Tag

ibm connections

JUMP (OpenMic) Session: Let’s talk about IBM Connections Next Deployment – The Easy Button

IBM OpenMic webcasts have always been worth attending – the chance to ask questions of product experts that you’d normally only get the chance to meet at major global events is never one to be passed over!

These OpenMic sessions have just been renamed JUMP (an acronym for Join, Understand, Master and Participate), but the format appears to remain the same.

The good news is that the next scheduled webinar features IBM Connections Next (a.k.a. Pink), with a tagline of ‘The Easy Button’… Intriguing, eh?

It’s always great to hear about all the new features, functions and exciting new capabilities that come with a new version – but the part that tends to give the business owners and IT department heart burn is getting the new version deployed. In this session we will cover with you all the new improvements that we have made to the deployment process – so that you can plan, prepare and deploy with an ease and confidence that you have not had in previous versions. We will cover Orient Me, Solr , Onboarding Experience, CCM and of course – upgrading from previous versions.

After a presentation, attendees will be given an opportunity to ask our panel of experts questions. Throughout the event, attendees will also be encouraged to comment or ask questions in the WebEx meeting chat. Follow us on Twitter @IBM_ICSsupport.

Content
Topic: IBM Connections – Let’s Talk about Deployment of Connections Next – The Easy Button
Date: Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Time: 11:00 AM EDT (15:00 UTC/GMT, UTC-4 hours) for 60 minutes
Web conference Join WebEx meetings to view a slide presentation, hear audio and participate in group web chat
eMeeting password: webcast
Phone conference
Access code: 850 875 332
To receive a call back, provide your phone number when you join the event, or call the number below and enter the access code.
US Toll free: +1-855-797-9485
US Toll: +1-415-655-0002
Global call-in numbers
Toll-free dialing restrictions

There is no need to register for the webinar, just join the WebEx meeting at the appropriate time (given it is 5 weeks away, you may want to add it to your calendar now!).

May 17, 2017 0 comment

Events IBM Connections IBM Connections Cloud Webcasts

ICS Community Meeting – Connections Adoption

written by Stuart McIntyre

An interesting topic has been selected for this week’s ICS Community meeting, hosted by Amanda Bauman:

This is the regular 3rd Thursday ICS Community meeting where IBMer and Community members present topics of interest to the community.
On May 18th, join us and hear Kerry Godbold from Canal Barge Company talk about how they overcame the obstacles of user adoption for IBM Connections. You will take away some ideas for how you can improve user adoption at your own company, or how you can help your customers with user adoption issues.

Canal Barge are a relatively recent convert to IBM Connections, so I’m really looking forward to hearing Kerry describe his methodology for ensuring successful user adoption there.

If you’re looking towards deploying Connections at your organisation, or perhaps would like to pick up some tips to overcome challenges in your own deployment project, then this is sure to be worth attending.

The webcast meeting takes place tomorrow at 3pm UK time, which is:

Thursday, May 18, 2017 10:00 am Eastern Daylight Time (New York, GMT-04:00)
Thursday, May 18, 2017 4:00 pm Europe Summer Time (Rome, GMT+02:00)
Friday, May 19, 2017 12:00 am Australia Eastern Standard Time (Sydney, GMT+10:00)
Thursday, May 18, 2017 11:00 pm Japan Time (Tokyo, GMT+09:00)

May 17, 2017 0 comment

Documentation IBM Connections IBM Connections Cloud

12 steps to success with IBM Connections

written by Stuart McIntyre

This graphic has been around for a while (it was first published by IBM back in November last year), but it is still very useful in terms of giving guidance to end users on how to best use IBM Connections to good effect:

It is also available as a PDF to download.

Here are the 12 steps in text form:

Build your network – Add or follow someone
Advertise your skills on your profile
Update your status every day – Work out loud
Bookmark in Connections – Help yourself and others
Stop sending files in emails – One version of the truth
Stop doing work in emails – Use Activities
Create a wiki for your department – Co-create
Create a self-help forum – Q&A on hot topics
Follow – People, wikis, blogs, forums and communities
Check your activity stream daily – and comment on others contributions
Only create mission driven communities – Best practices
Lead by example

Whilst we can always quibble on details, overall I think these are great tips for any community manager to share with their users. It would probably be even better to tailor them to your own organisation’s use cases and collaborative culture.

May 5, 2017 0 comment

6.0 IBM Connections Partners & ISVs Video

IBM Connections 6.0 at a Glance

written by Stuart McIntyre

IBM business partner Maarga Systems has created a quick one-minute video overview of the new features and enhancements available in IBM Connections 6.0:

New Features of IBM Connections 6:
– Orient Me
– Modern Communities
– Enhanced Onboarding
– Better than ever Files

I’ve been working with Maarga for a number of years and can vouch for their technical skills. If you need assistance with Connections customisation or application development, give them a try.

