Socialize Me

IT Superstar of 2009: Luis Benitez

2009-11-02T17:18:00.001-04:00

Thank you all for your support!

If you want to nominate someone else as the IT Superstart of 2009, go here: http://www.ibm.com/vrm/itsuper_etp_recipient_2250IN/LBenitez194164846

Live in NY, NJ, or CT ? Join us on Nov 9th for the Tri-State LUG

2009-10-30T12:54:00.001-04:00

On November 9th, I'lll be in New York visiting one of our customers and will also get a chance to speak at the Tri-State Lotus User Group (LUG). I've never been to the a LUG before, let alone speak at one. Needless to say, I'm a bit nervous about the event.

The keynote speaker for the event is Bob Picciano and my session is right after his, which of course adds to the pressure. Looking at the agenda, I noticed that my time slot also puts me going head-to-head against John Head. Luckily, I'm going to Enterprise 2.0 in San Francisco next week so I hope to pick up some good tips on new stuff (and perhaps how to present).

My session is going to be about extending Lotus Connections with Tivoli Directory Integrator (TDI) by importing data from existing Domino databases. This is actually something that I had to do for the customer that I visited this week in Toronto. I'm going to give a brief introduction of what TDI is and what a powerful tool it is. Then walk through the process of creating an 'assembly line' to connect to Domino, retrieve some data, and import it to Connections.

To register for the event on the 9th, fill out this registration form (and space is limited so register today)! See you there!

Opening bookmarks in a new window

2009-10-28T19:38:00.001-04:00

Today I got to enjoy Toronto again. I was here 3 weeks ago setting up an environment for a potential customer. Last time I was here, they didn't have a Notes 8.5.1 which was released just 16 days ago. It's interesting to see the customer's perception of Connections with Notes 8.5.1. They are completely loving the integrated suite of products all working together in harmony. The 4 hours that I was there, they just wouldn't stop congratulating me for the work that we've done integrating Notes, Sametime and Connections together.

I, of course, don't get any credit for this. All credit goes to the development team for their great work. Not sure if the development team will see this (they are probably heads down now getting ready for Lotusphere), but your work is appreciated.

Anyway, there was one customization that customer wanted: open bookmarks in a new window. Here's the customization that I made in case you would like to do the same in your environment.

Go to the Lotus Connections server
Go to the following directory: <WAS_PROFILE_ROOT>/installedApps\<cellname>\Dogear.ear\dogear.webui.war\h3\jsp\main
Save a backup of bookmark.jspf, currentBookmark.jspf
Open the files with your favorite text editor

Look for this:

<a id="bmlink_${link.id}" onmouseover....

Add target="_blank" before id so that it looks like this:
<a target="_blank"id="bmlink_${link.id}" onmouseover
Save and close the files
"Touch" h3.jsp
Delete the directory: <WAS_PROFILE_ROOT>\temp\*
Clear browser cache
Reload Bookmarks

Enjoy!

Collecting usage metrics in Lotus Connections 2.5

2009-10-26T10:09:00.001-04:00

Last year, I posted a blog with sample reports & metrics collected by Lotus Connections v2. Since that's one of the areas that was improved in 2.5, I've been getting a lot of questions as to how these reports look like.

Here, I've included a couple sample screenshots. Do note that most reports are longer than 1 page and thus don't fit in one page screenshot. If you would like to learn more, let me know.

Activities

Blogs

Bookmarks

Communities

Files

Homepage

Profiles

Wikis

Pre-Order: Planning and Implementing Social Software for your Enterprise with Lotus Connections 2.5

2009-10-11T22:29:00.001-04:00

Amazon has just posted the 2nd edition to the Lotus Connections 2.5 book. You can pre-order it today from Amazon.

