GigaOM ranks Lotus Connections #1

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Last month a blog entry from one of the vendors in the social media space came into my feed reader because I subscribe to everything the world is saying about Lotus Connections. In it, Lotus Connections is called the "Big Daddy of enterprise collaboration software". And being the Red Sox fan that I am, I don't mind being called Big Papi..

But the blog entry was really about a report recently released report by GigaOM called Social Media in the Enterprise. The report is authored by Rachel Happe, Principal & Co-founder of The Community Roundtable. According to the blog entry, Lotus Connections is ranked #1 in Strategic Potential for Enterprise Social Software and KickApps is ranked #2.

Rachel adds in the blog entry:

Even within the leaderboard, solution providers in this market have some pronounced differences, and depending on the model and needs of a particular customer, their short list will look different, despite having similar end-user feature sets.

The Social Media in the Enterprise report is available for download. Unfortunately, I didn't get to meet Rachel at the Enterprise 2.0 conference last week in Boston, but hopefully next time (actually there was a LOT of people that I didn't get to meet, and those that I did, I barely spent 5-10 minutes talking to them... but I digress)

Congratulations to the Lotus Connections team and I'm looking forward to more analyst reports (specially given all the cool new things that we are working on... shhh!)

Lotus Connections 2.5 Demo on Enterprise2.0 TV

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Suzanne Minassian was interviewed earlier today at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston. In this 16 minute interview she tells us about IBM research and goes through a demo of Lotus Connections 2.5 (already running internally at IBM). Here's a preview of what Suzanne walks through:

• LinkedIn integration announced at Lotusphere
• New iPhone interface available for Lotus Connections (which also works on Symbian devices)
• New Files component
• New Homepage layout

As you watch the interview and see the demo, you'll see my name in various places. Points to whoever can count the number of times I come up .

Bluto was not shown during the demo, but Suzanne briefly talks about the Twitter and Lotus Connections integration.

Enjoy!

Alias and Anonymous Comments in Blogs

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Recently, I was at a customer who wanted to implement our blogging solution for their internal knowledge workers. They had some interesting requirements in terms of how users could comment and moderate blog entries.

The use case required the system to allow a central group to moderate blog entries before they get formally published. Additionally, blog authors could have the power to specify whether or not comments would be forced to anonymous. If comments were not forced to be anonymous, then users could comment using their real name or an alias.

Here's how the proposed solution looks like:

Blogs Anonymous

View more PDF documents from Luis Benitez.

I am bit concerned with all this moderation and 'secret identities', especially around adoption. And it makes me wonder... how many organizations have deployed an internal blogging solution that allow interacting with the solution with secret identities ?

Pre-Order: Planning and Implementing Social Software for your Enterprise

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Thinking about turning your enterprise into Enterprise 2.0 ? Amazon.com has already listed the new book coming from IBM Press titled: Planning and Implementing Social Software for your Enterprise. The book was co-authored by many of my colleagues:

• Stephen Hardison, an IBM Certified I/T Specialist with IBM Software Services for Lotus, designs, implements, operates, and assesses large collaborative Lotus Connections solutions.
• David Brooks is a key contributor to the IBM Lotus Connections Technical Leadership team.
• David Byrd, an IBM Senior Certified Executive IT Architect with IBM Software Services for Lotus.
• Gary Wood, Field Support Engineer with Lotus Field Support Services (FSS), has been responsible for troubleshooting some of the world's largest Notes/Domino environments.
• Saurabh Calla, Advisory IT Specialist with IBM Software Services, builds applications for Lotus Connections.
• Tim Speed is an IBM Certified Systems Architect with IBM Software Services for Lotus (ISSL) and is responsible for designing, implementing, and supporting various client engagements.
• Michael Martin is a certified Senior Managing Consultant in the Messaging & Collaboration Practice for IBM's Software Services for Lotus (ISSL) group focusing on organizational development, change management and social software adoption.
• Suzanne O Minassian has held a variety of roles within software development, including development, design, user research, and is currently the product manager for Lotus Connections.

I was one of the Technical Reviewers for the book, so if you like it, I get all the credit. If you don't, then bring it up with the authors!

Kidding aside, I think this book is pretty complete and covers both business and technical issues, and present IBM's proven, best-practices methodology for successful implementation. Here's an excerpt from Amazon's description:

The authors begin by helping managers and technical professionals identify opportunities to use social networking for competitive advantage -- and by explaining how Lotus Connections places full-fledged social networking tools at their fingertips. IBM Lotus Connections carefully describes each component of the product - including profiles, activities, blogs, communities, easy "dogear" bookmarking, personal home pages, and more. The book contains practical coverage of administering Lotus Connections, as well as detailed guidance of integrating and extending Lotus Connections - including a full chapter on plug-ins and widgets, and another on Lotus Connections' REST-based API, which provides full, secure access to Lotus Connections features and data.

Amazon is also offering a 13% discount if you pre-order now.

This Is Why It's So Hard To Calculate Social Software ROI

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Captain's log... June 16th: It was a hot night outside in the Dallas/Fort Worth area; I was working diligently in my hotel room. I was doing a dry run for a very important demo that I had to do in 9 hours. I wanted to verify everything was set. As I prepared my laptop bag, I noticed the unthinkable. The VGA adapter that I need to use to project from my MacBook Pro was not there. I had left it at home, 2100 miles away.

I scrambled. I sent text messages, emails, and BlackBerry Instant Messages to some colleagues that lived in the area and I knew had Macs. Only 1 responded but didn't have the adapter with them. It was now 1am, and with no solution in sight, I renounced and just figured that the customer would have to gather around me and watch the demo in my laptop. Very unprofessional.

Because I was so nervous, I woke up at 5am, 4 hours before my demo. I took a chance and posted a new discussion thread in the Mac@IBM community to see whether anybody in the DFW area had a VGA adapter I could borrow. Here's the timeline:

• 5am: Discussion topic posted in the Mac@IBM community's forum
• 5:45am: IBMer working out in the local Y gets a notification in his BB (I didn't know this until after the fact)
• 7:10am: I go down to get breakfast in hotel lobby -- heart pounding: "we are going to lose this deal because of me"
• 7:18am: I get an email saying I have a response to my discussion topic. It's from a colleague who has the adapter and lives 4 miles away from the customer and gives me his cell phone number, and home address.
• 7:20am: I leave the hotel to go to my colleague's house.
• 7:48am: Arrive at colleague's house and pick up VGA adapter
• 8:00am: Arrive at customer site
• 9-11am: I successfully delivered my custom demo to the customer. Overwhelmingly positive feedback from customer.
• 11:30am: I returned adapter to colleague
• 12:00pm: Arrived DFW for my flight back to SJU

The great thing about this, was that this is a colleague that I had collaborated with in the past via email and instant messages. So we knew each other. Yet, we had never met in person and I had no idea that he (1) lived in the DFW area and (2) had a MacBook Pro.

Honestly, I'm still in awe. Social software came to the rescue even when all the other traditional methods had failed. If I hadn't posted that discussion topic, the 13 people that were in the conference room where I presented would have had to gather around my laptop to watch the demo.

When I told this story to my wife, all she said was: "You lucky ......".

How do you calculate the ROI of this scenario???