prague

28/042014

Sponsor Highlight: TIMETOACT Group

News prague, soccnx, socialconnections, sponsors, timetoact by Wannes Rams

During the lead up to the Social Connections VI event in Prague in June, the team will be highlighting each of our valued sponsors in turn. We are delighted to have their support – without it we really couldn’t deliver this event and offer the completely no-fee attendance that we do.

We are excited to announce a returning gold-level sponsor for Social Connections who has sponsored several of our events: TIMETOACT GROUP

TIMETOACT GROUP & IBM Connections

We love IBM Connections and its potential for social business. As a full service partner TIMETOACT GROUP walks the social walk with our customers. During the whole time we help and assist our customers to find the best seeds, the most promising acres, efficient farmers and high quality fertilizer within their enterprise.

There is no question in our mind about the worth of the fruits of Social Business. But depending on the foundation and the maintenance there are significant differences in growth and quality of the harvest. Let us help you with our expertise and our simple to use extensions for IBM Connections to get the best out of your installment.

Web Content Management Extension (XCC) for IBM Connections
IBM Connections works perfectly for cases of personal and casual exchange of information and ideas. For the realization of a classic intranet homepage it is missing formal web content management functions as e.g. a conventional navigation and controllable news. With our easy to use custom homepage you can combine formal and casual information in one application and thereby take one big step into the direction of one social platform for your employees. Watch the following video and learn how to manage internal communications. (More information about XCC)

Connections Administration Toolkit (CAT)
Simplify the administration of IBM Connections with this easy to install and easy to use web interface tool. Complex multilevel administration commands can be done with just a single click, even by administrators without WebSphere background. Easily accelerate and automate administrative tasks and enhance the maintenance tasks for IBM Connections. Benefit from extremely lowered effort for training and maintenance. (More information about CAT)

About TIMETOACT GROUP

TIMETOACT GROUP provides professional services for IBM software and open standards. The group includes the companies edcom, BLUETRADE, CLOUDPILOTS, novaCapta, NOWSHARE, TIMETOACT and X-INTEGRATE. With more than 170 employees, TIMETOACT GROUP is one of the largest IBM Software Services providers in DACH. TIMETOACT GROUP is located in several locations in Germany and Switzerland.

Or visit our website: http://www.timetoact.de

16/042014

Sponsor Highlight: DNS a.s.

News prague, soccnx, sponsors by Wannes Rams

We are excited to announce a new gold-level sponsor for Social Connections: DNS a.s.

DNS is a value-added distributor (VAD) of IT technologies based in Prague, Czech Republic. DNS works with more than 30 global vendors however the distribution of IBM software and hardware products makes a significant portion of company turnover. DNS helps local resellers to be more successful in their business operations by various business development activities by providing sales, marketing and technical support, consultancy and advisory.

DNS is a big fan of IBM Collaboration Solutions and social business. It is a long-time sponsor of Czech Lotus user group called SUTOL (www.sutol.cz) and organizes various events, such as the annual “Get Social” conference (www.getsocial.cz @getsocial_cz). Last year DNS launched – perhaps as the first VAD – its social extranet (betterway.dns.cz) which is built with IBM Connections.

Besides, the only IBM champion for collaboration solutions in the country, Jan Valdman (@jan_valdman), works at DNS. Leveraging his skills and expertise DNS is successful enough to enable new resellers for IBM connections, help them with their first projects. Jan also partially works with end customer where he is engaged in several adoption projects.

If you consider to learn more about IBM Connections or even become a reseller, solution provider or managed services provider of the IBM social business platform, then DNS is the best place to start.