Table of contents:

Assessing the potential value of social networking to your business

Building dynamic networks of coworkers, partners, and customers that promote innovation and business agility

Understanding the core services Lotus Connections 2.5 provides and the unique way in which they integrate

Leveraging Lotus Connections’ consistent multitiered architecture

Successfully planning for technical infrastructure and organizational change

Walking through a best-practice installation and configuration process

Building effective communities for employees with shared interests

Using blogs to improve communications and overcome organizational silos or time zone differences

Helping individuals and groups organize their work through Activities

Performing administrative tasks such as customizing look-and-feel, collecting statistics, and troubleshooting

Using plug-ins to integrate with Lotus Notes^®, Microsoft^® Office^®, Outlook^®, Windows^® Explorer, Lotus Sametime^®, and WebSphere^® Portal

Displaying useful, up-to-the-minute information with prebuilt widgets

Utilizing Lotus Connections’ REST-based API to create new integration points and build custom applications

Enjoy!

Cool new plugin for Lotus Connections

2009-10-09T08:00:00.001-04:00

For some time now, we've had a plugin available internally that enhances the navigation experience within Lotus Connections. It actually requires Firefox, so if you are still using Internet Explorer, well, don't. It's an archaic browser and all it does is reduce your productivity.

Ok back to topic. The developer of the plugin, Brett Johnson, has decided to make it available via userscripts.org. What does it do? Well, the plugin injects a drop-down menu in the top navigation bar. The menu 'discovers' what's behind those links and then dynamically presents you a sub-menu with available options. That way, if you know where you are going, you can get there in 1 click, instead of 3-4.

I strongly recommend that you all download and install this plugin, but be aware that it may make Lotus Connections even more addictive. To download and install the plugin, go here.

Updated 10/Oct/2009 - Note: As pointed out by Mitch: if you are using outside of IBM you need to change the scripts config from *ibm.com/profiles to *domainname/profiles etc. etc. for each feature.

October is the month for Lotus Knows Bus Tour

2009-10-01T08:00:00.000-04:00

It's almost October and that means it's tour time! Here's a map of the cities that the Lotus Knows Tour Bus will be visiting during this month. It looks like I'll get to see it first when it goes to the LA area which is the same week I'll be at the Portal conference in nearby San Diego.

View Lotus Knows bus in a larger map

Shortly after I get to check out the bus in Los Angeles, the bus heads to the Las Vegas. And as Bilal points out, it looks like it's going to show up at the Sharepoint conference. That sounds fun!!! Can't wait to see/hear the reaction from the crowds there.

So plan now and set a date with the Lotus Knows Tour Bus. For a complete listing of cities and dates, click here.

New Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-Ins Available for Free Download

2009-09-30T14:49:00.000-04:00

Today, new plug-ins were made available in the Lotus Connections Solution Catalog for Lotus Connections 2.5+. As just announced by Mac Guidera, some are updates to previous plugins, and some are new like the Sharepoint plugin. As before, they are free so go ahead and download them:

Plugin for Confluence (update)
Plugin for Quickr (update)
Portlet for Activities, Blogs, and Profiles (new!)
Plugin for Microsoft Sharepoint (new!)
Plugin for Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Outlook and Windows Explorer (update)

Enjoy!

Virgin Atlantic Commercial: Lotus Knows how you travel

2009-09-30T10:35:00.001-04:00

If you are not following Ed Brill, well you should, but also, that means that you missed this link that he posted. It's a new commercial that's being shown in-flight Virgin Atlantic flights. I thought it's pretty cool.

Enjoy! (and yes, I've been posting a lot of videos lately, but that's because Lotus Knows I Like Videos.)

The adventures of Molly discovering Social Software @ IBM

2009-09-30T10:26:00.001-04:00

A great video that was published today, inspired by "The Man Who Should Have Used Lotus Connections":

Enjoy!

What's the best rating system for social content?

2009-09-30T08:00:00.001-04:00

Some time ago (probably over 2 years ago), our internal blogging system changed their rating mechanism. Now, instead of giving 1-5 stars to a particular entry, you could only give it a star or not. In other words, we went from having 6 choices, to two choices (to give or not to give a star).

At the time the decision was explained with some internal metrics.. basically, a "big majority" of people were rating content with 5 stars or none at all. It was mostly a binary decision.

More and more this decision has been validated by other social networking providers like Facebook and YouTube. Several months ago, Facebook added the ability to 'Like' a post, thus giving users a binary decision.. Either you like it or not.

Now, it looks like YouTube is looking to abandon this 5-star rating system. As posted in their blog:

Great videos prompt action; anything less prompts indifference.

