94: Educating Connections

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:47 — 53.9MB)

Recorded on Friday 23rd March 2012.  Simon Vaughan, Mac Guidera and Baan Slavens join Darren and I to talk Connections – roll out of a new release at Cardiff University, futures for the mobile apps, fix pack one for 3.0.1 and even Windows Explorer access to your Connections files.

Hosts

Stuart McIntyre (blog | twitter | company) & Darren Duke (blog | twitter | company)

Guests

Mac Guidera (blog | twitter) is a Project Manager on IBM’s Social Software Team.

Simon Vaughan

Simon Vaughan (twitter) is Deputy IT Director at Cardiff University and an IBM champion

Baan Slavens (twitter) is a Project Manager on the IBM Social Software Team and is responsible for social mobile solutions.

Topics

Cardiff just upgraded to Connections 3.0.1

  • What’s Connections being used for?
  • Will it be rolled out to students as well as staff?
  • Is mobile access in demand?  Are Cardiff allowing users to access from mobile?
  • Connections mobile clients

What has the take up been like so far?

  • What’s coming next?
  • Multiple server access
  • Profiles integration with address books
  • Customisation of apps to fit organisation changes
  • Native files access

Connections as a platform for development

  • As Social Business develops, do we see Connections as becoming more of a development platform?
  • Developers need to understand OpenSocial
  • Will we see Connections competing with Portal as an integration point for multiple applications

Connections 3.0.1.1 released

  • What’s included?
    • Fixes
    • New features
    • MS IE 9 and Firefox 9 support
    • Redhat Linux 6.1 support
    • Sametime 8.5.2 Proxy support
    • Issue with Chrome duplicate headers also fixed 🙂
  • Forums/Posts configuration etc
  • Was the ‘Super Community admin view’feature incorporated in this release?
  • How is it installed?
  • New Update Installer required
  • Should all customers upgrade?

Connections plugin for Windows Explorer released

  • What does it do?
  • How is it installed/deployed?
  • How does it compare with the Notes plugin for Files?
  • Can you upload multiple files?
  • Does it obey quotas etc?
  • Can you have multiple Connections servers configured?
  • drag and drop of files into Connections files
  • Video by Luis Benitez

Connections 4 was previewed at Lotusphere 2012

  • What are the highlights?
  • When will it be available?
  • Which features are you most excited about?

Tips

Darren:

  • Veeam. Best virtual backup and replication solution on the market. And sold by STS 🙂

Baan:

  • Open documents in Connections app on the iOS platform by pressing and holding attachments.

Mac:

  • Mac users, use the files plug-in for Notes to drag and share files from your machine to Connections.

Simon:

Stuart:

89: Lotuslive becomes SmartCloud for Social Business

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:02:13 — 57.0MB)

Episode 89 recorded on Thursday 16th February 2012.    We meet with Dave Durazzano of IBM and Elaine Murray from Applicable to discuss the planned rename of Lotuslive, announcements from Lotusphere 2012 and plans for new bundles to clear up a few confusing names…

[Full title: Lotuslive becomes SmartCloud for Social Business. Longer name but less confusion?]

Hosts

Stuart McIntyre (blog | twitter | company) & Darren Duke (blog | twitter | company)

Guests

dave durrazano

Dave Durazzano (twitter) is Program Director for IBM SmartCloud for Social Business.  David joined Lotus in 1994 as a technical support analyst, he then went on to co-founded a Lotus Business Partner consulting company and later started a cloud computing services company.  David rejoined IBM in 1999 where he has held several technical leadership roles on the Lotus Notes/Domino, Workplace & Greenhouse teams before shifting his focus in 2007 to contribute to the IBM on-line collaborative SaaS business previously called LotusLive.<br>

Elaine Murray

Elaine Murray (twitter) is IBM/Microsoft Messaging & Social Collaboration enthusiast at Applicable. A Marketing Manager with a passion to promote powerful collaboration.

