The Practical, Complete Guide to Leveraging the Power of Social Networks with Lotus Connections 2.5 The first book to cover the newest version of the breakthrough product from IBM: Lotus Connections 2.5. This book includes practical techniques for building dynamic networks of coworkers, partners, and customers that promote innovation, business agility, and authoritative guidance for business and technical planning, deployment, integration, and much more. Social networking is the newest frontier in business collaboration, and IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 gives businesses the tools they need to make the most of it–easily, securely, and cost-effectively. In this book, a team of IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 experts thoroughly introduces the newest product and covers every facet of planning, deploying, and using it successfully. The authors cover business and technical issues and present IBM’s proven, best-practices methodology for successful implementation. The authors begin by helping managers and technical professionals identify opportunities to use social networking for competitive advantage–and by explaining how Lotus Connections 2.5 places full-fledged social networking tools at their fingertips. IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 carefully describes each component of the product–including profiles, activities, blogs, communities, easy social bookmarking, personal home pages, and more. The book contains practical coverage of administering Lotus Connections 2.5 and detailed guidance of integrating and extending Lotus Connections 2.5.

The Practical, Complete Guide to Leveraging the Power of Social Networks with Lotus Connections 2.0 IBM ® Lotus ® Connections 2.0 gives businesses all the tools they need to make the most of social networking—easily, securely, and cost-effectively. Now, a team of IBM Lotus Connections experts thoroughly introduce this breakthrough product and covers every facet of planning, deploying, and using it successfully. IBM Lotus Connections 2.0 covers both business and technical issues and presents proven best practices for every step of the implementation process. The authors first help you identify your best opportunities to use social networking for competitive advantage and demonstrate how Lotus Connections 2.0 places state-of-the-art social networking tools at your fingertips. Next, they carefully describe each component of the product, including profiles, activities, blogs, communities, “dog-ear” bookmarking, personal home pages, and more. They present practical coverage of administering Lotus Connections as well as detailed guidance on extending and integrating it. Whether you’re an executive, IT manager, or technical professional, this eBook has all the information you need to put social networking to work—and deliver powerful, quantifiable results. Coverage includes Assessing the potential value of social networking to your business Building dynamic networks of coworkers, partners, and customers that promote innovation and business agility Understanding the core services Lotus Connections 2.0 provides and the unique way in which they integrate Leveraging Lotus Connections’ consistent multitiered architecture Successfully planning for technical infrastructure and organizational change Walking through a best-practice installation and configuration process Building effective communities for employees with shared interests Using blogs to improve communications and overcome organizational silos or time zone differences Helping individuals and groups organize their work through Activities Performing administrative tasks such as customizing look-and-feel, collecting statistics, and troubleshooting Using plug-ins to integrate with Lotus Notes ®, Microsoft ® Office ®, Outlook ®, Windows ® Explorer, Lotus Sametime ®, and WebSphere ® Portal Displaying useful, up-to-the-minute information with prebuilt widgets Utilizing Lotus Connections’ REST-based API to create new integration points and build custom applications