IBM Social Software

Real-Time Social with the IBM Connections Suite

Suzanne Livingston — Tue, 15 May 2012 08:59:20 -0400

So you love Connections. And you love Sametime. Now you can both in one package, with much more! Today, we announced the electronic availability of the IBM Connections Suite. The Connections Suite gives you one single package that includes:

IBM Connections 3.0.1
IBM Sametime Advanced 8.5.2
IBM Sametime Unified Telephony Lite Client 8.5.2
IBM FileNet Content Manager 5.1 (restricted license)
IBM Quickr Connectors

Luis posted some great demo videos and information in his blog this morning. I highly recommend you check them out. Here is one of his videos and links to all of them:

IBM Connections Suite for Workforce Optimization - http://youtu.be/Rw6GedZLpfI
IBM Connections Suite for Customer Care - http://youtu.be/dL4Jkn76Juw
IBM Connections Suite for Accelerating Innovation - http://youtu.be/XWpPqruj9no

Here is a link to the official announcement.

Connections101.net Podcast

Suzanne Livingston — Mon, 7 May 2012 15:58:00 -0400

Have you heard about the new IBM Connections 101 education site? If you haven't seen it yet, Gabriella Davis and Paul Mooney launched Connections 101 - a site aimed at helping people set up an IBM Connections environment from scratch, especially those with a Domino background or who have never worked with WebSphere. I really like how they are focusing on educating people about the whys, not just the whats. This is really helpful to people who are unfamiliar with the application server, database, and other underlying technology and want to know more about it, but really want to know how it practically applies to their IBM Connections installation - for example, what's a node, what's a cell, why do you need to know that.

Here is a brand new interview from the Taking Notes Podcast with Gab and Paul about their site

Paul and Gab speaking at LS12

Stop switching apps and create an embedded experience!

Suzanne Livingston — Mon, 7 May 2012 10:09:53 -0400

This tutorial shares information on creating embedded experiences, which allow you to embed your app or other apps into various IBM collaboration solutions. There is some great information on how to create an embedded experience on our product wiki. Here's a snapshot of what's available and links to the resources.

An embedded experience is a way for applications to embed content into other applications and let users interact dynamically with that content directly in context without having to switch to another application.

Embedded experiences eliminate the hassle of constantly switching windows, opening applications, and authenticating with multiple sites and services. This constant switching causes users to lose focus on their tasks, which decreases their levels of productivity. If users can access, filter, and respond to most of their work processes from a stream of activities in a single interface, they can manage their work more effectively.

To learn more, see Tutorial: Creating embedded experiences and other tutorials here.

Diane Loomis shares a quick story on using Activities

Suzanne Livingston — Wed, 2 May 2012 16:09:21 -0400

I wanted to share the effectiveness of Connections Activities in running a small project and, as a part of that, managing meetings and actions from meetings.

I held a meeting this morning and a number of team members couldn't attend because of conflicts or the late notice. At the end of the day, eight hours after the meeting ended, most of the ToDos have been completed already, including those assigned to people who did not attend the meeting! In addition to the 'ToDo' items explicitly checked off in the Activity, additional actions have already been completed as team members updated entries elsewhere in the Activity (again, including contributions from team members who did not attend the meeting).

Activities can really help increase the responsiveness of a team -- most of the actions assigned in the meeting were completed or discussed by the end of the day, and everyone on the extended team in the Activity can easily see what we have accomplished today. Communicating actions to team members who had critical information but did not attend the meeting was really key! This is another example of the the way Activities helps Teams work together better by tracking meetings and action items that can be assigned, discussed, and completed.

Want to learn more about IBM Connections Activities? Check out this video.

Heidi Ambler discussing what it means to be a social business

Suzanne Livingston — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:12:19 -0400

Guest blog entry by Kathryn Corey on IBM Connections 3.0.1

Kathryn Corey — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:30:31 -0400

Today we have a special guest author who you are likely familiar with. Kathryn Corey who joined the IBM Social Software Product Management team as an Offering Manager in January of this year. Kathryn has been with IBM for almost 16 years and has had a variety of roles in Graphic Services, Worldwide Sales Operations and most recently as a User Experience Manager working with the teams responsible for Notes and Domino, Sametime, Portal and IBM Connections Mail. Here are some of her favorite features and thoughts on IBM Connections 3.x.

