E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez

IBM Lotus Ventura – IBM’s Take of Social Software within the Enterprise

Tags: IBM, SWG, IBM Software, Lotus Ventura, Ventura, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, IBM 2.0, Knowledge Management, KM, Collaboration, Lotusphere2007, Lotusphere, Lotus Sametime 7.5, Sametime 7.5, James Snell, Elias Torres, Andy Piper, Cote, BluePages, Expertise Location, Dogear, Social Bookmarking, Activities, Communities, Roller Weblogger, Roller,  Metablogging, Blog Central, Weblogs

If yesterday I mentioned how I was creating a new category here in this weblog to talk about all things happening inside IBM around the world of Knowledge Management, Collaboration, Communities and Social Computing, I think that folks are going to be pretty excited about this particular weblog post I am starting up right now. Lots of people have been wondering all along what is IBM’s take towards social software adoption within the enterprise. Quite a few still think that IBM’s software division is all about Lotus Notes and everything else related to Lotus products, and although certainly Lotus Notes is still going rather strong (Watch out for the Lotusphere event in 2007!) there is no denying that things are about to change and big time!

Not only with the already available Lotus Sametime 7.5, next generation of both IM and VoIP for the enterprise, but with something else that a few of my IBM colleagues have been mentioning already and something that I am really excited about: Lotus Ventura. Yes, indeed, yesterday it was uncovered over at Cote’s weblog post IBM SWG: Lotus "Ventura" and right away it has been picking up some more steam with James Snell, Elias Torres and Andy Piper.

Lotus Ventura is supposed to be IBM’s adventure (Pun intended ) into the social computing world for the enterprise. Yes, once again, that IBM 2.0 thing. And as you may have been able to read already over at Cote’s weblog post Ventura would be an application that will integrate a number of different social software tools that, as James mentioned, some of us, inside of IBM, have been using for years now!:

1. IBM’s BluePages (a.k.a. IBM’s employee directory): So that expertise location within the enterprise can be easier than ever having access not only to knowledge workers but also to the information behind those same knowledge workers. That is, their information.
2. Dogear: IBM’s social bookmarking application: and which I have talked about over here a few times already.
3. Activities: Of which you would be able to read some more about on the presentation I shared yesterday over here from Mike Roche (Slides 6, 23, 46 and 49) and of which I will talk about some time later on.
4. Communities: Given my role as a community builder and knowledge manager, this is actually one of the components that I will be really looking forward to and that, as time goes by, I will be able to share some further details on it.
5. Roller: Or, as we all know, weblogging; yes, that is right. Ventura will have a component that would connect knowledge workers with the world of weblogs using the Roller weblogging engine, which is basically what we have been using as well inside IBM with Blog Central. I have been keeping my Intranet weblog over there for nearly three years and it would be an incredible experience to be able to see it integrate nicely into Ventura’s other components. Nifty!
6. Integration with other components: Like search or Lotus Sametime 7.5, amongst others. Actually with the inclusion of that integration with Sametime 7.5 we would be getting the best out of both worlds, synchronous and asynchronous collaboration. And all that available from a single point of entry. Can it get better than this ? Hummm. I don’t think so.

Anyway, there you go. A quick and brief description of how IBM will be entering the space of social computing within the enterprise and how IBM will try to make sense of the so-called Enterprise 2.0 with something as cool as Lotus Ventura (Yes, watch out for Lotusphere 2007!!). Exciting times ahead for all of us who feel strongly about social computing within the enterprise as the next big thing to help improve knowledge sharing and collaboration and try to bring some more sense into an unbalanced environment where explicit knowledge has been on top for far too long.

But more to come later on, I am sure.

Bringing People and Processes Together by Mike Roche

Tags: IBM, Knowledge Management, KM, Collaboration, Communtiies, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Web 2.0, IBM 2.0, Blogs, Wikis, Social Bookmarks, Lotus Sametime 7.5, Sametime 7.5, Activities

A couple of days ago I mentioned how I was also involved in the process of creating a new category here in elsua.net based on the good amount of feedback that I have been getting through comments, e-mails, instant messages, phone calls, etc. etc. that I just couldn’t ignore, nor neglect. Well, after having given it some further thought, and based on what quite a few of you have been saying all along, I am now happy to announce the creation and availability (With this first post, of course) of a new category over here under the title "IBM".

