Connectr #6

#6

Church House Conference Centre, Westminster, London

19 th September 2008

Lotus Connections 2.0 and Beyond Neil Burston + Stuart McIntyre + Peter Thomond

Me + You = Us + Him + Him

IBM Lotus Connections Special Interest Group . . . I.L.C.S.I.G?

Why ?

W.I.I. F.M What – Lotus Connections 2.0 How – Getting it working Why – What can you do for your organization?

New thinking, new language

Interaction

Buzzword Bingo

“ What’s the Connection”

Innovation Workshop

It’s all about connections . . .

“ What’s the connection?”

Why do we need Connections?

Why . . . #1 - Demographics BB X Y

Why . . . #2 – Technology Adoption BB

Why . . . #3 – Human nature

How to find the right people and information

Work environments are more complex

Work environments are more disconnected

More interactions with unknown people

Improve Business Execution and Reuse Best Practices

If those are the needs, what’s the solution? Need for Innovation Need for Execution Need to Empower Need to Connect Enterprise social software will be the biggest new workplace technology success story of this decade. 30% of enterprises will openly sponsor internal…social sharing spaces to help employees find others with similar interest, skills, backgrounds and experiences. - Gartner, “ Predicts 2007 – Big Changes Ahead in the High Performance Workplace”, Dec 5, 2006

What is Lotus Connections?

IBM Lotus® Connections social software Communities Blogs Dogear Activities Profiles Home page Lotus Connections is social software for business that empowers you to be more innovative and helps you execute more quickly by using dynamic networks of coworkers , partners and customers .

Profiles - Stay In Touch With Your Network

Communities - Vibrant Places of interest

Blogs - Improving Search and Discovery

Dogear - Share and Discover Information

Activities - Get Things Done The Way You Work

Keep up-to-date through the Homepage

Access Lotus Connections from applications you already use IBM WebSphere® Portal Portlet integrates any / all services into portal pages / sites Lotus Connections Services Microsoft Office & Windows Explorer Upload files to Activities, search profiles, create a blog, and make Activity To Do's Extensibility Browser Bookmarklets Feed readers Business card Mashups Mobile REST APIs IBM Lotus Notes Powerful activity sidebar IBM Lotus Quickr Add page to Activities IBM Lotus Sametime Activities and Profiles plug-in

Start your search with a person, from Lotus Notes…

27 … or Lotus Sametime…

31 … or from Outlook…

… or Microsoft Office ...

… or RIM BlackBerry…

Bring it all together SharePoint + Portal + Connections Portal integration Connections integration

… or your enterprise search solution… 50% of all intranet searches in IBM end in a click on user-tagged content, powered by Dogear .

HELP ME WORK MORE EFFICIENTLY AND SHARE BEST PRACTICES

37 Add an email or Notes document to an Activity in Lotus Notes

38 Add Lotus Sametime chat to an activity

39 Add email to an Activity in Microsoft Outlook

Add a file to an Activity from Microsoft Windows Explorer

Add a website link to an Activity

Add a Microsoft Office document to an Activity

Then, you can work with your Activity…

Activities – Templates

Keep up to date with your social Homepage

Features Benefits Works with everything

Ok, I want one, what do I do?

Is it a . . . ?

Is it a . . .

It’s a set of Web Services

Lotus Connections Extensibility

Simple

Easy to learn – ReST-style HTTP based API with XML, Javascript and HTML formatted output

Enables “amateur” as well as professional developers

Open

Access for all users to functionality, regardless of client or platform

Based on Open standards: XML, HTTP, Javascript, Atom feeds

Extensible

Utilizes Open Standards

Used internally by own plugins, mash-ups and partners

What are the obstacles?

Don’t Be Afraid!

Take a deep breath...

Relax...

It isn’t as bad as all that!

Some recent Lotus Connections projects

LC2 Pilot - 50/1,000 users

Windows, Domino LDAP, DB2, 2 VMs, All features

LC2 Reference Deployment - 32,000 users

AIX, AD2003, Oracle, 1 x LPAR++, Profiles/Blogs/Communities (first phase of production deployment)

Windows, AD2003, DB2, 2 VMs, All features

Linux, Domino LDAP, DB2, 2 VMs, All features

Why add Connections to your Domino environment?

“ It's not what work you expect Employee #1234 to accomplish per person-month of work.

It's the work you never expected would happen, that suddenly creates new business.”

