How To Post Events into an OpenSocial Activity Stream

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Back at SXSWi 2012, I presented about Enterprise Social Media Trends and talked about OpenSocial and ActivityStrea.ms. OpenSocial was also a big topic at this year's Lotusphere 2012 conference. I've gotten probably about 10-15 requests on how to use these APIs in the last week, especially as a follow on to my post on How To develop Apps for IBM Connections so I thought it was time to create a blog entry for it.

As it turns out, yesterday Suzanne posted a great tutorial on how to get started with OpenSocial and Embedded Experiences.

I went through the tutorial and within 5 minutes I already had posted an event into the OpenSocial server with an embedded YouTube video as shown below. Very easy!:

The final step is to create a JSON object to push the event into the activity stream. I'm guessing that most of the people reading this are developers, so I'm going to use curl which works in most operating systems. I issue this command from the command line:

curl --user username:password https://connections.swg.usma.ibm.com/connections/opensocial/basic/rest/activitystreams/@me/@all/@all -X POST -L -H "Content-type: application/json" --data-binary @youtube.json -i -v --insecure

And here's how the JSON object looks:

{ "generator": { "image": { "url": "http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/Q5CU9cMvk7k/hqdefault.jpg"}, "id": "ytapp", "displayName": "YouTube Application", "url": "http://www.youtube.com/" }, "actor": { "id": "@me" }, "verb": "post", "title": "Video has been posted and is live !", "content": " You have created a new YouTube video.", "updated": "2012-05-08T12:00:00.000Z", "object": { "summary": "Video posted to YouTube", "objectType": "note", "id": "yt12", "displayName": "YouTube Video", "url": "http://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/dw/lotus/ee/video.xml", }, "openSocial":{ "embed": { "gadget": "http://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/dw/lotus/ee/video.xml", "context": "Q5CU9cMvk7k" } } }

And voilá. That's all it takes. Now go have fun!
{ "generator": { "image": {"url": "http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/Q5CU9cMvk7k/hqdefault.jpg"}, "id": "ytapp", "displayName": "YouTube Application", "url": "http://www.youtube.com/" }, "actor": { "id": "@me" }, "verb": "post" , "title": "Video has been posted and is live !", "content": " You have created a new YouTube

The State of Community Management Report for 2012

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For the third year in a row, the Community Roundtable has released it's State of Community Management report. Sponsored in part by IBM, the report is a must read for all community managers and those responsible for social business in their organizations.

What I like about this year's report is how it is organized into patterns of community maturity. Each pattern is associated with a list of resources (books, additional reports, and other references) for community managers to learn more. For example, if you are the community leader for an emergent community (as described in the report) you are given a list of initiatives to pursue to make sure you are following recommended practices.

For those of you who attended my session at SXSW 2012, you might recall that I referenced the 2011 State of Community Management report. And if you have read my recaps on SXSW, you'll see that a lot of my favorite sessions were on community management. I've definitely noticed an increased visibility on community leaders and how important they are as part of a social business strategy. And we can definitely see its effects (as big as they are) all over the world. From the site:

This year the primary difference that we see is in scale of initiatives and the impact of online conversations. It is no longer just about what one community leader can do but about how we can teach our organizations to operate with a community-centric perspective. We have also seen online collective action that has helped topple governments in Tunisia and Egypt, change the policies of major institutions like Bank of America and the Susan G. Komen Foundation and change the decisions of the U.S. Congress. Online communities have become a way to mitigate the risk of groundswell surprises as well as providing an opportunity to innovate more quickly.

The 64-page report in its entirety has been embedded below:

2012 State of Community Management

View more documents from The Community Roundtable

You will probably also be interested in this video interview done with Rachel Happe at Lotusphere 2012 earlier this year:

To learn more about the report, check out the blog post published last week.

New Quickr Domino 8.5.1 FP Released - You'll Want This

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As promised at Lotusphere 2012 #ls12, we have now posted a new Quickr Domino fix pack for 8.5.1. You can find this fix pack in Fix Central or go directly here.

At Lotusphere, we announced that the fix pack would be ready in the first quarter of 2012, and I'm glad that we were able to get this out the door today. The IBM Lotus Quickr Fix Pack 8.5.1.25 for Domino release delivers several features highly requested by Quickr users:

• Addition of the Folder Navigator for libraries with deep folder hierarchies and the Index
• Improved preview for Microsoft Office file attachments and imported pages
• Support for importing HTML
• Display of an attachment's last modified date on Attachments tab
• Simplified place creation process that eliminates the requirement of reauthentication
• The ability for editors and authors to create folders in a place.
• Support for Internet Site documents

To read what's new in this release in detail, check out What's Enhanced in Quickr Domino 8.5.1 FP 25. This fix pack includes all fix packs up to FP 13.

