Questionmine Brings the Power of Surveys and Video to IBM Connections

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At the IBM Connect 2013 conference, Questionmine demonstrated their latest integration with IBM Connections.

Questionmine provides the ability to create interactive webinars with video surveys to engage the audience. This can help you generate real-time feedback and accelerate decisions.

Leveraging the activity stream and OpenSocial support within IBM Connections, Questionmine can quickly distribute videos to users. As the video plays and gets to a specific time, the question comes up and the user can respond instantly. After the response has been submitted, the video continues to play. To analyze all the data, Questionmine provides a dashboard for administrators to go in and get insights.

In the following demo, you can see a marketing manager at Pepsi creating questions and then sharing them as part of a video within IBM Connections and request feedback, specifically to see what others think about a new TV commercial that's going to go live soon.

To learn more, check out their website or if you are going to SXSW next week, check them out at stand 344.

iEnterprises Demonstrates Solution to Connect Facebook and Twitter to IBM Connections

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Let's keep on sharing the IBM Connect 2013 news. Again, one of the things that I was extremely happy to see was the large number of new partners and apps being built for IBM Connections.

This one comes from iEnterprises where they have developed a solution to take status updates from IBM Connections and post them to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter via a control panel. Users can connect their accounts to their favorite social networks and have their status updates cross posted if desired. iEnterprises can also determine if a status update should go through an approval process before being posted externally based on some pre-configured criteria.

The solution takes advantage of OpenSocial and embedded experiences to allow managers to approve and manage this integration directly from email notifications !

Check out the 5 minute demo below:

Very cool!

Box announces new integration with IBM Connections

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Box has announced last week a new app for IBM Connections Communities. This allows organizations to leverage Box to share and/or access content in Box directly from the IBM Connections environment.

Once the Box app has been added to Connections, users can share documents externally with their customers, partners, and/or suppliers via the Box framework.

From Box's FAQ page:

When an IBM Connections user opens the Box Embed framework, they can leverage the HTML5 tools to:

• Navigate through their entire Box account
• Drag and drop files for quick uploading
• Preview content in Box from within IBM Connections
• Leverage over 200 Box apps
• Use Box Edit to update documents in Box from within IBM Connections
• Comment, share and assign tasks on a document
• Plus more – all the functionality of Box is available within Box Embed

Here's a screenshot of how it looks.

If you want to see a 2 minute demo, click here. To download the app, you can get it from Box's Marketplace here.

Dynamic Signal Helps Amplify Your Brand Using IBM Connections

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The news from IBM Connect 2013 just keep coming in. As I've shared in the past, one of the highlights of the #IBMConnect conference was the App Dev Throwdown where many new partners got to showcase their integration with IBM Connections.

Dynamic Signal, an employee marketing solution allows you to reward employees for their participation in external social networks like Facebook. Let's say, for example, that your company is launching a new product and you want to get your employees to help you promote it. Dynamic Signal provides an interface to create a campaign and track employee participation in it. Employees can promote company news from IBM Connections directly with Google+, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more!!

This solution is a perfect combination of social business and social media and takes IBM Connections to the next level!

Check out this 4 minute demo:

Very cool!!!! Go check out their solutions today!!

IBM Connect 2013: Media Coverage Highlights

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Just like last year, I am now back home (after a 2 week vacation) and it's time to catch up with my feed reader and all the press coverage that was generated by #ibmconnect or IBM Connect 2013. It's interesting to compare the media coverage that was generated this year vs 2012. There's definitely a big focus on enterprise integration and c-level adoption.

So here's a couple of the highlights based on what I've found so far. I haven't included everything (I've skipped what seemed to be duplicates) but hopefully it helps you find things that you may have missed.

Cool Tweets

@markfidelman,: IBM clearly hitting all of the big #socbiz promises #ibmconnect

@alanlepo IBM SVP Mike Rhodin just gave one of the best "vision" talks I've heard at a conference. Not product, but big picture. #IBMConnect #LS13

@alexfidelman 90% of Fortune 500 companies use social and are seeing double digit increases in productivity. #ibmconnect

@BeverlyMacy  Mike Rhodin at #IBMConnect giving xclnt definition of the Socoal Enterprise #socbiz

‏@stelzner CEOs identified human capital as the #1 source of sustained competitive advantage - IBM Survey - #ibmconnect