Topics

SmartCloud for Social Business

  • For those new to the community, what is Smart Cloud for Social Business?
  • IBM SmartCloud portfolio
  • Formerly LotusLive
    • New brands to be established in Q1 (next few weeks)
    • SmartCloud Engage to be key brand, various levels within that
    • What happens to customers that have LotusLive contracts?
  • New URL in Q2 – http://ibmcloud.com/social
    • What is the proposition that SCSB represents?
  • Many would see Office 365 and Google Apps as the main competitors
    • What are IBM’s advantages?
  • Will the iNotes and Connections brand confusion be cleared up?
    • Yes!
  • Whats coming in 2012?
    • Will the newly named IBM Docs be part of SmartCloud too?
      • Yes, 2H12

Applicable

  • What does winning the Lotus Award mean for your business?

Tips

Darren:

Dave: 

  • Start a 60 day trial of IBM SmartCloud for Social Business – See first hand how your business (any size) can leverage the cloud to collaborate with customers, partners, vendors today.   IBM SmartCloud for Social Business Toolkit – Found in IBM DeveloperWorks.  Access the IBM SmartCloud APIs for integration development!

Elaine: 

  • Knowledge is Power.. Keep up to date with the customers who visit your web pages and learn more about them and their areas of interest: http://www.trovus.co.uk/

Stuart: 

  • TweetBot v2.0 – fab new Twitter client for iPhone and iPad. Granular notification settings, no nasty panels, customisable buttons. It rocks.
  • UC Expo – effectively the biggest Social Business trade show in the UK – 6/7th March at Olympia.

75: Don’t mention the noisy neighbours!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:09:06 — 63.4MB)

Episode 75, recorded on Thursday 26th October 2011.  We discuss IBM’s new CEO, Lotusphere 2012 abstracts and news, the London Social Business Breakfast earlier this week and more…

Hosts

Stuart McIntyre (blog | twitter | company) & Darren Duke (blog | twitter | company)

Guests

Carlos CasasCarlos Casas (twitter | blog | rockteam | leonline | aboutme) is an IBM Champion and Managing Principal of RockTeam and Lotus Education Online (LEOnline.Net). RockTeam/LEO is an award-winning IBM Advanced Partner for ICS as well as an authorized training center for IBM Software.
Handly CameronHandly Cameron (twitter | blog | company) is an Enterprise Software Architect at Softchoice and an IBM Champion
Simon VaughanSimon Vaughan (twitter) Deputy IT Director at Cardiff University and IBM champion (and TWiL Virgin)

Topics

IBM announces Sam Palmisano moving to Chairman, new CEO named (IBM taps Virginia Rometty to succeed Sam Palmisano as CEO)

  • Thoughts on Virginia?
  • Is gender significant, or are we past that now?
  • How about her background in Services and Consulting?
  • How about Sam’s reign?  Positive for IBM? Continued good work of Lou Gerstner? How will he be viewed in history?
  • Do we think Steve Mills stood a chance of being CEO?
  • Where does IBM stand in terms of brand right now?
  • Good example of succession management?

Lotusphere

  • Call for abstracts open
    • Slight confusion over fields on form
    • Thoughts on tracks?
    • Two weeks to get abstracts in (November 6th), sounds ok?
    • Will you be submitting?
  • Connect conference (was Social Business Symposium)
    • Over in Y&B
    • 2 days
    • Aimed at LOB
    • Will this one day be the bigger of the two conferences?
  • Ed queried future of Ask the PMs, put back on agenda.
  • Anything we are particularly looking forward to?
  • Wishes for LS12? What would we like to change or improve?

Social Business Breakfast (IBMSBB) event in London on Wednesday

  • Discussion-based breakfast briefing
  • Mostly vendor neutral
  • Almost no slideware
  • To be run every couple of months in the City

New Connections ECM offerings announced at IOD

Tips

Darren:
MS broke Skype MP3 Recorder. Download the new version 2.1.1 that allows it to work again.