Now all hands on deck to finalize the next release for later this year.

WebDAV for IBM Connections & Lotus Quickr

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One of the things that was very exciting about Lotusphere 2012 #ls12 is how the ecosystem for both IBM Connections and Lotus Quickr is growing. One of the business partners that introduced a solution is Lialis. They introduced a WebDAV add-on for IBM Connections.

So what is WebDAV? Let's not get into the technical details. Let's focus instead on what it enables. As per Lialis:

• Downloading synchronizing content from/to IBM Connections Files
• Deliver shared drives connected to IBM Connections to the users PC (OS independent)
• Allow easy archiving of content stored in IBM Connections by coping the files from the file share
• Readers apps supported: Goodreader, Readdledocs, Bitknex, WebDrive, readers for Android (*)
• Download files from IBM Connections, upload files to IBM Connections via WebDAV
• Delete files in IBM Connections via WebDAV
• Create communities or profiles inside the IBM Connections via Webdav
• Parallel user sessions supported

To me the most exciting feature is the ability to use IBM Connections as a mounted drive directly on your computer. For example, if have a Mac like me you could use this solution to mount all of your IBM Connections Files directly in Finder. Set up your Finder as described here in 3 steps and you are done! Very cool, right?

They have put together a quick video demonstrating the solution

To learn more, go here. And if you use Quickr, they also have a solution for you here: http://www.lialis.com/lotussolutionprovider.nsf/pages/quickrwebdav

Lotusphere 2012: Thursday Recap

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And now we get to the last day of Lotusphere 2012 #ls12. Lotusphere 2012 was my 5th Lotusphere, but it was the first time that I actually stayed the full day on Thursday and left on Friday. Usually, I would head out to the airport Thursday at noon so I had never seen a Closing General Session or participated in a Blogger Open before. Like Sharon said, I'm surprised with the number of people who leave Wednesday night or super early on Thursday.

Thursday started like any other day with customer breakfast and then customer meetings. Then it was time for the Ask the Product Managers session. As usual, Mitch Cohen live blogged that session so you can see what happened there. It was an easy session for me since I only had to answer 1 question in the whole hour :) .

Leaving on Thursday also gave me a chance to connect with more people. At lunch I finally got to see Chris Whisonant if only for a few minutes and of course got my hands on the famous pretzel cookie.

After lunch, I took a very loooong walk encouraged by Alan Lepofsky. The last 7 days I had been trapped inside the Dolphin and/or Swan so it felt great to spend time outside and breathe some fresh air. I also had never been all around the property. Given the weather was so great, I had the opportunity to take some very cool pictures.

From there I headed to go see my first ever Closing General Session. The session was mainly hosted by Andrew Zimmern, who has his own TV show on the Travel Channel: Bizarre Foods.

Before the final session started, the big screen was showing tweets from earlier in the week. I managed to grab a couple of tweets but this is the best one that came out:

I think that tweet summarizes Lotusphere 2012 very well. Looking back on Lotusphere 2011, I think it was very focused still on the "Why Social Business", whereas this year with so many customers sharing their examples it was more about "How Social Business". And this was reflected as well on my 1:1 conversations with customers. They knew they had to become a social business and they were going to do it. They didn't need me to convince them of that. Rather, they wanted to talk adoption and roll-out strategies.

Finally, after the Closing General Session, we walked to the Blogger Open for some mini golf fun. It was awesome!!!! Our team didn't win anything (sorry guys!), but still had tons of fun.

I can't wait for Lotusphere 2013!!

Lotusphere 2012: Wednesday Recap

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Hopefully by now you've been able to read some of my previous posts on Lotusphere 2012 #ls12. I've already covered some of the media coverage, my recap from Monday, and my recap from Tuesday. So let's get on with Wednesday.

Just like Tuesday, I had to wake up very early to attend a Birds of Feather (BOF) session, this time hosted by IBM Champions: Sharon Bellamy, Stuart McIntyre, and Simon Vaughan. For some time now, Simon has been managing the IBM Connections Users community in Greenhouse. This community is a community run by IBM Connections customers for IBM Connections customers. A popular part of this community is the idea section where customers and partners are coming together to submit ideas for feature enhancements and vote on these ideas.