Kathryn, Can you tell us what your favorite features in Connections are?
>> Well of course given my background the first thing I would have to say is the clean and easy to use user interface. I find the uncluttered and streamlined nature of the interface to be helpful in allowing me to work quickly and effective in Connections, particularly with profiles. In Profiles 3.0.1 connecting to the Sametime Web Client to provide the ability to start chats right away from Profiles and the Business Card is another feature I find that makes me more efficient. A feature I use consistently is the ability to have a sub community within a community that is private and secure, so I can work on projects and information in a secure private space before it is ready to be shared more broadly. I also find Activities to be valuable, to me it is a built-in project management tool. Being able to have a team work collectively on a project and use Activities to easily assign and track the progress of the work items makes keeping track of the multitude of projects we are all assigned to easy and manageable.

How does Connections help you get your job done?
>> In transitioning from my UX role to my Offering Manager role, I found that Connections communities helped to get me up to speed faster. I got to know the people on my new team, the procedures and pertinent information about my new role through the team's community. I was able to follow other communities to start to be posted on information and learn more content I needed to know, thus making me productive more quickly. Using Files has helped me to get my job done faster and more efficiently, I no longer have large file attachments clogging up my email creating quota issues that I have to stop my work and deal with, so I can access files I need for a project. Other advantages to using Files is that there is not any lag time for other members of the team I am working with in accessing my files or in me accessing their files. After I post my files, I can quickly notify team members without having to navigate to any other window or application. The IBM Connections 3.0.1 Files plug-in for Lotus Notes is a tool that makes it easy for me to track and post project information and requests that originated in Notes.
Here is a link to the Files plug-in for Lotus Notes: https://greenhouse.lotus.com/plugins/plugincatalog.nsf/assetDetails.xsp?action=editDocument&documentId·25B33D4CFB3C61852577B60056A406

Here is a link to a PDF file that walks through the install, which is in the attachments section of this page: http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/dominowiki.nsf/dx/Getting_Started_with_IBM_Connections_Files_and_Status_Updates_Plugins

Is there anything else you would like to share about IBM Connections?
>> I would like to re-share two videos that I found powerful about Connections and Social Software.

The first video is from Electrolux, which is an interview with the Director On Line Employee Engagement discussing the implementation of Connections. I found the point about the impact Connections had on change management by inviting the employees into the dialog to be a powerful way in which Connections is helping to solve complex business issues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joEU_G5IviI&feature=plcp&contextÄc92d7cVDvjVQa1PpcFNQwpW7ioCu-0miMfuyPA3IfqBKW0RrJi0

This video is of Rheinmetall a customer in Germany that implemented Connections, Quickr, Sametime and Lotus Notes. The company's challenge was to communicate over boarders and combine skills worldwide. This video summed up the value of these products working together to solve that challenge and highlighted the advantages to setting up both internal and external environments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCcApjDUz40&feature=plcp&contextÄc92d7cVDvjVQa1PpcFNQwpW7ioCu-0miMfuyPA3IfqBKW0RrJi0

Lesson Learned

Joseph Russo — Fri, 6 Apr 2012 08:14:09 -0400

Doing a set of user surveys recently, with college students - I learned this interesting item, something I've kind of "sought" in my designs and it was very exciting to hear it verbalized.

In this test, one of the questions asked was, what 2 or 3 software applications do you use the most? When I asked a small group of students, they all came back with the same answer - Microsoft Office.

Now, I prodded them a little and asked, do they use Office more frequently than say, they use, Facebook?

Instantly everyone in the group said, no, they used Facebook a lot more than Office. When I asked do they use SMS Texting more than Facebook, again, a resounding, yes, they text considerably more than they use Facebook.

Here's what I culled from this little survey;

1. Thinking about something as a "Software Application" is old school - an old school notion of a thing I as a user have to comprehend, and engage with.

2. Well designed software interfaces become natural and they are extensions of people, and are only thought of in terms of what value users get from them.

3. Software Application == Computer Interface

4. Useful applications == the high powered computing device that is chained to my person, the smartphone

5. Really successful design patterns focus exclusively on the value and use people get from them and suppress the configuration, architecture and hardware demands - and pick intelligent defaults, settings along with innate function to self-regulate. In effect automating all of the administration so that the prime functional value is all people have to deal with.

How do you work with the IBM Connections wiki?

