How To Migrate from Quickr to IBM Connections Content Manager

Tweet

Earlier this year, we released IBM Connections 4.5. The big focus of IBM Connections 4.5 is the new Content Manager add-on which brings the power of content management and combines it with the power of the IBM Connections social platform. The add-on is part of the core IBM Connections installer so there's nothing else to install!

Content Manager:

• Combines the ease of use of social tools with the power of a structured hierarchy.
• Includes document check-in and check-out, version control, approval routing, metadata, taxonomy, document types and nested folders.
• Makes content management tools as easy to use as social networking tools.

This add-on also allows Quickr customers to upgrade to a better experience. To facilitate this transition, we've provided a migration tool to our customers at no extra cost (as you can see in slide 18 below). This allows them to take their libraries from Quickr Domino or Quickr for Portal and migrate them to IBM Connections Content Edition. We've also made a RedBook available: Making the move to IBM Connections 4.5 and IBM Connections Content Manager.

What’s New in IBM Connections 4.5 and IBM Connections Content Manager from Luis Benitez

To download the migration tool for Quickr for Portal, click here.

The documentation for the tool is here in our public wiki so you can start seeing how it's going to work. If you are interested in getting access send me a note and we'll get you going!

Announcing IBM Connections 4.5 IFR1: Community Polls/Surveys for all!

Tweet

Today, I'm happy to announce the availability of IBM Connections 4.5 IFR1 . This new release adds Surveys and Polls for communities at no additional cost to our IBM Connections customers. This capability has been available for a while but it was only as an added cost add-on. In this release, this capability is now out of the box.

With community polls and surveys, you can:

• Create and conduct surveys and polls among the members of an IBM Connections community
• Use the built-in survey designer to create the questions and rules with no coding skills -- just drag-n-drop!
• View the results of surveys and polls as chart or a table or export to a spreadsheet
• Share polls/surveys with other community managers
• Community members can participate in surveys/polls directly from the Connections mobile app

This opens the door to many use cases such as refining product offerings using insight gained from customers or perhaps validating new offerings with information from business partners. Here's how it looks:

As you can see from the screenshot above, you will have two new widgets available to you: "Featured Survey" which allows you feature a poll/survey right in the Overview page and "Surveys" where members can see all active surveys.

Editing and creating the survey occurs directly within the Connections interface. Community managers don't have to learn anything new or any HTML coding skills. It's all visual and with drag-n-drop they can create the polls and surveys they need.

Those of you who know me, know that I've been trying to make this available out of the box for some time, and today, we've made it happen! So don't wait. Go on and download and start taking advantage of this new entitlement!

#P4SPChat Recap: How the Convergence of Social + Mobile + Cloud Has Energized Work

Tweet

In case you missed yesterday's Twitter chat on the impact of Social + Mobile + Cloud on work, we've created a recap which you can see below. It turns out that the chat was very meta, as I was participating in it from Miami airport, using, well, Social + Mobile + Cloud . Thanks to everyone who participated and contributed to the discussion. It was quite an exercise to keep up with all the tweets and commentary coming in. Can't wait for the next Twitter chat.

For now, here's what we discussed yesterday:

Has Social + Mobile + Cloud transformed the way you work ?

How To Customize the Branding of the IBM Connections Desktop Plug-in

Tweet

Hot off the presses! One of the most popular plug-ins for IBM Connections, IBM's Enterprise Social Network, is the Desktop plug-in for Microsoft Windows. This plug-in gives you quick access to all your files directly from Windows Explorer and Microsoft Office.

To recap, the IBM Connections Desktop Plug-ins for Microsoft Windows provides the following features from Microsoft Windows Explorer:

• Upload local files to IBM Connections from Windows Explorer or from your desktop
• Share uploaded files with people, communities, or folders in IBM Connections
• Work on files locally and publish them to IBM Connections
• View people's contact details and get in touch with them
• Pin, follow, or like IBM Connections files and folders
• View or contribute comments for a file
• Lock a file when you are editing it to prevent file conflicts
• View and restore files from IBM Connections Trash
• Share folders with IBM Connections Communities

In the latest release, of the plugin we've added the following new languages: Croatian, Romanian, Slovak, and Bulgarian. Additionally, we've also now enabled the plug-in so that administrators can customize the branding of it. For example, if you have deployed IBM Connections and you are calling it "ConnectTED" internally, you can now make sure that the plug-in obeys this branding.

If you haven't seen the plug-in yet, here's a demo that I recorded a couple of months ago:

To learn how to customize the plug-in for your users, check out the documentation here. To download the plug-in, go out and get it from the IBM Connections App Catalog here.

Social + Mobile + Cloud Transform My Work

Tweet

Today, IBM held a virtual event to showcase the latest release of their Enterprise Social Network. The event kicked off with the following video which we made available late last night:

Then, Erik Brynjolfsson, Director of the MIT Center for Digital Business and co-author with Andrew McAfee of Race Against the Machine, did a keynote with his take on how today's technologies are transforming the way we do work. In his keynote, he argued that it's not about inventing new technologies but inventing better ways to work with them.

