of overwhelm. Meg suggests making sure to separate the 5 phases of workflow to avoid that.

Jim - Having fun with constraints has made it an enjoyable process. Alan - so that made it relevant for you.

Tips & Tricks

Dean - Does the subject of the mail tell the person what it means and what the next action is? Use EOM tactically. Think of what's not just in it for us, but subtly influence by introducing to others.

Meg - Look at your project list. Is there a verb on each item on the project list? Without a verb, can't see what done looks like. Another tip: On next action list, same idea...need an action verb so you don't have to rethink what it is you have to do.

Alan - Answer the principles question. Answer the wild success question. Use tools that you like (folders, where you do your review, etc.). Ruthlessly eliminate things that produce drag.

Q&A Time:

Where is there insistence on A-Z file system with manila folders? Meg - People have a tendency to create very complex, elaborate systems that take to much thought. (Makes me think about the same thing from an e-mail perspective. I eliminated using folders in e-mail a few years ago to eliminate drag in my processing). David is just writing best practices. Flexibility is OK if it works for you.

You can have more than A-Z system. If something can go under more than one, you have to pick.

Jim - Paper files. If I were to look for something, what would I look under? Jim...same as me...uses search rather than filing.

How to keep 2 minute task from moving beyond that? Dean - Need to adjust your behavior if you find yourself consistently going over. If you get into something and it's taking longer, it's OK to stop.

Jim - Keeps a radar list. Things I need to do this week. Not A-B-C but allows me to focus on functional priorities.

Meg - You can have more than one Someday/Maybe list

What about the weekly review? Alan - it's time to do it when you need to. Want to change the terminology from weekly review to regular reflection. Thinking about what it all means.

How do you get GTD to stick beyond your workspace? Dean - First answer to that is to model the behavior.

Alan - Makes his team do GTD without actually imposing or calling it GTD. Asks for list of things they are working on (projects), an "Alan" list (agenda) and a list that basically captures areas of focus.

This is the protocol that is required if you are going to work with me.

David Allen: Making It All Work At The GTD Global Summit

2009-03-13T11:35:00.009-04:00

Day two is starting off with a presentation by David Allen on Making It All Work. This will be another live blogging session in an attempt to capture the thoughts as they fly.

Opening video testimonials (Evan Taubenfeld). Well spoken and interesting to see that creative types can embrace GTD too.

Ben Saunders - Polar Explorer & Motivational Speaker gives testimonial about how GTD helped him immensely in his solo explorations.

David now on stage talking about Evan and Ben and how they've embraced GTD.

Fast, concentrated overview of how "Making It All Work" came about.

"I got into this game because of the strategic value of clear space". Background in martial arts helped him understand that when you are jumped by four guys in alley, last thing you need is unprocessed items weighing on your mind.

Analogy of cooking. Starting with clean kitchen allows for infinite possibilities and creativity. Starting with complete and utter mess just means you'll be fighting to survive. Map this back to what you have sitting in your inbox and on your mind. Are you just "stomping cockroaches" or are you open to clear thoughts and

What's new...Massive amount of information coming in at us. In last 72 hours, probably more info coming into us than our parents had in a month, maybe a year.

Basic logic of GTD: Relaxed, focus, in control is optimal. Mind like water is mirroring how water responds appropriately to a input...no more and no less.

Concentration = power

What gets in the way of concentration: Distraction. If your mind has wandered off while sitting here, it's good if you were doing new, expansive, creative thinking. If not, you are wasting cycles. Most people go to things that are weighing on their mind. These are the things that are not being managed.

People don't worry about what they are doing two weeks from Tuesday at 3:15 because they trust their calendar.

Mismanaged commitments = distraction

Your mind's system is like a leaky bucket with a bunch of holes. Your brain is about 7 years old emotionally. "Your mind doesn't have one".

"You have no excuse to have a thought twice...unless you like the thought".

Ability to refocus rapidly is the master skill.

What you need is control and perspective. If you have these, self management is possible and works well.

2x2 matrix: X-axis increasing control, Y-axis increasing perspective

No perspective + no control = victim

Perspective + no control = crazy maker

No perspective + control = micro-manager

Perspective + control = Captain & Commander

5 stages of control and 6 stages of perspective

Control
-------
Capturing
Clarifying
Organizing
Reflecting
Engaging

This model works universally, whether dealing with your teen or in your department.

Perspective
------------
Purpose/principles
vision
goals
responsibility
projects
actions

Capture: Corral things things. Find a place to get all the input. WRITE IT DOWN!
Clarifying: Make decisions on all of the things that have been collected.
Organizing: Get the content of it...the real purpose. Put it where it goes.
Reflecting: Step back and look at that bucket appropriately. Manage that forest on some consistent basis...don't just hug those trees.
Engaging: Doing with clarity. You are always doing, even if you are doing nothing. Making a conscious choice, but you better know what you are not doing before you feel comfortable not doing it.

Purpose/Principles: Why
Vision: What
Goals: Accomplish
Responsibility: Maintain
Projects: Finish
Actions: Do

This is all advanced common sense.

Q&A Time

Wrap up: "You won't know what's on your mind, unless you you get everything off your mind."

Entrepreneurs and GTD - Making It Up and Making It Happen

2009-03-12T18:31:00.009-04:00

We're getting ready to begin another session at the GTD Summit. This one on Entrepreneurs and GTD together.

Panelists: Buzz Bruggeman, Peter Gallant, Frode Odegard, John de Souza

Moderator: Bruce Somers

Every corporation that exists today was due to an entrepreneurs. The importance of GTD is about clearing the path and allow this thought process to happen.

Peter - Got to have a couple failures under your belt. Serial entrepreneur. Entering next stage as his company has been acquired. Love working on the earliest stage of things.

John - Serial entrepreneur as well. Gone through several companies. Current project is online heath community site. Do you really want to do this and is it the right time? GTD is invaluable in getting things going and then saying "what's next?"

Buzz - Creator of ActiveWords (Editor's note: yea! Activewords rocks!)30 years practicing law. Heard a guy speak about computers being able to understand us. Voice doesn't work. Set out to build application to name things and let you get it done. "Self-organizing ninjas" - what we call the people who really get off on Activewords. Started writing down name and number of everyone he ever talked to. To be able to tap into that when time came to ask for money/order, could reach out to those people. Reached out to David, because "Your people are my people". We give you back time.

Frode - First software startup in high school. A couple other companies as well. Starting more ventures as the recession has hit. Normal human reaction is to hunker down and reduce risk. Entrepreneurs tend to be restless. Need to keep track of commitments or else you will drown. We underestimate the need for reflection.
GTD Tips for entrepreneurs: Fight your action bias, get your team members to use GTD, work on your GTD like regular exercise.

Bruce asks the audience how many of them are entrepreneurs. Probably more than half the audience raised their hands.

Do you guys have any failures due to GTD leading you down a path? Buzz - I think the biggest problem is the weekly review. Do I really have this time? What's the one characteristic I saw most in the people that are at the top of their game. They were all disciplined and focus. Things will change, so using GTD lets you be prepared for this change when the time comes. Ready to execute better than anyone else. Frode - Price to pay for being a crazy maker is that you have to revisit higher level horizons more frequently. If you don't, Someday/Maybe list will get out of control. By using GTD, you'll have more of a filter for new things. Easily to overwhelm yourself, so you have to kill projects more often.

What about the recession? John - I like the recession now. Makes you focus and force discipline. Peter - forced acquisition and brought clarity. "When you narrow your options down, you become very, very focused." Buzz - We're on course to have the best year ever. People need to be productive to keep their jobs.

Any things you wish you knew earlier? John - Being an entrepreneur can be very lonely. Buzz - Three lessons: (1) Letting the inventor be the CEO. (2)Raise smart money. Smart money mentors you, gives you feedback, etc. (3) Craft your story and get your message right. Frode - Understanding people. Finance - having the right revenue model. John - Be careful about hiring people like yourself. You need diversity.

