Stuart McIntyre outlines why organisations need to embrace social technology, why IBM Connections is one of the leading solutions, what features it has, and how to get started. Delivered at DanNotes - the Danish Lotus user group - in Korsor in late November 2011.

1. IBM Connections
Bridging the Gap
Stuart McIntyre

2. Interaction is good!
#collabmatters
Image: http://www.slideshare.net/Niezette/100-pictures-for-powerpoint-presentations

3. About Me
about.me/stuartmcintyre
static.panoramio.com/photos/original/50217323.jpg

8. What will you learn?
What is Social?
What problems does it solve?
What is Connections?
Some real customer examples
Lotus customer?
Also a Microsoft customer?
Where do we start?
Q&A
Image: http://www.slideshare.net/Niezette/100-pictures-for-powerpoint-presentations

9. What is Social?

14. Democratisation of access to information
& content creation

15. We need to look beyond
the brands and names...

17. To see the tools...

19. ... and the needs they address

21. As individuals, many of us are already using these
tools to enrich and simplify our (social) lives

22. How can an organisation
improve collaboration with
these types of social tools?
Social Collaboration
(Some call it Enterprise2.0 or Social Business...)

23. Social Collaboration = Collaboration + Social Computing

24. Collaboration?
a recursive process where two or more people
or organisations work together toward an intersection of common
goals — for example, an intellectual endeavour that is creative in
nature—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus.
Collaboration does not require leadership and can sometimes bring better results
through decentralisation and egalitarianism. In particular, teams that work
collaboratively can obtain greater resources, recognition and
reward when facing competition for finite resources.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration

26. Social Computing?
Social computing is a general term for an area of computer science that is concerned with the
intersection of social behaviour and computational systems. It has become an important concept for use in
business.
... Social computing has to do with supporting any sort of social behaviour in or through computational systems. It is
based on creating or recreating social conventions and social contexts through the use of software and
technology.Thus, blogs, email, instant messaging, social network services, wikis, social bookmarking and other instances of what is
often called social software illustrate ideas from social computing, but also other kinds of software applications where people
interact socially.
A February 13, 2006 paper by market research company Forrester Research suggested that:
Easy connections brought about by cheap devices, modular content, and shared computing resources are having a profound
impact on our global economy and social structure. Individuals increasingly take cues from one another rather than from
institutional sources like corporations, media outlets, religions, and political bodies. To thrive in an era of Social
Computing, companies must abandon top-down management and communication tactics, weave
communities into their products and services, use employees and partners as marketers, and become
part of a living fabric of brand loyalists.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_computing

29. s

30. What problems does it solve?

31. “If HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times as profitable.”
Lew Platt Former CEO of Hewlett-Packard

32. The “rules” of business
are changing...
From being “Structure’ based
Results are delivered because of the structure of the activity
To “Knowledge” based
Results are delivered because of the knowledge of the individuals
involved

33. Knowledge must flow... and
be captured in the flow
Image: http://concisecomputing.net/dh2/Images/Maine/WaterFlowBIG.jpg

34. “Email is where
knowledge goes to
die”
Bill French
Source: http://bfrench.info/public/item/5994 (April, 2003)

35. It’s about ‘Facilitated Serendipity’

37. What’s in Connections 3.0.1

38. Homepage
Blogs Communities
Files Forums
Profiles
Bookmarks
Wikis
Activities

39. Keep track of what's
happening with your
projects
Find the right people to solve my
problem now
Leverage what
others know
Have a place to
gather and exchange
ideas
Manage your work
Share my files more effectively

40. What’s new in 3.0.1

41. What’s New in Connections 3.0.0?
Global Navigation and Theme (including drop-down menus)
Home Page/News – improved news feed and integration of status updates, email digest
Communities – invitations, improved Files integration, Activities integration, sub-
communities, My Communities views
Forums – standalone service, tags, question/answer topics
Profiles – Do You Know, Things in Common, Social Path widgets, tabbed Profile format
Files – collections changed to folders including drag and drop
Wikis – improved use of real estate, drag and drop navigation, My Wikis views
Blogs – improved authoring including new editor and more consistent navigation and entries
lists
Linked Value – SharePoint/Communities integration, new portlets, status updates Lotus
Notes sidebar plug-in

42. Introducing IBM Connections 3.0.1
IBM Connections 3.0.1 was released in April 2011, delivering many of the features described
at Lotusphere 2011
No longer a ‘Lotus’ product
The new features include:
Ideation Blogs and Idea Graduation
Image and Video Galleries in Communities
Community Moderation
ECM Integration
User Interface and customisation process has not changed from 3.0.0

