Social Software and HR

Social Software & HR

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he presentation I delivered at the july 1 session with Kennisportal.com and ± 120 HR professionals.


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Collaborating in the Lotus Community

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John Roling

7/2/2008

Whether you’ve been reading my columns for the past couple of years, or you’ve happened here for the first time, chances are you use Lotus Notes. I always try to give you the best information I can, and much of that info comes directly from my interactions with the Lotus Notes user community.

The Lotus Notes community is made up of IBM employees, bloggers, administrators, developers, business partners, and some of the best minds in the business. So, I want to let you know where you can find this information and become part of the community yourself.

Bloggers

The first place to check out when looking for bloggers that focus on Lotus products is PlanetLotus.org. PlanetLotus.org is a blog aggregator that checks nearly 300 blogs every 10 minutes and then posts the headlines. You can skim through what people are posting and clicking on a headline will take you to the blog in question.

The PlanetLotus.org homepage

This is probably the best way to get started following Lotus-themed blogs. You can skim the headlines that interest you most, and when you find blogs you like, you can always subscribe to them in your feed reader.

I feel that this is probably the easiest way to get involved with the community. Read blogs, comment on them, and even start one of your own.

Podcasts

If you want to be up-to-date with all the happenings in the community and Lotus, you have three different podcasts to choose from. Taking Notes, IdoNotes, and Yellowcast.

Taking Notes

Taking Notes is Lotus community news and commentary by Bruce Elgort of Elguji Software and independent consultant Julian Robichaux. The two have put out over 82 podcasts since the end of 2005. They always get great guests and have wonderful commentary.

This is the grandaddy of Lotus podcasts If you listen, you’ll also hear my voice on occasion.

IDoNotes Podcast

IDoNotes is the brainchild of IBM Business Partner Connectria’s Chris Miller and he’s been doing it nearly as long as the Taking Notes guys. Chris is an expert in administration as well as products like Sametime and Quickr. He’s always talking about the latest product releases and has a very strong social networking background. Many of us wonder how he ever sleeps.

A list of recent IDoNotes podcasts

Yellowcast

Yellowcast is the newest podcast to throw its hat into the Lotus ring. Lotus consultants Chris Toohey and Tim Tripcony have just finished their third episode, and with episode titles like “Vicodin and MonkeyButter” and “Lotus Notes Sucks and I Hate All Of You!” it’s entertaining as well. Trust me, these two don’t really think Lotus Notes sucks. It’s their platform of choice, and they are two top developers in their field. If you are interested in deep dives on Lotus technologies, this is for you.

User Communities and Forums

There are good Lotus user communities and forum areas out there as well. Everything from user groups, to the IBM developerWorks site to BleedYellow.com. I’m sure at least you can find one of these to your liking, if not all of them.

LotusUserGroup.org

LotusUserGroup.org is an online community of Lotus users that acts as a “virtual” Lotus user group. There’s tons of content, online group meetings, blogs, forums, newsletters and resources to help you find Lotus user groups in your area.

LotusUserGroup.org has tons of information

IBM developerWorks: Lotus

IBM developerWorks: Lotus (or notes.net to the long time Lotus fans out there) is IBM’s portal to all the information you could ever need. There are links to tons of learning resources like articles, documentation, tutorials and more.

One of the pieces that really makes this a community however are its forums. If you go to the site and click on the Forums & Community link on the left side of the screen, you’ll find forums for pretty much every single IBM Lotus product. You can ask questions or join in the discussion yourself. It’s a great way to get information and support.

There are also links to IBM Bloggers, Wiki’s with product information for the various Lotus products and RSS feeds covering pretty much everything you can imagine. If you’ve never been to developerWorks, you definitely need to check it out.

IBM Greenhouse and Bleedyellow.com

I’ve mentioned both of these in a previous article, so there’s not much I can add here, but both of these sites allow end users to try all of the various Lotus technologies and create blogs, share documents and even attend web conferences and send instant messages.

These communities are growing on a daily basis, so you can get interaction with all of the latest and greatest in Lotus technology as well as some great people.