Luis Benitez — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 08:28:17 -0400

As we start planning for future releases of IBM Connections, we wanted to understand how users, for example, are using Wikis to ensure that we are investing in the right areas. Just like it doesn't make sense to invest in Internet Explorer 6 these days, we want to know how users are leveraging the editors in the Wikis component of IBM Connections.

Currently, we support 3 editors in Wikis: Rich Text Editor, HTML Editor, and Wiki Text Editor. The three approaches to editing content are very different from each other and conflict at a fundamental level. Rich text editing and HTML editing gives users free control over their styling and formatting whereas wiki text is specifically designed to restrict this freedom in preference for consistent document semantics. Since Wikis allows one page to be edited in three different formats, a conversion process must take place. Converting from wiki text to rich text is relatively easy since wiki text is much less expressive than rich text (HTML). Converting from rich text to wiki text is a very different problem. A lot of content can be expressed in HTML that cannot be expressed in wiki text.

Wikis currently allows for lossless conversion from rich text to wiki text by escaping anything that cannot be converted and leaving it in a HTML form, embedded within the wiki text. A caveat of this is that the wiki text content becomes less useful as more HTML is escaped within it. The task of maintaining this wiki conversion is very expensive and difficult and we would like to spend the development time on nicer new features ;-)

We'd like to know what you think and how the community is using wiki text in IBM Connections Wikis right now. And while we are at it, it would be good to know what would be your top feature request for Wikis.

Please answer the survey below:

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Thanks for your feedback!

Write your blog with Blogsy!

Luis Benitez — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:08:06 -0400

We are always interested in highlighting what our partners are doing in terms of building applications. Blogsy, one of the top rated blogging applications for iPad has just been updated to support IBM Connections. Built by Fomola, Blogsy provides yet another option for iPad users to blog within IBM Connections while on the go.

Check out what Lance Barton from Fomola had to say about the newly added support for IBM Connections in Blogsy:

- First, tell us what Blogsy does?
In simple terms Blogsy is a blogging app. You use it to post to your blog or edit drafts and posts you have online.

- What differentiates Blogsy from other similar iPad apps?
There are several big things which differentiate Blogsy from other blogging apps. First, we have WYSIWYG formatting so when users format their blog post, set image alignment and so many other things they actually see what it will look like instead of just seeing the HTML. Secondly, we provide easy access and use of the most commonly used blog content. For example, Picasa, Flickr and YouTube accounts are set up in Blogsy so users don't have to leave Blogsy and go search for an embed code so they can use it in a post. They can just drag it right into their post in Blogsy from the appropriate panel. Blogsy also has Google Image Search built in so users can easily find pictures they may like to add to their post. But we didn't stop there, we also added a built-in browser. Users can drag images and links right from the browser instead of having to copy and paste embed codes. We also have a Blogsy bookmarklet. So if users are surfing in Safari and find something they would like to blog about they can tap on the bookmarklet and it will open that site in Blogsy, making it easy to write about it and create a link to it. Finally, Blogsy does everything through easy menus instead of forcing people to learn how to change things in the HTML. I better stop talking now or you may never get me to stop.

- What has been the response so far community?
As far as the blogging community in general goes, the response has been amazingly good. In the beginning it started off with major blogs and hardcore bloggers writing about Blogsy. Blogsy was on the "New and Noteworthy" and "What's Hot" sections in many of the App Stores around the world. And it also received awards and made it on must-have lists. But the average iPad user didn't know or hear about Blogsy. Then with time and improvements to Blogsy the word spread and more and more people have come to know of Blogsy. We feel there are still a lot of blogging iPad owners that have not heard of Blogsy yet. We hope with time every blogger will know about Blogsy. The vast majority of the feedback we get is positive and that helps keep us motivated to continue to improve Blogsy.