Greatest Fear as entrepreneur? Buzz - Getting the "serious maybe". John - Hiring the wrong senior person. Peter - Choosing the wrong opportunity of all the ones that will be out there (from a time and effort perspective).

Peter - Call To Action: Close your eyes and imagine that you completely lost your job. What would you do next? Might help guide you toward next opportunity.

Question: What tools do you use? Peter - Outlook Netcentrics add-in. Buzz - Activewords and Outlook. Can you aggregate tools together to get exponential results.

A GTD Workforce: Is There a New Industry Standard?

2009-03-12T16:43:00.014-04:00

The afternoon kicked off with another GTD Summit panel. This time, the conversation centered around whether or not GTD

Panelists: Todd Brown, Randy Harward, Jeff Irby, Ron Kaufman, Sara Larch, Brian Lowery, Eric Ly

Moderator: Mike WIlliams

Todd - No...there is not a standard. Not seeing GTD skills on resumes yet. This is very important, however, due to globalization and the economic crisis we are seeing right now. A lot of distractions in life (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Are these adding value. Imagining nirvana...ability to keep head clear, etc., but wider organizational effect would be seeing people demanding more of management. What are organizational goals? Generate and communicate vision for company. Help facilitate succession planning. A great gift we can give to people.

Jeff - The standard I'm worried about is burnout, ping pong e-mail, pushing paper around, etc. Just chaos around how people work. Struggling with how to stealthfully implement GTD across the organization. The people who say they can't do it and can't be pinned down are the ones who need it most. As a manager, injecting the ideas into the organizational rules. The weekly review and projects are being subtly attacked via management direction.

Brian - What really sticks? Meeting prep worksheet. How can the best version of yourself show up at the meeting? What is purpose of the meeting? What is action that should come out of it? "Why does this simple worksheet stick?" Answer from client: "Because it forces me to think". Force a conversation around areas of focus by having 1 on 1 sessions with employees.

Eric - I'm an engineer and entrepreneur. One of co-founders of LinkedIn. Working on new company. Coming at GTD from a technical point of view. Very interested in building and creating products. Organization is just as important as building the product itself, because it effects the outcome of the product and success of its innovation.

Randy - Main job as manager and leader is to manage systems those people work in. Need to spend more time to teach them tools & techniques like GTD. These tools are removing coercion from workforce. Going to look for someone that is systemic in their thinking when looking for leaders.

(Side note: Very interesting to see all the panelists capturing thoughts and ideas from their fellow co-presenters. Stimulating thoughts all around).

Sara - In interviews, asking people to describe how they manage projects, how they work. A different approach. Looking for diversity and successful "day-to-day survival skills". Very humbling to be doing things the way I've always done at a new place. When you are in a new organization, think about how fragile you feel and keep this in mind when you bring new people in. This is a great chance to teach them the tools and concepts (how we do meetings, etc.). Give yourself permission to change if necessary.

(Another side note: Amazing that all of these black-belt GTD individuals all admit to falling off the wagon. The beauty of GTD is being able to get back on the wagon quickly.)

Ron - GTD started out as a very personal thing. Looking forward to seeing how we bring this up to the next level...getting things done together.

Q&A Time:

How do we fight cultural resistance? Jeff - How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Just work on focusing on the area of influence you have and the things you can touch. Todd - Stop doing what you are doing and do new things.

Interested in any case studies that measure impact of GTD in an organizations. Are there any? Love to see some set of models or tool. If not, what would be required? Eric - The standard doesn't exist yet. Used informally on an org level so far. One of the important elements is to create a framework that all organizations can sign up to. Each org has unique measurements. Have initial common set, by organization has to sign up to creating their own measurements to get true by in. Randy - Kind of weary of standard measurement practices. May be measuring things off target.

It seems like we need to implement GTD from the top in order for it to work. What do you think? Randy and Sara both agree it has to be more viral. Start with small groups and work to get consensus among members that you can be successful. Need 3% of the organization to embrace for it to get enough visibility, then it will either be accepted into culture or rejected.

GTD @ Home: From the Boardroom to the Living Room

2009-03-12T13:49:00.011-04:00

OK...this is my first attempt at live blogging, so we'll see how it goes. I'll likely expand on my thoughts later. I usually tend to write longer pieces, so doing a stream of conscious blast of info will be interesting.

The first breakout session of the day is "GTD At Home: From the Boardroom to the Living Room". This panel is being moderated by Eric Mack with panelists Med Edwards, Ismael Ghalimi, Kim Hagerty, Brian Lowery, Bruce Somers, John de Souza and Mike Williams. Two other excellent sounding panels are going on at the same time, so making the choice on which to attend is difficult. Of course, I have a keen interest in injecting the GTD process into my family, especially for my kids as they enter into high school. I hope to gain some good insights into this idea during the panel. Here we go...

Talking about moving GTD from a work context to "life context". Is it a thought process that you apply in life?

Distinction between home and work may not be as defined as people think.

Eric has served as David Allen's technologist for 16 years. David Allen Company employees practice what they preach.

1992 - first time Eric met David Allen. Meeting with David and his business partner. David asks to first have 5 minute meeting with his partner because they hadn't seen each other in awhile. David open agenda page to Russel...Russel opens agenda page to David. They blew through their lists...What's the status? What's the next action. Most productive meeting Eric ever say. After 5 minutes, meeting done and Eric had full focus.

Now meeting the panelists.

Ismael sharing how GTD has impacted his daily life. Small software company owner. Raising a new family, learning to fly, lots of activities. Work and life and intersecting. Need to have a system that frees your mind to do things that are most interesting (e.g. "be with my daughter"). Using Salesforce.com to capture all their contexts, doc management system, calendar, etc. Use an account for home and one for business.

Bruce Somers owns advertising agency. Service that is provided for every client is brand new. They "put out fires constantly". GTD is the only way they can keep up with everything. Bruce works from home and is more productive there. Wife is seeing how Bruce is efficient and wants to know how to do that. Came up with color coding systems for the whole family. Uses a calendar for the family and task scheduling is just the same as work.

Brian Lowery - Does a lot of east coast work. Get up at 4. Work for a few hours, then breakfast with kids. Gets some exercise in. Zero separation between work and home. "It's all you".

John de Souza - Getting to GTD was a lot of small realizations. Life is moving a lot faster than you think it is. Major realizations (like spending time with kid) coupled with small realizations drove him toward GTD. You need to have a system. You need to revisit your system as your priorities change and you need to invest in yourself at all levels.

Kim Hagerty - Responsibilities changed significantly as her business grew. Was using a planner...felt like she wasn't getting anything done. "To dos" were too big (get profitable, grow company). Found GTD through her brother. There is no real separation between work and home. Initially just wanted to capture work-related contexts. Huge breakthrough when she realized you have to capture everything, not just work. 100s in company have gone through GTD training...helps foster a language everyone can speak. Does a weekly review that is work related. Kim and husband meet and have planning meeting/weekly review, then they meet with their 13 year old daughter. Experiences more well-balanced life.

Mike Williams - Father of 2 young kids. Works with GE Healthcare. Took it from boardroom to living room himself. Some people in business are primed for productivity. Not necessarily true at home. Working on "experiments" at home. For example, separating items in the mudroom at home. Using this as an analogy to how you have things in your head. At breakfast, talk about what you want to accomplish today. Dinner time - reflect on how you did. Also do word of the day, quote of the day, etc. With his young kids, he is concerned with "planting seeds". @Agenda and hard landscape two of most important parts of GTD. Checks his calendar (hard landscape stuff) when he pulls in the garage so he remembers what things to talk about with kids. Labeler produces giddiness.

Four panelists have taught their kids how to mind map.

