Doing More With Less

Explore pre-alpha technologies with LotusLive Labs

Brian M O’Curran  January 28 2010 10:10:09 AM

	Last week at Lotusphere, IBM announced that IBM Research and Lotus are joining forces to deliver new innovation on the Web through the creation of LotusLive Labs - a proving ground for advances in business-driven collaboration in the cloud. LotusLive Labs provides you with the opportunity to experience and evaluate pre-alpha innovations from LotusLive. You're invited to explore and provide feedback on these new cloud-based technologies. The LotusLive Labs technology previews being unveiled include: Slide Library A collaborative way to build and share presentations.   Event Maps An interactive way to visualize and interact with conference schedules. Collaborative Recorded Meetings A service that records and transcribes meeting presentations and audio/video for searching and tagging.   Composer The ability to create LotusLive mashups through the combination of LotusLive services. Join Us To try out LotusLive Labs, just login to your LotusLive account and click on the LotusLive Labs link in the top menu bar to request to access. Coming Soon LotusLive support for the Apple® iPhone®. Visit LotusLive Labs to see how it works!

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How Are Other IBM Customers Changing Thier Business with Websphere portal?

Brian M O’Curran  January 12 2010 03:47:09 PM

We have a special opportunity for you next Thursday January 14th to hear an in-depth look at how an IBM customer leverages WebSphere Portal to deliver better business outcomes  -  improving their customer experience, increasing operating efficiency and more effectively managing their growth.  You will have an opportunity to pick up best practices that you can apply to your business.  Come with your questions and leave with new ideas and answers.   Information and registration immediately below.  Just click the links below to enroll.  

Click here to register!        Register now as attendance is limited

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Thoughts for a New Year... What’s Your Biggeast FEAR? #FB

Brian M O’Curran  January 4 2010 03:09:02 PM

Well, here it is, 2010.  I'm in my home office today and have been pretty productive so far.  I'm blazing through my e-mail - in zeal to get down to ZERO.  I came across an e-mail from Terry Bean on the Motorcity Connection site.  One of my many resolutions is to get more involved with community and professional organizations.  As I was putting the calendar invite into my calendar (and searching the MCC site) I read the description of the event.  I'm going to add this on the very top of my list for 2010...  "I AM NOT GOING TO PLAY SMALL THIS YEAR!"

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve...... the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. A return to love. -- Marianne Williamson

Have a listen to this...



This is the way to do it...  You're built for greatness.  What's that old saying?  "What you are is your gift from God, what you become is your gift to God!"  What would you do today if you knew you could not fail?

John Lennon thought the same way... go do something great today!  It's going to be a great 2010!  



Instant Karma's gonna get you,
Gonna knock you off your feet,
Better recognize your brothers,
Ev'ryone you meet,
Why in the world are we here,
Surely not to live in pain and fear,
Why on earth are you there,
When you're ev'rywhere,
Come and get your share.

Well we all shine on,
Like the moon and the stars and the sun,
Yeah we all shine on,
Come on and on and on on on,
Yeah yeah, alright, uh huh, ah-.

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ChannelWeb: Best Products of 2009 - Cloud Application: LotusLive

Brian M O’Curran  December 14 2009 06:33:29 PM

I've been talkin' about this now for a while. It seems that the rest of the market is catching up to the buzz.  Way to go ChannelWeb folks.  

LotusLive, it's ready to go today!  Check it out, take it for a free test drive!  




Tags: LotusLive, LotusLive iNotes, LotusLive Engage, LotusLive Meetings, LotusLive Events, Lotus, IBM, Software

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What’s the Dollar Value of IBM Lotus Software Solutions #LotusKnows

Brian M O’Curran  December 8 2009 02:53:30 PM

Oh, I know, I hear it all the time, you guys are just e-mail. LOL!  Right!  

Most of the time I feel like my role is evangelization of the truth, helping people understand what they already own or comparing our solutions and capabilities to the noise.  There's lot of noise.  Even if all technology was equal, (and let's face it, clearly that's not the case) and we could take emotions out the mix, technology decisions should come down to total cost of ownership, integration to the stuff you've already got running and - most importantly - how does your technology investment further your business.  Focus on the business value of collaboration.  Concentrate on ROI.  Ask yourself, how could collaboration change my business.  Would engineering products faster be of value?  Would finding the right person to have on your virtual team in a few clicks be of value?  Would being able to discover and reuse work done by others further your projects?  Would having all the people not on your side of nice, friendly corporate firewall fully and securely participate in your projects speed things up for you?  I can go on all day.  

I got what follows as part a great e-mail.  It's a group at IBM that's come up with some financial reasons to talk about Lotus and Collaboration and changing your business.  

Here's a few ways they came up with.  


