My deck from IBM InterConnect 2015 and IBM Connections 5.0 CR2 is here!

Tweet

Last week was pretty busy as I spent the whole week at IBM InterConnect 2015 a conference focused specifically on cloud and mobile. There were 21,000 attendees and over 40% of the attendees were attending an IBM conference for the first time.

In Tuesday's keynote, Scott Souder demoed IBM Verse.  During the conference, the hashtags related to Verse,  #IBMVerse and #NewWayToWork,  both trended in Twitter worldwide !

#IBMVerse trending worldwide during #IBMInterConnect! pic.twitter.com/7DEXdULQEf

— IBM Social Business (@IBMSocialBiz) February 25, 2015

Also, #NewWayToWork trending worldwide!! Thank you to everyone for spreading the word! #IBMInterConnect pic.twitter.com/bnH5NxQTwI

— IBM Social Business (@IBMSocialBiz) February 25, 2015

I also had a chance to present the roadmap for IBM Connections with the attendees at the conference. For those of you who attended IBM ConnectED 2015, I did a replay of the keynote demo combined with the roadmap presentation on what's coming in IBM Connections.

Here's the presentation I shared at IBM InterConnect 2015 (#ibminterconnect):



As you'l see in page 48, we also released IBM Connections 5.0 CR2 last wee. Here are the new features you'll find there:

• IBM Docs integration with IBM Connections Content Manager (CCM)
• External user support in CCM
• Preview files stored in CCM
• Thumbnail view of files in CCM
• Support for DB2 10.5

Here are the updated system requirements for IBM Connections 5.0 CR2.

Gearing up for IBM InterConnect - Check out these Social Business Sessions

Tweet

We are a week away from the start of IBM InterConnect 2015, and this week it's all about getting ready for that conference. And I'm definitely looking forward to the concert on Wednesday with Aerosmith and "the Sharks" at the keynote.  I've been getting addicted to Shark Tank recently so can't wait to see them in Vegas.



Let's talk sessions.  As part of InterConnect, there's a System of Engagement track where you'll find all sessions around Social Business.  Here's the full list of those sessions:

InterConnect 2015 - Systems of Engagement Tracks from IBM Social Business

One of the sessions that I'll be presenting at is What is New and Coming in IBM Connections.  If you weren't at IBM ConnectED 2015, this will be similar to that session. I'll cover the business value of social collaboration, what's in the product today and what's coming tomorrow.  In fact, check out this podcast episode where Jim Claussen caught David Brooks (the IBM Connections architect) and myself after our session at IBM ConnectED 2015:



So don't wait! Register today for IBM InterConnect and start building your agenda. See you there!

AppFusions brings Dropbox, Box, Office 365/OneDrive, and Google Drive to IBM Connections

Tweet

As we continue to wrap up from IBM ConnectED 2015 (and get ready for IBM InterConnect 2015), I wanted to highlight a new solution showcased at ConnectED 2015.  The solution comes from AppFusions and brings together many cloud file services such as Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive directly into IBM Connections.

For example, IBM Connections users to access, preview, edit, share, upload, and locally download OneDrive files directly from the IBM Connections platform.

Here are the features that AppFusions calls out (note: if you are not using Office 365 and instead you are using Google Drive or another cloud file service, you can pretty much substitute OneDrive below for your cloud file service.):

• Natively authenticate, access and navigate your OneDrive/Box/Dropbox/Google Drive file directory, including sub directories, from IBM Connections
• Preview files
• Edit OneDrive files in Office365 from within IBM Connections, regardless of OS or Browser
• Save back edits, direct to OneDrive/Box/Dropbox/Google Drive, from IBM Connections
• Upload local files to OneDrive, from within IBM Connections
• Download a copy of any OneDrive file, locally
• Share OneDrive files (and identify share settings), from IBM Connections
• Supports: Office365 native file formats, Adobe PDF files, Zip files, text files, etc.

Want to see it in action? Check out the quick 2 minute demo:



To learn more, check out the solution page in the AppFusions site for the integration that you are looking for:

• IBM Connections and Office 365 / OneDrive integration
• Google Drive in IBM Connections
• Box in IBM Connections

AppFusions is offering a free 30 day trial so check out the links above for more details.

How IBM Connections File Sync Saved Me Post IBM ConnectED 2015

Tweet

I'm finally back in the office after 2.5 weeks on the road: first for IBM ConnectED 2015, then on to Austin to meet with the IBM Design team and work on IBM Connections Next. In between all that, however, my Mac decided to have a meltdown.  Luckily, it was the Tuesday after the keynote at IBM ConnectED.  My big worry, though, was, since my Mac died on January 27th and I knew my last Time Machine backup was on January 21st... how much was I going to lose ?

So when Tuesday comes along, I opened my Mac and the screen was just blank.  So I did a hard power reset and it seem to then come back. It looked like I was able to log in, but then it would just get stuck on this screen:

So my Mac has officially died at #IBMConnectED . At least it wasn't on Monday !! Blogs will have to wait... pic.twitter.com/dFHOmePqdJ
— Luis Benitez (@lbenitez) January 28, 2015

I frantically started to search the forums and nothing that they suggested helped. Then all of a sudden... "did I just lose all my IBM ConnectED 2015 demos, presentations, content, etc???"

I open the IBM Connections mobile app on my iPad with slim hopes. To my surprise, however, all my content was there just fine because all my work was happening in the IBM Connection sync folder.  Success !

I ended taking it to the Apple Store last week while in Austin.  The Apple Genius ended up wiping my disk clean and resetting and said it was an issue with File Vault and Yosemite.  Once back home, I restored from Time Machine and did notice I lost 2 files that for some reason I hadn't stored in my IBM Connections sync folder. But that was a lesson learned... from now on, all my work is going to the IBM Connections sync folder, especially given I have 1 TB of space to store files in the cloud.

From IBM ConnectED 2015 - What's New in IBM Connections

Tweet

Yesterday I posted a recap of the IBM ConnectED 2015 OGS.  Today, I wanted to focus on the What's New in IBM Connections session that I presented at after the keynote.  The intent of the session was to recap our deliveries in 2014 (which were a lot!) and then give you a glimpse at what's coming next.

There were two things that I called out to the audience.  First, for those of you who are running IBM Connections on-premises, you should definitely be looking at what we are doing in the cloud.  We are going to continue our cloud first model where every several weeks there will be new features showing up in the cloud.  Then at some point in 2015, we'll take what's in the cloud and ship it to our on-premises customers.

Second, the product management and development teams continue to monitor the ideas and feature requests that YOU are giving us.  In fact, everything that's coming in 2015 and everything that we showed in the session comes directly from the ideas submitted by our users.  If you would like to see the ideas that others are submitting and vote on them, or better yet, submit your very own feature request, go here.

For those of you who couldn't make it to IBM ConnectED 2015, I've posted a copy of the deck online here:

IDI103 - What is New in IBM Connections - IBM ConnectED 2015 from Luis Benitez

Here's a recap of the tweets during the session.  The session repeated twice on Monday (and yes, my brain was about to explode!) so you may see tweets out of order here.

Pretty cool, right?  Not using IBM Connections?  Start a free trial today at http://ibmcloud.com/social .