Meg Edwards - When she first met David in 1998, she was working in Vermont. Moved to Maine, having a baby in new marriage, starting new business and getting a new house. Goes to seminar (with new baby in tow) and was "saved" by things David Allen was talking about. Seeing workflow diagram was first time her brain quieted down. 6 months later had the opportunity to train as a coach and has been with David Allen Company for last 10 years. Has had opportunity to coach many people through the years. Focus is on teaching kids how to GTD. One of the greatest impetuses for GTD was getting to be present with her daughter, not be distracted. 5 stages of workflow helps make sure that she is focusing on right things and allows her to collect at the appropriate time. Sees so many parents overwhelmed. We need to help get this out to people, because it can be life changing.

Eric - Teach your kids to use an inbox, teach them how to mindmap and the idea of the Someday/Maybe list.

Bruce - Someday/Maybe list is powerful for kids. What do you want to do when you grow up?

John - Now hides his inbox at home. Has a dump box at home. Allows his wife to pile things up and then deal with them instead of putting it directly into his inbox. Families can take parts of idea without forcing it on them. Makes things harmonious.

Talking about best tools: Notetaker wallet (Ismael), Inbox (Bruce), Inbox, put things where they live (Brian), wallet and notepad to capture, remember much better by writing down (John), Inbox at work and home, place for everything, notepads everywhere (Kim), notepads everywhere, calendar (Mike), digital whiteboard in the bathroom (Eric. Wow...that's geeky! :-),capture tools (Meg).

Capture tools seem to be most important to everyone.

For children, very important to capture things they tell you otherwise you'll hear it over and over. - Meg

Q&A time:

Inboxes all over the house. How do you deal with people dumping into boxes and moving this to appropriate place? - Brian mentions inbox in his office (in garage) and his wife's in the house. Moves paper as necessary. No more or less. Bruce - Individual boxes. Amazing how much respect family has for each others inboxes.

For those that can't install digital whiteboard, suggest using shower crayons.

At the higher levels, how do you incorporate goals and areas of focus into family? John - Sit down periodically with family and work on integrating all life events together. Kim - Does a year end review. Sat down with family after first swipe this year and talked about family goals. No criticism. Recorded family goals and has a good platform for discussions going forward. Mike - Went through "Now Discover Your Strengths" with his wife. Mapping out activities are helping define the higher level goals and define the foundation of where they want the family to go. Bruce - Daughter was stressed out about homework (age 10). Asked her what she really wants to do. She wants to bake. Tries to distill GTD concepts down in ways that make sense to her so she can manage her goals and her tasks.

Eric asks audience who has a written family mission statement. What will life look like? What do we want to be true about our life? Work backward to determine how these things will be true. What projects do we need to have in place to make this happen?

Meg - Really responsible for her daughter at early age. Mapping out her goals, projects and actions. A lot of power in deciding what to do and not do so you're not revisiting in the future and second guessing yourself. "You don't have problems, you have projects".

How to deal with GTD with your kids at the rebellious stage? Brian - Act like you are having so much fun. Don't force it on them. Bruce - Let kids get to depths of chaos and then through her a life line.

How to get your spouse on board? - Brian - Got coached together. Meg - Said "I need it", then let husband decide for himself.

Great panel!

Twitter People At The GTD Summit

2009-03-10T10:46:00.016-04:00

T minus 1 day to the GTD Summit. This event is bringing together some incredible minds to have a dialog around our rapidly changing world and how we can get more things done with agility, flexibility and speed. I'm thrilled at the prospects of learning about raising my potential to the next level with this great group of speakers as well as my fellow attendees.

I'll be blogging and tweeting the event. As you know if you've been here before, I tend to write rather long pieces, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to do justice to true live blogging. We'll see. I CAN promise some in-depth coverage as I take it all in. It's a balancing act, as I feel I lose some of my attentiveness when I'm trying to distill the thoughts down to digestible chunks for blogs or Twitter. I'm looking forward to your feedback.

Many of the attendees and speakers at the GTD Summit are Twitter users, so I'm attempting to compile a comprehensive list so people know who to follow if they want to know more. As some other have suggested, I think we are standardizing on #gtdsummit as the hash tag.

Here's the list I have so far. If you are a Twitter user attending the GTD Summit and I don't have you on the list yet, please comment here or reply to me on Twitter.

gtdguy (David Allen)
GTDCoachKelly
GTDCoachMichael
MichaelDeutch
Odegard
ericmack
gtdtimes
Buzzmodo
guykawasaki
jroadman
ChrisBlatnick
uconntam
jlindenthal
kerrygallivan
ryanheathers
Alltop
michaelnozbe
malyszko
mydifferentfeet
TesTeq
mshinfa
boekgirl
smith_douglas
Mindjet
jroadman
stlist
frankmeeuwsen
rsailer
kerrygallivan
OmniGroup
resourcerer
larryaubrey
tpassist
tacooosterkamp
ec2boy
ALMguy
alanlnelson
kcase
gbback
prepop
sbell22

Here's an idea If we have the possibility to write on our name tags, it might be helpful to promote your Twitter username on your badge. I know that sometimes I don't recognize a person's formal name immediately if I've not met them in person, but their online name is more recognizable. Maybe I'll bring along some stickers to use for this.

It's All About The Whole Package...Designing for the User Experience

2009-03-09T13:55:00.006-04:00

While the title of this site is Interface Matters (because I thought it had a good double meaning to it and it reflects an area where many Notes applications have issues), I'm really more inclined to think about the entire user experience (UX). Now certainly, the user interface is one important aspect of the user experience, but UX is much more than just what the screens look like and what the user sees. I'm an advocate of taking a holistic approach to the art and science of application design. I want every aspect of the process to be all about the user...making them happy and productive. Let's be honest here. If you are reading this blog, it's most likely because you are a developer in a corporate capacity in some shape or form. And that means that the users don't necessarily choose to use your software. They may request that it be written for them, but not because they are looking to have fun. In many cases, they are unwilling victims that must use it, no matter how bad it is. If that's the case, then I think we have an imperative to make the user experience the best it can possibly be.

I think I'm going to explore this in more detail in subsequent posts, but let's lay the foundation for what user experience is all about. In my definition, the UX is every interaction that a user has with a software application, from beginning to end, cradle to grave. Thus, the user experience encompasses:

- The project request

- The initial meetings with the customer (business/requirements gathering, proposal)

- The design phase (prototyping, usability testing)

- The actual software itself (the deliverable)

- The implementation phase

- Post-implementation (bug reporting, feedback, enhancement requests)

As you can see, using my definition, we're talking about the entire lifecycle of the project. And how you engage and interact with the user at those times when you are not even dealing with code is just as important as when they are sitting in front of the screen. In some cases, those events are even more important. The reason for this is simple. Our brains are great at associating events. If you start out a project on the wrong foot, even the best deliverable in the world might not be able to keep the user from thinking that the application is not that great. I've seen this happen in my own experience. I used to have a co-worker that was quite arrogant and rude. This person thought they had all the answers and subsequently alienated every customer we talked to. While the project this person engaged on was delivered ahead of schedule (and was quite good, I begrudgingly admit), the adoption of the application never took off. After this person left, I inquired as to why when the project was eventually resurrected. It turns out that the people in the department knew there were going to be other phases and more enhancements, but they didn't want to deal with this person! So here you had money spent, people's time invested and an inefficient business process that could have been much better, but people rejected the application because they didn't like working with the developer. That, my friends, is a breakdown in the user experience and it has absolutely nothing to do with bits or bytes.

I know that many traditional application developers claim that they don’t "do UI” almost as a badge of honor. As such, the idea of designing for the User Experience is probably even more foreign to them. However, I think it is vitally important to start to overcome these challenges. This will come about only through an organization making the necessary cultural change. Before app developers can actually start making progress in developing a good user experience for corporate applications, the process needs to support this objective. This means that designing for the UX needs to be injected into the design methodology. Whether they use traditional methods or an agile methodology, thinking about and designing for the user experience needs to be woven throughout the process. When your organization steps up to embrace this idea, it's amazing to see the transformation that takes place.

