Tag Archives: connections

How big is your social network? Does size really matter?

Posted on by Vaughan Rivett

Over the past few days I have been thinking about how to best quantify the size of a social network.  Often when I am talking to businesses about what it takes to become a social business, they can perceive the value for a company like IBM with over 400,000 employees, but struggle to see the benefits for their business which could be considerably smaller.

Facebook has over 800 million active members, yet I only have about 100 friends.  Of those 100 friends less than half of them would be active.  I have been very selective in choosing my friends and I often remove friends for a variety of reasons.  When I consider the size of Facebook, for me it is really only 100 people that matter.

At IBM the size of active users on Connections must come down to the number of people in my network based on my explanation of the size of Facebook, right?  Well, no, the size of social business software is far greater than those just in my immediate network.  Connections is about the harvesting of Social Capital and expertise identification, not just a social activity stream.

Lotus Notes / Domino Tour of Duty (New Zealand)

Posted on by Vaughan Rivett

Over the last couple of days, I have been reflecting on my tour of New Zealand, last week, as I visited a number of Lotus Notes/Domino customers throughout the country.  Myself,  four others from IBM and a number of IBM Business Partners vistied Hamilton, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch as we checked in on various customers.

There were a number of themes that came through, but here are the top three:

  • Lotus Notes/Domino customers who are in two minds about the future of the product and their commitment to it, are impressed by the roadmap for the next few years.  I came out of a number of meetings where the customers had little understanding of the power of the platform, but were eager to explore what they could be doing both now and in the future.
  • People are wanting more from a collaboration platform.  This opened the door to great conversations about Social Business and stratigies which include both IBM Connections and IBM Lotus Domino Server.
  • The “cloud” is big here in New Zealand.  The Christchurch earthquake has impacted this nation and as such, people are considering their options for greater resilience.

For many years, I have been an advocate for Lotus Notes and Domino here in New Zealand.  I am now in a position, where I think we are on the verge of something great.

Walking the talk with Social Collaboration for Business

Posted on by Vaughan Rivett

Well, it is one thing to write about ideas around social business, but, it is another thing to actually be doing it.  Thanks to the social collaboration tools which my business uses, I have been able to form teams to work out solutions to problems, plan strategies, organize events and a much more.

Here is one scenario.

A couple of counterparts from our Australian office have offered to come to New Zealand to run a lunch time seminar along with visiting a few customers.  I work very closely with a technical expert who is also very keen to have them come to New Zealand.  I want to make sure their time is maximized as much as possible, therefore we have started working on making sure that things happen.

The first thing that I did was to create a community on a web based application, IBM connections.  Within this, my New Zealand colleague and I have started to arrange a list of activities that need to take place to ensure a successful visit.  We were both on the phone talking about the subject, while doing this we both made notes which were viewable by all members of the community.

The great thing is that all of the information, including associated files and discussions appear in the same place.  When our Australian counterparts log in, they will see of our work.  There is no need to be sending email to each other and it is really easy to track where everything is at.  This is really exciting.

While we are doing this, we are leaving a footprint for the future.  Other people around the world who are wanting to do something similar will be able to log in and make use of the work which we have already done.  This is one of IBM’s strong points – Identifying Expertise.