I think that's how I feel most of the time. It's not whether or not I like the content. It's whether the content is really worth recommending to others or it was so good that it deserved "a reward". Plus having a 5-star rating system gives me too many choices (specially if you can do stuff like 3.5, 4.5, etc). It really requires some thinking to decide between a 4, 4.5 or 5. That's why I like the "binary" rating systems better. It's easy. It's fast.

Still, I see a lot of Enterprise 2.0 RFPs asking for a 5-star rating system. I wonder if that's a hard requirement or just based on what the RFP writers see out there. And wonder if this requirement will soon start disappearing.

How about you? Do you like 5-star rating systems? Or do you prefer binary rating systems? Or perhaps trinary rating systems such as Digg/Bury/No action, Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down/No Action? Does it matter if it's inside the firewall vs outside?

Demo: Sametime's Broadcast Chat and Communities

2009-09-29T16:36:00.001-04:00

Here's a nice demo of the Sametime Broadcast Chat capabilities. Broadcast Chat capabilities are part of Sametime Advanced and integrate very nicely with Lotus Connections Communities. I think the video does a very good job demoing the need for real-time collaboration, which is often missed by the social tools. That's one reason I like this functionality so much. It adds a sense of real-time communications to existing social software platforms.

Enjoy!

Checking for viruses in Lotus Connections

2009-09-28T08:00:00.000-04:00

I'm working with a customer right now that wants to deploy Lotus Connections externally (i.e. outside of the firewall). I got an interesting question for them and didn't see the answer documented in the InfoCenter. Therefore, I decided to post it here in case I need to reference it later (or in case it's valuable to you).

The question was around viruses in file uploads. Since this will be available in the internet they were concerned about users who may inadvertently (or knowingly) upload a file. Out of the box, Lotus Connections supports antivirus services that work on ICAP (Internet Content Adaptation Protocol) 1.0 such as McAfee Web Security Appliance and Symantec Scan Engine. How to configure the antivirus for Lotus Connections is documented in the InfoCenter.

However, it's not clear what happens when an infected file is uploaded. Is it automatically deleted? Is the admin notified? Is the user notified? etc. Therefore, I asked one of our developers and got the answer. Action on the file actually depends on how the antivirus system itself is configured. If the antivirus system is configured to clean the files, then the files will be cleaned and then saved normally. If the antivirus is configured to delete infected files, then the file is never saved by Lotus Connections. Regardless, the user is notified of an error while uploading their file.

Now you know

Lotus Connections 2.5 Overview Presentation

2009-09-25T08:00:00.000-04:00

Here's a nice presentation that my good friend Stuart McIntyre told me about recently. It goes through at a high level the new features that were added last month in Lotus Connections 2.5. Additionally, it contains some great customer quotes based on their experience with the software in this short period of time.

Additionally, you'll get to see our customers' new favorite features. Take a quick peek; I'm sure you'll like it.

Enterprise Social Software from IBM

View more presentations from chrissparshott.

Enjoy!

Lotus Knows I Like Videos

2009-09-24T08:00:00.000-04:00

One of the tools that I love to use with my customers is video. Specially videos that tell a story about the business value of social software. Yo may remember that in the past 2 weeks I've posted two videos on the business value of blogs and Lotus Connections. Yesterday, Lotus launched their Lotus Knows campaign.

There are a bunch of videos available. Some are specific to Lotus products. Some encompass two or more Lotus technologies. This is one of the videos that I liked:

Lotus Connections gives you a bird’s eye view of what your colleagues are working on. So you can quickly assess synergy with your own work.

You can view more videos like this here. What's your favorite one?

Microblogging Goes To Work By Delphine Remy

2009-09-23T15:48:00.001-04:00

A colleague, Delphine Remy, put togethers this wonderful presentation that explains the business value of microblogging both inside and outside of the firewall. It starts by talking a bit about Twitter and its importance in external communications.

One of the things that I liked about the presentation is that it actually provides 5 different ways to use microblogging. Additionally, it provides examples of how IBM is using tools like Twitter and Lotus Connections and how we are embracing microblogging to improve our business processes.