Have you followed a user-centric approach in your design process? Has it changed how you work? If so, I'd love to hear your story. I plan on sharing some more of my ideas in this space next time.

GTD, Lotus Notes & the eProductivity Challenge: The Weekly Review

2009-03-02T22:42:00.004-05:00

Webster defines a coach as "one who instructs or trains."

I'm a big fan of coaching. Whether talking about a presentation coach to help hone your skills on the stage, a performance coach to help you better your 5k time or a life coach to get you to focus on your overall goals and objectives, coaching is a fantastic way to help you achieve your potential and then reach for loftier heights. In fact, I'm writing this post right now while waiting for my son to get out of his teen life coaching session. I occasionally work as a technology coach, helping people map out what they want to get out of using technology, then putting a plan together to meet that goal in the most efficient way possible. So right off the bat, I figured I would like the Weekly Review Coach functionality of eProductivity. I was wrong, though...I actually love it!

Ask any GTD fan, new to the system or grizzled veteran, what the biggest obstacle to complete mastery of the GTD concepts is and they'll likely tell you it is the Weekly Review. The Weekly Review is the part of GTD that brings everything into focus, helping you to close open loops, determine what is needed to move your projects forward and keeps you on track toward your higher level life goals. David Allen calls the Weekly Review the "secret sauce" and in my experience that is very true. I've posted before about my GTD journey to this point and the times when I was most on my game and feeling that I was living the vision that Mr. Allen maps out in his book was when I was diligently doing my Weekly Review. But let's be honest...it takes some serious focus to plan out the time to sit down every week to look over what you need to be working on. In fact, in some ways, the Weekly Review exerts a certain force of opposition if you are afraid of what you'll uncover. You need to do this, however, to get full clarity of what you should and shouldn't be working on. Thus, the concept of having a "coach" for helping you get through this process is outstanding.

The Weekly Review Coach in eProductivity is basically an enhanced wizard, walking you through all of the steps necessary for a successful Weekly Review. It's an elegant approach because it allows you to focus on just one thing at a time. This is key since maintaining this focus will drive you toward completion faster and allow you to be more thorough in your work. The coach kept me engaged, targeted and on track. I'll admit that in the past I got distracted chasing an idea or item down a rabbit hole. While this can still happen in any system, I felt more focused because I had the coach to guide me through the review in the correct order.

After launching it, the Weekly Review Coach takes you to the first step in the process: Collect Loose Papers. For each step of the Weekly Review, the coach tells you what you should be doing and gives you suggestions to improve your game. You can see a sample shot from the Weekly Review Coach below.

Steps of the Weekly Review covered in the Wizard include:

Collect Loose Items

Process Papers

Empty Capture Tools

Process Email

Empty Head

Review Action Lists

Review Previous Calendar

Review Upcoming Calendar

Review Tickler Files

Review Waiting-for List

Review Projects

Review Goals & Objectives

Review Areas of Focus

Review Relevant Checklists

Review Reference & Support

Review Someday/Maybe List

As you can see, that's quite an exhaustive list of things to do and it's no wonder that it can be daunting to consider performing a weekly review when you have all that staring at you. Of course, the scarier this process seems to you, the more you probably need to be doing it! Once the Weekly Review becomes an ingrained habit, the process goes pretty smoothly. Even so, there's always the temptation to jump ahead and work on something more interesting. When I used the Weekly Review Coach, I found that this temptation wasn't there. Instead, it kept me completely on task, a characteristic of a great coach.

After the first step is complete, you check it off and the coach automatically takes you to the next step. I love the layout of this wizard, along with the graphic representation of what step we're on coupled with the help text. Of particular genius is the way the coach allows you to do all of your work in context. Thus, when it's time to review your action lists or empty your inbox, the appropriate view appears directly below the coaching instructions (see below). I've talked about the effectiveness of this technique in interface design before, so it makes me very happy to see this being implemented in other Notes-based applications. This idea helps the user stay in that focused, flow state, further improving the user's performance of the task at hand.

I did my first weekly review in eProductivity on Sunday night and I was amazed at how fast I went through the process. Granted my system was nice and clean from just migrating all my actions and projects over, but I still credit the Weekly Review Coach with enabling this speedy completion. When you finish walking through every step (where you are even encouraged to work on the higher level stuff...goals, aspirations, etc.), you are presented with a nice summary report of when you started each step, when you ended and your elapsed time. This is a nice touch and will be a good reward and motivation for continuing to stay on top of the Weekly Review process.

You can find some additional information and screenshots of the Weekly Review Coach on the eProductivity site. I encourage you to take a look and consider this as yet another great reason to review eProductivity for your GTD implementation. If I had to use a single word to describe this software, it would probably be "frictionless". By that I mean that it so smoothly supports the GTD methodology, I don't really have to think about the mechanics of getting data into the system or getting the right information out of it. Instead, I can just do my work and be productive.

As it says on the eProductivity site, "Your Weekly Review just got easier". Yes...I'd say it did!

Embedding GTD Into My Life Systems

2009-02-26T22:54:00.001-05:00

Hi Gang...For you frequent visitors, just a quick note. I do not plan on turning this into an "All GTD, All The Time" blog...I promise. It's just been on my radar a lot lately for a few different reasons, so I thought I would share with those that are interested. We'll return to the regularly scheduled programming soon (along with an announcement about this site). In any case, if you'd like to delve into why I GTD, feel free to keep reading.

Getting Things Done, the enormously popular personal productivity methodology created by David Allen, provides a systematic approach to helping you master your workflow and has literally changed my life for the better. I'd like to explain a little about why it's been such a powerful tool for me, allowing me to take my performance to the next level.

I was first introduced to the GTD methodology a few years ago. As I mentioned in a past post, reading the Getting Things Done book really struck a chord with me. I was never much on taking notes. Even in college when I was working on my engineering degree, most of my notes were sketchy at best. Instead, I prided myself on being able to keep it all in my head. I was pretty good at doing so and this habit followed me into the work world. The beginning of my career was focused pretty heavily on development-oriented tasks and was fairly routine in terms of the tasks I needed to accomplish and the projects that I worked on. However, as I got older and my workload and responsibilities increased, I found that I started to get some leaks in my "system". Indeed, balancing work and home life was becoming much more burdensome, as my rapidly growing family started to impose greater demands on my time. While before I just had to worry about work stuff and home stuff and was able to keep these in nice and tidy buckets, I found myself juggling kid stuff, school stuff, sports stuff, etc. I was still being productive, but it was all getting to be too much to keep track of and items were certainly slipping through the cracks. Luckily for me, right around the time when it was getting particular cumbersome to manage, a blog post pointed me to David Allen and GTD.

I picked up the book at my local Borders store and thumbed quickly through the chapters to get a preview of what was ahead. To be honest, I kept finding myself drawn to point after point, so I knew I needed to get home and start reading it right away. The concept grabbed me. Why? Well, for one reason, it was new and shiny, with the promise that my life would now be spectacular. Of course, I knew it wasn't going to be quite that simple, but I did feel a certain excited energy because as I progressed through the book, I felt like I was having a bunch of mini-revelations. The core of the GTD methodology is really very simple. A lot of it could even be considered common sense. However, I've found that what we call "common sense" is often easily overlooked and it takes someone else to point out the obvious. In my case, it was Mr. Allen addressing the fact that you can't keep it all in your head. Our brains aren't designed that way, so we really need to find a means to capture all of those things we are thinking about into a "trusted system", one that we can be assured will not forget and will allow us to focus on the appropriate work at the appropriate time. I had found exactly what I needed.

After completing Getting Things Done, I was excited to get to work. I spent a couple of days collecting all my "stuff" and went about the task of processing it, keeping the workflow diagram close by my side. Wow...this was going to be a little harder than I thought. Just in this first act of processing my gigantic pile of amorphous materials, I found myself failing in some of the areas Mr. Allen warns you to watch out for. I wanted to pick and choose through the pile, grabbing the things that seemed interesting or whose disposition I could quickly determine. I had to fight hard to overcome this desire and realized at that point that embedding GTD into my life systems was going to take some work. Like anything else, certain habits needed to be formed, others broken, in order to be successful. With this realization, I doubled my efforts and forged ahead.

