NCUG Wrap Up and NOMAD for Android Beta information

NCUG is over,  and it was a very good event run by Hogne and the NCUG team here in Stockholm.

They changed the name from ISBG, which was LSBG, in an effort to jump start the regional user group again. They also let us know next year it will be in Copenhagen in September 2020.

The customers that came out for the event were almost all on R10, or will be, and most of them run Connections as well.

A truly great feeling to be surrounded by them all and talk with them about what they have done and are looking to accomplish in the future.

My sessions were both filled and everyone, including myself, left them with new knowledge and that is what these events are all about, meeting people and sharing information.

Sharing with each other, not being in fear of people hearing what you have done but trying to encourage and help each other, is what separates us from the Microsoft minds of the world.

Just like what made me fall in love with Notes way back when in R2.

For me it was never about the applications or even the mail, it was about the freedom if information.

The freedom to share information with people.

At a time when green screens still ran your world and anything you wanted was 6 levels of authority just to get a file, Notes was what I thought corporate worlds would be like when I finally got to work in a real business.

Thank God for Ray, Mitch,and Jim for bringing it out.

Richard Jefts spoke at length about the future, the vision of more applications, why Sametime is so important and how R11 will be the first HCL Notes/Domino/Sametime version. Once the divorce is final with IBM we will learn more details about the future which will be Simple, Secure and Intuitive.

We received word of the imminent arrival of Sametime 10,Limited Use Edition and what is part of it all.

Uffe Sorensen made it clear R11 will not be out on 11/11 in case you wondered.

Opening up Domino further to other vendors like Cisco, Salesforce and ServiceNow will help us extend workflow applications to a new world and a new time.

The recent NOMAD(not  to be confused with the R7/8 Nomad of Notes on a USB) for running your applications on an iPad or iPhone was shown off and discussed by Theo Heselmans (IBM Lifetime Champion) of the great Engage.ug conference using his wine application. We also had the opportunity to get in on the beta for Android of ti which would make me happy as I am an Android user.

If you want to be a part of it as well, go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XXBFP6N.
EDIT: Fixed URL, sorry about the typo

Adam Gartenberg from IBM, but soon to be HCL discussed Connections, the future is bright, the future is different and it all goes back to redesigning the UX and UI along with numerous other ideas from the jams and aha requests.

HCL is listening, and they are doing or will be doing. Not everything can be done all at once.

There were some partner sessions, there was a session on setting up Docker, Connections sessions, a user adoption strategy session, case studies and live code examples. In short, a little bit of everything for everyone. And all sessions were well attended.

Congrats again to the NCUG team and hope to see you again soon.

Domino 10, The Early Game is Afoot

Notes is dead they say.

Domino is passe.

Who uses this thing?

Why do you (meaning me) bother?

Yes it is a tough life one leads when they go against the grain.When you believe in something so strongly you pursue it until a better pivot comes along. So far nothing I have used outside of Salesforce makes me want to pivot away from ICS, but I always have a soft spot for CRM apps, see my history with SugarCRM.

IBM did a webinar yesterday and due to the holiday here I could not be on it live but I just finished the recorded version (only some slight redactions of a few screen shots) and want to report about it. You can watch/listen to it here.

Bob Schultz the recently crowned GM for IBM Watson Talent and Collaboration Solutions opened the call.

Bob then handed it over to Richard Jefts who is the GM/VP Collaborative Workflow Platforms for HCL and Andrew Manby Director of Offering Management for ICS. 

Jason Gary of the ICS internal Pink team, now with HCL, also snuck on the call and did a quick Node.js discussion and demo. Leaving Connections to work on Notes and Domino is a loss for the Connections team but a big win for the Domino one.

So what did they actually tell us?

I am skipping the dev items because I am not a developer and would not explain them well at all. Aside from the Node.js inclusion that will be built in, not bolted on, please go read some other blogs from my developer friends like Paul Withers and Hogne Pettersen and the Red Pill team.