May 5, 2017 0 comment

6.0 Announcements Cisco IBM Connections Integrations

IBM announces collaboration solutions with Cisco

written by Stuart McIntyre

A significant announcement letter from IBM this morning (formalising the news shared at IBM Connect 2017), delivering new integrated solution bundles in partnership with Cisco:

Collaboration solutions from IBM and Cisco bring together the key applications that workers need to be productive and effective: video, voice, unified communications, enterprise social networks, team collaboration, email, and calendar offerings. With the integration of IBM Connections Cloud and Cisco communication capabilities, modern workers can now communicate and collaborate easily across their teams, with their partners, and with their customers. This powerful combination makes information and trained specialists easier to find and creates more personal and effective collaboration.

Collaboration solutions from IBM and Cisco include integrations between:
IBM Verse email and calendar
IBM Connections enterprise social network
Cisco Spark Business Messaging and Basic Meetings
Cisco Spark Business Messaging, Basic Meetings, and Cloud Advanced Meetings
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Plus
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Plus International

The announcement letter discusses the aims of the partnership, specific integrations that are enabled by the combined IBM and Cisco products, as well as the offerings that can now be ordered from IBM via Passport Advantage.

New Integrations

Here are the specific integrations now supported:

Use simplified ordering capability to license the full suite of Cisco Chat and Meeting capabilities combined with IBM Mail and Social.
Enable single-sign-on between IBM and Cisco offerings.
Launch WebEx from Connections Cloud.
Launch WebEx Personal Meeting from Connections Cloud.
Leverage my WebEx meeting as the default meeting in my Verse calendar invites.
Launch or join a WebEx meeting from Verse.
Use iOS to share content from Connections or Verse within WebEx and Spark:
WebEx mobile can share a file from Connections Files Cloud.
Connections Mobile client enables a file to be opened in WebEx of Spark mobile on iOS.
Spark Mobile enables sharing a file from Connections on iOS.
Verse mobile enables sharing an attachment in WebEx or Spark mobile on iOS.
Click to Spark from Nav bar.
Click to Chat from Connections Cloud Business card to Spark.
Click to Jabber from Nav bar.
Click to Chat from Connections Cloud Business card to Jabber.

Many of these were demonstrated on stage at the Connect keynote and breakout sessions, and in many cases, effectively replace existing integrations with IBM Sametime platforms and apps.

New IBM Product Offerings

There are 17 new Cisco-related Passport Advantage products that can be ordered (along with the relevant renewal parts etc, not listed here):

Program name/Description	Part number
Cisco Spark Business Messaging and Basic Meetings Employee Count 3rd Party Per Month	D1T9GLL
Cisco Spark Business Messaging and Basic Meetings Employee Count 3rd Party Overage	D1T9HLL
Cisco Spark Business Messaging and Basic Meetings Named User 3rd Party Per Month	D1T9JLL
Cisco Spark Business Messaging, Basic Meetings and Advanced Meetings Employee Count 3rd Party Per Month	D1T9KLL
Cisco Spark Business Messaging, Basic Meetings and Advanced Meetings Employee Count 3rd Party Overage	D1T9LLL
Cisco Spark Business Messaging, Basic Meetings and Advanced Meetings Named User 3rd Party Per Month	D1T9MLL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Employee Count 3rd Party Per Month	D1T9NLL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Employee Count 3rd Party Overage	D1T9PLL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Named User 3rd Party Per Month	D1T9QLL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Plus Employee Count 3rd Party Per Month	D1T9RLL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Plus Employee Count 3rd Party Overage	D1T9SLL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Plus Named User 3rd Party Per Month	D1T9TLL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Plus International Employee Count 3rd Party Per Month	D1T9ULL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Plus International Employee Count 3rd Party Overage	D1T9VLL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Plus International Named User 3rd Party Per Month	D1T9WLL
IBM Collaboration Solutions and Cisco Spark Solutions Support Employee Count Per Annum	D1T9XLL
IBM Collaboration Solutions and Cisco Spark Solutions Support Named User Per Annum	D1T9YLL

My Thoughts

The Cisco partnership is clearly hugely important to IBM’s future success in the collaboration marketplace (alongside the similar relationship with Box). Whilst I haven’t seen anything publicly stated regarding the future of IBM Sametime, it is becoming ever more apparent that those solutions are becoming legacy offerings and the future for meetings at least is wrapped up in the product offerings and integrations listed above.

Both Spark and Webex are competent and comprehensive enterprise-ready platforms, receiving regular updates and offering impressive support (at least when offered directly).

My hope for the combination of IBM Connections and these platforms is that the integrations become significantly more than just point-in-time snapshots of the possibilities they enable, and instead become solutions that:

deliver enhanced value now
are updated as a whole as all the individual products get revved independently on a regular basis
continue to operate effectively as Pink is made available and beyond…

The proof of the value of this partnership will be not be seen in 2017 or even 2018, but when these combined solutions are delivering real value to customers (and their users) in 2019 and beyond.

And You?

I’d love to know if you’re planning to deploy the integrated IBM/Cisco solutions in your business, and if so, what use cases you’re looking to support. Leave a comment below!

April 25, 2017 0 comment