Carlos:
KM Camp Philly is on Dec 2 and I will be presenting a session on the impact of social software with regards to knowledge management and specifically IBM Lotus. KM Camp will be held at DeVry University in Ft. Washington, PA (just outside of Philadelphia) Register here

Handly:
1) ATLUG (Atlanta) is November 10th at IBM, who is providing free lunch. I am presenting on WebSphere 101 for Lotus people, Michael Brown on the new 8.5.3 entitlements, and Lisa Duke on Quickr.
2) Take advantage of the new step up licenses for Connections!

Simon:
1) If you are a Social practitioner or want to learn from others, Join the Dachis Social business council
2) If you use Connections, join the Connections user community on Greenhouse. A great resource to influence what we want to see if future versions + a chance to connect with other users and share experiences
3) Come to Cardiff on December 9th for Social Connections II – it promises to be a truly ‘Exceptional Welsh experience’
4) If your Soccer team lose by a large score, do not poke fun at rival fans and control your noisy neighbours!

Stuart:
1) Social Mythbusters presentation by Louis Richardson
2) How to fill in fields on abstracts form! Register speaker profiles first…

[Music this week courtesy of the Stone Roses who announced they are reforming last week. Go buy their music on iTunes!]

68: Hope is not a strategy!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:19:48 — 73.2MB)

Episode 68, recorded on Friday 9th September 2011.  We discuss memories of 9/11, MWLUG, Social Connections II, the loss of the Lotusphere CULT shirts, two significant departures (Steve Jobs from Apple and Mary Beth Raven from IBM) and more…

Hosts

Stuart McIntyre (blog | twitter | company) & Darren Duke (blog | twitter | company)

Guests

Lisa DukeLisa Duke (twitter | company) is Business Development Manager for Simplified Technology Solutions, Inc. (also known as STS), an IBM Lotus business partner specializing in collaboration, mobility, and virtualization.  STS also resells IBM System X hardware and related storage.  IBM Champion and friend of Mat Newman.
Sharon BellamySharon Bellamy (blog | twitter | company) is soon to be a Consultant at Applicable, working with Portal/WCM, Quickr, Sametime and Connections implementations. IBM Champion, iSeries fan girl and friend of Mat Newman.

Topics

9/11 – Memories from 10 years ago?

Wrap up from MWLUG & AUSLUG 

Social Connections II announced 

  • Cardiff Uni, Glamorgan Building
  • 9th December
  • Speakers from IBM, partners and customers, plus special guests

Lotusphere just 4 months away… 

  • No more CULT shirts
  • Will it still be Lotusphere?
  • What are our hopes for the conference?
  • Is the atmosphere changing over time as Andrew Pollack suggests?
  • Can Lotusphere serve both technical and business interests?

Steve Jobs leaving Apple 

  • What’s the impact going to be?

Mary Beth Raven leaving IBM 

  • What has MBR done for IBM/Lotus?
  • Will she be missed?
  • What do others need to step forward now she has moved on?
  • Does it put even more pressure of Ed and Joyce?

Tips

Darren:
MIB Browser help make sense of SNMP MIB files and find the OID you need. Great free tool.
Sharon:
IBM innovation centres – all over the world, 2 in the UK for use via business partners or ISVs
Lisa
Other podcasts:  Taking Notes, the 1352 Report, Dogear Nation, Social Geeks and Get Social Do Business.  Also STS events.
Stuart:
LotusLive meetings app for iOS – works great.  But IBM must retire the old 7-digit Sametime Unyte meetings that are incompatible.  Also, needs to offer audio through the app too.