The list is in no particular order includes the following and feel free to provide more details or comment:

• 256GB NSF sizes - Currently we have a 64GB limit so this is nice but why in a world of unlimited cloud storage and massive mail files is there even a limit of under 1TB? Performance and function. The larger it is the harder it is to maintain it properly and the resources to manage it efficeintly. My guess is IBM has some data to work from and notices database sizes are growing and this is an acceptable compromise.
• Leveraging Microsoft Word as an editor - Not sure I like this idea given every single version of Word not only handles regular text and rich text differently it also messes up HTML and XML and O365 is not exactly efficient especially when run from the Cloud. But I understand IBM's reasoning and understand the option should be available.
• Team Calendar Enhancements - They were kind of vague about what was new and it was a fast screenshot/demo. Presumably making it easier as the speakers said the loudest voice was to make functions easier to use.
• 3rd party invitations to a meeting - That you don't own which would be great instead of just forwarding an email or entry but adding someone to a meeting you don't own.
• Group forward mails - This we already had so I was not sure what was so new. Sometimes our own people don't even know the 1,001 things we can do with Notes and Domino. Anyone feel free to provide me some edit for this one.
• Scheduled email - All I can say is FINALLY! This has been one of the top things I always get from Outlook users that they need. Personally I could use it maybe once in a while so never a big need but i understand why people want it.
• iPad app is coming. - I know because I was on the beta until my iPad was no longer included in updates from Apple and thus I can not leverage it anymore. But I have grown apart from my iPad and so while this may be needed, it may have jumped the shark already.
• Version 11 and others in pipeline  - which means items they could not do for 10 or items which were questionable get pushed forward to what I hope internally the beta will be called Spinal Tap "it goes to 11" edition.
• NSF-2 - NSF is getting updates and the future of NoSQL looks to be in good hands.
• OAuth support via REST API - which will allow Domino to interact with so many apps and websites that will be exciting to see how this works out.
• Domino apps on the Cloud - is a needed service and sounded like it will be coming out.
• SAML support is being extended - Not much details provided yet, come to Think is the mantra for more information and SEE it in action.
• Elastic search - or just better, broader search is coming.
• Active Directory integration - continues because why should you run two different directories.
• Client AutoUpdate - Yes, been asking for this for years. Of course big customers with tweaked environments will turn this off, but for the rest of us out there just Thank the team. This presumes they do not just mean an update to SmartUpgrade and a real polling and downloading from a "store".
• Automated Database Repair - More proactive database monitoring and automated fixups or whatever goes a long way to letting Admins stop putting out fires and be more proactive in expanding their users worlds of collaboration.
• Docker - I am on the fence if this is really a genius idea or just another VM type option. But for companies who want it, it is coming. You can already make use of Domino and Docker in 9.0.1FP10.
• Destination Domino - SME and IBM Champions and IBMers will be more proactively writing useful and detailed information in what sounded like a newsletter or another DeveloperWorks community  for admins, developers, security people and business owners. As they said on the call communication is key and they have planned many routes to inform everyone about what is going on. 
• 3rd party mail integration - "At THINK" more will be known, shown, etc.. Being a mail person I am very interested in what they have in mind.
• Verse and Desktop client parallel development work - going on because large groups exist for both currently.

ETA for Domino 10? 2018 which is a vague way of saying 2nd half of the year.

Why Experts Save You Money

Did you ever hear these from clients or prospective clients?
"Your fees are too high!"
"You want how much to do this?"
"I can get a <insert tech solution name> person for $10/hr why do we need you?"

I have heard these, and many others too over the course of my career.

Now let's hear how some others see this issue, these are general references not specific to anyone or anything.

• Sales advisors tell us it is because we have not sold the client on us and our solution that the price still matters. If they are not sold on using us, price becomes the scapegoat. This is true.
• Marketing advisors would say our value proposition is not clearly reaching out target market and we should either move down or up, depending on our circumstances and expectations of clients. This is true as well sometimes.
• Financial people would tell us that they have a budget they can not exceed, which we know is not true because if the CEO, or another executive with power, want something, they get it, no matter the cost. This is true too.
• Technical people will tell you they can get it done in a day or two. However, they first have to clear their existing project or support items and then involve a few teams of people and plan the change management, etc.. This is true too, except it will not get done until next year, usually.

What is rarely understood, although we do explain this all the time, is your code-monkeys will spend days trying to fix something that an expert sees and can fix in a few minutes or hours. When this is an internal resourced project, it seems, no one cares about time or cost. When it is an external resource, that is another story entirely.

A friend of mine recently spent, per their post, 5 hours on an email configuration issue.After I asked why they didn't ask my help for what I know to be a five minute fix, we then walked through the config and solved it. Even though they knew I have spent over 20 years on messaging systems, they did not ask for help until they had wasted quite some time. ( I am still hoping they used hyperbole and it was really an hour or 2 which is still too long)

Now, if they are the hourly billing type of person they have a dilemma, do they bill for the wasted hours of troubleshooting or part of it or none of it? If they bill by the project, this would not matter because things like this are expected and included in the pricing. It never makes one happy, but on the other hand, you gain valuable knowledge and experience to solve a problem for next time in seconds, and THAT is huge money to be made...when you bill by the project and not hourly. 