Yes, that is right, folks! From now on you would be able to get every now and then complete weblog entries dedicated to IBM and IBM happenings, pretty much like what John Patrick has been doing all along over at his weblog. However, most of it is going to be related to what IBM has been doing lately around the world of Knowledge Management, Communities, Collaboration, both Knowledge and Collaboration Tools and Social Computing. Exactly! The same stuff I get to talk over here on a regular basis but in this case touching base on some of the stuff that IBM is doing in that space, which is a lot, actually. But let’s go one step at a time.

I am really excited about doing something like this not only from the perspective of helping folks understand what is going on in the IBM world with its own KM and Collaboration strategy, but also from the point of view that it would give me a chance to share with you some of the work that I have been involved with the time I have been working over here. Thus stay tuned because it is going to be a fun ride!

I must say that there have been plenty of folks who have been very inspiring in my getting started with this new category, but if there is one person who has been a great influencer in taking this initiative further it is actually Tomoaki Sawada-san, who, for the last few weeks, has been sharing a number of incredibly useful and informative links to materials that IBM has been publishing around the area of KM, Collaboration and Social Computing (Thanks much, Sawada-san!).

I am not sure if you have been following up on all of the different comments over here, in this weblog, but I thought that to get things started and relate some of the stuff that IBM has been involved with in the area of KM, Collaboration and Social Computing, I would point you to a presentation that one of my fellow IBM colleagues put together and which Sawada-san has been sharing over here already a couple of times.

It is a presentation put together by Mike Roche and it is titled Bringing People and Processes Together. You can go ahead and download it from here and although it may not be very recent (Trying to get my hands on a more recent one that I will share as soon as I can) it still puts together a very compelling case that shows what IBM has been doing in the area of KM lately. This is one of those presentations that would be rather interesting for folks who would want to know how IBM has been evolving from the traditional KM strategy, where the focus was more on the explicit knowledge exchange (Yes, indeed, that focus, once again, on tools, technology and processes alone), towards reaching for that particular balance of both tacit and explicit knowledge exchanges  with a next generation KM based on social computing, by placing the focus on not only the technology and the processes but also on the people.

Yes, this is one of those presentations where you would be able to see where IBM is heading as far as KM, Collaboration and Social Computing are concerned. That is right. In this presentation you would be able to hear about current IBM technologies related to KM and collaboration; also a number of things on processes and, finally, perhaps the most interesting part how IBM is embracing social software within the enterprise with a number of different Web 2.0 related tools that would give you an idea of where we may be heading. Stuff like weblogs, social bookmarks, wikis, Sametime 7.5 (Including both IM and VoIP components, amongst others), activities, social networks, etc. are all starting to become part of the equation. And about time, I should add.

And because there is just so much information contained in those slides, including some of the different IBM knowledge, collaboration and social software tools that IBM is currently  making use of, I think I am just going to stop here for now and suggest you take a look at the slides themselves. Then, as we move forward, I am sure that I would be returning back to this weblog post to refer you folks to a number of the different slides since they all contain a good number of key points and messages as to how IBM is planning to take on board social software within the enterprise. Yes, I know what you are going to say now, what some people would call IBM 2.0, but we shall see if that would be accurate enough or not. Time will tell

Feel free to append a comment over here if you would have any question or comment related to the presentation itself and I will try to answer it best I can. So from here onwards I just wanted to close off this weblog entry for now by thanking Sawada-san for that inspiration to get things started and let’s get the ball rolling!

(I was going to share this weblog post yesterday, but, unfortunately, my ISP decided to take a break for a few hours and knocked me out completely for the remaining of the day. For the third time in a row in just a few days! Sigh. So here it goes today)