Ideas and Open Source

Another relatively new site is called IdeaJam. Now IdeaJam is actually a product for sale from Elguji software, but IdeaJam.net itself is a community where you can vote on ideas for improving Lotus software products. If you think there is a feature missing, you can post it as an idea, and other members can vote on it. If people like the idea, the score goes higher, if they dislike it, the score goes lower.

IdeaJam.net is the place to submit your feature requests

Think of this as a digg.com designed specifically for Lotus products. The nice thing is that IBM engineers are keeping an eye on the site, so your idea could someday become a reality in shipping products!

OpenNTF.org is another site I’ve written about before, but I would be remiss if I didn’t include it in an article about Lotus community. OpenNTF.org is a repository of open source Lotus templates and code snippets. If you need Lotus to do something in your organization, check OpenNTF.org to see if a solution already exists. You’ll be surprised at how many useful things you can find there, many of which I’ve written about before.

You can also post your own code, participate on many projects and talk about the many templates in the forums.

Why care about community?

You may ask yourself, why do I care about any of this? Well the reasons are simple. By becoming part of the Lotus Notes user community you can easily gain access to some of the best minds ever to wield a Notes client. You can make contacts with these people, interact and learn a lot.

For me, if you join in the fun, I get to hear another voice, another perspective and ultimately we all wind up stronger as a community. It may be pure unbridled selfishness on my part, but in this case, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

About this Series

This series of articles on intranet solutions with IBM Lotus Notes/Domino and it's companion products is intended to help readers understand the fundamental methodology and capabilities of the product and how to utilize it to deliver a feature-rich, secure, and functional corporate intranet solution. It will include implementation strategies, case studies, industry-tested tips and tricks, and, with your input, true value to the administrator or developer who wants to utilize IBM Lotus technologies to deliver winning intranet solutions.

If you have any questions on the series, Lotus Notes/Domino, or if there's something you'd like to see addressed, visit the Intranet Journal Discussion Forum.

About the Author

John Roling is the Senior Groupware Administrator for a North American trade-show exhibit company and a certified Lotus Notes Administrator, Developer and all-around geek. You can keep up with him at his blog (www.greyhawk68.com) or drop him an e-mail at jroling@gmail.com.

Evolution of Mobile Phones, Cool

For more How to videos check out 5min.com

What are you doing?


What are you doing? It is often one of the first questions we ask our colleagues, friend or family.
What I did last week? I visited Greece and met with many customers in Athens to talk about social software and the applications in their businesses. We met with media companies, banks, automotive and telco´s. What are they doing to bring new and innovative services to their customers, attrackt top talent, improve customer satisfaction, retention and up and crosselling capabilities? Do they see the value of involving their customers in co-creating innovation?
Do they believe that their HR divisions could benefit from having social networks to find and attrack new colleagues? And do they see that inviting their customers to dynamic communities to help co-create and evaluate new services and products could make them feel more involved and loyal? Well....of course! And they are all embarking on the path of discovering how they
can become enterprise 2.0 organizations and benefit from the wisdom of the crowds. One customer was so enthousiastic and visionairy;-) he purchased 15 licences of our social software suite at the end of a 1 hour meeting to start exploring the benefits in a pilot context.


Most important take away; Social software is for everyone. Whether you are a consumer, a 12 people government service organization or a 200.000 user bank.

Most interesting site discovered: www.twitter.com. A great way to find out what your friends, colleagues or family are doing. This is the type of messages you dont call someone for, send an email or blog about, but that are interesting and fun to follow people you know. Simply subscibe and update every now and again via the web or by sending a SMS from your mobile. For a great explanation and visualization check out www.commoncraft.com

Find me by searching arjanradder and start following me, when you join let me know so I can also start following you. So next time we speak you dont have to ask me what I am doing, you would already know.

LotusPhere Comes to you in Israël

Yes! Lotusphere really comes to you all around the world. Had a great time attending, speaking and meeting customers at the Lotusphere event held by IBM Israël last thursday. Great strategy pitch by Lotus veteran Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net and a superd demo of all integrated capabilities of the Lotus collaboration portfolio by the local team!