- What new features are you working on for your next release?
In our latest release - code named Centaur - we add a whole bunch of new features. Here are just a few.
1. IBM Connections support - Now bloggers that use IBM Connections can use Blogsy.
2. Email - Now you can create and send richly formatted emails. Now, if your blogging platform is not supported by Blogsy and provides the ability to email-to-post then you can use Blogsy to create blog posts. Or it's good for sending richly formatted emails to friends and family. Also other services have features provided through email. For example you can email to Mail Chimp and it will send it to all your subscribers.
3. YouTube double tap to open in browser. - Not sure if the YouTube video is the one you want to use? Just double tap on it and it will open in Blogsy's built-in browser where you can watch it or find out more information about it.
4. Blogger page support - Now you can create and edit Blogger pages.
5. YouTube private/unlisted videos. - Now Blogsy will show YouTube videos you have set to unlisted or private so you can now drag and drop them into your posts.
6. Remove Apple style span (unnecessary html code) - We now strip out the unnecessary HTML Apple adds.
7. Changed b, i tag to strong, em tag. - iOS uses the b and i tags for bolding and italics. This is not the standard HTML so some blog themes have style settings for "strong" and "em" but not "b" and "i". This would cause inconsistencies in post styling. Blogsy now converts "b" and "i" to "strong" and "em".

If you'd like to see the full list and writeup about this update you can check out our blog post about it. http://www.fomola.com/blog/?p=428

In general we keep our update information a secret until we have submitted it to Apple. So people follow our blog or subscribe to us on Mail Chimp to know the latest information.

- Where can people go to to learn more about Blogsy and the integration with IBM Connections?
Well, we did a special video showing IBM Connections in Blogsy (http://youtu.be/ZwzzI3M5u8Y). But other than that there is no real specific information based on platforms. Blogsy basically works the same with all platforms it supports. The only real differences come down to blog settings which vary according to what the API supports. For information for that users can check out our platforms page - http://blogsyapp.com/platforms/.

I also suggest that all users check out our how-to videos. Lots of people have told us that they really helped them get the most out of Blogsy. The videos can be found in Blogsy in the Settings menu under "How-To Videos" or at www.blogsyapp.com/how-to.

- Anything else you want to say?
Yes, we believe that support is just as important as the product. So we do our best to respond right away and solve any issues a user may have. We love it when users email us with feedback so they shouldn't be shy about dropping me an email - info@fomola.com

Also, I want to thank you Luis for all your help. You have been amazingly supportive in this whole process! I wish we had some kind of swag we could send you.

Help shape the future user experience of the IBM Smart Cloud/LotusLive

Suzanne Livingston — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:20:07 -0400

The IBM User Experience Research team would like your feedback on the lotuslive.com web experience.
You will be asked to complete three tasks which should take no more than 20 minutes.

Please start the study here: https://s.userzoom.com/m/MSBDOVM1NTM_

Thank you for helping to improve the user experience!

Next week in San Francisco @SocialMediaWeek

Suzanne Livingston — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:58:01 -0400

Marie Wallace posted to her blog this morning about next week's Social Media event in San Francisco...."One more day and I’m off to San Francisco for what looks to be a fun few days with lots of interesting events, not least of all our own IBM event on Tuesday at the Razorfish offices near Pier 39. Having lived in San Francisco in the late ’90s, I have a soft spot for the place so its always great to get back, and Social Media Week is particularly nice as I get a chance to visit the entire Bay Area from San Francisco to San Jose. "

You can learn more about Social Media Week here.

Getting Started with IBM Connections

Erika Varga — Fri, 3 Feb 2012 09:49:44 -0400

IBM Connections 3.0.1 has a new getting started experience to interactively guide users through steps for setting up and using IBM Connections. Each step lets you Learn more, Watch video or Do it. Want to see how other people are using IBM Connections to do social business? The new getting started walks you through the same steps others have taken to network with colleagues, join a community, start an activity, and share files.

Two ways to use Getting Started with IBM Connections:

Try out Getting Started with IBM Connections that uses IBM Connections hosted in Lotus Greenhouse. You'll need your Lotus Greenhouse credentials to log in. http://infolib.lotus.com/resources/connections3/index.html
Already purchased IBM Connections? Administrators can download the IBM Getting Started sample for IBM Connections and customize it for their environment. http://tinyurl.com/connections-gettingstarted

Help us plan our session for SXSW Interactive

Heidi Ambler — Wed, 1 Feb 2012 09:55:53 -0400

Today's guest post is from

Heidi Ambler
Director of Social Software Product Management

Luis Benitez and I are excited to be presenting at SXSW 2012, and we want to tap into the collective knowledge of readers of our blogs, Twitter, and even internal to IBM to find out what your thoughts are on enterprise social software trends, which is the topic of our session.

How are you seeing social media being used by enterprises and what are some of your most favorite examples?

Let us know in the comments section below!