Lotus Connections Operational Topology (high level view) Access Points Browsers Lotus Notes Lotus Sametime WebSphere Portal Microsoft Office Microsoft Outlook RIM BlackBerry Feed readers Other rich clients Lotus Connections Services WAS 6.1.0.13 + IBM HTTP Server 6.1.0.13 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux® Enterprise Server V4.0 on x86-32 Microsoft® Windows® 2003 Server - Standard Microsoft Windows 2003 Server – Enterprise SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 IBM AIX® 5.3.0.4 One or more features… Activities Homepage Profiles Dogear Blogs Communities RDBMS DB2 9.1 Fix Pack 2 SQL Server 2005 Oracle 10G 10.2.0.3 Corporate LDAP Directory IBM Tivoli Directory Server 6.0.0.3 or 6.1 Novell eDirectory v8.8 Microsoft Active Directory 2003 SP2 / ADAM Lotus Domino v7.0.2, v8, v8.0.1 Sun Java® System Directory Server v5.2 / v6

‘ Pilot’ Deployment

Windows-only, non-LDAP, Wizard-based cut-down install

Install in less than an hour

All features (Blogs, Communities, etc.) installed on one application server

DB2 Express installed on same system

Users loaded via text file

Only recommended for development/demo

Can be migrated to full install

Physical/Virtual Machine WebSphere Application Server App ( Blogs ) App ( Communities ) App ( Profiles ) App ( Dogear ) App ( Activites ) App ( HomePage ) IBM HTTP Server DB2 Database

Stand-Alone Deployment

Single server with full LC2.0 install

Simplest form of full deployment/configuration

All features (Blogs, Communities, etc.) installed on one application server

All features share one common Lotus Connections features configuration file

Single admin console for six different application server instances

Only recommended for demo / test

WebSphere Application Server App ( Activites ) LDAP / AD LDAP Database Physical/Virtual Machine App ( Blogs ) App ( Communities ) App ( Profiles ) App ( Dogear ) App ( HomePage ) IBM HTTP Server DB2 Database TDI

A more scalable version: Each feature on a two-node cluster with one shared Deployment Manager

More likely infrastructure...

You almost certainly have existing LDAP

either Domino or Active Directory

else is very easy to configure

TDI for Profiles integration will be new, but all scripted and relatively simple for LC use.

Many will have existing Database and relevant skills

DB2, Oracle or MS SQL

if not, go with default DB2 install, well documented and easy to maintain

‘ One person to kick’

WebSphere

The complex bit!

In standalone mode (not ND) is relatively easy to install and configure, particularly on Windows

Relevant experience/skills with other Java/J2EE infrastructures will help

BUT troubleshooting much more tricky than Domino, and versions very delicate to manage

This is where the training $ should go!

IBM HTTP Server is ‘just Apache’

Vast majority will already have HTTP skills and probably Apache somewhere in organisation

WebSphere plugin may be new, but is well documented and is a ‘setup once’ in most cases

Anatomy of a successful pilot

Get business level buy-in and active involvement

Use a sizable user population ~ 10%+

Extended evaluation period (90 days?)

Cross-section of user types - not just IT!

Find the influencers, passionates, collaboration hubs etc, and get them involved

Train, train, train

Give users designated tasks, targets, projects

Conclusion

Lotus Connections 2.0 is ready for deployment

Many, many companies are already doing so

It is complex, but not that complex!

If your organisation has J2EE/Java skills, get them on-side

Pilot within your organisation, but do it properly

What are the issues?

“ empowers you to be more innovative”

What is Innovation?

Innovation is a process

* Success is judged by whether the output is ‘implementable’, value-generating and actually adopted by the target audience (or indeed anyone else).

What is Innovation?

Innovation is a process with specific tasks and features

What is Innovation?

Innovation is a process that needs the support of the organization

Types of Innovation: Sustaining and Disruptive Essentially Same Significantly Advanced Essentially Same Significantly Changed Customer’s perception of process, product or services capability Technological capability of new process, product or service Continuous Improvement ‘ Sustaining Innovations’ Commercially Disruptive Technologically Disruptive often STILL sustaining Technologically & Commercially Disruptive e.g. Flat Screen TV e.g. CDs, disk drive technology e.g. Sony Walkman Adapted from Veryzer (1997) Thomond 2008 ©, Think, Play, Do Ltd

Types of Innovation: “Sustaining” and “New-Market Disruptive” Potentially Disruptive Business Area of displacement Established Business Area of new wealth / new net growth Thomond 2008 ©, Think, Play, Do Ltd

What blocks Innovation? Idea Capture Holistic Innovation Management Innovation Awareness Rapid Customer Feedback Thomond 2008 ©, Think, Play, Do Ltd

Dialog - Group discussions