How to Find Me at Connect 2013

Aside from the obvious social ways of seeing me walking around or sitting in a session, you can reach out via social media all the links are on the left side of the blog.

While I am in a session I usually have Twitter up and replying. Otherwise I am on the move or in a meeting and not likely to answer that quickly. If you need me that badly, you probably know my phone numbers already.

I will likely be arriving Saturday night around 11PM after driving up from Boca Raton.

My focus is to work on VoiceRite business development and customer meetings and specific sessions of interest includes anything except the Developer track. In other words, if you do not find me, look for me at Pedestal C45 or leave me messages there. The pedestal is to the left when you come down the escalator to the exhibition floor.

My hours, right now, for Ped Duty are:
Sun evening where the party starts
Mon 10-11 and 12-1
Tues 12-12:30 and 4-5
Wen 9-10 and 1-1:30

I am speaking Wen at 11-11:30 on Soloing vs Sharing, it is an interactive session and no slides. It is a Social Cafe after all. Ok, 2 slides, but they made me do it.
If you want to be apart of the Social Cafe, on the exhibition floor against the far left wall when you come down the escalators) they have charging stations for laptops and phones, among other goodies.

Abstract for my talk: You may like to share, but what if your boss does not? Or it's not in your company culture? Fiefdom's, silos, call them what you want but they are harder to change then you can imagine. In this open forum we will discuss both sides of the fence, and ways to encourage sharing.

Sunday is Business Partner Day and I will be in some of those sessions as well as some of the Jump Starts and then I have Tweetups, Champion meetings, Social team meetings, VoiceRite meetings and of course the Beach party.


Monday, OGS and then sessions, meetings, then evening events.
Tuesday same as Monday but there is a panel for Redbook Thought Leaders at 1:30-2, again at the Social Cafe, where I will be discussing as part of the panel:

So You Want to Blog?

Want to start your own blog or be a guest blogger? Find out what makes an interesting blog. Hear what works and what doesn't. Best practices from the IBM Social Business Insights bloggers, including tips from the IBM Redbooks Thought Leaders.

Wednesday same as Monday except for the Social Cafe session already discussed.
Thursday I usually leave sometime after lunch so I can be home by dinner time.

Hope to see everyone and if you don't see me just be social or use your social media.

PS - If you see an IBM Champion, we will all have special ribbons on our badges they tell us, you should get a picture with us and post them using #IBMchamp to Twitter and include #IBMConnect. The person who gets a picture with the most Champions wins something. Also the Champion with the most attendees pictures get something. More details at the Photo Booth at the Social Cafe. There are over 70 Champions, not all of us are at the show.

Connect 2013 Tip #4 Connections Goodies

This is a natural presumption, but you know some of you out there just can't wait for your IT team to set you up sometimes. I am not advocating you should go around them and if your environment is that locked down, sorry, but for everyone else...

So I am going to remind everyone about the FREE and (mostly) client side benefits you have that can be installed to help you get the most out of your IBM Connections services. All of these are at the Greenhouse Catalog. But some have been updated, you do know you should update the widgets if you haven't recently? Right? Hopefully we will see some new ones during or after Connect 2013.

1) Lotus Notes Widgets covers:

• Status Updates
• Files
• Activities
• Business Card

2) Desktop Plugin for Windows covers:

• Upload local files to IBM Connections from Windows Explorer or from your desktop
• Share uploaded files with people, communities, or folders in IBM Connections
• Work on files locally and publish them to IBM Connections
• View people's contact details and get in touch with them
• Pin, follow, or like IBM Connections files and folders
• View or contribute comments for a file
• NEW Lock a file when you are editing it to prevent file conflicts
• NEW View and restore files from IBM Connections Trash
• NEW Share folders with IBM Connections Communities

Here is a video of it in action:

3) Sametime Widget covers (and works for 4.0):

• NEW: SPNEGO support (using Sametime 8.5.2 IFR1)
• NEW: Support for Catalan, Kazakh, Thai languages
• Save chat transcripts into a Connections activity or a community forum.
• Business Card federates data from various sources such as the Connections Profiles, Sametime buddy list, and the Lotus Notes Directory. Links to the Connections applications are available as well as profile contact information.