43. What’s coming in 4.0?

44. In-Context Experiences
● Take action on content directly from
your Activity Stream as well as your
Inbox without switching contexts (ex.
File Preview, Comment inline, Vote on
an idea, etc)
● Consistent user experiences for
navigating all tools and interacting with
content across the portfolio
● Share and personalize content no
matter where you are using the share
button in the navigation
© 2011 IBM Corporation 5

45. © 2011 IBM Corporation 6

46. © 2011 IBM Corporation 7

47. © 2011 IBM Corporation 8

48. © 2011 IBM Corporation 9

49. © 2011 IBM Corporation 10

50. Microblogging Enhancements
● Add Images to your Status Updates
─ Upload files quickly and easily
─ Preview as a thumbnail
● 'Like' Status Updates
─ Single click to give positive feedback
─ See who else 'Liked' the entry
● Search Microblog Entries
─ Refine in or out of network
─ Hashtags searchable
● Expanded Social Analytics
─ Microblog Tag cloud
─ Top contributors on search terms
© 2011 IBM Corporation 11

51. © 2011 IBM Corporation 12

52. Enhanced Communities for Teams
Add new functions to communities to meet team use cases for
sharing and collaboration
● Calendar widgets for events
─ Calendar added to Community
– Daily, Weekly, Monthly views
– Overview on Community page
– Support for repeating events (daily,
weekly etc.)
─ iCal feed allows you to view in personal
calendar such as Lotus Notes
─ Integration into Connections Activity Stream
and Search
● LDAP Group support
─ Allow LDAP groups to join Communities
─ Keep LDAP group in sync with Community
access
© 2011 IBM Corporation 14

53. © 2011 IBM Corporation 15

54. Business to Consumer
Creation and management of compelling customer communities
● Reports/ dashboard to monitor
adoption and community vitality
─ Comprehensive set of metrics of all
Connections services
– Content in the database
– Page view
─ Targeted Users
– Business Owner / IT Owner
– Instance Owner (Community
owner, Blog owner etc.)
─ Support extensibility
– Flexible drill down and data
slicing
– Create/Modify metrics
© 2011 IBM Corporation 16

55. Metrics Overview Page
Quick access
to key metrics
View the rest of
the metrics for
this theme
© 2011 IBM Corporation 17

56. Drill Down Toggle between
static and dynamic
mode. Dynamic
mode lets you drill
up and down.
Right click to
drill up and
down
© 2011 IBM Corporation 18

57. Filter by Geography
Filter metrics
by geography
Metrics
grouped by
geography
© 2011 IBM Corporation 19

58. Custom Reports
Display custom
reports created
through Cognos
Report Studio.
© 2011 IBM Corporation 20

59. Social Everywhere
● Expanded deployment
options with new
Connections services
in Lotus Live
● Social extends the IBM
Customer Experience
Suite
● TIMETOACT Group
provides an
administrative interface
for Connections
● New integration with
Rational Team Concert
and Connections
Find new partner solutions regularly in the Greenhouse Catalog
http://greenhouse.lotus.com/catalog
© 2011 IBM Corporation 21

72. vs.

77. Comfort Break?

78. Existing IBM Lotus Customer?
What’s in it for you?

79. IBM Lotus Notes IBM Lotus Sametime

Activities sidebar 
Post chat to an Activity

Business Card 
Post chat to Community Forum

Bookmarks 
Business Card

Search
Home page Profiles Communities Blogs Files Activities Wikis Bookmarks
IBM Lotus Quickr IBM WebSphere Portal

Add page to Activity 
Portlet integration with

Publish to Quickr services into pages and sites

Community Wiki 
Service Portlets

80. New Entitlements
+ =>
Files Profiles
Free, free, free!

85. Connections Activities
Offline Support
LotusLive Support

90. Add chat transcript to Activity
Add to existing Activity

91. Note: All Quickr
licensees are entitled
to Files and Wikis too!

97. have to
And for those that use Microsoft?

102. Add Bookmark buttons to your
sites
Connections Homepage
Aggregation Feed
Federated Tag Cloud
View and pivot with the Profiles
Person Card
View associated
bookmarks

103. Profiles search as part of SharePoint
Opens the Connections Home Page

105. Where do we start?

106. Make the Business Case

107. Don't get stuck in Analysis Paralysis

108. Focus on tangible objectives, not tools

109. See how social looks in action by testing
different scenarios and entry points

110. Identify the socially active in your enterprise

111. Who are already using social tools to succeed?

112. Find an executive sponsor
It's not a technology
issue – it's a social,
cultural issue

113. Remember...
But in truth, social software
users do and the business
problems the tools address.
Jakob Nielsen, Usability Guru

114. Questions?

115. Thank you!