IBM Lotus Connections is social software for business. It empowers business professionals to develop, nurture, and remain in contact with a network of their colleagues; respond quickly to business opportunities by calling upon the expertise in their network; and discuss and refine new creative ideas with communities of coworkers, partners, and customers.
Lotus Connections software delivers this capability through the following integrated components:
Communities - Create, find, join, and work with communities of people
- Collaborate with community members using activities, blogs, wikis, forums, and shared files
- Customize the community by selecting a theme for the user interface, and choosing the arrangement and selection of widgets
- View statistics on discussion forum usage and highlight important topics by pinning them for the community.
Files - A file-sharing service
- Upload files and securely share them with others
- Tag files so they can be easily located
- Add recommendations and comments
- Reduce inbox "bloat"
Wikis - You and your teams can collaboratively edit content
- Upload files and securely share them with others
- Tag files so they can be easily located
- Add recommendations and comments
- Reduce inbox "bloat"
Profiles - Quickly find the people and expertise you need
- Post a status message informing your network of what you are doing
- Locate people and expertise using a tag cloud
- Post messages for your colleagues on their profile page.
- Reduce inbox "bloat"
Blogs - Present your ideas in a Weblog and get feedback from others
- Create a blog for use by the members of a community
- Embed a video in a blog posting to make it available to readers.
Bookmarks - Save, organize, and share bookmarks using social bookmarking
- Bookmarks: Save, organize, and share bookmarks using social bookmarking
- Import and export bookmarks from and to a browser..
Activities - Gather the e-mails, IM chats, documents, messages, and other information that you need to accomplish a business objective
- Create an activity for use by the members of a community.
Home page - Remain informed of social data updates from across the Lotus Connections services
- Stay up-to-date by scanning the new list format for displaying updates from across your professional network
- Subscribe to people or tags in the watchlist to focus on the updates that are most important to you
Forums
Provide a convenient way to create an on-line discussion board where people can ask questions, share their experiences, and discuss topics of common interest. Participating in a forum allows you to benefit from the expertise of other people through the exchange of ideas with your teammates and others who share your interest in a topic..
Social Analytics: widgets are available in the Home Page, Communities, and Profiles and can help you to:
- Expand your professional network
- Find content and communities that might interest you