Now, being a self-respecting geek, the next challenge was to find the best GTD "system" I could. Boy...talk about information overload! Searching the internet revealed the myriad ways that people have implemented GTD, from the most basic analog approach (pen and notepad) to incredibly complex electronic constructs that required a manual to make sense of. Unfortunately, I made the mistake that many in the beginning do, and dove down the rabbit hole, switching back and forth between many of these systems before truly getting a handle on the basic tenants of GTD. I went back and forth between electronic tools (mind maps, web-based lists and task systems, etc.) and the analog methods that seemed almost like a renaissance for paper in some ways (moleskine, hipster, et. al.), but I couldn't seem to hit on the magic system that made it all click. In the end, I came to the realization that the tool doesn't matter nearly as much as the method. There are a few key things you need. First, it needs to be always accessible. Second, there needs to be some attraction to the tools. If you hate carrying around a paper pad with you everywhere you go, then an analog GTD system is probably not right for you. Now that I figured this out, I set about concentrating more on how to "do" GTD rather than what my GTD container looks like. This was another important step in my GTD journey.

Although I was doing all this switching back and forth between systems, I was making some progress in ingraining the GTD habits into my daily routine. Even at half speed, I recognized a notable improvement in my ability to deliver and keep on top of my work. That's one of the great things about GTD. I was only fractionally taking advantage of what GTD had to offer, but it was still leaps and bounds beyond where I had been. The idea of the two minute rule, making decisions on e-mails...wow! On the surface, I found that the methodology couldn't be easier, but I also came to learn that there are many subtle nuances which can only be discovered with patience and persistence. It was in this period that I worked hard to build the necessary habits that would support good GTDing.

Over the ensuing years, I had ups and downs with my GTD implementation. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in stating that the Weekly Review was the hardest thing to do, although I knew it was actually the most important piece. I found myself resisting carving out the time to do the Weekly Review, not because I didn't have the time, but because unconsciously I knew that I would have to face all my projects and tasks and I would feel like I was failing if certain things had slipped. This is silly really, because the whole point of the Weekly Review is to help you recover from such slips. It's your opportunity to find the leaks, plug them, evaluate how you are doing and what you need to do to move all of your projects forward. The light bulb finally went on when I was doing a Weekly Review and found a fairly big hole around a project I was working on. Had I not performed my Weekly Review, I would likely have missed the task altogether and caused some major issues with that project. For those of you just starting out with GTD or who are trying to get back on the wagon, believe me...focus on the Weekly Review. It is powerful and compelling and it really is the key (or the "secret sauce" as I believe Mr. Allen calls it) to this whole process.

Even when you feel like you're on top of things, it's possible to fall off the GTD wagon sometimes. Back when I finally settled on a system to use for GTD, I had made the decision that the best place to capture my projects and lists was in the context of my day-to-day work environment, Lotus Notes. Thus, I created my own, home-grown extensions to my mail file to support this work. Since I used the To Do features of mail along with my own customizations, I had all my action lists syncing to my Blackberry, so my system was always with me. It was in this period that I really got into the groove and felt like GTD had made a significant improvement in my life. I felt more focused, delivered high-quality work, and was able to stay on top of my ever growing list of responsibilities. Simple things, like keeping an @Errands list, saved enormous amounts of time, time that I could then put to use productively in another area of my life. And it was here that I discovered the reason that we're all trying to work this productivity stuff in the first place. The feeling of knowing that what you need to do is captured somewhere safe and that it's alright to be focusing your attention on living in the moment was spectacular. Now I won't lie to myself and say that I am a GTD superstar, because it was when I left my previous employer to come to IBM that I fell off the wagon most ungracefully.

Finding myself in a new job that required me to show off the just released Lotus Notes 8 client on an almost daily basis made it impossible for me to make changes to my mail file. I had a really great system and when I lost that, I found it hard to readjust. I once again returned to the rabbit hole, needlessly testing various implementation practices, finally going back to an analog system (just keeping my next action lists and projects in a simple notebook). While I found myself enjoying the simplicity of that world, the truth is most of my existence and work is in the digital realm and so a lot of needless double entry and context switching was going on. It was time to step up again and get back in complete control. Enter eProductivity.

Recently, I've been lucky enough to begin using the eProductivity system developed by Eric Mack. It's a phenomenal tool built to take advantage of the power of the Lotus Notes platform, all the while adhering to the principles and best practices of GTD as laid out by Mr. Allen. Mr. Mack has been building the foundation of this system for years, continually refining it, researching what works and doesn't work. I'm just a little over a week into this journey, but I already know that eProductivity will be the system I use from here on out. I've already written a couple of posts on the eProductivity system, so I encourage you to check them out here and here.

I keep finding new things to love about this tool. First, processing the inbox is almost effortless now. Being a user experience advocate, I can tell that a lot of thought and effort went into making things just work. I'm finding that I have no resistance to attacking the incoming mail. This in itself is incredibly powerful, because it lets me get to work focusing on my tasks and projects rather than "doing my e-mail". IBM pays me to get things done, not work on my inbox. As I move along on this next stage of my GTD journey, I'll be posting more details about eProductivity and how it really is the absolute best GTD tool for Lotus Notes (just ask Mr. Allen...he uses it!).

So that brings me to today. I'm thrilled to be walking this next path on my exploration of GTD. Getting back into the groove just feels "right" and the addition of eProductivity has brought my game up a notch (and I haven't even got everything migrated over yet!). I'm particularly looking forward to using the Weekly Review Coach that is a key feature the software. I'm super excited about this tool, which is one reason I've been talking about it so much lately. If you are interested in personal productivity and want to explore a tool that will bring the best of what GTD has to offer to Lotus Notes, you should definitely take eProductivity for a test drive.

Aside: David Allen uses Lotus Notes and eProductivity and in fact has said a lot of really great things about Notes. This is very positive for IBM and I hope that going forward you'll see us take advantage of the "free press" that he is giving us. He's a highly visible figure in the world of personal productivity...really a rock star. I hope this helps some of those people that have had blinders on with regards to the Lotus portfolio take those blinders off and see the kinds of stuff we are working on. Many of our products are truly transformative and it's encouraging to see smart people like Mr. Allen get that and then evangelize it to the world!

As I look back on my progress to this point, I'm pretty happy about how GTD has served me. While I haven't been perfect, the tricks I've learned and the tools I've leveraged as I've practiced this methodology have allowed me to play in a higher league than I did before. In the end, GTD allows me to get more done, deliver work of higher quality and lets me use my mental cycles to focus on important things...things like developing new UI techniques in Notes, figuring out how I can help more in the community and spending time with my family. After all, that's what Getting Things Done is all about.

Why Do Enterprise Applications Suck? And How Can We Fix It?

2009-02-24T22:04:00.002-05:00

Originally, this post was just going to be a link to a great article, but as usual, I seem to have a little more to say. Before you read my thoughts on the subject of sucky enterprise apps, please check out what Michael Nygard has to say on this topic.

Good stuff and I whole-heartedly agree. To summarize, Michael postulates that there are four main reasons that enterprise applications suck in terms of the user experience. They are:

1. The serve their corporate overlords, not their users.

2. They only do gray-suited, stolidly conservative things.

3. They have captive audiences.

4. They lack "give-a-shitness".

I think most of us in the Notes world would be hard pressed to say that these things aren't true in many of the applications that we've seen (and perhaps even authored ourselves in the early days). I often lament the fact that the majority of us learned our craft by deconstructing the Notes templates. While they were certainly great back in the day and the underlying code is slick, the fact is that the users' expectations of the software experience has moved on and we as developers...not so much.