If you are not yet a member of this community and you use IBM Connections, I strongly recommend that you join the community. Simon has been doing a great job as the community manager and knows how to engage the right IBMers to participate in the conversation.

After the session completed, it was time for the third keynote titled The Future of Social Technologies with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web. This was an interesting day to have him on stage as this was the same day that there was a global protest against SOPA. Berners-Lee was very enthusiastic during his talk and I could tell that he's very excited about the Semantic Web and the mashup possibilities that are possible when you destroy silos and bring data together. At the keynote, we also got to hear from Manoj Saxeona, General Manager of the new Watson Solutions group at IBM.

Of course, if you missed the keynote, you can watch the replay here.

ibmsoftware on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

The rest of the day was filled with customer meetings and my second session at Lotusphere 2012. This time I presented on What's New in IBM Lotus Quickr for Domino, what's coming very soon and what's in the long term roadmap. One of the things that I was very happy about in 2011 was how good the product did and how much the ecosystem grew. Many partners keep building solutions on top of Quickr and the customer base keeps growing. I also shared the news around the releases that were done last year.

During the session, I got the feeling that people were very happy with the roadmap. I did announce that there's a new release coming out in Q1 of this year. I'll be sharing more details soon as to the specific release date so stay tuned. Here's the presentation for those of you who couldn't make it.

ID224 - What's Coming Quickr Domino Next and Beyond

View more presentations from Luis Benitez

Towards the latter part of the afternoon, I joined a BOF that was hosted in Spanish. I think that was a first for Lotusphere (a BOF hosted in a language other than English). In the BOF we talked about social business challenges in the Spanish-speaking market. I got to share my own personal story of how I was able to overcome some common fears which prevent adoption, such as "knowledge is power". I couldn't stay for the whole session as I had a meeting to go to prior to leaving to the Wednesday night party.

After the last meeting of the day, I headed out to Sea World where I got to see Shamu (not the show but the mascot) and ride Manta and Kraken! Those two roller coasters were so much fun! And because lines were moving fast, I was able to ride the coasters multiple times. Sweet! The weather was just beautiful. Here are a couple of pics I snapped.

Overall a great day at the conference!

Lotusphere 2012: Tuesday Recap

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Tuesday at Lotusphere 2012 #ls12 required getting up very early as Mac Guidera and I had a 7am Birds of Feather (BOF) session on IBM Connections Adoption and Governance.

The sun completely threw me off and I barely got out of bed in time. As I walked towards the Swan, the sun wasn't even out and I took and shared this picture on Instagram. I did make it on time, and was surprised that the room was completely full that early in the morning which led to a great discussion.

We talked about guidelines, gamification, integration, plugins, executive engagement, and other tactics to help the adoption of social business within an enterprise. To my surprise, Michael Sampson, author of the recently published book Collaboration Roadmap made it to the session! My favorite part was getting customers to talk to each other and share was has worked for them.

Day 2 keynote was right after our BOF so we headed back to the Dolphin. Mike Rhodin, Michael Chui from the McKinsey Global Institute and Wendy Arnott VP for Social Media from TD Bank were the keynote speakers. Wendy told various stories of how TD Bank has adopted IBM Connections and are becoming a social business. She also shared some tips on what has worked for them to drive adoption:

1. Get the executives involved from the beginning
2. Set up dedicated community managers
3. Get various business units involved: Marketing, HR, Communications, IT, etc
4. Don't overlook the minor details
5. Engage employees

And speaking of TD Bank (who uses Outlook for email), I was glad to see so many customers that use competing products such as Microsoft Outlook and/or SharePoint add IBM Connections to their stack. Other examples that came up at the conference were Electrolux, Bayer, and Continental AG.

Todd Watson has an amazing recap of this opening keynote. And, if you couldn't make it to the keynote on day 2, you can catch the replay right here:

After lunch, I headed down to the Social Café where it was my turn to take on my duties as a member of "Team Social". I had various persons come up to me telling me their company had deployed IBM Connections and just wanted help on the best ways to use it. I shared my experiences and got them to promise that first thing they would do once they got back was to start using IBM Connections more.

Another surprise of the day was when I learned that I had received an award: VideoFest 2012 Super Star. Sweet!!   VideoFest is now a yearly tradition where members of the community submit videos that show tips on how to use the various products of the portfolio.

And thanks to Mitch Cohen for capturing this pic:

A great day overall!

