Tag Archives: IBM

AusLUG 2012 is going to be a blast – you don’t want to miss this conference!

Posted on by Vaughan Rivett

I can hardly believe that AusLUG 2012 is in only 2 months.  After such a good Lotusphere, AusLUG will be something that you want to attend.  I am hoping that we will be able see a good contingent from New Zealand attend this year.  IBM has been doing some amazing stuff with their IBM Collaboration Solutions portfolio.  I expect that there will be a focus on Social Business strategies.

AusLUG is being held in Melbourne, Australia from the 29th to the 30th March 2012.  All the information you need can be found on their website.

Productivity begins by getting out of the email in-box

Posted on by Vaughan Rivett

Over recent days I have heard varying statistics about the amount of time the average employee spends in their email in-box.  While I have seen statistics as high as up to 6 hours, depending on job role, CNET News suggests that it is close to a quarter of their day.  It’s not an enjoyable place to spend your time, and it is no wonder that people are keen to guard their email application of choice.

I don’t know about you, but I often feel that email is like walking into a maze and having to find a way out.  Let’s face it, most people hate email.  That is why people are using social media tools to communicate with each other.

Last week I was in Orlando at an IBM conference (Lotusphere).  This was a good test for my in-box.  Was I going to be overwhelmed by hundreds of emails?  I did have access to email while away, but it wasn’t something that I could attend to as quickly as I normally would.  When checking my email, I had as few as 6 emails per day.  Most of them were just alerts which directed me to content on our intranet.

My habits have changed somewhat in recent months.  Now when I get to the office, I no longer open my email as my first task for the day, rather I review what has been happening on our internal social business site.  Within moments I can find the answers to questions which I have left through the use of a status update as I hurried out the door on the previous day.

Lotusphere Business Partner day

Posted on by Vaughan Rivett

Yesterday, was the IBM Business Partner day at Lotusphere.  Being my first time at Lotusphere is has been really good to be able to touch base with a few people who I have come to know through blogs and other social media over the past few years.

The day was packed full of sessions with hints on some of the announcements which are expected to be officially released today.  I will blog more as the day goes on.

Last night’s party was huge and provided for time to catch up with some other New Zealanders who have travelled all this way.

One of my session highlights would have been Sandy Carters session on Social Business Agenda.  This is a concept which helps businesses understand the implications of social media and social business for their industry and individual roles.  I expect that this will be something that I will be working with New Zealand businesses on over the course of this year.

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.