This presentation was delivered last week at the Digital Media event in Barcelona.

IBM presentation at Digital Media Barcelona- Twitter For Business Microblogging Goes To Work Sept 09 Barcelonal

View more presentations from delphRB.

Enjoy!

Social Software and the Government

2009-09-17T11:00:00.000-04:00

I'm going to be speaking at the IBM Federal Mashup Day Event on October 22, 2009. The topic? Social Software inside the Government.

Below is some information on the event. If you are near the Washington, DC area, I strongly encourage you to register and attend this event.

Unlock data sources, transform information and assemble mashups.

Learn how to unlock and easily view a wide range of information from multiple sources. In just minutes you can simply point-and-click, using a visual, browser-based tool, and assemble new applications, including feeds and widgets. Improve employee productivity by empowering self-service application development to address daily work challenges. Attend our half-day seminar and learn from the experts about the value of mashups for federal government.

Join us at:

Hyatt Regency Reston
Reston, VA
October 22, 2009

Register today!

IBM Federal Mashup Day 2009 Agenda

Why Government Mashups Matter

Mashup Development Cycle

Customer Case Study

Learn From a customer's real-world experience

Mashup Technical Session

Social Software for Government

Vibrant Communities: Wikis, forums, files and activities
Expertise Location: Profiles, microblogging and social networking tools
Content Sharing: Personal file sharing, blogging and shared bookmarks

To register for this free event, click here. Hope to see you there!

Lotus Connections and SuccessFactors Webcast

2009-09-16T20:41:00.000-04:00

Earlier this year IBM announced a partnership with SuccessFactors to combine social-software (i.e. Lotus Connections) with SuccessFactors' talent management solutions. The Lotus Greenhouse is going to host a webcast on October 1st to show how these two solutions work together. Here's some information on the event:

Drive top results in Talent Management with SuccessFactors Business Execution Software and IBM Lotus Connections

IBM and SuccessFactors have joined forces to provide a unique talent management and social software solution that helps boost productivity and drive top-line results. Attend this live webcast to learn more and see a live demonstration showing the integration of SuccessFactors and IBM Lotus Connections. You will see how the combination of social data with talent management helps people discover the skills they need for critical projects as well as helping executives align the organization's skills with their strategy.

For dial-in and web conference information, please visit this page in the Greenhouse. See you there!

Are you ready to Jam ?

2009-09-16T16:08:00.001-04:00

Lotus is currently running the Smart Work Jam as part of IBM's Smarter Planet Initiative. The business climate is changing rapidly, and the onus is on you and your organizations to respond quickly and effectively. To optimize business performance you can't work harder or spend more on resources. You need to work smarter. Smart Work is about creating a collaborative and connected business environment that empowers your people, embraces change and ultimately increases productivity. Please join us and register today for the WorldWide Videocast and the Global Jam to learn more and participate in the conversation.

Step 1. Join the 72-hour Smart Work Global Jam - Sept. 16 - 18.
Step 2. View the replay of Smart Work Videocast - Sept. 16.

See you there!

Looking for some unofficial feedback on Lotus Collaboration

2009-09-16T13:48:00.001-04:00

A colleague of mine is looking for some unofficial feedback from our customers. If you are a Lotus Collaboration customer, I'm sure he would appreciate if you could take 5-7 minutes of your time to answer the following survey:

https://greenhouse.lotus.com/turbo/open/route/view/start?formName=eJ1nkYHOLi3y1tKh1252849601321

Thanks!

Story: The Enterprise Value of Internal Blogs

2009-09-14T11:28:00.001-04:00

This is another great story from Jean-Francois Chenier on the business value of internal blogs for an enterprise.

If you missed Jean-Francois' first video, you can find it here. I think these videos with real use-cases are essential for promoting adoption of social software in the enterprise. Therefore, feel free to use them as you plan your roll-outs of Enterprise 2.0 tools in your organization.

I wonder who Jean-Francois meant as the "guy who knows about cool things" ?

How to use Facebook & Twitter to stalk your college-aged kids

2009-09-07T23:06:00.000-04:00

I just found this video hillarious...

Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids

Great Week with Lotus Connections 2.5

2009-09-04T11:22:00.001-04:00

This week I had the pleasure to set up 3 different Lotus Connections 2.5 environments, and assist in a migration of a 4th.

The most interesting install was at a customer site where they wanted to integrate Windows Authentication with Lotus Connections (a.k.a SPNEGO/Kerberos). The idea is that each morning an employee logs on to their Windows desktop and authenticates against an NT domain. Then a user launches Connections and magically they are automatically signed on!

I hadn't done a SPNEGO / Lotus Connections installation in a while, but read the documentation and it seemed pretty straightforward. To enable SPNEGO authentication with Lotus Connections, I followed the steps documented in the Lotus Connections InfoCenter.

The actual setup is not that bad. One part must be done by the Active Directory administrator and another part is just some WebSphere configuration. The WebSphere configuration took about 10-15 minutes. One thing I wished the InfoCenter had was screenshots. However, as we were getting ready to do this deployment, we used Lotus Connections internally to find an expert in this topic. And we found Purvi Tivedi who wrote this awesome article, step-by-step & complete with screenshots. Of course, now I have tagged Purvi and bookmarked her document so I can find them later.

After restarting the server, SPNEGO didn't work. We actually spent 2-3 hours troubleshooting it. We noticed that there were a couple of technotes on the topic, but they didn't seem to apply. Finally, the light bulb went on. Our setup was against the customer's QAACME domain, and the user had logged on to their desktop under the ACME NT domain. We logged out the user, logged back in under the right Windows NT domain, opened a browser to Connections and it worked!

Do Social Tools in the Workplace Really Make Us More Productive ?

2009-09-03T08:00:00.000-04:00

I think this video speaks for itself:

What do you think?

Microblogging client for both Twitter and Lotus Connections

2009-09-01T08:00:00.000-04:00

Have Twitter? Have Lotus Connections? Want to microblog in both at the same time from one single place ? Starting today, you can!

You may remember that I gave a preview of this client back in June. At that point, Lotus Connections 2.5 was still in beta. Now that Lotus Connections 2.5 is officially available, Bluto, has been released to the world. Yes, even non-IBMers can download and use it with their own Lotus Connections server.

I don't want to make this blog post long, so I'll just share a quick screenshot and a link to where you can download it!

For instructions and a link to download the code, go to Jason Feinstein's site. Jason is the original developer of Bluto who did 99.9% of the code and I did the other .1% work (i.e. enable support for Lotus Connections). That's right, he did such an awesome job architecting his original microblogging client that it was a piece of cake to add Lotus Connections support for it. Of course, it also helps that Lotus Connections has a pretty powerful microblogging API.

So, make sure you send Jason a quick Tweet to express your gratitude for this phenomenal piece of work.

Note: This is just something we did for fun, and it's not officially supported by us.

Socialize Me

IT Superstar of 2009: Luis Benitez

Live in NY, NJ, or CT ? Join us on Nov 9th for the Tri-State LUG

Opening bookmarks in a new window

Collecting usage metrics in Lotus Connections 2.5

Pre-Order: Planning and Implementing Social Software for your Enterprise with Lotus Connections 2.5

Cool new plugin for Lotus Connections

October is the month for Lotus Knows Bus Tour

New Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-Ins Available for Free Download

Virgin Atlantic Commercial: Lotus Knows how you travel

The adventures of Molly discovering Social Software @ IBM

What's the best rating system for social content?

Demo: Sametime's Broadcast Chat and Communities

Checking for viruses in Lotus Connections

Lotus Connections 2.5 Overview Presentation

Lotus Knows I Like Videos

Microblogging Goes To Work By Delphine Remy

Social Software and the Government

Lotus Connections and SuccessFactors Webcast

Are you ready to Jam ?

Looking for some unofficial feedback on Lotus Collaboration

Story: The Enterprise Value of Internal Blogs

How to use Facebook & Twitter to stalk your college-aged kids

Great Week with Lotus Connections 2.5

Do Social Tools in the Workplace Really Make Us More Productive ?

Microblogging client for *both* Twitter and Lotus Connections

Microblogging client for both Twitter and Lotus Connections