Lotusphere 2012: Monday Recap

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Last Monday was the 2nd day of the Lotusphere 2012 #ls12 and was the day that the Opening General Session took place. I was part of the demo team so for me this was the day that Lotusphere actually started as up until then we were backstage getting ready for the big keynote.

As you probably know, the keynote was live streamed. The main speaker was Michael J. Fox and the opening band was Ok Go which made Lotusphere trend in Twitter. Michael J. Fox did a tremendous job on stage and was very funny. I'm sure that every time someone brings up a problem, I'm going to say: "Hey, a lady had a baby in a tree, what do you got?". If you don't get the reference, you'll have to watch the live stream replay here.

Or if you are short on time, here's the OGS in 60 seconds:

The feedback from the audience in Twitter was extremely positive. I loved every minute of the experience of getting the demo ready and getting to know what it takes to put together the best demo ever for Lotusphere. Hope that next year I get to participate in this as well. Here's a picture of the demo team taken by Alistair Rennie.

Immediately after the main keynote, customer and business partner meetings started. Throughout the conference, the attitude was extremely positive and everyone was very excited about what's coming in 2012.

At the same time, Guy Kawasaki took the stage for the Opening General Session at the IBM Connect conference. Guy had a great message around trust, where you have to trust others before they start trusting you. Guy also insisted that you have to accept others the way they are, and not to try to change them. Next, he emphasized the importance to always think how you can help the other person, and not how they can help you.

If you missed it, here's a quick chat recorded with Guy:

Watch live streaming video from ibmsoftware at livestream.com

or his actual keynote is here:

Watch live streaming video from ibmsoftware at livestream.com

Monday afternoon was also my first session of the conference where I co-presented with Mike Roche, Chief Architect for IBM Connections. Since our session wasn't on the Application Development track, we wanted to stay away from code and instead highlight the art of the possible and show how customers and business partners have extended the IBM Connections Platform. I often find that not everyone is aware of all the integration points that are available today so that's why we wanted to focus on that.

Here's the presentation that we used:

ID223 IBM Connections Platform Integration

View more presentations from Luis Benitez

Monday night, the OGS team headed out for dinner and it was great. I had such a good time. I think I hadn't laughed that hard before so it was a great way to end the day and hang out with colleagues who are often remote.

More to come in other posts...

Lotusphere 2012: Media Coverage

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Just like last year, I am now back home and it's time to catch up with my feed reader and all the press coverage that was generated by #ls12 or Lotusphere 2012. Looking at the press generated this year and comparing to that of 2011, this year's coverage is **significantly** higher! To me, this has been my favorite Lotusphere and I'm extremely excited as to what the rest of 2012 will look like!

Newspapers and Magazines:
NY Times: IBM Makes Its Social Computing Strategy Smarter
The BrainYard: 10 Ways to Transform Into a Social Enterprise
TechNewWorld: IBM Hones Social Enterprise Tools (I'm featured here! :) )
IT World: TD Bank goes social 'inside the firewall'
eWeek: Electrolux Taps IBM for Social Software
V3: IBM takes on Google and Microsoft with cloud-hosted document editing tool
The BrainYard: IBM Aims To Be First With OpenSocial Embedded Apps
eWeek: IBM Bolsters Social Business Play with Analytics
(added on 24/Jan/2012) The BrainYard: TD Bank's Social Strategy: Start Small, Think Big
(added on 24/Jan/2012) ComputerWorld: TD Bank Gets Social for Better Business
eWeek: IBM: Defining a social business
eWeek: IBM Kicks Off Lotusphere with Focus on Social Business
eWeek: IBM Partners Prep for Social Business at Lotusphere 2012
CIO Insight: IBM Social Business Software is Bolstered with Analytics
CIO Today: IBM Launches Services To Help Businesses Go Social
SiliconANGLE: IBM Gears Up for Social Business: the New Enterprise
ZDNet: IBM rolls out new social analytics tools
CMSWire: IBM Connections: Analytics, Email, the Activity Stream, & More
ServicesANGLE: IBM to Launch IBM Docs with a Collaborative Service Similar to Google Apps
IT Jungle: IBM Gets Down to Social Business
No Jitter: Lotusphere: IBM Puts Meat on the Bones of its Social Strategy
UC Strategies: IBM Provides Analytics to Social Business
Technorati: IBM Adds to its Social Business Tools with New Analytics
MyCustomer.com: IBM continues social business expansion with new programs and partnerships
Channelnomics: IBM Eyes Partners to Expand Social Business
theflyonthewall.com: Electrolux enables a social, mobile workforce with IBM software
WebProNews: IBM Announces Social Analytics Services: IBM Connections and more, for the enterprise
IT World: IBM unveils next-gen Connections
CIO Insight: Social Business: If You Build It, Will They Come?
Information Management: The (IBM) Social Network
Destination CRM: IBM Brings Analytics to Social Business
TechZone360: IBM Connections Looking to Make the Enterprise More Social
Computerworld: Sharepoint is a 'document coffin', says IBM
V3: Lotusphere: IBM demos social lab projects including business ramification tool
eWeek: Lotusphere 2012: 10 Takeaways from the Show