I can definitely validate that if it wasn't for the social solution that I use every day, IBM Connections, I wouldn't be as productive as (believe) I am being a mobile employee for one of the largest companies in the world. It gives me the right capabilities to remove obstacles and barriers, and just move business forward ! Time and time again, I continue to find examples of how productivity increases by leveraging these new tools. That's what makes me passionate about doing what I do at work. I want everyone to benefit from a social business transformation!!

If you missed the event (and my mobile demo from my iPad), you can catch the replay here: http://ibm.co/reinventwork. And to continue the conversation, tomorrow, I'll be participating in a Twitter chat so if you want to participate, you can get all the details here.

See you tomorrow in the Twitter chat!

IBM Positioned as a Leader in the 2013 Magic Quadrant for Social Software in the Workplace

Tweet

As we come close to our next big launch I have some great news to share. Analysts at Gartner have positioned IBM in the Leaders Quadrant of the 2013 Magic Quadrant for Social Software in the Workplace(*) -- for the 5th year in a row! IBM’s placement is based on its ability to execute and completeness of vision. As you know, earlier this week, IBM deployed the latest IBM Connections release to the cloud, continuing to build the core of the IBM Social Business Platform.

This new report adds to the recent analyst reports from Forrester and Aragon Research which also list IBM as a Leader in their respective research reports. IBM Connections has also been listed as the worldwide market share leader by IDC.

I'm extremely proud to be part of the IBM Connections team! To walk you through all the great new features and watch demos of our new capabilities (spoiler alert: I'll be doing one of the demos), please make sure that you attend the following webinar. It will be on September 18th and that's where we'll go into more details about our amazing latest release. Click here to register for the webinar.

To get a copy of the report, click here.

---

*Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Social Software in the Workplace, Nikos Drakos, et al, September 10, 2013. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose

#P4SPChat: How the Convergence of Social, Mobile and Cloud Has Energized Life's Work

Tweet

Next week, I'm going to be participating in a tweet chat to talk about: How the Convergence of Social, Mobile and Cloud Has Energized Life's Work and I wanted to invite you all to participate as well.

The tweet chat will take place next Thursday Sept 19th, 12p-1p Eastern Time. We will be using the hashtag: #P4SPChat. It will be the day just after our big launch with our General Manager, Alistair Rennie. Therefore, join the webinar on Wednesday and then we can use the tweet chat on Thursday to talk about the webinar and other topics related to social, mobile, and cloud.

If you haven't registered yet for the webinar on Wednesday, click on the image below. We'll use this webinar to walk you through all the great new features (spoiler alert: I'll be doing one of the demos). That's where we'll go into more details about this week's release.


To learn more about the Tweet chat on Thursday, see the following:

See you there!

Take Your IBM Connections Reports to the Next Level

Tweet

Yesterday, we made a video tutorial available to walk admins through the process of customizing the out of the box IBM Connections Reports.

Out of the box, IBM Connections provides over 100 reports for admins and community managers to monitor adoption and figure out the content that's working so they can focus their energies in the right place. The data in these reports can be aggregated in several formats such as by date, by geography, by department, etc.

Sometimes, there's data or dimensions that specific community managers want to see. When we built out the reporting mechanism, we had this in mind and made it extensible. It takes just a few steps to take the reports to the next level!

To see how you can customize the reports, check out the video below:

To learn more about customizing the IBM Connections reports, click here.

Updated on 12/Sept/2013 @ 12pm ET : - Also see the following presentation that Klaus shared in the comments:

Give your community owners the reports they really need from Klaus Bild

Watch out: We are updating IBM SmartCloud Connections. Say hello to File Sync!

Tweet

We have started the process to upgrade our cloud deployment of IBM Connections, IBM's Enterprise Social Network.

As announced here last week, we are updating our social business offerings and this quarter's release will be the biggest release ever! Interested to learn more? The first step is to register for our webinar in 2 weeks (see link below).

While there's tons of new features and capabilities that we are deploying over the next few days, I wanted to briefly call out our new file synchronization capabilities. As you may recall, Forrester cited IBM Connections as a Leader in File Sync and Share. For some time now, you've been able to download files, store them offline, edit them, and then manually re-upload them back to the server. It was time to automate this whole process. With File Sync, you can now travel stress free knowing that all your files are automatically sync'ed to your mobile device and that you always have the latest and greatest version of that very important presentation.

I've also gone ahead and updated my overview presentation with the latest content and you can see that here:

IBM SmartCloud Connections Overview - Q3 2013 from Luis Benitez

To walk you through all the great new features and watch demos of our new capabilities (spoiler alert: I'll be doing one of the demos), please make sure that you attend the following webinar. It will be on September 18th and that's where we'll go into more details about this amazing new release.

From the event registration page:

Workers are more dissatisfied and less engaged than ever before. But did you know that using social technology can increase efficiency by up to 25%? (source: McKinsey) . Additionally, 69% of employers believe employees are engaged, while only 34% of employees claim to be. (source: Kenexa blog) Since people now determine your success or failure, it's time to use social to rethink how work works.

To register, go here: http://ibm.co/reinventwork