We even had a chance to visit the old city of Jeruzalem... at night..there was nobody around...all religions living litteraly on top of each other in almost perfect harmony, on 1 square km...facinating...

Most important take away; The world is really flat again...and what a wonderfull place it can be..

Coolest website discoverd lately: go2web2o.net, the ABSOLUTE most comprehensive collection of web 20 sites you have EVER seen.

The presentation I deliverd at the event: http://www.slideshare.net/arjanradder/journey-of-collaboration-lotusphere-isral-2008/

See you soon, somewhere, anywhere, the world is flat again;-)

Web 2.0 and The Corporation

Interesting reading. Roundtable discussion with visionairs form ao. IBM, Cisco, 3M, BT and many others. Includes many good examples and reasons why all corporations eventually will start using web 2.0 technologies. Taken from

Web 2.0 and the Corporation, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth:

http://mba.tuck.dartmouth.edu/digital/Programs/CorporateEvents/Web/Overview.pdf

First dutch book on IBM Lotus Workplace out now!

Great news! The first dutch book about IBM Lotus Workplace technology is out! Schoonbrood productions worked for allmost a year to create this really nice and readable book. The first release focusses primarely on Workplace Services Express but there will be updates every quarter.

Read everything about it and order the book today on www.werkenmetworkplace.nl

Notes on Linux 24 July 2006!

Notes will also become available on the Linux desktop! The planned release date is July 24.
Here´s some (dutch) presscoverage):

http://www.webwereld.nl/comments/41927/ibm-brengt-lotus-notes-naar-linux.html

http://tweakers.net/nieuws/43396/IBM-vervroegt-Linux-versie-Lotus-Notes.html

http://www.webwereld.nl/comments/41912/microsoft-we-zijn-niet-tegen-open-source.html

Sametime 7.5 now also for Microsoft users!

Great news!

After the announcement that the new Sametime 7.5 will talk with AOL, Yahoo and Google now Microsoft will also been taken care of...It´s REALLY about being OPEN for the future..!



IBM Extends Its Real-Time Collaboration Platform to Millions of Microsoft Users and Mobile Workers