Of course, I can't bill for five minutes of work, well I could if they weren't my friend. The bill would be like the famous joke about the guy with the hammer who knew just where to hit the machinery. I could bill anything just to solve the problem, whether it took me five minutes or five seconds. 

Yes, cheaper solution providers exist, but they are not IBM Champions or Microsoft MVPs or Salesforce MVPs or whatever leaders in their respective fields that while we may not have encountered every issue, we are very battle tested and call upon our other friends to help us because that is what experts do in life.

We trust others to help us in return for the help we lend them. This for me is one of the best things about being an IBM Champion and knowing people that are the equivalent across many platforms. No one wants to ask for help, it is seen as a weakness, but once you get over this your world is much better as is all the people you engage with over the years.

If you are an IT manager, price means nothing when the issue is Enterprise important. If you think otherwise, your company will never get ahead of your competition. Work with experts who help make you look better to your boss, not cause your boss to look for replacements for you.

Curious Reading from 2007 About Collaborative Networks and Conflict

“A Manager’s Guide to Resolving Conflicts in Collaborative Networks” (Washington, D.C.: IBM Center for The Business of Government, 2007)

While researching my upcoming session at Social Connections VII in Stockholm, Sweden in 2 weeks I came across this article from 2007, naturally backed by IBM, on collaboration, conflict and accountability.

The authors:
Lisa Blomgren Bingham, Professor and Keller-Runden Chair in Public Service, Indiana University and Rosemary O'Leary, Edwin O. Stene Distinguished Professor of Public Administration, University of Kansas
wrote about governments and had much to say about networks, collaborative networks, in general.

The article that they reference from 2006 is titled, A Manager’s Guide to Choosing and Using 
Collaborative Networks from Brinton Milward and Keith Provan.

Their slide deck is well worth a read, especially page 4, titled: Contrasting Approaches to Conflict:
Position vs. Interest Based Negotiations, or as we may think of it, silos vs collaboration.

" They conclude that although network organizations generally commit to achieving network-level goals, conflict among network participants is inevitable."  - From a synopsis of the article found here.

Bruce Springsteen Gets Collaboration How About You?

Bruce Springsteen inducted his long time sidemen and woman into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a few weeks back and HBO showed the ceremony. I caught Bruce's introduction speech and thought it was just what I want to say to management everywhere.

Namely, you know what you know, but the people that work for you are what will make you look better and greater than anything you can dream up.

At the 13:00 minute mark, Bruce explains in simple English what collaboration is all about. Full text at Rolling Stone here.:

But in the end, we kept faith in each other. And one thing is for certain: As I said before in reference to Clarence Clemons — I told a story with the E Street Band that was, and is, bigger than I ever could have told on my own. And I believe that settles that question.
But that is the hallmark of a rock and roll band — the narrative you tell together is bigger than anyone could have told on your own. That’s the Rolling Stones; the Sex Pistols; that’s Bob Marley and the Wailers. That’s James Brown and His Famous Flames. That’s Neil Young and Crazy Horse.
So, I thank you my beautiful men and women of E Street. You made me dream and love bigger than I could have ever without you.

Lip service? Perhaps. But even Bruce had to admit his best money making albums were with the whole band, not his solo efforts.

Collaboration is not always about 1+1=3 but how 1+1 can equal 4, 5 or 10. Working together you can do so much more because you can fill in the voids of each person's limitations. My friends ask for my help, not because I am an expert, but because I can see the problems in different ways and potentially offer solutions.

At work we struggle to "keep people engaged", "gather feedback", keep others updated on what we are doing. Item by item it may not bring any benefit, not all Springsteen songs are great, but the ones everyone added to their own little bits, have served the test of time.

There is no reason your organization can not be as great as The E Street Band and if you need help making collaboration work for your teams,  I can help, just ask.

10 Things Silo Organizations and Management Will Never Understand

The next time you are cruising at 10,000 feet or roaming around some conference exhibition floor or just trolling the web, think about your company.

I want you to think about how you share information today, and what you would change about it for tomorrow. If you could see yourself through the eyes of your customers as well, even more helpful.

If you find yourself thinking along the ideas below, you may be a silo organization and in that case...