Bloggers:

Bill Ives: Lotusphere 2012 Notes: Opening Session
Alan Lepofsky: My POV on the Lotusphere 2012 Opening General Session
SmartPlanet: Is your company ready to be a social business?
Bill Ives: Lotusphere 2012 Notes: Monday Morning Press Q&A
Keith Brooks: Rachel Happe's Session at IBM Connect
Chris Pepin: Lotusphere 2012 kickoff
Bill Ives: Lotusphere 2012 Notes: Opening Session Tuesday
(added on 24/Jan/12)Todd Watson: Live @ Lotusphere 2012: IBM Customer TD Bank Makes Major Social Business Deposit
NTEK: IBM Takes The Power of Analytics to Social Businesses (Spanish)
@gawed: IBM Continues its Leadership in Social Media (Spanish)
Perficient: Lotusphere Session Highlights - IBM Connections Auditing and Compliance Infrastructure
Alan Hamilton: Lotusphere Business Development Day
Adam Brown: Why Gamification for IBM Connections
Perficient: Lotusphere Tuesday Keynote: Social Evolution with McKinsey, TD and FAST Company
PaulGillin.com: Live Blog: Lotusphere 2012 Opening Session
PaulGillin.com: Live Blog: Day 2 Kickoff Strikes Transformation Theme
PaulGillin.com: Live Blog: 3M Unites Global Workforce with Technology
Bill Ives: Lotusphere 2012 Notes: IBM as a Social Business
Bill Ives: Lotusphere 2012 Notes: Customer Conversation - Russell's Convenience
Bill Ives: Lotusphere 2012 Notes: Opening Session Wednesday
mwd advisors: A new, confident IBM at Lotusphere 2012
GigaOM: Notes from Lotusphere and thoughts on IBM

(added 25/Jan/2012) Social Media Today: Lotusphere 2012 Touts Social Business But What About Social Media?
(added 25/Jan/2012) Inspirian: Shiny Social Tools Meet Practicality at Lotusphere
added 25/Jan/2012) Per Henrik Lausten: Thoughts from Lotusphere 2012: IBM Connections Next

Social Business Trends on Twitter Thanks To Lotusphere 2012

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At this week's Lotusphere 2012, Social Business became a hot topic.  In fact, in the United States 3 of the 9 trending topics at Twitter were a result of Lotusphere '12 #ls12.

First, the band Ok Go started trending as they took the stage sharp at 8am to get people psyched for what some are calling the best keynote and demos ever!  As they rocked the stage, some of their YouTube videos played on the big screen.

Second, Michael J Fox started trending on Twitter as he was announced as the guest speaker at the Opening General Session.  It was great to see him on stage.  I remember always being jealous of him as he got to fly on the hover boards in the Back to the Future movies ;).  My favorite quote:  "a lady had a baby in a tree, what do you got?"

It's a good sign when 2 hours have gone by and I've barely noticed.This is one of the best Lotusphere keynotes ever. #LS12
— Alan Lepofsky (@alanlepo) January 16, 2012

And third, the hashtag for the conference, #ls12, started trending on Twitter as well.

Suzanne Livingston shared a tweet earlier with a screenshot of the trends ( see below ).

#ls12, Michael J Fox, and OKGO all hit Twitter's Trending Topics for the US at the #LotusphereOGS twitter.com/suzielivingsto…
— Suzanne Livingston (@suzielivingston) January 18, 2012

asd

How cool is that!!!??!! W00t!

If you missed, it, you can always check out the live stream.

Lotusphere 2012 Live Streaming #ls12

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Straight to the point… here's the live stream for Lotusphere 2012 !!! Watch carefully and you'll see me briefly during the Opening General Session on Monday January 16th @ 8am ET.