67: Snags, beer and topless karaoke – AusLUG comes to town!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:25 — 40.8MB)

Episode 67, recorded live from Sydney, Australia and over Skype from the UK and Atlanta, Georgia. We discuss AusLUG, recent IBM announcements and more…

Hosts

Stuart McIntyre (blog | twitter | company) & Darren Duke (blog | twitter | company)

Guests

Mat NewmanMat Newman (blog | twitter | company) is the Director of Educaiton for ISW (an IBM Premier business partner in Australia, and this years winner of the IBM South-East Asis Business Partner of the Year award), Mat is a Lotusphere speaker of repute and renown and owner of the coolest yellow suit around!
Mikkel HeisterbergMikkel Heisterberg (blog | twitter | company) Been working with Notes/Domino, Sametime and Java for the last 17 years and have a strong foundation in the Lotus portfolio. I have written five articles for THE VIEW, spoken at several conferences (Lotusphere, ILUG, DNUG) and I’m a Design Partner for Domino NEXT and Lotus Connections. I am a frequent blogger (http://lekkimworld.com) and I am the author of the open source documentation framework LotusScript.doc and the TwitNotes sidebar plugin for Notes 8.x. I am a partner at IntraVision, a Premier IBM Business Partner from Denmark. IntraVision is the creator of the OnTime suite of products (http://www.ontimesuite.com).
Karen HooperKaren Hooper (company | twitter | linkedin) is an Advanced IBM Certified Instructor in both System Administration and Development. Karen and her husband Steve own and manage Dr Notes Solutions, a Premier IBM Business Partner in Australia. Karen is the author of the IBM Lotus Notes 8.5 User Guide (available on Amazon). Her passion is to empower people so that they increase their productivity and use the tools available to them.
Craig DaviesCraig Davies (twitter) is an Administrator and Developer of Notes since V4, and now a proud member of the AUSLug organising committee.  Works in IT Management for a global organisation.
Paul CalhounPaul Calhoun (twitter) is Director of Enablement at GBS

Topics

A more informal chat than usual, recorded with a live audience… We cover AusLUG highlights, announcements made in the keynote, ‘social’ activities and much more.  Darren and Stuart then continue the discussion, covering MWLUG highlights and how Notes/Domino news seems to be ramping up toward Lotusphere.

Tips

No tips this week, sorry!

62: Notes, Domino and Social Business

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:07:28 — 61.9MB)

Episode 62, discussing Notes/Domino 8.5.3, relevance of the products to the Social Business message, the effect of seniority on social engagement and more…

Hosts

Stuart McIntyre (blog | twitter | company) & Darren Duke (blog | twitter | company)

Guests

Ed BrillEd Brill (blog | twitter) is Director, Product Management, IBM Lotus software.  Ed’s focus is on growing and continuing IBM’s success in messaging and collaboration software, through working with customers, business partners, and IBM sales, marketing, and product development organizations.  Ed’s responsibilities in this role have included the market launches of Lotus Notes/Domino 8.5 and 8.5.1, the introduction of Alloy, the release of Lotus Symphony 1.3, and plans/development for LotusLive Notes, an IBM cloud offering for messaging and collaboration. A frequent speaker at IBM and industry events worldwide, Ed is well known for direct contributions to the many Lotus software-focused social media and virtual communities.
Louis RichardsonLouis Richardson (blog | twitter) serves as a worldwide social business evangelist for IBM. As such, he gets to talk to executives and business managers around the world, about how they are using…or thinking of using social software in their organizations.

Topics

Notes/Domino 8.5.3

  • What are the major new features?
  • With the release of the XPages RDBMS extension library we’ve made a huge jump forward. Currently it is on 8.5.3 CD5 users which means Design Partners only
    • When is the public beta of 8.5.3 starting so non-DP’s can get their hands on this tasty goodness?
  • When is it coming?
  • When will it be available as LotusLive Notes?
  • Can you talk at all about Notes/Domino Next, timescales, aims etc?
  • Will this be a key deliverable in terms of the realisation of Project Vulcan?
  • When you’re talking to customers about SocBiz, how much does Notes/Domino come into the conversation?

