I then made some calls to get some more information on Lotus Notes and what it could do. I received the information and still like most people "didn't get it". I then paid a visit to Kraft, Kennedy and Lesser, a Lotus Business Partner located in New York City. After a demonstration of Notes and a document management product named "SoftSolutions" (SoftSolutions was acquired by Novell in the mid 1990's). A few months later I received an invitation to attend a Lotus marketing presentation at the Hyatt in New York City. There were over 1,000 people at this event. The presentations given by Lotus were very good and informative. I also got to take home something called "The Lotus Notes Starter Pack". The Starter Pack was a nice box with a handle containing the Lotus Notes Server and Client software. I believe it was version 3.0 or 3.1. I then proceeded to load this software on my PC and then the fun began. I then began to craft many of the prototypes for UL that are now used worldwide. Another thing to note here is that I then purchased an additional copy of the Starter Pack for my partner in programming crime Mr. Steve Knez. I was so blown away by what I saw with Notes that I had to send Steve a copy. Well let's just say that Steve didn't even open the box until we arrived 6 months later in the new Washington office. It wasn't for another three or four months that Steve finally popped open his Notes client and started to develop some of the most impressive Notes application I have ever seen.
Well here we are in 2003 almost 10 years after I first touched Lotus Notes and it still allows programmers like myself to create world-class applications in an enterprise rapidly and securely. Try to do that with some of our friends in Redmonds tools. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that Steve and I only developed one Visual Basic application during our tenure in UL's Washington office. This one application was used to file emails and FAX's received in Lotus Notes to the SoftSolutions document management system :0). Today Steve is UL's Corporate Manager for Lotus Notes development.
Comment posted by Gayle 06/27/2003 09:24:56 AM
Homepage: http://www.angelinfinity.com
I can attest to all that Bruce has stated in his blog. I too worked at UL in Camas when Bruce was employed there, although I was a user of their wonderful Notes applications rather than the Developer/Admin of the applications.
When Bruce and Steve first rolled out Notes to the user community, the first thing that I thought and said to myself was, "What the h...ll is this!!!" The rest is history!!! As soon as they started to develop applications that we could use within the organization that helped automate, collaborate and ease our workflow processes, heads were turning and all the other offices were starting to look at Camas as the "envy" of all offices.
They were definitely way ahead of their times in collaborative application development and it took a long time for the organization to accept this new way of thinking and working. It definitely was a cultural shock and took a long time for "buy-in".
The first application that I remember them building was a contact management system called the Captain's Log. They incorporated electronic document management within the application, electronic distribution processes (i.e. email and faxing)...literally an almost paperless office. Now remember, this was back in the early 90's when "paperless" was just a concept. Camas was the first office at UL that was able to go from a heavy handed paper factory to an automated paperless office...from the time the request for safety certification came in, to getting it to the engineer for review and analysis, to the lab for testing and then back for report generation (which also was automated via their Notes application). - - all automated and paperless via Notes.
Bruce and Steve, as a team, were unbelievable! With Steve's creative programming capabilities and Bruce as the visionary...their applications were state of the art.
I have to thank Bruce for turning me onto "Notes". I've learned a lot from him not only as a user, but also from a technical perspective. His mentoring has helped me be successful in what I do, and that is sell Notes based applications and services.
I always wonder where UL Camas would have been if Bruce hadn't gotten one of his wild hairs and started looking into Lotus Notes...
Comment posted by Nathan T. Freeman06/27/2003 10:56:03 AM
it still allows programmers like myself to create world-class applications
Since when have your applications been "world-class?"
Comment posted by Bruce Elgort06/27/2003 01:14:57 PM
Homepage: http://www.BruceElgort.com
O yeah...Nathan...at least I finish my apps 
Comment posted by Bruce Elgort06/27/2003 01:01:10 PM
Homepage: http://www.bruceelgort.com
"blush"
Comment posted by Alan Hurt06/30/2003 05:13:46 AM
I also got my hands on the Starter Pack after attending some sort of presentation. The company I worked for at the time was a big had no email system, and only an archaic dBaseIII app in which to do their contact management. 6 months after getting my hands on Notes the company was knee deep in email, had a nice custom built contact management system and was beginning to use Notes for Quality control/manangement issues so that Bruce's company (UL) could grant us the object of our heart's desire...ISO-9000 certification. 6 months to transform many of the ways a company worked (yes we were fairly small) and they still use those apps today...nearly 8 years later. Cool
