Collaboration for Dummies

by Volker Weber

Dummies cover

IBM has commissioned a book to tell Dummies how to collaborate. The first lesson is actually not in the book itself, but in the process to get it. You can either go the IBM way or the Google way. This is the IBM way:

collabfordummies1

collabfordummies2

collabfordummies3

collabfordummies4

collabfordummies5

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Now click the Download button, Dummy. If you can't find it just click here.

Whether you went the IBM way or the Google way, you end up in DRM hell. It's not a PDF. A PDF would be missing the special digital restrictions management requirements for reading IBM marketing collateral:

collabfordummies7

As it turns out, the second lesson was also not in the book.

Comments

Un.be.lieve.able.

Jan-Piet Mens, 2009-12-02

There is actually a third lesson. Open source it. You never know if somebody wants to quote from it.

Volker Weber, 2009-12-02

Thanks. Now I don't want to read it anymore ;-)

Karsten Lehmann, 2009-12-02

"Tell others about the bullshit I find" - really good and just the plain truth as seen here ;-)

Michael Klüsener, 2009-12-02

You really do read the fine print, don't you? :-)

Volker Weber, 2009-12-02

Who is the dummy indeed.. sigh!

Giulio Campobassi, 2009-12-02

And the last lesson, don't exclude people, because they have another OS. Adobe Digital Editions does not run on OS other than Windows and Mac, ie no Linux.

Good collaboration works across systems, across divisions and companies. Groups don't work top-down. Something that Lotus Domino Notes has had always trouble with. And the main reasons for never achieving the potential as collaboration platform...

@Volker: What was it what you normally "remember" in those cases? DRM is bad for your customer :-)

Moritz Schroeder, 2009-12-02

No good deed goes unpunished. It took me about two minutes to get an Adobe ID, install the software, and start reading the book. At no cost. I'd be pretty surprised if DRM was an IBM requirement. It's more likely that we are working within the guidelines of the publishing company.

@Moritz: Bringing up a lack of Linux support in an IBM software conversation is surreal. IBM has probably done more for Linux software than any other company. And I don't understand the "top-down" statement with regard to Notes. Notes gained a foothold in departments before being adopted by entire organizations. If 145 million copies of something is regarded as not reaching potential, I guess Michael Jackson can't be considered a successful pop singer.

I don't like DRM, but I understand the value of intellectual property and the fact that money is motivation for doing work. Lars Ulrich saw fit to kick me off Napster, but I don't mind paying for songs, because I want the artists to not have to have a day job. I did finally break down and buy an iPod, even though it was painfully difficult to move the music around, because that is where the songs are.

My point, here, is that the book is free.

Dwight Morse, 2009-12-02

@Dwight
I think Moritz is really saying, for a company that pushes heavily the virtues of moving to Linux from Windows (aren't all IBMers running Linux desktops with Symphony now?), is the irony that something from IBM cannot be used on Linux, so you have to use another OS, pay a license fee etc.

Concerning this line "My point, here, is that the book is free." Yes that's true, but you're implying that my time has no value and no cost associated with it.

Carl Tyler, 2009-12-02

Dwight, this is an ebook, isn't it? Put it on a Kindle. See where this all goes wrong?

IBM so likes to boast that is is open, source and standards ... Follow the "third lesson" link above and try that. Count the clicks while you do.

Volker Weber, 2009-12-02

It's even worse for me.

When trying to install the proprietary reader, the download fails, so no Collaboration book (and hence no collaboration) for this dummie.

*sigh*

Lars Olufsen, 2009-12-02

@Carl @Moritz Remember, the title of the book is 'Collaboration for Dummies'. Maybe they didn't feel the audience for the book would ever be smart enough to be on a Linux desktop. I'm not saying......I'm just saying.....

Sean Burgess, 2009-12-02

Sean, in that case, IBM lost it at "install the software". Which corporate drone is allowed to do that?

Volker Weber, 2009-12-02

Part of the Smarter Plant initiative ?

Sean Cull, 2009-12-02

I just did the book review on this yesterday and I agree on the download steps to even see the book. I found it bizarre that they chose the reader from Adobe instead of a simple pdf you can share. The idea of collaboration would include sending the file to my boss wouldn't it?

Chris Miller, 2009-12-02

Apparently not. The whole digital restrictions management is designed to prevent that. Your boss has to register his own IBM ID, fill out some useless junk, then go to Adobe, install some software, register for an Adobe ID by entering more useless junk. Then he can download the book. It's easy and only takes half an hour.

Volker Weber, 2009-12-02

Volker, You posted what had me scratching my head. Why is something so simple, so difficult to get and then, ahem, share.
Such is life in the Big Blue.
The old Sametime for Dummies, and UC for Dummies were just available, once logged in to ibm.

Keith Brooks, 2009-12-02

You were just afraid to punish the good deed, eh? ;-)

Volker Weber, 2009-12-02

It´s not necessary to register the Adobe ID, it´s possible to skip that. I just did. It´s necessary though to install this useless software (which luckily in our corporate environment we are allowed to do).

Adalbert Duda, 2009-12-02

I fail to understand who would go through all of this to get to a book for dummies!

Jan-Piet Mens, 2009-12-02

Dummies. That is a strong brand overseas.

Volker Weber, 2009-12-02

Nice try. 'you’ll need to have Adobe Digital Editions installed...'. I'm sure it's a typo. They wanted to write: 'you’ll need to have Adobe Digital Handcuffs installed...'

Richard Kaufmann, 2009-12-02

@Dwight: Carl answered that one for me. :-) Why give something away for free and than put DRM on it? And thereby excluding readers uselessly?

Regarding Domino Notes "top-down" statement: initially Domino was relatively "free" for users to explore and to launch their own applications. But then in the mid-90s, IT departments wanted more control and Lotus gave it to them. Since then, there has been that culture clash between "groupware" and "corpware". And the corpware won. BTW Ray Ozzie made the same mistake again with Groove, great idea, great promise until they gave in to IT department demands and basically kneecapped their product.

A designed workflow (like most Domino apps) is "top-down", because someone has decided it and someone has designed it. Think of the 90s buzzword "knowledge management", which was not about creating, gaining or sharing knowledge, but managing it :-).

Would anyone argue that Lotus Domino allows for "organic", "self-organizing" or "free-flow" collaboration?

Moritz Schroeder, 2009-12-03

@Keith

Well, I know you may empathise the frustration, and would like to see the problem fixed like everyone else, but "Such is life in the Big Blue" seems to typify a culture across much of the organisation that will eventually hand over market share to Microsoft....

It seems out of 390,000 employees, no one seems to have the intestinal fortitude to really fix these sorts of problems with IBM's web site, let alone realise the ridiculous situation with IBM id's that has carried on like this for years...

I know that it may only be a handful of people who can fix this, but there must be influences somewhere in there that would say "Hey! This IBM ID thing really (really) sucks and is largely useless ! Let's fix this, because it's a drain on us to support, and a drain on the rest of the world that also endures it."

End Rant!

Giulio Campobassi, 2009-12-03

It won't run on Linux.

Repeat after me: "DRM is bad for the prospective customer"

Karsten W. Rohrbach, 2009-12-04

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