wissel.net

Usability - Productivity - Business - The web - Singapore & Twins

I love Lotus Connections Activities

Activities are my favorite component in Lotus Connections. Firstly they let get my team (which changes from task to task) and myself things done. Secondly it is available offline. In my part of the world* "always on" is not a reality. It is more "mostly on, but with horrible latency and low network predictability or realiability". So working online is quite often frustrating. I like the model "work offline but with a background sync" much better since it fits reality. Push mail works that way and more and more apps (push apps (?)) do the same. Of course sometimes looking at the sync bar is scary.
All open action items --- aaargh

* here: all of AP. Quality differs widely.

Posted by Stephan H Wissel on 07 April 2010 | Comments (2) | categories: IBM - Lotus

Comments

posted by Eric Mack on Wednesday 07 April 2010 AD:
Another great argument for Notes. You can work independent of connectivity.

I'm curious to hear more about how your manage the technology vs the methodology of Activities.

My experience collaborating with people using Activities has been quite poor thus far. I know it's more than a tech issue.

Perhaps you will blog about your experience here...
posted by Stephan H. Wissel on Thursday 08 April 2010 AD:
@Eric: it is actually not a technology issue. Activities have Activity=Project, Tags=Context, ToDo=Actions, Entries=Reference Items/Linked Items, Sections=Subprojects/Structure, Free custom meta data.
Current issues: very free form, so team discipline is needed. The *engine* is there the UI needs GTD adjust. Firstly on the Notes client it is only a sidebar app, but Action lists supposed to be full screen (dominant posture). Also display based on context isn't fully solved.
Of course the biggest grievance: it breaks the one place for everything principle since email/calendar/todo are not fully activity integrated.
Having said that....
the Activity API would allow for all of this and feels like the natural way to extend GTD to a team level much more efficiently than any eMail routing would be able to.