1. Reducing Enterprise Collaboration Infrastructure Costs

This topic has proven to be top-of-mind with customers and features brand new research that shows Lotus Domino 8.5 is more efficient and costs less than Microsoft Exchange 2007.  Specifically, we show how Domino uses 57-67% less storage than Exchange while also consuming 1/3 to 1/2 fewer processor and disk I/O cycles.  Taken together, these efficiencies allow you to support more users with fewer servers - that's up to 30% lower cost.  

Outcome:   Lotus Domino’s more efficient infrastructure lowers enterprise collaboration costs.


2. Extending Collaborative Reach for Better Business Relationships

With over 71% of CEOs worldwide planning to place greater focus on external partnerships, this topic of extranet collaboration is gaining traction everywhere.  LotusLive Engage supports this emerging requirement whereas Microsoft’s new Online Services offering does not.  Let me demonstrate these advantages with two side-by-side demos.   It will showcase both sharing content and conducting online meetings with external partners or suppliers.  I'll also discuss some of the shortcomings of Google Apps in an extranet scenario.  

Outcome:  LotusLive Engage stands alone in its ability to extend the reach of collaboration to customers, partners, and suppliers.


3. Leveraging Social Computing for Improved Productivity

This topic capitalizes on the surging interest in social computing for business.  It features some ground-breaking research.  Specifically, we show how the use of tagging in Lotus Connections can improve user search times by up to 32% while improving productivity by 8%.  Microsoft is unable to deliver these kinds of improvements with SharePoint Server 2007 and we demonstrate why in side-by-side demos.

Outcome:  Lotus Connections helps businesses easily capture, find, and leverage latent expertise within the company.

I can help you get VERY specific on any of these topics.  I can help you identify use-cases for collaboration for your business.  I can help you change your world.

(Maybe I've been watching too many TED videos at www.ted.com.)

Make me prove it!  Give me a call!

- Brian

 

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What’s New in Lotus Connections 2.5?

Brian M O’Curran  November 24 2009 10:22:00 AM

Lotus Connections 2.5 is great stuff.  Have a look at this video with Ron Sebastian presenting.



As a product overview that was outstanding.  I hear what you're saying, how about some use cases.  







See if you can spot the Chris Crummey shout-outs in this final episode - too funny!

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Sametime Means Hard Dollar Savings

Brian M O’Curran  November 23 2009 10:25:00 AM

For Your Consideration

• Hard dollar expense savings
• Reduced audio conferencing costs
• Easy to access to meetings
• Reductions in travel costs
• Improved meeting experience with desktop video
• Sametime (Standard or Advanced) on the desktop is the cornerstone of the IBM UC² strategy and pre-req to Sametime Unified Telephony

The upcoming release of Sametime is the most significant release in three years - since we transformed a simple IM & Web Conferencing application into a platform for Unified Communications and Collaboration with version 7.5. Here's what can you expect:

• A new online Meeting experience
• A zero-download, browser-based instant messaging client. Great news for resource constrained deployments and chat enabling web sites.
• The ability to extend unified communications capabilities to your web apps through standard web development tools (CEBP)
• A modern video infrastructure with higher-quality, lower bandwidth codecs and improved integration into standards-based SIP endpoints
• New mobile device support, including a browser-based iPhone client
• A new centralized management console. This will make it easier for IT to deploy and administer Sametime.

If Sametime 7.5 was all about revolutionizing instant messaging, the next release does the same for Online Meetings. Most web conferencing systems are simply too cumbersome for regular use. We know we're tired of losing the first 10 minutes of every meeting to sharing URLs, repeating IDs or waiting for plugins to download. So we've invested a lot of time and energy in rethinking how meetings work in Sametime. Our goal is to make them so easy, everyone will want to use them everyday. There's no reason there are 300 million corporate email users yet the largest web conferencing vendors only claim 7 million users per month. Some of the functionality you'll see:

• Easy to Access  We've added a list of all your online meetings to your Sametime Connect Client. Joining a meeting is as simple as starting a chat... just click on the meeting. Of course, this will integrate with your Notes or Outlook calendar.
• Easy to Invite  Drag others them from your Sametime Contact List to your meeting to invite them. Just like a group chat invitation, they are one click away from joining.
• Easy to Use  Sametime Meetings can now run through the Sametime Connect Client. This means starting and joining a meeting is incredibly fast. Moreover, Sametime users will have a complete set of tools available to them without having to take any additional steps. Non-Sametime users can also join Sametime Meetings through their web browser. URLs are in "plain English" (or appropriate language), so they'll be easy to embed in invitations or relay over the phone. Ordinary participants won't have to download any special plugins (although, application sharing will require a small java browser plugin.)
• Easy to Customize  Don't like where we put the chat window in the meeting room? Need more room for other tools? No problem, all the elements can be resized, re-arranged and (with the Sametime Connect client) even ripped off the meeting and float free-standing.
• Easy to Share  Meeting recordings will be stored in industry standard formats to simplify editing (as appropriate) and distribution. New reporting tools can automatically generate attendance lists, questions to be answered and action items to be worked.
• Easy to Collaborate  Sametime Meetings are always-on and persistent. You can create different rooms for different topics and leave the work materials there for future use. Store files, transcripts, action items right in the room or link to other file repositories. Authorized individuals can access the room and materials at any time. Its like a physical conference room where the cleaning staff never wipes the whiteboard - unless you ask them to.