If you want to know what will be showing when, check out the Lotusphere 2012 Live Stream Schedule.

Enjoy!

How To Add Twitter Search Widget to IBM Connections Communities

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In my previous blog post, I shared how to add a 'Subscribe in iTunes' button to the Media Gallery in IBM Connections. In the video that I shared, you may have noticed a widget that I had added to my demo community in IBM Connections.

I've created a simple widget that exposes Twitter's Search widget inside of a community. You can configure this widget so that you can specify which hashtags to monitor. The widget updates in almost real-time every time someone uses the hashtag in Twitter. This is great if you want to have a community that supports a product launch, or a customer support community, or even a social media marketing community.

I'm working right now to get the widget posted in the Lotus App Catalog. Once the widget is there you'll be able to simply install it on your server.

UPDATE: 16/Feb/2012 - The widget is now available in the catalog here.

If you want to use it immediately, you can use the copy that's running on my publicly facing server by following these instructions:

1. Follow the steps here to check-out and modify widgets-config.xml
2. In the section for community add the following 1 line of code
   
   

   <widgetDef defId="TwitterSearch" url="http://blog.lbenitez.com/widgets/TwitterSearch/twitterSearchWidget.xml" modes="view edit" primaryWidget="false" iconUrl="http://www.twitter.com/favicon.ico" uniqueInstance="true"/>

   
   
   
3. That's it!! 1 line of code! Now, save and close the file and check it back in as documented in the instructions in step 1.

Once you restart IBM Connections, you'll be able to add the widget to any community and configure it for any hashtag. This simple widget took me about 10-15 minutes to code showing once again the extensibility and flexibility of IBM Connections. And because it was created by me, do note it's not officially supported by IBM and is provided as-is.

Here's a video that shows the widget in action.


Let me know what you think and if there are any simple changes you would recommend. I'll also be demoing this on my Monday session at Lotusphere '12 #ls12 so hope to see you there!

My Lotusphere 2012 Schedule is Set!

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I've just finished setting up my page for Lotusphere 2012.  Just like last year, you can use that to start planning your Lotusphere trip and figure out how to reach me / find me while at Lotusphere.

At the point of this writing, we are just 18 days away from Lotusphere 2012 #ls12.  I'm actually going to get to Orlando on the 7th since I'll be taking the kids to their first trip to Disney.  My oldest has a countdown going and is very excited about the trip (as well as with all the toys he just got for Xmas).

This year, I'll be a presenter in 2 sessions, a Birds-of-Feather (BOF) session and will participate again in the Ask the Product Managers session.  Here's a quick recap of the sessions:

ID223 - IBM Connections Platform Integration
South Hemisphere I - Sunday 2:15PM - 3:15PM

BOF137 - Connections Adoption and Governance
Swan Toucan 2 - Tuesday 7:00AM - 8:00 AM

ID224 - What's Coming in Quickr Domino "Next"
North Hemisphere D - Wednesday 1:30PM - 2:30PM

ASK102 - Ask the Product Managers
Swan 5-10 - Thursday 11:15AM - 12:15PM

Getting up early on Tuesday is going to be tough but definitely worth it. The Connections adoption at #ls11 was awesome!  So start planning your schedule and hope to see you in a couple of weeks!

AppFusions Integrates IBM Connections and Atlassian's JIRA

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Earlier this week, AppFusions published a great video where they show integration of IBM Connections and Atlassian JIRA . If you are not familiar with JIRA, JIRA helps development teams connect, track bugs, defects, plan agile development and more. (I'm not sure if JIRA is an acronym or not, though)

Part of JIRA is an activity stream where you can see what's happening across the projects you belong to. As part of the integration, AppFusions has created a widget that can be deployed in the Connections home page.

Once the administrator deploys the widget and quickly configures it to connect to the JIRA backend, end-users will be able to see what's happening in JIRA directly from Connections. Actions that occur in JIRA are immediately reflected in Connections. Very cool.

Check out the quick 1 minute demo:

AppFusions will be an exhibitor at Lotusphere 2012 #ls12 so make sure you stop by their booth to learn more or check out the solution in the Lotus App Catalog.

Improved Quickr Documentation Now Online

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Recently, I've been working very closely with the development team to improve the documentation available around Quickr. As a practitioner just before taking on this role I had some ideas on how to improve the documentation. To that end, I met with various customers and business partners at Lotusphere '11 #ls11 and asked for feedback on how to improve the documentation. Today, I'm glad to announce that we have several new documents out there that you may want to check out.

