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For those of you who didn't know, Lotus is about to celebrate its 25th anniversary. The celebration is being held this Saturday in Boston, and all former and current Loti are invited. Sounds like it is going to be quite a shindig, I wish I was able to attend.

The Boston Globe has written an article about the 25th anniversary and the party entitled How Lotus changed the business world. Mitch Kapor will be there, and was interviewed for the article as well. The article talks about the ups and downs of Lotus - from the mindblowing success of 1-2-3, to the loss of the Office wars and the rise of Lotus Notes and Domino. It mentions how Lotus was not only a hot company, but a hot place to work...

For the Loti, the old days were a time when Lotus was one of the hottest software companies around -- and an exceptionally pleasant place to earn a living. Benefits and perks that were unusually generous for the 1980s and 1990s, and management had a style that helped turn workers into leaders.

"Many people have come back to me and said, 'As I think about it, Lotus was the best place I ever worked,' " Kapor said.

I have to agree with that sentiment. My days at Lotus - the first time around, before IBM had bought them - were the best days of employment I have ever had. Ever. My colleagues were the best and brightest in the industry. I started in tech support, and the Word Processing Divison (WPD) tech support department had won back-to-back PC Magazine awards for best tech support in America. We were a close-knit group - like college. We not only worked together, we hung out together after work, partied together, etc. It was great. Plus the benefits were fantastic. In fact, I still keep up with quite a few folks from my time at Lotus WPD. Overall, it was really special.

So, this article and the anniversary bring back warm thoughts of days gone by. I won't bore you with more details here - but if you're interested, catch me at a show (like the upcoming Irish Lotus User Group Conference in Dublin) and I'll tell you some great stories over a pint or three.

Rock
**Women are from Venus, and men are from some place there they just want to get to get a little of that Venus action.