Social Business

  • The campaign/brand
    • What has the response been from customers to the Social Business message?
    • How about ‘traditional’Notes/Domino customers?
    • We are used to Microsoft being the main competition in the Messaging/Collaboration space – is this still the case around Social Business?
    • Which products are involved?
  • What is the key element for a company to understand if they want to become a social business?
  • Is Blogging still relevant?

OpenNTF

  • Pleased with progress in the opensource support for these technologies?

IBM donates Lotus Symphony code to Apache

  • What does this mean for Symphony going forward?
  • Is Symphony still getting development effort from IBM?

Tips

Darren:
Milebug – THE best mileage tracker for the iPhone (and also Android and Nokia now). For $2.99 a real bargain. There is a lite version too (limits the number of trips you can store, but allows you to see if it fits your needs)
Ed:
Plantronics Savi Office –  I’ve switched over to this as my UC/UT environment in my home office and it’s just a dream along with Sametime 8.5.2
Louis:
When you’re considering how your company is going to implement and leverage social in your business, be sure to (1) keep the focus on the people and (2) make sure it integrates into your business. It’s not about making social your business..it’s about making your business social.
Stuart:
Customise your menus in Connections 3

54: A face is the cheapest form of marketing

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:18:38 — 72.1MB)

Episode 54, recorded on Friday 3rd June 2011, discussing UKLUG, the state of mobile technology, GSX 10, Sametime 8.5.2 and IBMers leaving for the competition..

Hosts

Stuart McIntyre (blog | twitter | company) & Darren Duke (blog | twitter | company)

Guests

Paul MooneyPaul Mooney (blog | twitter | company) is Senior Technical Architect from Bluewave Technology with 15 years experience supporting Lotus messaging products.

Topics

UKLUG 2011 

  • UKLUG? How did it compare to previous UK/ILUGs?
  • How does it compare to other LUGs, e.g. in the US?
  • MOSI is an amazing place
  • Mobile

Paul had some rather interesting observations in in his Bluewave/Teamstudio session in NY 

  • I will do an overview of the day/workshop and point out the issues I found with device setup
  • First month with an Android
  • Windows Phone 7 demand?
  • Windows 8 demo released

GSX 10 update 

  • Paul has been looking at GSX 10.
  • Now in flex goodness. Yep – can go through what I saw
  • Does Quickr, Traveler and BES too

Sametime 8.5.2 released 

  • Will the real Sametime 8.5 stand up? This looks to be the one.
  • Gab’s write-up is excellent
  • Does web conferencing still live on-premise?

Are you a Domino hosting company? 

  • Add yourself to the wiki

Talking of wikis… Lotus Wiki feedback survey 

  • Launched by Mary Beth Raven, give your feedback on how the Wikis work and how they can be improved.

June is Learn XPages Month 

LSOnline is being retired, but content being moved to permanent location 

Darren J Adams has left IBM 

  • The most recent loss to Microsoft
  • Can one person make a difference?
  • Does Social Business mean these individuals are more important?

Tips

Darren:
Superb travel charger kit if you are in the US La Crosse Charge4All. I only need to travel with one device charger now. This one. Does iShiny, mUSB, miniUSB and others out of the box. With car and wall charger and can charge up to 4 devices at once.
Paul:
If you use Lotus Traveler, you may have a requirement to display names in lookup/typeahead mode.  By default that works after you type in 4 characters.  You can alter this though – Go to NTSCONFIG.xml.  There is a parameter called NAME_LOOKUP_MIN_LENGTH. You can alter the required number of characters.
Stuart:
Matt White’s user group template – will be on OpenNTF soon. Fabulous value, works so well, covers most elements of organising a LUG – info sharing, registration, abstract submission, sponsorship and more.  Written in XPages, so also a great way to learn XPages best practice from one of the gurus.  Using it to organise a Connections user group, to be announced very very soon.  Look out for details in the next couple of weeks.