I originally started this site knowing that it would be a niche within a niche. Interface Matters is about Lotus Notes development with a focus on user interface design. If you ask a lot of people, those things don't usually go together. At least they didn't. But I'm happy to say that Lotus and IBM get it now. Certainly we can't turn around on a dime. We're a huge company after all. But if you look at the progression between past clients and Notes 8, it's a pretty outstanding evolution. In my sales role, I'm starting to see a lot of traction in upgrades to 8.5 and this presents developers with an incredible opportunity to start rallying against Michael's "4 sucky apps" theory.

In order to overcome the sins of the past, you've got to start injecting the idea of a compelling user experience into all aspects of your design process. It's not just about how things look. Instead, it's about the entire experience, from the time you begin to engage the users to gather requirements to after project delivery. How do they report problems to you? How responsive are you to issues that are raised? Are you thinking about fast release cycles? All of these things are part of the user experience and I don't think I'd be off base by saying most are neglected in traditional Notes development.

To turn this around, begin leveraging best practices in the UX space. Try using "Web 2.0" design patterns (like those found at UI-Patterns.com). Examine what well-known sites are doing and determine how they are keeping users engaged. Even better, ask your users what they like. I've received some of my best ideas from the users themselves. It's very eye opening to watch them work or to discuss what sites on the Internet they find easy to use and why. The best advice I could give a programmer is to attempt to "step outside the code". The code is the solid foundation upon which a great app is built, but like the foundation of the building where they live, the user never sees it. Instead, they see their house...a place that is comfortable and that they call home. The same is true for your app, so our goal is to not only lay that solid foundation, but to create the most attractive and comfortable environment that we can. Once you make the mind shift from lines of code to "how will the user feel about this?", then you will be on your way to developing a more compelling user experience.

As developers, we're the ones on the front lines that can make this happen. More than other platforms, Notes developers often have to play the roles of business analyst, designer, tester and programmer all rolled into one. The concepts of user experience are important in the work that all of these roles take on, so by making this a standard part of your engagement model, you'll be able to effect real change for the better and help make enterprise apps suck a little less. Good luck...your users are counting on you!

Thoughts on the eProductivity Install...Smooth Sailing Really

2009-02-24T10:17:00.003-05:00

As part of the eProductivity challenge that I'm working on with creator Eric Mack, I promised to blog about the process and my findings as I went along. I thought this would be very useful for those people that are interested in the promise of achieving higher productivity using Lotus Notes.

The first part of getting things done with eProductivity was to actually perform the install. This is very easily accomplished since this tool was designed specifically for Lotus Notes. You'll be using your production mail file, so the one thing you must be aware of first is that you need to have access to update the design. If you're not sure, check with your corporate IT department. Assuming you have the proper access, the install will consist of replacing the design of your mail file with the eProductivity template.

Right off the bat, Eric and team have done a nice job of fully documenting the install of the software. Of course, I wish there were some kind of easy installer for Notes apps in general, but baring that, having a good set of instructions for exactly what settings you need to have in your ACL, how to replace the design, etc., is great. I didn't need the instructions for replacing my database design, but I would feel totally comfortable with an end user taking the documentation and getting right to work. Once the eProductivity template has been applied, a wizard (nice use of UI design pattern here) appears to guide the user through the remainder of the setup process. This consists of accepting the license agreement, setting the initial preferences (where it is recommended you take the defaults unless you are a more advanced user), and updating the design of any folders you already have to add the eProductivity features to them. Again, this is nicely explained and should give the user a feeling of confidence when going through on their own.

After the installation of eProductivity is complete (a process that should only take a few minutes at most), opening your mail file presents you with the main eProductivity UI. The user interface was designed to the standard put forth by the design team at Lotus for Notes 8 (Basic). I must admit to missing the Notes 8 Standard views for their sexy looks, but that feeling was short-lived, especially in light of my improved productivity. When you open your mail after the installation, you'll see a couple of cool features right away. One is the "Tip of the Day". I find this to be quite valuable. Since most users (myself included) would rather just get to work than wade through a big instruction manual, the "Tip of the Day" allows you to learn more about the features of eProductivity in small chunks. You may not figure out all the nuances of the software from day 1, but by using the Tip feature, you'll soon learn many of the tricks and more advanced things you can do.

The Tip of the Day feature

Another key feature is the "Today" view, which gives you a quick, at-a-glance way to see what lies ahead of you for that day. I'll review this more in a future post, but basically it aggregates your calendar, due action items and tickler entries so you don't have to go through multiple views to find out what you should be working on today.

The Today View

So that's it...the installation for eProductivity is a breeze. I think the user experience around this was well thought out and allows the user to get up and running in very little time. In fact, it will probably take longer to download all the materials than it does to perform the actual install! :-) If the install is the easy part, what about using eProductivity itself? I'll be saving that for a future post. Let's just say that getting the GTD methodology right takes some time and dedication, but eProductivity seamlessly supports this methodology and so far has helped me to get information into the correct place better than any other system I've used before.

A Paper Prototyping Testimonial

2009-02-19T15:52:00.003-05:00

[Hi Everybody...Chris here. I'm thrilled to present another guest post to you here on Interface Matters. Please welcome Kathy Brown, who recently started blogging over at Kathy's Running Notes. She was inspired to try low-fi prototyping after attending my session with Tom Duff at Lotusphere and I was really happy to hear about her success with it. Below is a post about her experience. Thanks, Kathy! Don't forget to check out her blog...]

I frequently spend many hours in meetings with users, emailing users, instant messaging users and phoning users to determine their requirements. I then spend countless hours developing an application that I think satisfies their requirements. Only to demo the app and have the users point out 50 things they would like to see differently ("that's not what I meant"). And around the wheel we go again. All because it is difficult for users to "see" the finished product before it's, well, finished.

I was lucky enough to attend a session by Chris Blatnick at Lotusphere 2009. [Editor's Note: Flattery will get you everywhere! ;-)] Among other things, he covered Low-Fidelity Prototyping, which he has also covered on his blog. He also calls the technique 'paper prototyping' because it is just that, drawing out on paper what the app is going to look like. Everything. Buttons, views, tables, etc. Check out his blog to see more on how to do it.

I immediately got home from Lotusphere and had to try it out. Luckily, I am in the early stages of a new application and could put this right into action. Oddly, I used it on myself first. I think Chris' intent was to get better feedback from users before beginning coding, but I was able to use it to clarify my OWN thoughts on the application before even speaking to the users. (Woohoo!)

I drew out several of the screens required for the application and immediately saw flaws in the design. Back to the drawing board, literally, and I redesigned several portions. Drew them up again and realized several features that I knew the users would ask for when I showed them. I added those onto the drawing. Now I could bring a much more "developed" application to the users before even getting any of their feedback. I looked like a hero! Additionally, they were better able to envision the finished application, and add their feedback, BEFORE I had coded anything!

LFD from a user session. The red pen is actually from the user's input in the meeting, adding two new sections and a field, while removing an entire column of data they decided was confusing to the users.

I am also working on an in-production application. The users frequently have new requests and features they desire. In the most recent release of the application, a new form was added based on vague user input. (You know how it goes, "Hey we want the form to do this and this, you're the designer, you figure it out."). The users had some pretty negative feedback. The feedback tended to be along the lines of "this sucks" and was not very useful in figuring out a solution. I decided to meet with some key users and had a paper prototype in hand. I offered them some visual suggestions as to how we might change the form. Seeing those suggestions "in real life" enabled them to provide constructive suggestions on what they would actually like to see on the form. They were passing the paper prototype back and forth and drawing on it until they agreed on the new layout and design. Again, all before I coded (okay, re-coded in this instance) even one line of code.

I can't recommend this technique nearly enough. It saves me time as a developer and makes the users happy with an end result they like, as well as making them feel invested in the product. I am looking forward to using this in all of my designs.

