Designing Lotus Connections 2.5

On the Design @ IBM site, the IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 designers tell the story about how they created its exemplary user experience. http://www.ibm.com/software/ucd/gallery/connections_software.html

This is a great overview of the design themes for Lotus Connections 2.5. In the video, Ethan Perry, Lead Product Designer for Lotus Connections, has a great quote on one of the core features of Lotus Connections.

<quote>

Social software let's people connect directly to each other
...no matter where you are in Lotus Connections there is a focus on people.

</quote>

Extending Lotus Connections to WebSphere Portal

Prior to Lotus Connections 2.5 a single portlet was offered from IBM that allowed for read access to the Lotus Connections services (Activities, Blogs, Dogear, Profiles). For this release, we've created a new set of portlets that are aimed at making your Portal more Social!

IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Portlets for IBM WebSphere Portal
The IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Portlets for WebSphere Portal delivers the Lotus Connections rich set of social software services for use within a WebSphere Portal environment. WebSphere Portal users can integrate the Activities, Blogs and Bookmarks services of Lotus Connections to:

• Create and work with Lotus Connections Activities within WebSphere Portal. Users can easily set prioritization, Activity status and to do items for their Activities. Also, have the ability to manage the membership to add and leverage the expertise and experience of others in the organization by working together.
  
• Within WebSphere Portal users can view and create Lotus Connections Blog postings and comments.
  
• Easily create, edit and discover Bookmarks in Lotus Connections that have been qualified by others with similar interests and expertise.

Extending Lotus Connections to Microsoft products

We are committed to bringing the value of social software to the enterprise and realize that work happens everywhere. With that goal in mind, the Lotus Connections team has been hard at work this year updating our plug-ins for the 2.5 release. Available now as a free download on the IBM Lotus Business Solutions Catalog are the following plug-ins for Microsoft SharePoint, Office and Windows.

The IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft SharePoint
The IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft SharePoint is intended to enhance Microsoft SharePoint environments with additional social and collaborative functionality via interoperability with IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 services. The plug-in provides the following features:

• Lotus Connections Profiles search integrates with your Microsoft SharePoint directory, and you can easily add people to your Microsoft SharePoint group or site.
  
• Lotus Connections business card for getting contact and social networking information about users in your organization appears within your Microsoft SharePoint environment. From the business card, you can easily email, instant message, open their Blog, Bookmarks or full Profile.
  
• Lotus Connections tag cloud Web Part can be added to any Microsoft SharePoint site for finding content contributed to the social network. Clicking a tag, launches a query against all Lotus Connections services. From the results, easily explore the social data in Lotus Connections using the tags as a gateway to the Lotus Connections federated search.

IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows
The IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows is intended for Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook) users, adding social networking features and functionality from Lotus Connections services, including Activities, Blogs and Profiles.

The IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft Office provides the following features:

• Add a Microsoft Office document to an Lotus Connections Activity.
  
• Create a To Do list for a Lotus Connections Activity.
  
• Post a Microsoft Word document to a Lotus Connections Blog.
  
• Search on a person's name to view their Lotus Connections profile or search for content in other Lotus Connections services such as Bookmarks, Communities, Blogs and Activities.
  
• Add Microsoft Outlook content, such as email, to an Lotus Connections Activity.
  
• Access Lotus Connections services such as Profiles, Bookmarks, Communities and Blogs from the Microsoft Outlook toolbar.
  
• View Lotus Connections business cards for people in your organization who send you e-mail.

The IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft Windows allows you to add files from Windows Explorer to a Lotus Connections Activity.

Lotus Connections 2.5 is available

Since it's initial release in the Summer of 2007, Lotus Connections has been the leader in the market for enterprise social software. Today the drive to empower users to share and refine innovative ideas through a social network continues with the availability of IBM Lotus Connections 2.5.

Read more about this release's features and benefits at the IBM Lotus Connections site and enjoy these resources to help you plan and get started with the release....

IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Reviewer's Guide is now available on developerWorks

The Information Center has been updated for Lotus Connections 2.5 release.

The Lotus Connections 2.5 System Requirements are here.

Here are a listing of the files you'll want to grab from Passport Advantage:

• Quick Start Guide- Lotus_Connections25_QSG_CZ0LCML.pdf


• Lotus Connections Pilot- Lotus_Connections_Plt25_WIN_CZ4SGML.zip


• Lotus Connections 2.5 Windows- Lotus_Connections25_WIN_CZ4SHML.exe


• Lotus Connections 2.5 Linux- Lotus_Connections25_Linux_CZ4SIML.tar


• Lotus Connections 2.5 AIX- Lotus_Connections25_AIX_CZ4SJML.tar


• IBM Lotus Connections Database Configuration and Profiles Population Wizards for AIX and Linux- Lotus_Connection25_Wzd_LNXAIX_CZ4SLML.tar


• IBM Lotus Connections Database Configuration and Profiles Population Wizards for Windows- Lotus_Connections25_Wzd_WIN_CZ4SKML.exe

IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Announcement

IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 develops professional communities and networks of colleagues

IBM® Lotus® Connections 2.5 is social software for business that empowers you to be more innovative, enabling efficient execution of business strategies by calling upon the expertise of networks of coworkers, partners, and customers. These networks become vibrant professional and customer communities that help you discover information, develop and refine creative ideas, and collaborate with the right people to achieve faster business results.

A big milestone for Lotus Connections is coming this month (August 28, 2009: Electronic software delivery). The interest and full on need for social software for the enterprise has never been greater. Lotus Connections, was the first to deliver these capabilities to the enterprise market and continues the drive and leadership. Not only have wiki and file sharing capabilities been added to the product, but we have upgraded Profiles and Communities based on your feedback to allow for more real-time updates and tighter feature integration. The Home Page brings it all together in 2.5, allowing users to not only build their own social view, but also quickly get an aggregated view of what's going on in Lotus Connections.

I'll be posting much more about these features and more in the coming months. All I can add to this now is my thanks to the entire Connections team and my excitement for getting this release out.
Please have a look on the Lotus Greenhouse to put your hands on the Lotus Connections 2.5 beta.

Lotus Connections on E2TV at #e2conf

Go Suzanne! Go Connections!

e2conf - a view from away

If, like me, you are trying to keep up to date on the happs at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference this week in Boston, from afar; you may enjoy these on-line resources:
E2TV
Enterprise 2.0 Blog
E2Conf twitter account
E2Conf - The Back Channel

Also, have a look at the The Collaboration Soapbox blog for a day-by-day look of IBM at Enterprise 2.0.