@marciamarica The opportunity is wide open for "transformation." Mike Rhodin #ibmconnect

Written media/blogs

TechCrunch - IBM Makes a Play for the CMO and HR Pros

ZDNet - IBM execs discuss software acquisition plans, targeting C-level gaps

ZDNet - IBM suggests how social business can work for healthcare, retail, gov't

eWeek - Fluor Taps IBM Social Business to Link Global Workforce

eWeek - IBM announces new software, cloud services for social business

GigaOM - Balancing risk and social business innovation

IDG - IBM to beef up content management, analytics in Connections enterprise social product

InformationWeek - IBM tools point to bigger social trend

Internet Evolution - From Liking to Leading: Driving a 'purposeful' social business strategy

ComputerWeekly - What social enterprise did next

ComputerWeekly - IBM's three ages of data… leading to social

CMSWire: IBM Announces Connections 4.5, Employee Experience Suite

CIO Today: IBM Makes a Social Software Push for Marketing, HR

Enterprise Cloud Today - IBM Rolls Out Cloud-based services, software for Social Business

CIOL - IBM's new social business solutions to drive profit

Enterprise Irregulars - IBM Connect 2013 Highlights: Product Updates, Smarter Workforce and Smarter Commerce

UC Strategies - IBM Emphasizes New Directions at IBM Connect 2013

Enterprise Apps Today - IBM Forges Cloud Connections for Revamped Social Enterprise Slate

The FINANCIAL - IBM Delivers New Software and Cloud-based Service, Software for Social Business

V3.co.uk - IBM adds big data capabilities and Microsoft Office integration to Connections

Sydney Morning Herald - IBM blurs the work-life divide

ZDNet - Academics: There's a difference between social business and social media

ZDNet - Social business experts name 4 trends to watch in 2013

eWeek - IBM Sees Social Business as Untapped Big Blue Opportunity

BizBash - Twitter Contest Connects High-Profile Attendes at IBM Event

Turbo Todd - Fluor Corporation: Building buildings… and a better workforce

Bill Ives - Connecting the Enterprise: IBM Connect 2013 Notes: Opening Session

Bill Ives - Cases from 2005: Ed Brill on IBM, Collaboration, and More

CMSWire - Qumu Launches IBM Connections Social Video Solution for Collaborative Knowledge Sharing

eWeek - Polycom, Meetrix Partner for Cloud-Based Social Video Collaboration

Talkin' Cloud - New IBM Cloud Services to Bring Social Transformation

IT World Canada - IBM Tightens social software lineup

IT World Canada - IBM links CMS, analytics to Connections

Enterprise CIO Forum - How should CIO's engineer the new social enterprise?

Replay: Luis Suarez, Louis Richardson and I at Pardon the Interruption

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At IBM Connect two weeks ago I had the opportunity to co-present with Luis Suarez and Louis Richardson for the first time ever. Thinking back, I'm surprised we hadn't gotten together and done a session earlier.

In any case, in this session we wanted to talk about various social business topics and we had asked the audience to submit them ahead of time. The format was to address the question in 3 minutes: 1 minute for each one of us. I thought that was pretty good since it keeps us flowing pretty quickly through topics, though at the same time can be *looong* for 60 minutes.

We also kept the order of answers the same throughout, thus I was always the first one to answer, then Louis, then Suarez. The great thing about this was that it gave me 2 minutes to stay quiet, and live tweet during the session:

Doing #ptisocialbiz with @elsua and @inter_vivos at #ibmconnect [pic]: 4sq.com/TTyEfs

— Luis Benitez (@lbenitez) January 29, 2013

If you missed the session at #IBMConnect, maybe you had a chance to catch up via Michael Sampson's blog. Otherwise, you can listen to the replay below (unfortunately, no video available):

Pardon the Interruption: Social Biz Hot Topics from Louis Richardson

Enjoy!

Getting Ready for the IBM Connect OGS

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Check out a few photos as we were getting ready for the #IBMConnect OGS.

Wednesday: Landed in Orlando, time for some lunch:

Wednesday: Now that we have lunch, it's server setup time. What a mess!

Thursday: Rehearsal #210

Thursday: Testing to make sure this table thing works

Thursday: Rehearsal #309

Friday: Final review with executives

Saturday: The stage is ready! (confidence is high!)

Saturday: Making sure everything at the podium works

Saturday: The team is ready!

