Connections, Verse mail migration and Watson Workspace experience – Canal Barge Company, Inc.

Social Connections 11 Chicago, June 1-2 2017
IBM Social Connect 11
CONNECTIONS, VERSE MAIL
MIGRATION AND
WATSON WORKSPACE
EXPERIENCE
CANAL BAGE COMPANY
6/2/17
Kerry Godbold

PLATINUM SPONSORS
GOLD SPONSORS
SILVER SPONSORS

Kerry Godbold
Canal Barge Company, Inc.
IS Applications Administrator
• Over 20 years of Notes Admininistation experience, Notes app support and client
support
• Project Coordinator for Connections and Verse rollout
• Project Coordinator for OnBase, TowWorks and other cloud apps

What are barges and why are they important?

• Support for the movement to a more collaborative, transparent and accountable work culture, while
maintaining security and appropriate confidentiality controls.
• A way to capture the knowledge and culture of our company and transmit that to each other and to new
and future employees.
• Knowledge transfer in managing succession.
• An increase in the value of our intellectual property and knowledge, by making it more available to our
teams
• A way to increase the quality of our decisions, capturing the background and decision making process of
our decisions, and increase the accountability of their follow-through.
• Breakdown of silos.
• Encouragement of thought leadership, and another way to identify future leaders through seeing how
people engage with work and knowledge sharing.
• Mobile workforce support, using the Connections mobile app.
Benefits of IBM Connections

2015 2016 2017
Roll out
Connections
Early Adopters Program
IS staff, IS Liaisons, project core team, Executive admins
Develop Best Practices
Create interesting content
Make Connections Primary
Repository
Documentation, How tos and guides
Departmental communities
Individual status reports
Trial roll
out of
Verse
Limited roll out
On the heels of the
connections roll out.
Company
wide roll
out
Training and mentoring program
Provide how-to videos, lunch and learns, project
advising. Build library of training materials for desk
and mobile workers. Create mentoring program for
leadership team.
Build and highlight case studies
Highlight successful use cases outside of IS dept. to
use as examples.
Continued Verse migrations
With a goal to move all users’ mail to Verse.
Raise the
bar
Widespread usage
Connections established as the
platform for collaboration and
repository for workflow documents,
education, and company
documentation.
Final Verse migrations
Finish converting all users’ mail to Verse.
Engage Senior leadership
Use and derive value and insights from
using Connections
Timeline

Success Stories of Using IBM Connections at Canal Barge Company
As we roll out and adopt the use of IBM Connections as our enterprise collaboration platform, we are building success
stories across the company. These serve as internal "case studies" to inspire other users and teams to have the "AHA"
moment for adoption. Here are some examples.
Salesforce Team Training and Coordination
The Salesforce users have been using Connections to access their training materials.
This has allowed the managers to establish consistent and best practices across the user community.
Barge Maintenance Vendor Audit Coordination
The Barge Maintenance team uses Connections communities both for training materials and for shared access to the latest
vendor management audit information.
Executive Staff Activities Usage / Project Team Planning
Executive Staff is using Connections to assign deliverable tasks within that group via Activities.
Many project teams are using Connections to develop and socialize their plans, workflow process improvements, and
implementation details.
We now have more than 80 communities in Connections, including communities and users focused in most of our offices and
departments.

How Tos and Guides
This community now has dozens of instructions sheets for various tools and work processes, which
can be browsed and searched by all shoreside employees.
Selected content from this community is also provided on the CBC Portal.
The help desk can send a user a link to one of these documents, when appropriate, in response to a
service desk ticket.
Agendas and Takeaways from Meetings
Various groups and departments are using Wikis or Activities in Connections to collaboratively
assemble agendas for meetings, and to record decisions and assignments, creating more
transparency and accountability.
Examples include the Knowledge Management Steering Committee and the IS Liaisons group.
Mobile Workforce
All Connections content can be seen and edited using PC, Laptop, Tablet or Smartphone.
The servicedesk can use their mobile devices to set people up in Connections within minutes of a
request. Anyone who owns a community can add users to their community from their mobile device.
Success Stories of Using IBM Connections at Canal Barge Company
(continued)

Creation of a Connections and Verse Training Hub WIKI
****Great as a training reference, but should never take the place of adoption evangelizing

Barge Maintenance department survey sheet updated from the
Connections mobile app by various employees in the field.

Things to think about…
• Should management create a general policy regarding
Connections and Verse usage?
• Connections is, in a sense, an open platform.
• Connections allows you to start creating Connections, posting files and other content immediately after you first
login.
Should Connections usage conform to an HR digital content policy or code of conduct? If so, how do you publish
this in Connections?
• No restrictions on community creation.
• How do you know if a Community exists with content you need to post? If there is, and it's restricted, you
wouldn't know it exists.
• Should management create a policy stating that if a community needs to be created, check with the adoption
coordinator(s) to make sure that community doesn't already exists.

1. Use the Metrics section under “Manage Organization” in Connections to see key indicators
regarding Connections usage across the company.
2. Keep Connections and Verse roll out log, to record adoption, Verse migrations, training
provided, etc.
3. Meet often with your Connections and Verse adoption coordinator on project progress,
participation status of early adopters, mentor successes/challenges, etc. Be open to
modifying your adoption strategy, if necessary, if a certain strategy isn’t as successful as
desired.
4. Develop strong relationships with your IBM adoption support staff.
5. Send your IT staff to regional admin group conferences (e.g. MWLUG) and annual national
conferences such as IBM Think. Lots of great information provided at these conferences
which will aid in successful adoption.
6. Promote the great support IBM provides and their responsiveness to your requests. This is
one area we have found that sets IBM apart from their competitors. Support references:
a) support@collabserv.com
b) 888-376-0105
c) Support link on the IBM website
d) The IBM Support mobile app.
e) Once Watson Workspace is released, you can register yourself with an IBM ID and begin
communicating with your IBM technical sales and support staff via Team
Spaces and Direct
Messaging.
Tips to help ensure a successful adoption of
Connections and Verse
Use metrics
Keep roll out
logs
Keep up with
staff training
Know where to
get help

ISBG, Oslo, Norway - Register at http://www.isbg.org/
IBM Think Jam – Sign up to be notified when registration opens: https://www.ibm.com/events/think/
JUMP session: IBM Connections Next Deployment – The Easy Button
Register at:
MWLUG – Washington, DC USA Register at:
June 7 – 8
June 20 - 22
August 8 - 10
June 21
http://mwlug.com/mwlug/mwlug2017.nsf/regis
ter.xsp
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27049862&myns=swglotus&mynp=OCSSYGQH&mync=R&cm_sp=swglotus-_-OCSSYGQH-_-R

Connections, Verse mail migration and Watson Workspace experience – Canal Barge Company, Inc.

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Connections, Verse mail migration and Watson Workspace experience – Canal Barge Company, Inc.