First, there's a new step-by-step guide on how to deploy Quickr. The Quickr 8.5.1 server installation and basic configuration document gives you everything you need along with screenshots to start from 0 and get something up and running as quickly as possible. So if you are new to the Domino world or to Quickr, this document is certainly the one for you. Or if you are thinking of doing a Show-N'-Tell session at Lotusphere, then this is a good one to take screenshots from.

Second, I've asked the team to create a document that outlines the Best Practices for File and Page Migration From Quickr 8.2 to Quickr 8.5. This is in response to feedback that I heard not only at Lotusphere but based on the discussions going on in the Quickr Forum. Hopefully, this will help everyone who's planning a migration from Quickr Domino 8.2 to Quickr Domino 8.5.

Next, the Performance Tuning Guide for Quickr Domino 8.5 has also been made available. This guide should have everything you need to ensure that your server responds as fast as possible.

Fourth, it's now easier to see which languages are supported by Quickr Domino. To see the list of all 28 languages into which we have translated the product, check out the Selecting a different language document.

Finally, the API documentation for Quickr Domino has been updated. I've asked the development team to provide more examples and more documentation on how to use these services so we can get even more developers creating cool stuff for Quickr. Right now, phase 1 of this documentation update and there are 3 more phases which you will see rolled out in the coming days.

And there's one more thing... We are also working on creating a document that outlines the Best Practices for Customizing Quickr Domino. This document should be available very soon. It will contain a lot of examples of customizations that you can do and where you should do these customizations so as you upgrade to future releases of Quickr, you don't have to re-do a lot of the work.

Hope these new documents make your lifes easier and if there's anything else you would like to see, let me know in the comments below.

The Latest on the Quickr Connectors

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As Lotusphere #ls11 is now a dot in the rear view mirror, I'm still getting swamped with questions around the Quickr Connectors. For those of you who may not know, the connectors are a great way to get files in and out of team places. It integrates directly into your instant messaging client, email client (Notes and Outlook) and even to your Windows desktop. All of the actions available in the web UI are also available natively in the desktop (which really helps drive adoption).

In fact, I was surprised as I talked to customers from all over the world, their only interface with team places was through the connectors. Very few seem to use the Web UI. It was great to see how many people were leveraging this to improve their productivity. Here's a screenshot of how the integration looks in the desktop.

And because most people seem to rely more on the connectors than the web UI, I heard a lot of questions around future support. The top two questions?

1. When will the Quickr Connectors support Windows Explorer on Windows 7 64-bit?
2. When will the Quickr Connectors integrate natively (ribbon) into Microsoft Office 2010?

The questions were answered throughout various sessions at Lotupshere, including Ask The Product Managers which Mitch Cohen liveblogged (and you should go back and read if you haven't yet). In fact, in that session, Mac Guidera, the product manager for Quickr Connectors, announced that we have been working on it and should be available later this year.

As I mentioned before, post-Lotusphere I've also been swamped with these questions, so I figured I would recap the latest public information here and have something I can point others to very easily. If you want to know more details about the specifics and dates of when the Quickr Connectors will be updated, stay tuned to Mac's blog and this blog and you'll be the first to know.

Sessions I Wish I Could've Attended at Lotusphere 2011

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#ls11 (if you are following in Twitter) was awesome and I believe it was in part to these great presentations. Attendees to these sessions came up to me and said: "Luis, did you go to session XYZ? It was AMA-wait-for-it-ZING!" I was so jealous of people who got to attend these sessions. Unfortunately, I was in meetings when this happened (or doing my own sessions).

Congratulations to the speakers for putting up such great presentations (and for sharing these):

1) CUST106 Proving Collaboration Works at 3M - I shared a bit of this story in a previous blog entry, but here's more info directly from the source:

Proving Collaboration Works At 3M

View more presentations from John Woodworth.

2) INV203 People-Centric vs Content-Centric: The Copernican Revolution to Become a Social Business - Given by Louis Richardson, it's based on one of my favorite blog entries:

People-Centric vs. Content-Centric: The Copernican Revolution to be a Social Business

View more presentations from Louis Richardson.

UPDATE 18/Feb/2011: Louis has posted the video of this presentation here:

People-Centric vs. Content-Centric: A Copernican revolution needed to become a social business from louis richardson on Vimeo.

4) Suzanne Livingston's presentation on What's Coming in Connections Next - I was actually outside the room during this session and all I heard were applause every 2-3 minutes. Of course, I already knew the content of the presentation, but I was looking forward to watch and learn from Suzanne, the demo goddess.