Your organization may profess to "getting social" or "being open" or using collaboration tools or providing everyone access or using the latest version of   but there is more to this discussion.

1. It's in an Email - Most common denominator of collaboration, famously said but many long time email users. A person's email inbox is a huge silo and bottomless pit. Hopefully you are above this level, even if only slightly. Delete is the enemy, guess where your email may have gone at some point.
2. I sent an IM - Whatever system you use, unless you are posting the IM as a status update or message that is open for everyone to see, your IM is another bottomless pit but at least it does Emoticons :-P
3. Everything is on the NAS/Network/Cloud - This is NOT the same equivalent as "everything is in a Notes database or a community or a place or a site". This is a file server which may or may not be indexed for others to find in your chaotic directory structure. Ever ask new employees to find something? Their replies might surprise you. Then again, you may bask in their ignorance and laugh like Cruella DeVille at them.
4. Management doesn't use  - Use what? They drive Porsches or Teslas...do you? Since when do you need to follow management's lead? If you did this you would be using yellow legal pads rather than any computers. Management wants outcomes, bring them something that will help everyone get together and complete tasks properly.
5. Many Clients - But which one should you use? Browsers alone you have 4 common ones on the average desktop which may, or may not, work with your existing solution. Your cocoon is not open for business if you need people to revert to older models. Standards are important.
6. We know what people want - Maybe, maybe not. if you are not talking up, down and outside your organization, how will you know? Anyone can build an app, but if you want one that works outside your organization, how do you get the feedback? How do you store it? How do you analyze it.
7. Where is everyone - The need to have your staff in front of you at the office, all the time, may be helpful, but it also limits production for some people. Cubicles do not stop the loud talkers or speakerphone conference call makers. Open plans provide more interaction of course, but not always more production. If you find you need to grow your empire, you just might be a silo king or queen.
8. Never use your tools - You ask for the tools, you paid for them, but you never believe in them. Do you find yourself always questioning more details, verifying information, harping on some piece of the puzzle, yet still not completed the framework yet? If so, then you need to use new tools. Gone are the monolithic databases and in place you have tools with unlimited analytics sources. One example BuzzSumo 
9. You never see customers - Different from #6 because YOU have to get out and speak to customers. The real people that pay you money today. Do you reach out to them, personally, in some way during the year...if ever? Don't leave it to sales. Don't leave it to marketing. You are the executive, if you are not thanking the customers you have regularly, someone else will. Hint: Many of the clients have some form of social media account, even if it is only Linkedin, you should be their friend. Stop saying it is the other people's jobs.
10. Always eat alone? - If you always find your self eating alone, even when in your own kitchen area or cafeteria either your food smells horrible or you are too far removed from your staff. Get up, get out, buy soda or juice for everyone or at least hang out where they eat. if you have no idea what I am talking about here, never mind, move along.

Extreme? Some of them others just basic ideas which for whatever reason escapes even the most well meaning people.

Think about your daily work habits and reflect on what could be better.

A Manager’s Guide to Resolving Conflicts in Collaborative Networks

Found this while searching on some other topics. It is an excellent paper, from 2007 which describes some of the obstacles we will face as we strive to a collaborative social business. The document is from the IBM Center for The Business of Government.

Indeed the authors: Rosemary O’Leary, Distinguished Professor of Public Administration
Maxwell Advisory Board Endowed Chair, The Maxwell School, Syracuse University
and
Lisa Blomgren Bingham, Keller-Runden Professor of Public Service, School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University-Bloomington

do an excellent job of the pros and cons to this topic.

Here is just one nugget from the paper:

Interesting reading, some basic sales 101 but the outlines of steps to follow for different sections could be a course in its own for those who just can not get their head around everything still.

The Accidental Silo Structure

http://www.mabeats.com/

In the Silo's Happen  previous post I started to discuss the Accidental Silo Structure. I can't use the acronym since it will get blocked by some systems, so I will use the term AS.

If you have an AS, what do you do? Do you realize that you look like an AS? Do you think that you look like an Accessible Collaborative Enterprise (ACE)?

How do you know? What can you do to test for which side you are on?

Keeping in mind that some companies are ACE on the inside but AS on the outside and vice versa we need a litmus test for the sales teams to better understand where the customer sits on this spectrum.

As a Sales person, have you looked for these from the outside:

1) Listened to or watched a webinar or conference call between the client and their constituents, be they business patrners, vendors, customers? Have you noticed if they have an open meeting? Do they let you see everyone on the call? Can you chat with anyone or only the presenter?