15/042014

TagItOn… Luis Suarez masterclass – ‘From Adoption to Adaptation, From Enablement into Engagement’

News adaptation, adoption, elsua, event, ibmcnx, masterclass, prague, soccnx, socialconnections by Wannes Rams

As many of you will be aware by now, Social Connections VI takes place on 16th/17th June in the beautiful city of Prague in the Czech Republic. The team have just announced the agenda and speakers for the event, and have been highlighting a number of our sponsors over the past couple of weeks. It is shaping up to be an ‘exceptional social experience’! 🙂

We know that many attendees, speakers and sponsors will be travelling from a distance to attend the event (we already have registrations from Russia, USA, the Gambia, Indonesia and Australia), and thus we want to deliver the most bang for their bucks (or perhaps Krug for their Koruna?)!

Therefore, once again, Social Connections has an option for an additional day’s content at this event. We call this ‘Tag It On‘ and this time we are thrilled to offer a true masterclass by one of the worldwide experts in Collaboration and Social Business, Luis Suarez!

Luis will be delivering a full-day workshop on Wednesday, 18th June at the same venue as Social Connections VI, the Hotel Ambassador in Prague.

“From Adoption to Adaptation, from Enablement into Engagement”

What if instead of “driving” adoption within your organisation, you could inspire and facilitate adaptation instead? What if you would have the means to re-define a new way of working with your fellow colleagues and peers through that very same adaptation to become a successful Socially Integrated Enterprise? What if that methodology, good practices, extensive expertise and know-how would all be at your fingertips, so you could apply it right away? What if you knew the nuts and bolts of getting your management and senior leadership teams all involved right from the start to help facilitate the final social business transformation you have always been looking for? Are you ready?

Come and join us on this one day masterclass to find out and learn how you can get the most out of your IBM Connections deployment to begin, or continue, that transformation journey into becoming a successful Social Business.

With a maximum capacity of 25, this session is going to be really focused, packed with value and offer tremendous opportunities to learn from both Luis and the other attendees’ experience.

Whether you are just getting started with your Social Business Adaptation Journey, or whether you are already a very well seasoned 2.0 knowledge worker, this workshop will provide you an opportunity to learn with other fellow practitioners through plenty of practical, hands-on advice, good practices, lots of hints and tips and, most importantly, all of the necessary knowledge resources available to date. It will help you as well to even break free from the email yoke: Outside of the Inbox

The early bird rate is just €349 (or €279 for non-profit and academic users) – this rate ends on 30th April so if you want to attend, now’s the time to register!

(If you’d prefer to pay by bank transfer or need a VAT invoice, please contact us directly.)

This is a real opportunity that is not to be missed. Since Luis left IBM just a few short months ago, this is the first time he has been able to share the breadth of his experience and knowledge to a wider audience. Book this Tag It On workshop alongside your free attendance at Social Connections VI and get the very best value from your travel.

We can’t wait to see you there!

08/042014

Social Connections VI: Five reasons to attend

News connections, prague, soccnx, socialconnections by Wannes Rams

Social Connections VI is less than 70 days away and I’m personally getting very excited for the conference. I’ve got June 16th and 17th circled on my calendar in bright red!

People have asked me “What is Social Connections?” and “Why should I attend?”; so I wanted to share five of my top reasons why I’m attending Social Connections VI. As an IBM Champion and being on the Social Connections team, some might say I’m a little biased…but, don’t forget I’m also an IBM Customer!

