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 iteasily, 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 IBMrs"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 advantageand by explaining how Lotus Connections 2.5 places full-fledged social networking tools at their fingertips.IBM Lotus Connections 2.5carefully describes each component of the productincluding 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.

Stephen Hardison is an IBM Certified IT Specialist with IBM Software Services for Lotus. He is responsible for the design, implementation, operation, and assessment of large-scale collaborative solutions using Lotus Connections, Lotus Domino, and WebSphere Portal. He lives near Austin, Texas. Stephen joined IBM in 1999, and has worked in the Information Technology industry for over 20 years. He has international experience, having worked on several worldwide deployments of IBM solutions in North and South America, Europe, and Asia.

 

David Byrd is an IBM Senior Certified Executive IT Architect with IBM Software Services for Lotus from Fayetteville, Georgia. He has been an IBM/Lotus employee for close to 10 years in a number of consulting positions covering various technology areas. David has a deep background in virtually all areas of Lotus products and technologies covering areas ranging from low-level API development to collaborative application architectures, security architectures, and messaging architectures. His current focus is on Lotus Quickr, as well as other collaboration technologies and associated deployment within enterprise customers. He has worked with Lotus Notes and Domino for over 15 years. David has authored several books and technical articles during his tenure with IBM.

 

Gary Wood is a Field Support Engineer with Lotus Field Support Services (FSS). In that role, he has been responsible for troubleshooting applications for some of the largest Notes/Domino installations worldwide, as well as providing training on the latest technologies from Lotus. He has been working with Notes and Domino since R3, with the past 10 years spent in consulting roles focusing on application architecture and development for various divisions within IBM. Gary has worked on various international assignments, from Canada to Venezuela and the United Kingdom to Malaysia.

 

Tim Speed is an IBM Certified Systems Architect with IBM Software Services for Lotus (ISSL). In that capacity, he is responsible for designing, implementing, and supporting various engagements with our clients. Tim lives in Denton, Texas. He has been an IBM/Lotus employee for over 12 years in various networking, technical, hardware and software support, and consulting positions. He has been working with Notes and Domino for over 16 years, focusing on administration roles and infrastructure. Tim also has international experience with working on infrastructure engagements in Spain, Brazil, France, Mexico, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, U.K., and Indonesia. Tim has also published more than 12 technical articles and 8 books.

 

Michael Martin is a Certified Senior Managing Consultant in the Messaging and Collaboration Practice for IBM Software Services for Lotus (ISSL) group, focusing on organizational development, change management, and social software adoption. He has consulted with many international companies on the global deployment of organizational changes related to technology implementations. He has provided consulting services for organizational analysis and design, communications strategy and deployment, training strategy development, leadership coaching, social network analysis, organizational culture analysis, and stakeholder management. He has over 32 years’ experience in manufacturing and service industries, including 24 years in line management and management consulting. He has published one article on collaboration and organizational culture.

 

Suzanne Livingston has held various roles within software development, including development, design, user research, and now product management. Suzanne is currently the product manager for Lotus Connections, a social software suite for businesses and organizations. In the role of product manager, Suzanne has worked to define the overall product strategy, develop and drive the product requirements with engineering and design, work with customers and partners to shape the product, and publicize the product through demonstrations and presentations at numerous industry events. Suzanne began her career at IBM in the Collaborative User Experience Research group as a user researcher on the Unified Activity Management project and a developer and usability specialist on the Reinventing Email project. Currently, Suzanne holds an MBA with a concentration in Human Factors in Information Design, and she has a strong interest in collaboration technologies and personal and business productivity tools.

 

Jason Moore is a Field Support Engineer with Lotus Field Support Services (FSS). He is the WebSphere Portal lead for the FSS organization and has helped with the implementation, operation, and maintenance of some of the largest WebSphere Portal installations around the world. Jason has been with IBM for 7 years; during this time, he has focused on delivering customer engagements surrounding the performance and interoperability of Lotus Domino and WebSphere Portal.

 

Morten Kristiansen has been with IBM since 2000, where he first held a senior position in the Lotus Customer Support organization. Currently, Morten is the technical lead on the SVT team responsible for Lotus Connections. Morten’s other interests include automation and virtualization, areas where he has been implementing process improvements in his own direct team as well as his extended team. When not busy with the challenges of being a technical leader in IBM, he is the proud father of twin boys.