2) If you read their blogs on their company website, are they up to date, even within 30 days?

3) Do they run a twitter feed that searches on the company name? Do they show they even are active on twitter at all?

4) Can you comment on their blogs without a "waitingfor approval to post your comments" line?

5) Have you noticed if there is anything other than a phone number or email address for connecting with the organization?

None of these individually rule them out, especially #5 which I use as a simple test. Similarly to the Van Halen brown M&M's contract rider, somethings go a long way to tell you about the organization.

Now what about the inside? Not so hard as you might think:

1) What does the company use to disseminate information? Is email still #1?

2) Does the company use a standard Instant Messenger solution? I don't care which one but a company wide solution?

3) If the company runs Jive, Lotus Notes Applications, IBM Quickr places, IBM Connections, Sharepoint or whatever are they actively using it and managing it? Or are there a million silo places inside each that make it seem like a needle in a haystack to find what you want?

4) When you take a meeting with the executive...is it only them in the room with you?

5) If you know the backgroound of management, do they come from organizations that are open and sharing and social or cold, dark and closed?

#5 is not meant as a failure. However, it implies that the people, who may in their own way be open and caring, ACEs actually, have a background from a place that acts like an AS. In other words, they may know better, but their mind says "this is how we did it before".

We need to stop the historical thinking!

You must bring the problems to the executives at their level. Sometimes outsiders provide greater and deeper insight to a company than their own teams. Great leaders want this information and want to see changes made because they may be tired of their "yes" people.

Don't assume anything about your potential clients, but look for the signs, they are staring you in the face. Deal with these before you try to sell your solution and you will look like an ACE too instead of an AS.

Novell's Vibe collaborates differently for the better

I have been spending some time lately playing with Novell's Vibe which is in beta, you can sign up at the link.

It is far from polished or ready for prime time, but some interesting findings which I want to share with you.

Privacy is a luxury. One of things I always found odd about Groupwise was the way they enabled anyone to read and send email as though it was the originator. Nothing new, we have this in Notes too, but Novell took the view that it's not a security issue or a privacy one, if you know someone is doing this. Thus their view of collaboration is also not weighted down by security or privacy, compared to Lotus ones.

Novell is working to bring the Google Wave idea to some usage, but to me at least, it is still as confounding as Google's product. Maybe I am too linear and old school but the almost random items that fly past you in the stream/river(they call it the Biglist) troubles me. I was told there is an icon to let me know what is a private message but at the time everything appeared open.

Novell wants people to share information truly collaboratively. And I applaud that effort and look to Project Vulcan to bring some of this as well. But my original posting, or message is editable by anyone right now. That is just mind blowing to me. Scarily so. From the threads it looks like that will not be the case at Live date but needless to say that raises questionable ideas. I'd like to see my posts ask me if they can be edited or not. And I'd like to see items not be allowed to be copied, printed or forwarded or "bring in" someone else to read it. Funny thing was the developer I was talking with said they did not have these limitations/security in Groupwise.

Before you think I am killing on Vibe, I am not. It's beta, it needs feedback. It is rather fun to be playing with code that the developers are using and logged in to as well so they can listen and chat to me while I am experiencing the quirkiness of a new product. I can't remember the last time we had this in Lotus.

Also, in the grand scheme of consumer vs. corporate philosophy I think Novell has a perspective that IBM should think about. Are you writing a product that will foster or hinder collaboration? Is too much security and lock downs bad in this day and age? As an admin and speaker at conferences I know the pros and cons of this question well. I also see companies not truly recognizing the path they are on may lead to a down side where employees may not choose to work there.

While certainly there should be some security, the premise of true collaboration is everything should be open all the time to everyone. Not a place that has a public and a private side and then squirreled away secret rooms inside those. Thinking like a customer I would like to see better security on offer, even if clients do not use it all, than see less security available.

What will be of interest to me is how Novell deals with this product from a mobile device. Will there be a special app for the big3(Apple, Google, RIM) or will it just be a browser? Will the promise of 4G speeds make this work well or be bogged down?

The same could be asked of IBM and Project Vulcan. Right now the argument goes on about how to build traveler and support what and where. I am looking beyond these devices to understand the future and it seems no one really has a great handle on it.

I don't care about devices or OS, I care about getting my data to me no matter what I am using. And my clients ask the same of me. But I do care about privacy(Yes I use social media and location based programs but that is different from inside the company firewall privacy) perhaps more than security because in the end all systems will have their security methods but privacy seems to be the forgotten step child.