And by the way, if you are going to SXSW 2012, we hope to see you there:

Enterprise Social Media: 5 Emerging Trends
When: Sat March 10th @ 5pm
Where: Longhorn Ballroom @ Omni Downtown

If you want to respond in Twitter, we'll be monitoring the hashtag so sends us your comments/questions. We would love to hear from you! The hashtag for our session is #SXsocbiz5

Hope to see you there and hear from you!

Participate in activities going on in the User Experience Lab at Lotusphere 2012

Joseph Russo — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:00:00 -0400

Participate in activities going on in the User Experience Lab

View the latest product design concepts, experience mobile product designs, talk to our social solutions designers, and provide feedback to improve the information experience. Meet the designers, user researchers, and information architects responsible for the direction of our products. Participate in hands-on activities and tell us what you need.

Lab Hours:
Monday, January 16 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM
Tuesday, January 17 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM
Wednesday, January 18 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM
Thursday, January 19 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM

Visit these stations in the lab located in Asia 4:

Station 1: IBM User Research and Future Studies

See how we conduct research and sign up for an opportunity to participate in future studies. Discuss with us what you would like to see improved in the products that you use.

Station 2: Connections and LotusLive

To influence our future design directions, help us prioritize the most important scenarios in which you would use these products to complete daily tasks. Try out the next version of Connections and let us know how you like it. Give us feedback on our new features, including enhanced community functionality and integration of the social business toolkit.

Station 3: Editing in the Cloud with IBM Docs

Check out IBM's new web editors and tell us what is most important to you in a document editor, a presentation editor, or a spreadsheet editor.

Station 4: Design Your Information Experience

How do you use information either as a new or an experienced product user? How can the Lotus and WebSphere Portal product wikis be more effective in giving you the information that you need? Help influence the direction that we take with your product information experience.

Station 5: Sametime

Real-time collaboration is critical to your business. Come to the Sametime UX station to give us input on future designs and to discuss your requirements for online meetings, instant messaging, and using audio and video.

Station 6: Making Your Business Solutions Social

Learn about the core design principles that make a business solution into a social business. See the common set of patterns and artifacts that we're designing and help influence their design. Tell us about your favorite business solutions, and we can talk about how using social media can enhance the outcome of the solutions.

Station 7: Social Mail

View and interact with demos of the social mail beta in Connections 4 and help us shape the future user experience design. Provide your feedback and unique insights on how social mail might best be used by your company or organization.

Station 8: What's Next for Lotus iNotes and Lotus Notes

See a showcase of what we're considering for the next releases. Let us know what you think of these features and provide feedback on potential improvements.

Station 9: Lotus Domino Designer and XPages

Do you want influence the future direction of your application development tools? Stop by and give us feedback on Lotus Domino Designer, the XPages extension library, XPages templates, and more.

Station 10: Mobile Applications

Select a device, select a product, and get a first look at the latest mobile products from IBM. This station features Android and iOS phone and tablet apps for Sametime, Connections, and Traveler. Come by and give us your feedback on future designs and prototypes.

Station 11: WebSphere Portal, Social Portal with Connections, and IBM Web Content Manager

Provide your input on the new and future plans for integrating IBM Connections and IBM Web Content Manager into WebSphere Portal. Come by and give us your feedback on future designs and scenarios.

Station 12: Design Your Video Experience

Tell us how you find and use product videos, and what you expect from our videos in the future. Preview the videos that were submitted for VideoFest, and help select a new design for the wiki Video Gallery.

Special Events

Are you curious about product design? Do you want to get more involved? Join us for one or more of the following special sessions in the User Experience Lab (Asia 4).

	Special Events
Monday 1/16/12	Date: Monday, January 16, 2012 Time: 5:00pm - 6:00pm Topic: "IBM Collaboration Solutions Future Product Design Direction" Speakers: Chris Paul, Director, User Experience; Ethan Perry, STSM; Brian Utesch, STSM. Abstract: How is the user experience (UX) of IBM Collaboration Solutions products designed? What role does Lotusphere play in ongoing collaboration with customers? The ICS User Experience Director, Chris Paul, and UX Design and User Research Senior Technical Staff Members, Ethan Perry and Brian Utesch, will discuss how design direction is set, the importance of user adoption, and how you are engaged in the design process. Bring your questions to this interactive session.
Tuesday 1/17/12	Date: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 Time: 9:30am - 10:30am Topic: "Mobile User Experience Directions" Speakers: Tyler Walters, Chris Reckling Abstract: Social Business and mobile technology go hand in hand. See where we are going in designing mobile apps for tablets and smartphones in 2012. Provide feedback on the design directions and help prioritize features.
Wednesday 1/18/12	Date: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 Time: 9:30am - 10:30am Topic: "Meet the User Experience Designers" Speakers: Amy Travis, Margo Ezekiel, Ethan Perry, Eric Wilcox Abstract: Join our lead user experience designers and talk with us about our design challenges and future design directions in a fun and lively session. It's your chance to see how we design your favorite products.