The IBM Connections 3.0.1.1 Plug-in for IBM Sametime supports:

• IBM Connections 3.0.1.1
• IBM Lotus Sametime 8.5.1 standalone clients (Standard, Advanced, and Sametime Unified Telephony)
• IBM Sametime 8.5.2 IFR1 standalone clients (Standard, Advanced, and Sametime Unified Telephony)

4) Quickr Widget covers both Quickr for Domino and J2EE (I have not tested it, possibly needs server side help):
With the IBM® Connections Connector for Lotus® Quickr™, you can create associated Lotus Quickr team places for IBM Connections communities. A Lotus Quickr team place provides a central location from which a team can organize, share files, and collaborate on documents. Every IBM Connections community owner can optionally choose to create an associated Lotus Quickr team place. Updates made in the Lotus Quickr team place are aggregated in the community overview page, making it easier to stay current with projects and work collaboratively. Access control and membership of the Lotus Quickr place is determined by the often fluctuating IBM Connections community membership; it does not need to be managed separately. This version of the connector supports integration of Communities in IBM Connections 4.0 with Lotus Quickr 8.5.1 for WebSphere® Portal, or Lotus Quickr 8.5.1 for Lotus® Domino® 8.5.

4A) Quickr J2EE Library for Connections in case you need it too (I have not tested it, possibly needs server side help).

5) Firefox Connections Toolbar which I really like, when using Firefox and covers:
The IBM Connections toolbar for Firefox facilitates searching and using IBM Connections directly from the toolbar without the need to navigate or search the IBM Connections UI. The toolbar supports IBM Connections 3.0 to 4.0

6) Widget for Sharepoint covers:

• NEW: Support for Catalan, Kazakh, Thai languages
• Add the widget for Connections community owners to setup and customize
• Easily add documents from Microsoft SharePoint Sites to your communities
• View and edit Folders and Document properties
• Download and Check Out documents for editing then upload to share changes with the community

The IBM Connections 3.0.1.1 Widget for Microsoft SharePoint supports:

• IBM Connections 4.0
• IBM Connections 3.0.1.1
• IBM Connections 3.0.1
• IBM Lotus Connections 3.0
• Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Standard
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
• Microsoft Windows 2008 Server Enterprise
• Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Enterprise

 There you go 6 widgets to help you get the most out of your Connections installation and all for FREE!

See you at Connect!

Social Cafe at Connect 2013

Donna Bieg posted this and I wanted to make sure everyone knew about it. My session is on Wen at 11AM and I may be on a panel in between.

The Social Cafe is on the exhibition floor to the left as you come down the escalator or to the right if you come in from the Lunch level.

Take a break and recharge your mobile device in the Social Cafe, while listening to short informative social talks by industry leaders from TechCrunch, Deloitte Digital, Redbook Thought Leaders, customers, business partners, IBM and IBM Champions. 

A wide variety of social topics will be presented, including: Social enablement, collaboration, mobile apps, social networking, and community management.  Stop by to discuss the value of social with Chris Heuer of Deloitte Digital and debate the future of data with TechCrunch witer, Alex Williams. You can see the full schedule below.

Location: 

Talks will be conducted at the social cafe in the solutions showroom, near the bookstore.   

 Monday, January 28, 2013

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

 

Connect2013 Tip #2 Sametime Goodies

Everyone who uses Sametime loves it. It just works and does some great things too, when properly configured.

There are some things few people ever know about so I want to highlight some and end with a few links to nice ST tools.

1) Why does every Community use the same icon?

Because you never changed it. Really. You go into the Manage Sametime Community from File-Preferences-Sametime-Server Communities-CommunityName and the Icon tab and you have a prebuilt set of 5 choices or you could add a 16x16 icon same size as a favicon.

While this normally would not occur or be needed by the average user, if you also logged into

A) IBM Greenhouse for instance, or

B) LotusLive IBM SmartCloud for Social Business
you see where this could be helpful. I made those icons for you for each Community, enjoy.

2) Did you know you can check someone's calendar availability for a meeting from their sametime icon?
Right click on the person and select Check Availability. How awesome is that!

2a) While there, right click and look at all the options you have, Instant meeting! Collaboration History! Wait, you never tried these? Go do it now. I'll wait. Remember to thank the Sametime team and Product managers when you see them at Connect.

2b) If you used SUT or SUTLite you would have even more options and benefits like calling the person directly.

3) Did you know Sametime has a screen capture tool built-in as well?
Where you see the More drop down menu, you have a screen capture tool. It says Capture Part of Your Screen

4) If you use IBM Connections and Sametime you must get the IBM Connections Plugin for Sametime
No administrator needed to make it work, but your mileage may vary based on the installed version of Connections. You get a nice quick integration to hop to your Connections applications.

5) Got Skype? Pentos says they have a plugin for Skype usage with Sametime. Looks interesting and they provide a 10 day trial, just enough for those coming to Connect.

6) Many clients exist for android, iPhone, Macs, Linux in addition to the IBM provided client so ask around check it out. when I am doing testing I use QuipIM on my Android phone in addition to the IBM client.

Lots of Sametime sessions at Connect 2013, see you there!

A Week of Connect2013 User Tips #1 Company Logo on Letterhead

Connect2013 starts next week and I wanted to provide a daily tip for you the person using Lotus IBM Notes and Domino and naturally the administrator managing it as well. This is done using Notes 9 and works in previous editions as well. This is not a new option in Notes 9, but it never hurts to remind everyone.