If you'd like to try out the new Sametime 8.5 Online Meeting experience, give me a call!

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Free Training Event: Lotus Forms 3.5 - Proof of Technology, Southfield, MI

Brian M O’Curran  November 19 2009 03:11:10 PM

Hi Everyone, thought I'd post this out here to see if there was anyone that wanted to get in on this class.  Only a couple seats left.

Event:  Lotus Forms 3.5 - Proof of Technology

Location:  IBM Office - Southfield, MI (18000 W. Nine Mile Road)

Dates:  Dec. 9, 2009 - December 10, 2009

Registration: Please contact your Lotus Sales Representative (if it's not me, ping me and we'll figure it out.)

Day 1  Agenda  
8:30 - 9:00    Continental Breakfast
9:00 - 5:00    Lecture and Labs

• Introduction to Lotus Forms + Demos
• Introduction to Lotus Forms Designer
• Lab 1: Designer Introduction (Basics)
• Introduction to Lotus Forms Designer -- XForms
• Lab 2: Building Forms
• Introduction to Lotus Forms Turbo
• Lab 3: Lotus Forms Turbo
• Webform Server
• Lotus Forms Architecture

Day 2 - Agenda
8:30 - 9:00    Continental Breakfast
9:00 - 2:00    Lecture and Labs

• Introduction to Lotus Forms APIs
• Lab 4:  Lotus Forms APIs
• Introduction to Forms Services Platform
• Lab 5:  Lotus Forms Services Platform integration with DB2
• WebSphere Portal and Lotus Forms Integration
• Lab 6:  Deploying and Exploring the Sample Portlet application

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Thoughts on Lotus Connections versus Microsoft Sharepoint... #LotusKnows

Brian M O’Curran  November 19 2009 10:00:00 AM

I'm preparing some follow up for a client and I'm reviewing some of the info on Lotus Connections before I send it over.  This
is some god stuff, so, wihile it's top of mind, I'm going to just harvest out some of the highlights.  The first thing that grabs me is
"IBM productized research assets on a new platform that was designed from the beginning to be open, provide a rich user
experience and support extensibility."  I use Connections everyday internally, every single day.  I've been using the forerunner
of Profiles for 10 years. Bluepages is just part of the dial-tone of working at IBM.  I've been more and more active using LotusLive
(certainly the Files portion) to share files with my customers.  Actually, all the follow ups I'm planning are going into a LotusLive
Activity - now and  forever going forward.

A couple other thoughts.  One is this graphic.  Aside from it being pretty busy, it occurred to me that Lotus Connections is VERY
dense in functionality.  How many vendors would you (the IT pro) have to weave together to provide this functionality to your
business?  Who would end up having to integrate it all?  Do you have on premise and cloud alternatives?  Does it integrate with
anything else you've got running in your IT shop?  Even Gartner cautions going down the Microsoft path and creating a multi-vendor
ecosystem.  There's also function gaps in the Microsoft offering.  Hit the Gartner link above and read for yourself.



IBM – A Proven Leader in Social Software (some Highlights)

• IBM Lotus Collaboration is built on WebSphere Application Server for scalability and supports REST/ATOM standards for easy extensibility
• Out of the box plug-ins for your existing collaboration products increasing adoption
• We’ve made a multi-million dollar commitment to ongoing social software  development and created the first center for social software
• IBM & award winning partners have the skills  to customize a unique solution for your company
• Tens of Millions using on-premise, hosted, appliance, and SaaS solutions making it the fasted growing software product ever at IBM

E2.0 2008 – SharePoint vs Lotus Connections
IBM coverage "IBM was the clear winner across the board."  link
CIO coverage "Enterprise 2.0 Faceoff: Microsoft Lags Behind IBM in Social Software"  link
Enterprise 2.0 coverage "IBM trounced Microsoft in the head-to-head competition" link

Top 10 Reasons Why Lotus Connections

• Enhanced Profile (micro blogging, wall, vCard, LinkedIn widget) that can plug-in to any rich client or web application (including Outlook)
• Social Bookmarking to improve search and information discovery
• Standardized Widget framework to support external applications inside of Connections (including SharePoint and Google Gadgets)
• Built on the top rated application server for security, scalability, flexibility, and extensibility
• Enterprise tagging (including tag cloud) and rating for people, website, documents, and artifacts
• Aggregated Homepage for each service (Profiles, Blogs, Bookmarks, Wiki, Files, Communities)
• Mobile access with support for Blackberry, Nokia, and iPhone
• Profile directory integrator that supports multiple HR, ERP, CRM, LDAP, and Virtual Communities (including 2-way synchronisation)
• Social Network Modeling & Visualization including Global Privacy Laws
• Personalized enterprise social search and recommendation engine

So, there ya have it!  Lotus Connections ROCKS!  

