The Connections Blog

This is a cracking case study on the use of Lotus Conenctions within a non-IT-specific organisation, detailed in CIO Insight:Collaboration:

Superhero in the Cubicle

Let's face it: It's not easy working for a U.S. company these days, regardless of your job. Decentralization is pushing more tasks down, leaving those below with more to organize, monitor and deliver. Communications technology means everyone is on call 24/7, in the office, at home, on the train, in the car. The flood of information unleashed on the Internet that was supposed to simplify our jobs has left most of us feeling deluged...

Most, but not all. As the Internet blossoms into Web 2.0, some workers and managers are discovering new tools to cope with task and data overload: Flexible tools designed for the myriad challenges knowledge workers face, not just for routine tasks. Tools that help better manage and prioritize work, rally the strongest team members for each job and use talent most efficiently. Tools that help deliver work and gather feedback. And perhaps most critical, tools that let only the essential information through the floodgates, in the most useful format.

Thanks to new collaborative tools, these employees have the power to do their jobs in a whole new way-a way that makes the best use of their time and their company's resources. It's hard to fault them for feeling a little like superheroes, capes rippling in the wind.

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Giora Hadar, the FAA's knowledge architect, says the FAA went with IBM Lotus Connections over other collaborative technologies because the FAA was already an IBM shop, using Lotus Notes, Domino and Sametime for instant messaging and Web conferencing. But a big company product doesn't necessarily carry a big company price tag: Activities, the single Lotus Connections product the FAA uses, has a list price of $55 a user for a perpetual license; the full Connections suite costs $110 a user. Hadar says the Disaster Response Team, which is spread across the U.S., is considering all the Connections components to see how they can be applied to its work.

Hopefully there will be many more of these case studies to come...

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