ARMONK, NY - 26 Jun 2006: Building on its commitment to openness and choice in computing, IBM® today announced it will extend the reach of its upcoming Lotus® Sametime® 7.5 collaboration platform -- the industry's number one instant messaging software for enterprise customers -- by providing integration with Microsoft® Outlook, Office and SharePoint applications. In addition, Sametime 7.5 will offer direct connectivity to mobile devices from RIM and Nokia, as well as Microsoft Windows® Mobile devices.
"With today's announcement, we are giving Microsoft customers the choice to join the open standards world and avoid being locked into closed solutions," said Michael Rhodin, general manager, Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Products. "Whether it is advancing a business decision via instant polling in a Web conference or simplifying international calling by using the Sametime voice over IP click-to-call features, Lotus Sametime is the platform of choice for instant collaboration."
With Lotus Sametime 7.5, Microsoft users have easy access to a full set of instant messaging and Web conferencing capabilities, without requiring costly upgrades. Within Microsoft word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications, Lotus Sametime customers will be able to take advantage of Lotus Sametime 7.5 features, such as sending an instant message, initiating a call, sharing an application or launching a Web conference. Within Microsoft email inboxes, users will be able to view online presence information, schedule Web conferences from their calendars and with a click, access full Lotus Sametime capabilities, including Web conferencing.
IBM is empowering a new class of on-the-go employees with out-of-the-box mobile support for Lotus Sametime. Business users will now be able to access the full functionality of Lotus Sametime to see who is available and where they are located, enabling quick communication through instant messages and initiating voice chats directly from their mobile devices.
The only major real-time collaboration platform built on an Eclipse framework, Lotus Sametime 7.5 will give thousands of IBM Business Partners and developers access to an open programming model, which will spur the creation and use of business applications in a real-time collaborative environment. Users will be able to take advantage of plug-ins and Web 2.0 technologies such as mashups to create new applications on the fly. For example, a Lotus Sametime "mashup" could combine the location and status of team members on a contact list and display it on an online map.
Lotus Sametime has been the industry's leading integrated instant messaging and "on premise" Web conferencing solution for more than seven years. Lotus Sametime 7.5 Web conferencing features improved application sharing and enhanced whiteboard performance, fast entry to Web conferences and an "auto-reconnect" capability, should there be any temporary disruptions in connectivity during the course of a meeting.
Additional features of Lotus Sametime include:
-- No charge access to public instant messaging networks: Lotus Sametime
7.5 will offer access to leading public instant messaging vendors at no
additional cost.
-- Audio/Video Integration: Lotus Sametime 7.5 will offer integration
with leading audio and video providers, enabling features like "click to
call" and integrated audio with phone and video conferences. Working with
IBM in this area are Avaya, Avistar, Cisco, Nortel, Siemens, Premiere
Global Services, Polycom and Tandberg.
-- Location-based Awareness: Lotus Sametime 7.5 is the only enterprise
instant messaging platform to offer advanced location awareness.
-- Multiple person Voice over IP calls: Lotus Sametime 7.5 is the only
enterprise instant messaging platform to offer voice over IP calls between
multiple users.
-- Flexible support for multiple platforms and operating systems: The
Lotus Sametime client runs on Windows, Mac, Linux® and on Windows, AIX®
and IBM System i servers.
Lotus Sametime 7.5 is expected to be available in the third quarter of 2006. Mobile support for Lotus Sametime is expected to support RIM BlackBerry, Nokia and Windows Mobile devices with expected availability in the fourth quarter of 2006. Integration with Microsoft SharePoint, Outlook 2000 and above and Office XP and above is expected at the beginning of 2007.

"Microsoft is stuck" says trendwatcher Vincent Everts

During a recent seminar organized by Cap Gemini called ´The Future of Office automation´various large IT vendors gave their vision on innovation on people productivity and office automation for the years to come. During the mainstream session Microsoft, IBM and also trendwatcher and ICT guru Vincent Everts spoke about how technology has influenced the way we live, work and interact in our day to day personal and business lives. One thing is clear; we are starting to get ´addicted´ to the ease, speed, cost and practical advantages of new ways of communicating. While I can still remember the first mobile fridge phones of 15 years ago (remember how proud you were having one;-), nowadays tools like Skype, Google, Hyves and other instant communication and social networking tools start to dominate the way we interact and share idea´s.

IBM Lotus VP Ken Bisconti amongst others talked about how Lotus Sametime 7.5 (see article and links on other parts of this blog) will be every businesses alternative to public instant communication tools and how IBM see´s these worlds blending together. Microsoft spokes person Ms. B. Karia talked about the future innovations of Microsoft Vista and how this will add even more features probably nobody will use. Vincent Everts wrapped it all up in a high paced overview with many recognizable examples (presentation available via the link on this page).

At the end of his presentation Vincent was asked the question which company would no longer exist in 10 years time. His answer: "Either Microsoft or Google will eat each other, I see Microsoft trying to climb up in the business segment but they are currently ´stuck´"

It is true that Microsoft currently has to deal with many different issues and that it´s shine has faded over the last couple of years. Last year for the first time worldwide more Linux servers were sold then Windows servers, adoption of the open document standard (ODF) is growing at a rapid pace, X-Box is tagging far behind Sony´s playstation and customers are starting to see that they are only paying Microsoft for expensive marketing campaigns while not getting back true innovation.

Beauty AND brains..!

I recently read an article on Notes vs Outlook on a MS blog. Someone was going on and on about a pretty interface. Sure, looking pretty is hip today but won´t take you very far. First of al you need to be reliable, trustworthy and of course healthy. Certainly when you are not a woman but an instrument people in businesses use daily to do their work;-). I think that's why 126 million users love Lotus Notes since it came out in 1989. Oh yeah that´s another great chractaristic; being innovative, Exchange Outlook was only launched in 1996/1997 ...