About The Author: I've been an application developer in Lotus Notes/Domino for four years. I am currently the lone developer at my company, so like many others, I am overwhelmed and expected to do miracles therefore I love to learn techniques and technologies that will make me more efficient! Prior to working in IT, I've been an Investment Analyst, a temp, and even an actress (long ago and far away).

On the Road to Greater eProductivity!

2009-02-17T21:11:00.006-05:00

Hi again, folks. Those two or three of you that have been coming here for awhile now know that I am a fan of productivity systems and that I am a follower of the GTD methodology. While not a black belt by any means, I've found that it is the best system for me, helping me keep on top of the ever increasing pile of work I find thrust upon me (or that I volunteer for) and assisting me to close open loops.

I first read David Allen's Getting Things Done several years ago and it really struck a chord with me. Up to that point, I kept pretty much everything in my head. Luckily, it's a big head (haha), but it was quite leaky too. As much as I loved to write, I never enjoyed taking notes in meetings or keeping lists. I realized I needed help as my workload increased, which is what lead me to David's book in the first place. On the surface, the methodology couldn't be easier, but there are many subtle nuances which can only be learned with patience and persistence. In the beginning, I was only fractionally taking advantage of what GTD had to offer, but it was still leaps and bounds beyond where I had been. The idea of the two minute rule, making decisions on e-mails...wow! Common sense stuff, to be sure, but it often takes someone to point out the obvious for us to become truly aware of it. Over time, my performance and level of execution of GTD increased and I felt like I was certainly "working smarter". Like many geeks do, I probably toyed around with different systems too much, going back and forth between analog (moleskine, hipster, etc.) and electronic (mind maps, web-based task systems, and so on) ways of keeping my lists. In the end, I came to the realization that the tool doesn't matter nearly as much as the method. There are a few key things you need. First, it needs to be always accessible. Second, there needs to be some attraction to the tools. If you hate carrying around a paper pad with you everywhere you go, then an analog GTD system is probably not right for you. After this became evident, I decided the best place to GTD was in the context of my day to day work environment, Lotus Notes. Thus, I created my own, home-grown extensions to my mail file (easy for me, of course, as a developer). This served me very well until I left my last company and came to IBM. Not wanting to make changes to my IBM mail file, I was cast adrift in a sea of too much information and quickly found myself drowning in it.

For the last year and a half, my GTD-fu has been suffering greatly. When you have a great tool and it gets taken away, it's hard to readjust, especially as you get as old as I am. I once again found myself needlessly testing various implementation practices, finally going back to an analog system (just keeping my next action lists and projects in a simple notebook). While I found myself enjoying the simplicity of that world, the truth is most of my existence and work is in the digital realm and so a lot of needless double entry and context switching was going on.

Before we get to where I'm at today, I need to step back a little. In the beginning of 2007, I was fortunate to begin speaking with Eric Mack, who most of the folks in the yellow bubble now know as the brains behind the eProductivity product. I had been reading Eric's blog for some time, and was very impressed with his approach toward productivity and personal knowledge management. It was at this time when I started to get some sneak peeks into what he was doing with eProductivity and I was definitely impressed. I even helped with a couple UI pointers, but mostly his team was doing all the right things. The short summary of what eProductivity is is this: It is THE tool to use for implementing GTD in Lotus Notes. If you need any more proof than me saying it is so (tongue firmly planted in cheek), consider this: David Allen uses eProductivity for Lotus Notes as his personal system. If it's good enough for the guy that created the methodology, I think it's worth looking into! ;-)

I had the opportunity to reconnect with Eric at Lotusphere this year, to attend his great talk with David and to get another look at some of the pieces of eProductivity that I hadn't yet explored. I was really impressed. Not only is it a perfect implementation for GTD, but it's an incredibly cool Notes application...just another example of how powerful this platform really is. After I returned home, I figured it was time to really buckle down and try eProductivity full time in my production mail file. As it turns out, Eric was keen to have some people try out his system and blog about their experiences, so the timing was right. Last week, I took the plunge and accepted Eric's 30 day challenge. We spent some time on the phone and he coached me through the eProductivity install process. Now, I'm up and running with eProductivity as my full-time, 100% committed GTD system. The verdict so far? I definitely like what I see! There's a lot to explore and I have to get used to some of the workflow, but it's really one of the fastest ways I've been able to create projects and next actions to date. I'm mostly looking forward to trying out the Weekly Review Coach and some of the other advanced features, as I think these will take my GTD skills "over the top".

If you are already an advocate of the Getting Things Done methodology, then I would highly encourage you to check out eProductivity. If you've not yet read the book, then I'd recommend two things. First, make sure you buy GTD and read it cover to cover. It's short and easy to digest (which is good, since you'll want to read it again in a few months). At the same time, get started with the trial of eProductivity. While you'll get the most out of the system if you know GTD, there are enough productivity best practices and help features within the software to improve your game right away. Then, you can grow into the system as you master the GTD principles.

Next time, I'll talk about the install process and how easy it is to start getting things done with eProductivity.

Lotusphere 2009...Some Quick Thoughts

2009-01-30T17:12:00.004-05:00

Another Lotusphere is in the can and I can echo many of the voices in our community by saying Best. Lotusphere. Ever! Perhaps due to my IBM job now, Lotusphere has a different flavor and between speaking and various job related events, I didn't get to attend nearly as many sessions and labs as I wanted to. I'm amazed at the number of sessions available this year that were of super high quality and I wish I could have seen them all. I think a highlight for me was Benjamin Zander's appearance at the Closing Session. I can't imagine anyone leaving that room not being inspired to start "radiating possibility"!

I've leave out my thoughts and comments about products and strategy since I don't want to sound like I'm just echoing the party line. Suffice to say that I'm energized about the portfolio. I think it's a fantastic time to be a Lotus customer or to be looking to become one! ;-) I also realize, more than last year even, that I have to get back to doing full-time development. It's what I'm good at and what I have a passion for, so I'll be looking at ways to do that within the halls of Lotus (hey template team...need a hand? ;-)

I was honored once again to be chosen to be a speaker at Lotusphere...my third year now! This still really blows my mind to be up there with these other great folks and I'm humbled to get to work with them and call many of them friends. This year, I presented on the principles of good interface design with Tom Duff, some Web 2.0 UI patterns with Nathan Freeman, hosted a lightly-attended but lively UI BOF and did some speedgeeking. I had a blast and have to give my heartfelt thanks to everyone that attended one of my sessions. I hope you found at least one nugget that you could take back and start using.

If you are looking for the downloads, they'll be up soon. In fact, I just posted the speedgeeking database. In the next post, I'll include our presentations as well as the sample database from AD212. There are some cool design patterns there and I look forward to introducing you to them, especially if you didn't make it to the 'Sphere this year.

Speedgeeking: The Amazing Tabbed Table

2009-01-30T13:46:00.007-05:00

I had the pleasure of being able to participate in Speedgeeking this year at Lotusphere and while it's hard on the voice, it's really a lot of fun. For those not familiar with speedgeeking, it's much like speed dating. Each presenter is at a separate table and groups of attendees spend 5 minutes getting a "crash course" in whatever that presenter's topic is. After 5 minutes, they go to the next station and so on for 1 hour. To keep it fun and lively, an MC is continually calling out the time and rowdily making people move along. It's a bit of a challenge to distill a topic down into a meaningful 5 minute pitch and presenting the same content (loudly) 12 times straight is certainly harder than it seems, but the effort is totally worth it.

As I promised to the attendees of that speedgeeking session, I'm including my sample database here to play around with. If you didn't get to attend, then read on to learn more about "The Ever Amazing Tabbed Table: Cool UI Tricks Anyone Can Do" (and by anyone, I mean developers...admins couldn't handle this ;-)

Get the database here

I think tabbed tables are an excellent design element for making good UIs in Lotus Notes. I'm continually amazed at the uses that you can come up with for this versatile element. For speedgeeking, I demonstrated four popular design pattern uses for the tabbed table, primarily focused on their programmatic aspect.