• Comments [5]

Does your current Microsoft Exchange email cost too much?

Brian M O’Curran  November 18 2009 11:52:38 AM

In today's challenging economic climate, business leaders must find new ways to ensure effective communication and collaboration
without breaking the bank. IBM understands this challenge and offers a range of email products to meet the needs of our customers.
In 2009, we are introducing LotusLive™ iNotes, an online webmail service that will feature essential email and calendaring capabilities
at a fraction of the cost of Microsoft Exchange.

LotusLive iNotes can co-exist with your existing Microsoft Exchange solution or even replace it. With Lotus email solutions you could realize
significant TCO savings from your existing Microsoft environment.
 
As a leading provider of mail and groupware products for many years, IBM is pleased to add webmail from LotusLive to its messaging
portfolio. It is just one of the ways IBM is helping customers lower their costs, without compromising their business goals. Let IBM help
you design the messaging environment that meets the needs of all your employees.

New cloud-based Webmail solution provides more client choice

What do these companies have in common? A) A business with 100 employees many of whom work remotely. B) A company with 10,000 employees with half in offices and half on the road. C) A single person consulting firm. Email. More than likely every employee in each of these companies uses email in one form or another - but how much and how often is a big variable. “One size doesn't fit all” when it comes to email for the enterprise and IBM is offering more options. LotusLive iNotes is the newest service from IBM's cloud collaboration platform, LotusLive. LotusLive iNotes is a Web-based service for email, calendaring and contact management starting at $3 per user per month. Information technology departments in companies of all sizes are challenged by shrinking budgets and shortages of staff. In many larger enterprises, there is a need to deliver basic email, calendaring and contact management services at a lower cost. Small and medium business drawn to the convenience and savings of free or low-cost Web-based email services are tired of service outages, distracting advertisements or security and privacy concerns. They are recognizing the need for business-grade email.

Beating the competition

In June 2009, LotusLive made a major impact on the industry in a side-by-side comparison with Google Apps, EMC and other vendors’ cloud
technologies at Enterprise 2.0, earning the “Buyers' Choice Award.” According to InformationWeek, “IBM moved this week to bridge the gap
between current computing phenomena -- cloud computing and social networking -- by unveiling LotusLive Connections. The cloud service
won the Enterprise 2.0 Cloud Computing Technology Buyers' Choice Award, beating other leading cloud computing providers in side-by-side
competitions.”

LotusLive iNotes distinguishes itself from the competition with its aggressive price, open Web 2.0 technology and its business-grade implementation
and support. A complement to the Lotus mail portfolio, iNotes is ideal for customers seeking to expand mail services to boundary workers, departments
and small businesses.

Some Recent press - ZDNet, "IBM targets Google Apps for business, undercuts pricing and touts reliability," link
Infoworld, Get out of the EMail Business, link

Some of The Benefits



Benefits
Predictable costs, usually on a per-user/per-month basis
Industry-leading spam protection
Real-time updates against viruses and malware
On-demand addition of new services when you need them
Fully branded products, payments, and support

Differentiators
Simplified administration
Fast implementation
Low start-up and monthly costs
Unmatched branding and customization capabilities
Seamless integration with triple play services provisioning systems, log-in systems, payment gateways
Proven scale and reliability
Full Set of APIs to help integrate our service with yours

Features
Full-featured Email (HTML and AJAX), POP3, IMAP4, & Authenticated SMTP
SSL Encryption, secure password recovery
Mobile & Push Email
SMS Gateway (mail-to-SMS & SMS-to-mail)
Email alert (desktop message notification)
Mail Forwarding and Filtering
Domain Management Tool (email administration interface for domain admins)
Customer Service Tool (email administrative interface for enterprise admins)
Guaranteed Service Levels with 24x7 Monitoring
Industry-leading Spam and Virus protection

E-Mail is just part of a larger collaborative offering.  Give me a call or go check out www.lotuslive.com for a test drive, more info and a 30 day trial.  

To learn more about LotusLive iNotes and all of our LotusLive services, please visit www.lotuslive.com/services/

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