Lotusphere 2012 - UX Lab Door Prizes

Joseph Russo — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:00:00 -0400

Throughout the Lotusphere 2012 conference we'll be giving out these lovely fashion accessories as door prizes in the User Experience Lab in Asia 4. Come by any day and answer the "Question of the Day" at one of our stations for a chance to win. Increase your chances by attending any one of our special sessions or by following our LotusTechInfo or LotusDesign twitter IDs. We're also giving out collectible User Experience Lab buttons!

(Photo used with permission.)

Participate in Online Feedback Activities for Lotusphere 2012 and Beyond!

Joseph Russo — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:55:40 -0400

Participate in Online Feedback Activities

Answer Our Online Question of the Day!	In the User Experience Lab, we'll be asking a "Question of the Day." Visit us in Asia 4 each day to answer the question and to sign up for a chance to win a prize at the end of the day. If you don't have time to stop by and see us, we'd still like to hear from you. Click here to fill out a short survey to give your answers. https://www.ibm.com/survey/oid/wsb.dll/s/ag41e
Wiki usage survey	We want your feedback. IBM is continuing to develop improvements and release updates to the wikis. We want to hear what is important to you so that we can prioritize improvements that help you most. The data we collect from all wiki usability and feedback activities is used to influence our priorities for future design enhancements and development. https://www.ibm.com/survey/oid/wsb.dll/s/ag419
Sametime Prioritization Ideation Blog	Help us come up with a list of future features in Sametime. Vote on the ones listed here and suggest your own by adding to the list! Click the following URL to access the Ideation blog in our Online UX Lab in Greenhouse. [You will need to register on Greenhouse in order to participate (using a business email address) but it only takes a minute!] https://greenhouse.lotus.com/communities/community/icsuxlab/SametimeLS12

Participate in any of these ongoing feedback opportunities - check in regularly to participate, follow or contact us

Online UX Lab:
Join our online UX community and participate in any of the on-going feedback opportunities in our online User Experience Lab:
www.tinyurl.com/onlineuxlab

Sign up to be a Usability participant!
Join our IBM Volunteer database and be contacted about future feedback opportunities!
https://www-01.ibm.com/software/ucd/register.html?wsb39=WPLCdeveloperWorks

Check out our blogs!

Notes Design	http://www.notesdesignblog.com/NotesDesignBlog/NDBlog.nsf/
Sametime	https://www-304.ibm.com/connections/blogs/SametimeBlog/?lang=en_us
Inside Lotus Design and User Experience	http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/

Stay Connected! Follow us during Lotusphere and beyond!
On Facebook
Lotus Design: facebook.com/lotusdesign
Lotus Tech Info: facebook.com/LotusTechInfo

On Twitter:
Lotus Design: twitter.com/LotusDesign
Lotus Tech Info: twitter.com/LotusTechInfo

A Sampling of IBM Connections sessions at Lotusphere 2012

Suzanne Livingston — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:47:25 -0400

There are many, many great sessions on IBM Connections this coming week. It is going be challenging to make time for all the sessions that you will want to attend!! Here are few that I will share:

I will be speaking at the following sessions:
ID221: What's New in IBM Connections Next (Tue 11:15, Wed 4:00) David Brooks and I will discuss what's coming in the next major release!
ID225: Setting up Communities to Solve Your Biggest Challenges (Wed 1:30) Mike Wanderski and I will share community use cases and how to use the various features.

