Under New Management

At the end of Day One (official) of Lotusphere there was supposed to be a special “fireside chat” with Alistair Rennie. This was a blogger event where we thought we’d have about an hour to ask Alistair questions about Lotus in a conference room.

It ended up being in a room in the Mandara Spa with a stocked bar. That was a nice switch to be more casual, but the big surprise came when Bob Picciano, Mike Rhodin, and Sean Poulley walked in as well. It was nice to have all the executives in a room like that, and also to have three generations of Lotus GM’s together. To me, it really demonstrated how far Lotus has come concerning the community.

I remember several years ago, when Mike was the GM and I was in the press group AND the blogger group. At the time there was a snide comment made about the bloggers in the press side of the press conference, and then the bloggers got a fairly cold shoulder from Mike. Those days are gone. Even Mike, who had that attitude a few short years ago, was very gracious and accomodating to us in the chat. They get it now. If you create social software, you should practice what you preach. They are, and it’s definitely a good thing.

This attitude was represented in the opening quote from Alistair “Thank you. Lotus is only as good as it’s community and you are the best in the business.” So if you’re reading this, it appears that Lotus cares. I like the attitude. We’re under new management, and I believe that’s an excellent thing.