Anyway the new Notes client will again be the more secure, reliable, platform independent (being built on a completely open Eclipse platform) choice but..will now also have the pretty interface. Hannover will be out around the end of this year or the start of 2007. Of course you will see many annoucements and beta programs before that time.

Presentations Lotusphere Online

All presentations given at the Dutch Lotusphere Comes to You Roadshow end march can now be downloaded via the link on the right. Pay special attention to the presentation of Ron Sebastian and of course; The Boss Loves Lotus. In case you would like to see or get the software yourself; all the stuff you see can be tested completely free for 3 months. Sametime 7.5 will be general available within 2/3 months, until that time we can of course give you live demo´s, presentations or you can have a look at much material and a great flash demo via the ALL about Sametime 7.5 link. Enjoy!

At the Speed of Light

The speed at which we communicate today is truly facinating. When the phone was invented over a 100 years ago nobody could of thought about mobile phones, satellite phones or smart phones. The invention of email about 20 years ago gave a whole new dimension. Email travels at the speed of light but at the pace we´re going today email has already made place for instant messaging and real time communication for many people and businesses. Although there are no real figures available it is for sure that the amount of ´real time communication´that is going on every day around the globe greatly surpasses the amount of e-mails sent. Why? Because its...faster and cheaper again. And of course because it opens up much more opportunity like web conferencing, sharing files and photo´s, and playing games all in real time and regardless of our location.

During a recent Lotusphere Comes to You Road show Lotus guru Ron Sebastian demonstrated the new Lotus Sametime 7.5 environment. This fully open, eclipse based, platform is a new leap forward towards real time business including sound proof ´click to call´capabilities (with Skype quality), ´instant communities´ and location awareness locating people all over the globe via (for example) Google maps.

Sametime truly allows people in different places to work together in a virtual office, whether they’re across the hall or across the globe. Sametime 7.5 will have secure and completely free connections to other, public networks like Google talk, Yahoo and AOL. And as soon as Microsoft decides to start using its (own developed) SIP protocol maybe also MSN messenger. Lotus also announced partnerships with Nokia and Rim enabling their new Communicators and Blackberry´s standard with the new Sametime mobile client.

IBM started saving ± 40 million $ a year after the introduction of Sametime some years ago. It´s already more important then email and it´s importance will only increase with the coming of these new possibilities. Why send a mail if you can speak to someone live whilst sharing a file and instantly sending a quick feedback poll to the rest of the community? All over a (virtually) free Internet connection... its much more efficient and saves money and time.

Watson´s Workplace, First Posting!

Monday february 6, 2006, 21.00

´Sticks and Stones´

What's all that blogging about? These things are everywhere and everybody seems to have one! I thought the best way to find out was to just create one and take a personal testdrive. This blog will be about the way people work and interact with their environment and the way ´tecnology´ influences our lives daily. I also want to use this place to link to other interessting places, share photo´s and have fun!


The first pieces of tecnology were of course quite basic.
Our ancestorsters started to use sticks and stones to get what they wanted in a more efficient way. Since that moment on, mankind has been fascinatedated by what ´sticks and stones´can do for us. We have used our creativity to explore new, different and more efficient ways of getting all sorts of things done. Mankind has come a long way since the first sticks and stones and the speed at which things develop around us seems to constantly take up pace. And we are only just getting started...sky is the limit, or is it?;-)!

The introduction of for example electricity and (steam) machines in the late 1800´s have radically changed the way we currently live our lives in large parts all over the world. Who today could imagine a world without plains, fridges or tv´s?
A worldwide network which allows the user to pick up a ´modern stick´and talk to somebody at the other side of the planet, spacetravel, internet?! There are BILLIONS of ´things´ around us everyday and the fact is most of us couldn't/wouldn´t do without them. And thats not a strange nor a bad thing. All these new sticks and stones have made us live longer, easier and more pleasant in many ways.

They have smallened the world and created facilities for billions of people to live, meet and interact regardless of space or time. And thats a great thing!