Customizing your Notes client is not so difficult and can provide some healthy warm and friendly feelings when accomplished. Remember to always store all changes in a separate named database file with a different Notes ID otherwise your changes will be overwritten on upgrading. And document the procedure and reference points so anyone can repeat it later.

So for tip #1, I want to review how to put your Company Logo on every message you send.

You will need a Designer client, download it for FREE from IBM, which usually means the administrator is the one who will do this. However, you, the end user can have some fun on your own. You will need to change the mail template that all users mail files use as their template. I know, editing the mail template is not always approved, but if you already customize it in any way, this is really a simple update and your CEO, well your CMO at least, should love it.

There is a technote, #1094814 that outlines what to do but is a bit out dated, but here are some more details for those who are not so familiar with this topic.

Instructions to Edit the Letterhead:
Part 1: Adding a Logo Graphic
1) I will presume you have a file in GIF, JPG, PNG or Bitmap and is 88 pixels high and 70 pixels wide (although a size as large as 90 x 85 should fit in most cases) you can adjust the size in your graphics program.
2) Open Domino Designer
3)  Select File-Application-Open from the top menu bar
4) Find your Server or select Local if you are testing or doing this for yourself

5) Locate the Mail 85.ntf or in my picture maill9.ntf
6) Highlight the file and click on Open
7) Find the Images directory and double click on it to open up a new tab and you will see all your images
8) Click on Import Image Resource and the pop up window asks where to find the file

9) Select the image to add
10) The image will now be listed and you need to edit the name so there is no extension and is named ltr-somename with an Alias of StdNotesLtr51 ( It is also suggested that you start numbering your custom letterheads at a value of 50, so as not to interfere with the letterhead numbers that ship with the Mail template per above technote)

Not done yet, you need to add the new letterhead logo into the drop down box so any user can find it.

Part 2: Editing the Drop Down List of Letterheads
1) With the mail template still open in Designer
2) Double Click on Forms to open a new tab with all the forms and find (Calendar Profile)
3) Double Click to open it
4) Find the Letterhead Tab and click on it
5) Click on DefaultLogo
6) You should see this line in the window below and to the right:
@If(logo = ""; "StdNotesLtr25"; Logo) or something similar which is the default

7) You can change this to your new logo default, I am using 19 as it was free at the time, but you should use above 50 to be safe.
8) Now double click on the DefaulLogo text/box
9) You will see a new pop up window open, go to the Control tab (The old style key)

10) In the Choices box create a new line and add the Graphic name with a pipe the | and StdNotesLtr51 as shown in the picture.

11) Once you added the graphic here, click on the Check Arrow that appears to save it
12) Press CTRL-S or close the Form tab and it will prompt to save it
13) Don't forget to sign the template with your Application ID so the ECL warnings do not pop up for users asking if they trust you.

Test your Work:

While in your inbox, click on More, then Preferences, then Mail tab then the Letterhead tab

Find your new Graphic by name and say ok.

If all went well, it will be there and will now be sent to anyone inside your organization. This will not be sent outside your organization.

You can now let the Design task update everyone's mail template and if you set the default to this number it will be there for everyone.

Similarly you can put any graphic you want in there, subsidiaries, holidays, divisions, awards, as long as it fits.

See you at Connect 2013!

PS - In case you wondered, this is a list i made of what is in my client:
No Letterhead|StdNotesLtr0
Bouncy Earth|StdNotesLtr1
Buck Rogers Mail|StdNotesLtr2
Computer Chip|StdNotesLtr3
Decco|StdNotesLtr4
Golf|StdNotesLtr5
Frank Lloyd|StdNotesLtr7
Clouds|StdNotesLtr8
Gateway|StdNotesLtrGateway
Geometry |StdNotesLtr9
Gray Gradient with Lines|StdNotesLtr13
Surfboard|StdNotesLtr14
Maple Leaf|StdNotesLtr6
Marquee|StdNotesLtr34
Metal Plate|StdNotesLtr15
Architect|StdNotesLtr16
Plain Text and Web Only|StdNotesLtr0
Pony Express|StdNotesLtr17
Post Mark|StdNotesLtr33
Primitive|StdNotesLtr20
Purple Geometry|StdNotesLtr18
Slashed Lines with Globe|StdNotesLtr21
Squiggle with Backdrop|StdNotesLtr22
Fishing|StdNotesLtr23
Tacks|StdNotesLtr24
Mail Envelope|StdNotesLtr25
Teal and Yellow Lines|StdNotesLtr26
Three Dimensional Relief|StdNotesLtr27
Adirondack Chair|StdNotesLtr28
Triangle with Dots|StdNotesLtr30
Triangles|StdNotesLtr29
Wild Confetti|StdNotesLtr32