So what will you find in the sample database? Four cool techniques including:

Fade In/Fade Out

Wizards

Rotating Headlines

Elegant Navigation

All of these techniques are extremely easy, can be setup in a few minutes and can be used over and over again. To me, simple is elegant. I hope you enjoy and find some new uses in your own applications.

Come Say Hello At Lotusphere

2009-01-14T22:56:00.003-05:00

Well...it's almost time for our annual pilgrimage to Orlando, and like most of you that are going, I can't wait! For those of you that can't make it, I've been in your position as well...totally bummed about it...and all I can say is that at least this year, more than ever before, you'll get to live viscerally through the many social networking mechanisms that people in the community will be taking advantage of. I know that's not nearly as good as being there, so we'll raise one (or two or...) in your honor.

I still have a lot of planning to do, but there are a few places that I absolutely know I'll be come next week, else my co-presenters will be a little bit annoyed. ;-) If you'd like to catch one of my sessions, make your way over to:

Monday

1:00 - 2:00 BP108 - Getting to Wow...Interface First Design for IBM Lotus Notes Developers (co-presented with Tom Duff) - SW 7-10

Tuesday

8:30 - 9:30 AD212 - 1o Web 2.0 User Interface Design Patterns for IBM Lotus Notes and XPages (Co-presented with Nathan Freeman) - SW 5-6

10:00 - 11:00 BP108 - Getting to Wow...Interface First Design for IBM Lotus Notes Developers (co-presented with Tom Duff) - SW 5-6

6:00 - 7:30 Speedgeeking - This is a fun one. I'm doing "The Ever Amazing Tabbed Table..Cool UI Tricks Everyone Can Do". - Dolphin Pacific Hall B

Wednesday

5:45 - 6:45 BOF204 - Designers Unite: Developing A Dynamic User Experience in IBM Lotus Notes - SW Mockingbird 1-2

Thursday

11:30 - 12:30 GURUpalooza

As far as those social networking things go, I'll be trying to play along as well, so if you want to follow me, you can find me on:

Twitter: chrisblatnick
Brightkite: chrisblatnick
Twitpic: chrisblatnick

I'm looking forward to really using the last two after finally getting a phone that can take advantage of them.

I hope to see you there! Feel free to stop me and say hi if you see me.

Holy Cow, This Is Cool!

2008-12-22T12:00:00.007-05:00

A blog post entitled "Holy Cow, This Is Cool Or In Which I Introduce A New UI Technique But Give It A Vague And Flavorful Title to Game People Into Coming Here From Planet Lotus Since No One Really Reads This Interface Stuff"

Hi All...I always seem to come up with these posts at times that no one is around, but what the heck. Lotusphere is almost here and I'm lucky enough to be presenting once again (more on that later). As I was driving to a customer's site the other day, I thought of this technique and after playing around for a few minutes, I found that it works great. If you like it, consider it an early Christmas (Festivus, Hanukkah, insert holiday of choice here) gift.

I really love many of the UI patterns that have become popular in "Web 2.0" applications. Among these, one of the techniques that you see quite often is that of the "Fade In/Fade Out" element. Let's say you want to display a status or error message to a user after they enter an incorrect value. Sure you can just use a hide-when and make the text appear or pop up a message in a dialog box. But that just isn't sexy. You can add a little spice to your app by applying this modern looking UI device. First, let's see it in action, then I'll explain what's going on.

Now...that's the Lotus Notes client you are looking at, not a browser. While it's a very basic effect, it enhances the user experience in a nice and subtle way. It helps draw attention to the fact that there is a new element on the page and does so in a way that is less jarring than a pop-up box or instantly having the message appear on the screen. The beauty of this technique is that it is very simple to implement in your application. Here's how.

The key to this technique is the versatile programmable tabbed table (I continue to find new uses for this design element....I love it!). What I did is create a tabbed table and set the text and background colors to get progressively darker for a fade in effect. Then, using script, I simply switched from one row to the next on a timed interval using Sleep to pause the necessary amount of time.

For purposes of this example, I hard-coded everything, but after going through the steps, you should see how easy it would be to modify this so it is dynamic. The picture below shows the six rows that I used for the table. I selected a base color for the final display box background and then used lighter shades of that color for the previous rows. I did the same thing for the text in each row. I haven't really thought of any hard and fast rules here...just play with it until it looks good to you.

Hint: I find it easier to do the formatting for a tabbed table as just a standard table at first, then switch it via the Table Rows property tab.

As you may recall, you can programmatically switch rows in a tabbed table by writing a single formula line such as FIELD $DisplayTable1:= "4", where DisplayTable1 is the name of the table as defined in the Table HTML Tags properties and 4 is the name of the row.

You can also change the row via script, which is what I did in this case. I resorted to using LotusScript since it provided me with a facility to directly control how much time I wanted between each row change. If you are going to use LotusScript to do the row switching, make sure you add a field to your form that is the same name as that of the table (e.g. $DisplayTable1), otherwise you'll get an error when you try to set this field in your code.

Once you have the programmable tabbed table setup and formatted as you like, you just need to write the script to display the table rows to simulate the fade in effect. If I was doing this in a production app, I would probably hide the table until I needed it, fade in to the message and then fade out when the user dismisses it. Thus, the code would look something like this:

Dim workspace As New NotesUIWorkspace
Dim uidoc As NotesUIDocument

Set uidoc = workspace.CurrentDocument

Call uidoc.FieldSetText("ShowMessage", "1")
Call uidoc.Refresh
Call uidoc.FieldSetText("$MessageTable1", "1")
Call uidoc.Refresh
Sleep .15
Call uidoc.FieldSetText("$MessageTable1", "2")
Call uidoc.Refresh
Sleep .15
Call uidoc.FieldSetText("$MessageTable1", "3")
Call uidoc.Refresh
Sleep .15
Call uidoc.FieldSetText("$MessageTable1", "4")
Call uidoc.Refresh
Sleep .15
Call uidoc.FieldSetText("$MessageTable1", "5")
Call uidoc.Refresh
Sleep .15
Call uidoc.FieldSetText("$MessageTable1", "6")
Call uidoc.Refresh

This LotusScript was converted to HTML using the ls2html routine,
provided by Julian Robichaux at nsftools.com.

Notice here that the first thing I am doing is setting a field called ShowMessage to "1", which is just a field I use to control the hide-when properties on the table. Then, I set the table to row 1, refresh the document and sleep for .15 seconds, switch to the next row, sleep again and so on until the final row is revealed. To fade out, just repeat the steps above in reverse. That's all there is to it. I told you it was easy.

In case any of that was unclear, I've created a sample database that you can download to deconstruct the technique. It is simple and elegant, which you know by now is my favorite kind. I hope you can find a use for this in your applications.

Now...I mentioned before about Lotusphere. Did you like that technique? Do you want to learn even more "Web 2.0" UI goodies? Well, it just so happens that I'll be teaming up once again with my friend Nathan Freeman to present AD212 - 10 Web 2.0 User Interface Patterns for IBM Lotus Notes and XPages. In this session, we'll be taking a look at 10 popular modern UI patterns and showing you how to bring them to the client and to XPages. I'm excited about how it's coming out and I hope you'll drop by to check it out.

In addition to my session with Nathan, I'm very pleased to report that I'm teaming up for the first time with Tom Duff, aka Mr. "Now I'm published in a popular CIO.com article" (go read it...it's awesome!). We're going to be presenting BP108 - Getting To WOW...Interface First Design for IBM Lotus Notes Developers (it's also being repeated in case you can't make the first session). This is an updated version of some of my past presentations and I'm excited about it because Tom will bring his unique insight into the process of moving from a code-focused orientation to a more holistic one. Please come by if you can (and we'll have some goodies to give away as well! :-)

That's all for now. Signing off so I can work on more Lotusphere stuff. I hope you all have a fantastic holiday and very happy New Year!