Insights and Innovation (22 in all)
INV204: A view into the future of IBM Connections and Lotus Quickr (Tues 10:00)
INV301: IBM's Social Business Strategy (Tue 11:15)

Infrastructure and Deployment (15 in all)
ID224: What's Coming in IBM Lotus Quickr and Beyond (Wed 1:30)
ID229: Make Your Microsoft Stack Social with IBM Connections (Wed 3:00)
ID301 Inside IBM: Collaboration For The Next 100 years (Wed 10)

Cross-SWG Solutions Sessions (12 in all)
SPN206 Going Viral or Managing the Introduction of Social Content Management (Mon 2:15)
SPN210 The Social Enterprise: Social Analytics and your Workforce (Mon 3:45)
SPN214 Applying Social Business to Software Development Projects (Tue 1:30)

Application Development (6 in all)
AD204 Mastering the art of social application development (Wed 1:30)
AD203 Developing Custom Client Applications Using the IBM Connections APIs (Wed 11:15)

Other related sessions
ASK 101 Ask the Developers (Thurs 1:30pm)
ASK102 Ask the Product Managers (Thurs 11:15am)
FS216 Social App Throwdown (Wed 5:30pm)

Lotusphere 2012 #LS12 #IBMSocialBiz

Joseph Russo — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:51:10 -0400

Hi everyone, here's a heads up for where you can catch me at Lotusphere. I'll be in the UX Lab, come see me at the Social Business Solutions Design table. I'll be running a Hands on Design activity where we can take your favorite solution and see how to enhance the design with Social. I'll also be talking about Social Business Design Elements, please come, hear about them and influence the design with your feedback.

Also, you can come to my presentation, under the Insights & Innovations Track

INV314 Designing Social Business Solutions

Abstract: Learn about the core principles that make a business solution social. We'll take you through
the basic values that any social business solution design delivers and we'll cover core Design Patterns
that enable you to become a Social Business. Learn about how social design patterns provide direct
value to any business solution, and provide them in the context of the people using them as well as how
adding social design patterns to a solution enhances the overall value of both your social network and
every business solution that makes use of social design patterns.

Speakers: Matt Flaherty, IBM; Joe Russo, IBM

Tech level: *
Date: Thursday, January 19, 2012
Time: 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Location: N. Hem E

and remember to follow me on twitter/russoDesigns, I'll be tweeting from Lotusphere.

I look forward to seeing you, meeting you for the first time or catching up with old friends...see you soon!

Kudos badges for IBM Connections annouced today

Suzanne Livingston — Wed, 4 Jan 2012 06:02:17 -0400

Adam Brown of ISW, an award-winning IBM Business Partner, posted some exciting news on his blog earlier today.

Kudos Badges for IBM Connections is a flexible gamification engine for IBM Connections. By providing achievements and rewards (Kudos Badges), rank and leaderboards (Kudos Rank), and missions (Kudos Missions), organisations can dramatically improve their user engagement and adoption of IBM Connections.

Congrats to the team on their launch! Check it out on their site http://www.kudosbadges.com/

Real businesses getting real results with Lotus Live

Suzanne Livingston — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 09:44:47 -0400

A few days ago, wiredFinance's Big Fat Finance Blog posted a few Lotus Live customer stories:

IBM, however, with its LotusLive Social Business Cloud has emerged as the leader with real businesses actually profiting through social cloud collaboration:

Newly Weds Foods, here, needed a way to connect geographically dispersed teams without the capital expense and staff required to run an in-house collaboration system. They also needed security to protect their proprietary information and safeguard client recipes. They turned to the LotusLive Social Business cloud. The benefits: cut response from days to hours, saves 4-5 days per month in travel time, and cut travel costs by 10%. And a no-cost guest account lets them invite clients to collaborate on recipes.

Panasonic turned to LotusLive cloud collaboration in its drive to become the electronics industry’s leading green innovation company. It also expects to improve its competitive advantage and boost business results by enabling multiple business units to work together more efficiently. The benefits: reduced cost and immediate accessibility to advanced collaboration tools across all regions of the global company, but especially for product research, development, and sales.

Russell’s Convenience, here, has emerged as IBM’s poster child for social business collaboration. The company, which operates stores in numerous western states and Hawaii, looked to social media to connect its far-flung franchises and people using the cloud. It turned to the LotusLive Social Business cloud for seamless communication between corporate management, franchisees, and project teams and to provide a central location for definitive information and project plans. The results: travel costs reduced by 33% and postage costs by 50% for $30,000 in annual savings. It also increased revenue as a result of more timely communication around inventory and purchase trends.