IBM Connections 4.0 Overview and Demo [VIDEO]

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By now you have downloaded the IBM Connections 4.0 code and maybe even installed it over the weekend. The next step? It's time to show your users what's new in IBM Connections 4.0!

My colleague Fred Raguillat and myself have created this video to show an overview of IBM Connections 4.0. Notice that this video is not strictly focused on what's new and I also cover some features available in the platform. Therefore, this video can be used both as a What's New video and also a Top Features video.

To complement the video, if you are interested in the highlights of what is new in version 4.0, check out this page that I created and if you want the full list of 200+ features that are new in the release, then check this page out.

This is the same demo that I've been doing to current and prospective customers and have received some very positive feedback so far. One person told me I had to breathe more which was a luxury I couldn't take. There's just too much to cover and I wanted to keep it to about 6 minutes (let me know what you think in the comments) :


IBM is also announcing today new customers which continue to adopt IBM Connections. Today, more than 60 companies of the Fortune 100 have purchased IBM Connections.  As part of today's announcements, Primerica is the latest organization to adopt IBM Connections and will deploy it to their 90,000 sales reps to engage with their 2.3 million policy owners. Primerica will also be leveraging our Actiance Vantage solution to ensure they remain compliant with local laws.

To learn more about IBM Connections 4.0, don't forget to register and attend for tomorrow's webcast From liking to Leading: The Success of your Business is Social (click the invite below to register):

Register now!

Introducing the Top 4 Ways to use IBM Connections

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It's here! The Top 4 Ways to use IBM Connections based on tips from IBMers and IBM Champions. If you've ever been asked by peers how they can use IBM Connections, this is great resource for them.

The way the page has been structured is that it provides an overview first of what is Connections and then ways in which IBM Connections, as a social collaboration platform, can make you and your peers more effective and productive.

Quotes from two IBM Champions, Lisa Duke and Femke Goedhart, and two IBMers, Suzanne Livingston and Luis Suarez, show real examples of people who use Connections on a daily basis to make their job easier.

I really like the visual layout of the page and I hope you do too. The page also has links to download the free mobile apps for IBM Connections as well as all the desktop plug-ins (e.g. Microsoft Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and much more)!

So what are the Top 4 Ways to use IBM Connections? You'll have to check out this new page to find out!.

Let me know what you think about the page in the comments.

Oh and if you want to learn more about IBM Connections, don't forget to register and attend for the webcast From liking to Leading: The Success of your Business is Social (click the invite below to register):

Register today!

CollaborationToday is now Live

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OpenNTF announced a few hours ago that it has now made CollaborationToday live.

As per OpenNTF:

The content you will find on Collaboration Today is a compilation of current and relevant news for IBM Collaboration Solutions professionals focussing on IBM products and technologies including IBM Connections, IBM Lotus Domino, IBM WebSphere Portal and IBM Sametime.

I'll be one of the moderators for content in CollaborationToday and will be adding content around social business (social collaboration tools, best practices, app dev, adoption strategies, etc) and IBM Connections as it becomes available.

There are various ways to subscribe to content so make sure you check it out today!

To learn more about IBM Connections 4.0, don't forget to register and attend for the webcast From liking to Leading: The Success of your Business is Social (click the invite below to register):

Register today!

Introducing IBM Connections Mail

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With the upcoming availability of IBM Connections 4.0 I would like to talk a bit more about IBM Connections Mail, one of the many new features of v4.0 and one of my favorite ones.

IBM Connections Mail brings mail and calendar into your social context by integrating key messaging and calendar views and functions into your social environment. As email turns 30, we know email is not going away any time soon. Thus, we've now given end users the ability to easily access and manage their Mail and Calendar content directly from IBM Connections. This allows user to process emails quickly (e.g. reply, forward, etc) as well as obtain a quick glance of their calendar. This feature supports Lotus Domino and Microsoft Exchange environments.

I've been using IBM Connections Mail now for a couple of months and I like it a lot. I find that I spend more and more time within IBM Connections since I don't have to switch to another app to work with my email. IBM Connections Mail was featured as one of the MUST-HAVE features all Enterprise Social Networks need according to InformationWeek.

Here's a screenshot of how it looks:

My personal email and calendar is always accessible from the top navigation bar by simply hovering over the mail and calendar icons. The great thing is that I can quickly reply, forward, and delete emails and process my inbox. Of course, I can also use this capability to send private messages to other users.

When reading an email, the business card is available when hovering over people's name. When sending an email, the system is even smart enough to allow me to "attach" files that already exist in my personal file share within Connections. Extremely powerful, right?

By far, however, my favorite feature is the embedded experience provided directly in emails. For example, say that someone posts a question in one of my files. In a typical platform, this usually means that I have to click on a link the email, go out to the social platform, log on, respond to the question and then come back to delete the email. This multi-step process is reduced to a single step. In IBM Connections Mail, the email contains a live page where not only I can see the question posted in the file, I can reply to it directly from there and once I'm done, I can get rid of the notification.

Feedback from people that have seen this and our beta customers has been extremely positive on this feature. So as soon as you get your hands on the code, make sure you install this capability!

To learn more about IBM Connections 4.0, register for the September 13th webcast: From Liking to Leading - The Success of your Business is Social.

Updated 20/Sept/2012 - To download IBM Connections Mail, click here.

The Value of the Social Media Economy is $1.3 Trillion

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The McKinsey Global Institute recently released a report titled: The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies. I stumbled upon this report on Friday and spent some time at nights reading it over the weekend.

What's impressive is how McKinsey has been able to quantify the value of what social technologies can add into the economy. The total? A massive $1.3 Trillion ! Yes, Trillion! 70% of organizations are already using social technologies and 90% of those report some benefit. And most companies see a 20-25% increase in knowledge worker productivity. I for one have shared how social tools make me productive. This report also reminded me how IBM and MIT scientifically proved the value of social networks at work.

In the McKinsey report, a familiar use case, among many others, was included: TD Bank who leverages IBM Connections as its social business platform. (coincidentally, IBM Connections 4.0 was announced today)

One of the things I liked about the report is that it includes a lot of examples from companies in a wide variety of industries: Financial Services, Consumer Packaged Goods, Professional Services, Manufacturing, and more. Therefore, irrespective of the industry you work on, you are likely to find a success example in the report.

Over the weekend, I also stumbled upon this quick video that (while an ad for another company) has some nice visuals to explain the power of social media for your business

Are you still considering becoming a social business? Or do you want to learn tips on how to become a social business ? Want to learn how other companies are getting value from becoming a social business? If so, then you *must* attend the following webcast next week:

Register today!!

To download the 184-page McKinsey report (for free) or even get a free eBook copy for your iPad, go here. I also recommend that you listen to the 10 minute audiocast embedded on that page with lead researcher Michael Chui.