Were there any other sessions that were simply outstanding that I should've checked out?

Lotusphere 2011 Is Done: Here's Your Homework!

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What an amazing Lotusphere 2011! As we all catch up with Lotusphere and go through our recaps, I wanted to get the year officially going and give you some homework:

1. Make sure you are subscribed to the Synch.rono.us blog -- our developers are actively looking for your feedback there. Your feedback to those posts will help us plan the next release(s) of the product. And the more we hear from you, the more the community benefits. In particular, we want your feedback on these key topics:
   
   
   1. What else should we integrate to? How should we expand on Social Everywhere?
   2. What's your list of top 5 features to add to Connections?
   
   
2. Register for the Social Business Jam which is going to take place Feb 8-11 and participate!
3. Set your TiVo to record Jeopardy! on Valentine's Day
4. Please take a few minutes to complete 3 Lotus Connections tasks on Lotusphere Online 2011 and provide us with input for future improvements to the website. To participate, please go here and remember to authenticate with your Lotusphere Online credentials.
5. Help my fellow Notes product managers. If you are a Notes customer, please take this survey to help us determine which features to include in the next release (shouldn't take more than 10 minutes)

So that's it! Five items that you need to do as homework. Your due date? This Friday!

Lotusphere 2011 Day 5: Ask the Product Managers

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For those of you who are catching up, I've blogged about my recaps from Days 1-4, so you may want to read those first. Day 5 of Lotusphere 2011 always comes with mixed feelings. You get to say goodbye to your colleagues, but I'm extremely happy to go see my family.

So Thursday's highlight (for me) was the Ask the Product Managers session. For some reason, I was a bit nervous about this one, but it turned out to be just fine. I was all the way to the right of the stage (and was very conscious of the 1-2 inches I had; I thought my chair would fall at any second). (picture courtesy of Mitch)

As we introduced ourselves, Ed Brill wanted us to announce something that most people may have not been aware of. Thus, I announced the availability of the new Quickr 8.5 connector for Connections 3.0. It was made available on Saturday as people traveled to Lotusphere 2011. You can download it from the catalog.

Towards the very beginning of the session there was a question that was directed to me, but it was actually around the Quickr Connectors. Mac Guidera actually owns this particular module so I deflected the question to him.

Three quarters of the way into the session, I did get my first question from Lisa Duke: "Will Quickr D remain as a standalone product?" The answer was easy: "Yes!" and that made Lisa happy. Yay!

Mitch Cohen captured a live blog of the session, so check that out to get a transcript of what happened. After the session was done, I grabbed my lunch box and headed out to the airport to make my way back to SJU.

Now it's time to catch up with the feeds and see what I missed while I was heads down at #ls11.

Lotusphere 2011 Day 4: My First BOF (Part 2)

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In the previous blog entry, I shared my recap of what happened the first part of Day 4, Wednesday, of Lotusphere. I wanted to share a bit of what happened towards the end of the day. At 5:45p I had the chance to deliver my first Birds of Feather (BOF) titled Lotus Connections: Lessons Learned from the Field. I had participated in a BOF before with Stuart McIntyre, but only as a guest speaker.

This time, however, Stuart was scheduled for a BOF at the same time as me. I had to do something to draw a crowd . I figured if I could get a celebrity in the room, that would help. Therefore, I invited Rawn Shah to come in. He couldn't make it so he instead donated 3 autographed copies of his book: Social Networking for Business (which Steve Bell reviewed here). Three lucky attendees left with a copy of the book.

The purpose of the BOF was to concentrate on bad / best practices for social software adoption inside of the firewall. I wanted to generate a discussion between customers in the room to share what was and wasn't working in their organizations as they tried to become a social business. I didn't want to touch on technical stuff because, well, because there had been plenty of technical sessions throughout the conference. As I walked towards the room I ran into Sacha Chua and invited her to come along. She agreed and even volunteered to scribe the session. I've always been a big fan of her hand drawings.

Here's what we talked about in the "words" of Sacha:

I heard from the attendees that the session was valuable so hopefully we'll repeat it next year.

One thing I would like to do different next year is set up the chairs in a circle. The chairs were organized as if I was going to do a presentation and I think a circle arrangement would've allowed customers to more easily see each other.

After the BOF was done, #ls11 attendees headed out to Islands of Adventure to check out the new Harry Potter attractions.