After all, BCC was created for a reason, maybe not a good one, but there are good reasons for it as well.

It's About We, not Me

A twitter post caught me today and I replied that until it's not about me, but about we, one can't "get" Lotus.

This isn't the entire story of course, but it is critical.

The greater good, of the individual, or the company, is from the sharing of information and data.

It's NOT about:
Communication
Face to Face time
Email
Buddies
Lists

It's about everything as a whole and recognizing that what you know, someone else may not and by helping them you create a tsunami of savings in time, resources, money, family time, overtime and many other ways as well.

Yes one should be a part of everything, but not for the sole purpose of doing a job. The ability to share with others without recourse and without fear is a hard one for many people to understand. You may at times get something wrong, but that happens when you give of yourself to others because the greater good is what matters.

When you look around in your organization, do you see people that want to share or do you see people that want to win at all costs or are secretive or evasive?

The answers tell you a lot about where and who you work for and what systems they run internally. I don't care if you are a Lotus, Microsoft, Google or Novell shop but although the tools might exist and be available to you and your fellow employees, is there a true sharing and freedom? Or is it just more silos and sideline discussions?

So the answer to anyone that asks why you use, sell or manage Lotus products is we believe in the greater good and sharing everything will all of us.

Not an elevator pitch, just a simple answer to a question from someone who really does not understand what the question implies about themselves.

Fud Buster Friday #41 - Governments Can Work Together

And create a Highway to Hell.

Thanks to Marie Scott for her thoughts about some items from this week, it led me to write this post.

And to Pedrorq for agreeing with me on the subtitle.

What if you were a democrat, republican, communist, independent, labor or whatever partisan you want to be part of in your political system?

Every 2,4 or whatever number of years your government changes. Sometimes, like in the US this year in swaps the party in charge, other times the leader stays but their cabinet or staff changes.

What if this is wrong?

If you believe in collaboration and really and truly understand it, you get presented with a few dilemmas. A few like this:

1) If together we can change the world, how will that influence your business?
2) Is collaboration a form of socialism? After all if we should all share...
3) What about privacy and security in a collaborative world?

How can a government or country maintain a solid foundation while changing leadership and staff every few years, sometimes for the 180 degree opposite extreme?

Perhaps because there is so much behind the government that it doesn't matter in the short run who is in charge but the long run matters more.

Perhaps this is what also prevents governments from working together, internally and externally.

The need to strive for a future goal can sometimes sidestep the need to collaborate. It shouldn't, but it does, a sad commentary on the world in general.

Lotus Notes and Domino make it easy to share, but secure, information and extend capabilities beyond the scope of the primary organization. This is a leading reason why many government organizations use it, not necessarily for their email which in general is NOT a collaborative function, but for their processes and working methodology. It ensures the checks and balances exist to keep everyone moving forward with appropriate goals in mind.

Until your organization, or government, stops looking at themselves as THE ONE, or in a silo or binary way, your organization can not truly exceed it's potential.

So if you are on the Highway to Hell, Don't Pay the Ferryman, till he gets you to the other side.

Oracle is clearly the Collaboration Leader

From a CIO magazine unified Collaboration Webcast email I just received:

The "Collaboration Convergence" taking place in today's enterprise is creating high stakes opportunities and serious risks that can profoundly transform your organization for better or worse. Learn how real businesses are using a new generation of unified collaboration solutions from Oracle to improve productivity and competitiveness.

Understand why your existing collaboration technology may be exposing you to runaway infrastructure costs, regulatory risk and organizational chaos.

Oracle Beehive, the only unified collaboration system built for the enterprise, can help you master the "Collaboration Convergence" , cut your hard dollar costs and foster the best-in-class performance your organization needs to cope with these challenging times.

Larry's ego never stops, does anyone know or use Beehive, the Oracle version? Does anyone care? Maybe the SUN customers? And you thought Connections was quiet.

Lotus Collaboration Game?! on Linkedin!

IBM has a submlimnal ad which looks like this on the Linkedin pages.

It will takle you over to this page where bless their heart they want people to register on the IBM.com site. BUT they also include a link for those who don't want to register. That's cool!
Unfortunately it lied. The next screen asks you to fill in all this information, now granted most of us already have an IBM ID.
Follow the path and it's different from the other things we have seen lately. Aimed at Connections, Quickr, Sametime and Domino so a nice one, could do without the British guy(cardiff perhaps?) narrating though.