48 – Connections 3.0.1 and the app that could spread like wildfire

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:15:47 — 69.5MB)

Episode 48, recorded Thursday 21st April 2011, discussing the new IBM Connections 3.0.1 release, potential for a Connections ISV community, the deprecation of the Lotus brand and more…

(Sorry for the poor audio quality this week – Stuart was clearly still in holiday mode and forgot to check his Mic settings – amateur!)

Hosts

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

Guests

Adam BrownAdam Brown (blog | twitter | company ) is a Director at ISW, a focused IBM Premier Partner in Australia that operates across the full IBM Software Portfolio including Lotus, WebSphere, Rational, Tivoli, IM, and Business Analytics (Cognos). Adam is the Technical Director for the company and is responsible for helping our clients understand where IBM solutions can help them meet their business objectives. Specifically Adam is personally focused around Connections/Portal/Forms/Notes/Domino/TDI/TIM/TAM/Cognos
Joe RussoJoe Russo (blog | twitter | company ) is Senior Designer on Connections, focused primarily on Connections Communities. Joe works with user feedback in a variety of formats and groups of different development teams to continually improve and innovate social software at IBM.

Topics

Lotus Connections 3.0.1 

  • Announced on Tuesday 5th April, shipped on Thursday 7th April
  • So what’s new?
    • Ideation Blogs
    • Media Galleries in Communities
    • Community Moderation
    • Integration with ECM repositories (Content Manager and Filenet)
    • Closer integration with Sametime
  • Where did these requirements come from?
  • What was the reaction when the features were shown at Lotusphere?
  • Can you upgrade from 2.5 or do you have to go to 3.0 first?

How do we feel about Connections as a product now? 

  • Has it gained traction?
  • Integration with other IBM Products such as Rational Team Concert and Cognos 10.
  • ECM integration is first sign of Quickr-functionaility being migrated into Connections.  How do we see the Quickr product in the future?
  • Where are the ISVs? What’s stopping ISVs from developing for the platform?

More broadly 

  • As a designer for Connections, what are you principal influences?
  • Social Collaboration services are typically though to be intuitive and needing limited training
    • How do the design team make this a reality?
    • Is there more work to do?
  • Mobile access – web versus native apps
    • Connections has a pretty impressive mobile web UI, yet many users want and expect native apps for Android/iOS these days
    • What do we think about this? Is a Mobile web UI enough?
    • How about disconnected access to Connections and other Social Collaboration tools?
    • ISW has some exciting news here. Coming to an AppStore soon – iWildfire for Connections!

More on the Lotus rebranding 

Q1 numbers for IBM 

  • Lotus changes smidgen (+1%)
  • Vowe has an explanation as to why Lotus maybe constantly under-performing

Competition

Win a copy of Michael Sampson’s ‘User Adoption Strategies‘ book.  Simply blog about the This Week in Lotus podcast linking to our site.  We’ll pick one post at random, and send a copy of the book to the winner! 

Tips

DarrenInstall Lotus Sametime in your environment if you are entitled
Adam1) Look out for iWildfire for Connections on the Apple AppStore coming in May! First 20 people to message me with the hastag #iwildfire on Twitter can get a copy of the Beta!
2) Call out for AUSLUG and Lotus Week in Sydney – Monday August 22 – Friday August 26, 2011
Joe1) if you want to help direct and influence connections, come to http://synch.rono.us and be heard, we listen!
2) Integration with ECM repositories like FileNet and Content Manager have an added bonus – if you have the Quickr Connectors installed you get round trip editing.  This means that when you click on a document in the web browser it automatically opens with your preferred editor (PowerPoint, Word, Symphony, Notepad, etc). You can then edit the document and when you close it, it gets automatically saved and checked in to ECM
StuartStrongVPN – VPN client that allows you to set your location in 18 countries around the world. Allows services such as BBC iPlayer, Hulu and Boxee to be used wherever you are.  Plus a great VPN for using at airports etc.  Packages from $55 a year.