I really just have to rant...about EB 2.0

[Ms.behavin' 5]

I think I will feel better after I share the following. I did send it as an email from the Houston, Customer Success Advocate who responded to a trouble ticket, but I suspect it will go into an autoresponder black hole. My original issue and chat discussion was about the Business Library in the new Evernote Business 2.0. Here is the official spin on why there is no more Business Library:

 

"Technically, the Business Library "lives on", only it's now referred to as your "Business Notebooks" when viewing your home page in the app. The Notebooks that show there are still the same Notebooks that you and your co-workers "publish" for others to see. We've expanded the functionality to allow users to look at notes directly in this view."

 

My response...an admittedly over-the-top rant.

 

Hello, Houston. I appreciate the explanation, but I have to tell you that in my opinion Evernote has really stumbled here in many ways. Let me name a few, and I hope you will share this up the chain of command. If it turns out this note goes into an autoresponder black hole, I will happily post it on Facebook and LinkedIn.

 

1. You took away the library. You are couching this change as something great and new, but what a blunder. Business Notebooks are part of EB 1.0, so don’t pretend you’re giving me something better when in fact you’ve taken away what to me was the deciding feature in favour of Evernote Business…and that is the ability to separate “library” notebooks that contain evergreen content or reference materials or repositories from true “business notebooks” that have to do with day-to-day business operations or team projects. Once a whole bunch of business notebooks get created by a bunch of different people with heaven only knows what bizarre naming conventions they come up with, no one will be able to find anything!! Ask your users in 6 months how great this new system is.
2. Your rollout is way premature.  I wish I could send you an invoice for the billable time I wasted today trying to figure out why the Web version had the library and the Windows version did not. And the time I wasted trying to find documentation that would explain any of this. I am sure Evernote was rushing to market because of the  lucrative new deal with SalesForce.com, but you have done it at the expense of your core user base. It is frankly ludicrous and very disrespectful of your customers to roll out a product with significant changes and 1) not have all your platforms in synch but not bother to tell anyone; 2) take away the support resources that were on the web previously; 3) keep your how-to videos that no longer map to the product live on your web page, causing further confusion and 4) keeping KnowledgeBase articles that still refer to the Library (and heaven knows what else you’ve changed but not documented). If your website and your user guide and your web client aren’t ready, your product is not ready to launch.
3. Your documentation. This one merits inclusion in two items in my rant. Evernote documentation has never been great. Heavy on fluff and self-promotion, light on the details about how to actually use the product effectively. Now, until you get around to updating your Knowledge Base or, heaven forbid, produce an actual user guide for Evernote Business 2.0, it’s also just plain wrong. And let me add, impossible to find. Only just now I stumbled upon a (very very high level) document called “Get to Know the New Evernote Business 2.0” – buried way down in the new “announcements” feature instead of putting it front and center on the “brand new business home” where it would be actually helpful. Instead, on the business home you give us a user guide link that instead goes to your marketing web page.
4. Your over-the-top selling. As far as I can see, other than some improvements to search and some not-very-useful interface changes the biggest change in 2.0 is that you have given yourself TWO places to flog your related products---Announcements and Market. There is a fine line between keeping your customers informed about related products and services and plastering billboards across my personal space. I am a paying customer, and my Evernote client is my workspace…not your advertising channel. Thank goodness that (no thanks to you) I figured out how to hide these intrusive “features.” Do these graphics come out of my paid storage allotment?
5. Who knows what else. I’m just getting started with Business 2.0 so I don’t know what else I will find that affects my use of Evernote.  It’s a bit hard to get excited about the new features in the base Evernote Windows client—reminders, search all notes, shortcuts. We should have had those ages ago. And for what it's worth, I really don’t need or want to see my face on every notebook I create.