The Connections Blog

One of the most eagerly awaited IBM announcements that I can remember is finally with us...  Lotus Connections 2.5!

IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 develops professional communities and networks of colleagues

At a glance

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.

* Collaborate with communities of professions using wikis, file sharing, blogs, and activities
* Customize the community experience by selecting a theme for the user interface, and choosing the arrangement of widgets on a community page
* Post a status message informing your network of new best practice
* Locate people and expertise using a tag cloud
* Avoid version anxiety by sharing personal files with update notifications
* Embed a video in a blog posting to make it available to readers
* Stay informed of market trends by scanning a list of updates from across your network
* Subscribe to people or tags in the watchlist to focus on the updates that are most important to you        

Overview

IBM Lotus Connections is social software for business. It empowers business professionals to:

* Develop, nurture, and remain in contact with a network of their colleagues
* Respond quickly to business opportunities by calling upon the expertise in their network
* Discuss and refine new creative ideas with communities of coworkers, partners, and customers

New features of Lotus Connections 2.5

Communities: Create, find, join, and work with communities of people

* Collaborate with community members using activities, blogs, wikis, and file sharing
* Customize the community experience by selecting a theme for the user interface, and choosing the arrangement and selection of social software widgets
* View statistics on discussion forum usage and highlight important topics by pinning them for the community

Files: A new personal file sharing service

* Upload files and securely share them with others
* Tag files so they can be found more quickly
* Add recommendations and comments to files

Wikis: A new wiki service allows you to collaboratively edit content

* Create wikis that are standalone or associated with a community
* Create wiki pages; enter and edit content
* Compare wiki page versions to see what was changed

Profiles: Quickly find the people and expertise you need

* Post a status message informing your network of what you are doing
* Locate people and expertise using a tag cloud
* Post messages for your colleagues on their profile page

Blogs: Present your ideas in a Weblog and get feedback from others

* Create a blog for use by the members of a community
* Embed a video in a blog posting to make it available to readers

Bookmarks: Save, organize, and share bookmarks using social bookmarking

* Import and export bookmarks from and to a browser

Activities: Gather the e-mails, IM chats, documents, messages, and other information that you need to accomplish a business objective

* Create an activity for use by the members of a community

Home page: Remain informed of social data updates from across the Lotus Connections services

* Stay up-to-date by scanning the new list format for displaying updates from across your professional network
* Subscribe to people or tags in the watchlist to focus on the updates that are most important to you

By empowering people to easily connect with employees, partners, and customers, Lotus Connections can help businesses, government agencies, educational institutions, and others realize the following benefits:

* Task execution is faster through quick access to information from an expanded professional network
* Increased efficiency and effectiveness of business processes by using existing skills discovered through your professional network
* Decisions can be made with confidence knowing they were vetted by experts across the organization and reflect past experience
* Innovative products and services can be developed using the experiences and knowledge of communities of employees, partners, and customers
* Sustainable competitive advantage can be created by leveraging innovation from across your value chain and building stronger relationships

And of course, you'll want to know when it will be available?

Planned availability date

August 28, 2009: Electronic software delivery

September 18, 2009: Media and documentation

Just ten days to wait!  Prepare those upgrades and installs ASAP...

Link: Announcement Letter (HTML)
Link: Announcement Letter (PDF)

By: Stuart McIntyre - Connections | 0 Comments | On: 18 August 2009 06:55:23 | Tags:  connections  lotus  2.5 

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