Monday: Luis on stage

Monday: Nicole getting ready to take the stage

Monday: Ron ready to take the stage

Monday: We are done!! The OGS Demo team!!

HarQen Demonstrates Searchable Phone Calls in IBM Connections

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One of my favorite aspects of IBM Connect 2013 was being able to show the tremendous growth of the IBM Connections ecosystem. As the product manager for the IBM Connections SDK, I find it incredibly useful to see what app developers come up with to expand our social business platform.

To that end, here's another great example from #IBMConnect. HarQen is focused on unleashing the information trapped inside conversations (think about all the conference calls you participate in). One of the solutions provided by HarQen is Hypervoice. Hypervoice allows converting conversations into searchable transcripts and actionable items. This is all available from within IBM Connections.

It provides a seamless consolidated searchable record of all phone conversations. From within the Connections business card, you can easily call a colleague and/or add them to an existing conference call with 1 click!

Alan Lepofsky, an analyst at Constellation Research describes Hypervoice as: "The ability to annotate audio conversations provides tremendous business value."

Check out the 2 minute demo below:

Extremely powerful!

A Little About IBM Connections Content Manager 4.5

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Last week at #IBMConnect we were able to unveil a little about IBM Connections 4.5 and you've probably already seen the demo I did during the keynote.

One of the biggest announcements is the upcoming IBM Connections 4.5 release which we are targeting for March, just 6 months after the huge release of IBM Connections 4.0 ! I also had the opportunity to present for the first time the roadmap for IBM Connections at the conference. The feedback from the audience was tremendous. Those that went to the conference, you can download my slides from the conference site and I've also posted them in Greenhouse.

If I count correctly, this would be our 11th major release in the last 6 years. IBM Connections 1.0 was first released six years ago. Since version 1.0 was released, we've added Forums, Community Events, Media Gallery, Ideation, Files, Wikis, Sub-communities, ECM integration and more. All those concepts have existed for a long time in Quickr and we've brought that over to Connections. And soon IBM Connections 4.5 will bring one more piece into Connections: content management.

This will allow you to manage files using document types, custom metadata, check-in/check-out, approval workflow, drafts, nested folders and more.

Jeff Schick, VP for IBM Social Software, spent some time discussing IBM Connections 4.5 and the roadmap for his portfolio at the conference:

Watch live streaming video from ibmsoftware at livestream.com

To learn more about IBM Connections Content Manager, make sure you look at the slides for ID308 presented by René Schimmer and Jon Brunn which was a whole session dedicated to this. As you can tell from the video above, for those customers using Quickr that want to take advantage of the latest and greatest, we'll give them the option to upgrade IBM Connections Content Manager 4.5 and provide them with a tool to move their places and document libraries into Connections. If you want to keep using Quickr, that's fine as well. Quickr will continue to get currency updates as necessary so the option is yours.

More will be shared in the upcoming weeks as we get closer to the release date so stay tuned!

IBM Connect 2013 Opening General Session Replay is Here

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The Opening General Session of IBM Connect 2013, aka the Keynote, aka the OGS, is now available for replay.

This year I had the opportunity to be one of the demo'ers during the keynote. Last year I was part of the demo team helping mostly backstage and making sure the servers were ready. This year was a completely different experience being front and center.

Doing one of the demos at the #IBMConnect keynote is one of those things that I've wanted to do for a while. When I first went to the conference back in 2008 I saw Suzanne Livingston up on stage and wondered if I could ever do that. When I got the call back in October I was extremely happy (and nervous!) to have such an opportunity.

The following 3 months were pretty hectic trying to figure out what to say, what to demo, the scenario to use, etc. It was an incredible experience and I learned a LOT, for example, how to say only what you need in the most concise way to get your point across (which was super helpful since my demos tend to be very long). At one point, I had 15 minutes of demo which I had to trim to 10 minutes and it was extremely tough to decide what to cut. Looking at the script, I showed 35 features in 10 minutes which, if I'm doing my math correctly, comes out to about 1 feature every 20 second!

After Connect, I took a couple of days off to fully disconnect and recharge for what promises to be an amazing 2013. If you missed the OGS, you can watch it here:

Watch live streaming video from ibmsoftware at livestream.com

If you are interested in the 5 minute highlights, then check out this video:

Watch live streaming video from ibmsoftware at livestream.com

I'll be sharing more about IBM Connect in future posts as I go back and catch up with my regular day job!