Sponsors – How cool is it that this conference is completely FREE to attend? Yeah, that’s pretty cool…thanks a lot to our sponsors for that; but that’s not the only reason that I feel having our sponsors at the event is a benefit. I love that I can sit and talk directly with these experts who have developed solutions for IBM Connections. These discussions are not a sale pitch. They get me thinking out of the box about what’s possible with my IBM Connections deployment and how to make my life supporting IBM Connections easier.
Speakers – Wow. In the past, Social Connections has had some great speakers. No offense to the excellent people who have spoken previously, but this year is shaping up to be, hands down, the best list of speakers we have ever had. Seriously awesome. And with the more intimate atmosphere of Social Connections, all of these speakers are available and willing to talk to you after their sessions. Or if you missed a session because you were attending another you can always catch the speaker during a break or the evening reception to discuss.
Content – Professional, passionate presentations and discussions that tell the story of real world experiences with IBM Connections. Solutions to the problems you are facing right now in your own organizations. Ideas that make your IBM Connections deployment better, that can increase adoption and give your organization a higher ROI with the tool. What else could you ask for? I can’t think of much more. (The agenda is almost complete and will be published soon!)
Attendees – You will have the opportunity to network with with other experienced IBM Connections users and leaders in the social business world. The best part is that this goes beyond the engaging discussions you have at the conference. You will leave the event with relationships and the ability to continue the discussion. Having a network to reach out to and bounce ideas off months after the conference has been one of the biggest benefits of my previous attendance of Social Connections.
Location – Let’s face it…even if you are local to the Czech Republic, who doesn’t want any excuse to travel to Prague?! Prague is listed on countless “Top 10 cities to visit in Europe” lists. If the pictures and the write ups do it half the justice, we really are in for a treat. Maximize your travel investment and come early on the weekend or stay a couple days after. I know I’m hoping I can arrange a little bit of tourist time.

I really hope to see you at Social Connections VI on June 16th & 17th! It’s going to be a great event (as always)!

Click here to register!

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me directly:

on Twitter – @oneillbp311
on LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com/in/oneillbp311

Or start a public discussion:

LinkedIn Group – Social Connections – The IBM Connections User Group
Facebook Group – Social Connections – The IBM Connections User Group
Google+ Community – IBM Connections Professionals & Power Users

04/042014

Sponsor Highlight: Infoware

News infoware, prague, soccnx, socialconnections, sponsors by Wannes Rams

We are happy to announce our next sponsor. Back again for another year of sponsoring Social Connections and this year as a Gold sponsor: Infoware Solutions

Infoware – your Social Business Knowledge Partner

Infoware is one of the largest IBM Premier Business Partner in Scandinavia with full focus on IBM Social Business. With good understanding of their customers’ challenges and expertise Social Business, they develop successful products that make IBM platforms more efficient. Their experiences include content and user management, as well as social platforms for collaboration and knowledge sharing. Today, they have gathered all of their company experience in implementing and managing IBM Connections, and developed a revolutionary tool for easy and powerful management of content and user access.

Infoware works long term with large organizations, where social strategies vary widely. Together with their clients, they are navigating through organizational and cultural challenges. Thanks to the reduced distances in the organizations, clients can then cost-effectively increase both knowledge sharing, productivity and innovation.

We bring business value in Social Business!

DomainPatrol Social – stay social

Do not glue your business content to the bookshelves
Let your organization evolve with your shared knowledge
Reorganize your IBM Connections content in a snap.

As you may know, DomainPatrol Social is the powerful tool to move and merge content or users in an IBM Connections environment.

What does it do?

DomainPatrol Social can move individual entries or whole Blogs, Communities, Wikis, Forums, Activities to and from Communities.

You can also merge content from Wikis, Blogs or Forums and even move or merge whole Communities. Additionally you can administer User Access and Roles in a convenient way. Solve highly complex administration tasks in a simple UI.

Why do I need it?

Ease the administration for your IBM Connections environment forever; perform complicated tasks in a snap.

DomainPatrol Social shapes your social business platform into an attractive arena that grows with your organization. DomainPatrol Social makes the users trust IBM Connections with their time and documents. Clean up the IBM Connections for less support, issues and problems during upgrades.

Vist Infoware’s website: www.infoware.com

Try DomainPatrol Social for free: online.domainpatrolsocial.com

03/042014

Sponsor Highlight: FRITZ & MACZIOL

News fritz macziol, prague, soccnx, socialconnections, sponsors by Wannes Rams

We are very excited to announce our Budweiser-level sponsor for this event and the sponsor of our speakers and sponsors reception: FRITZ & MACZIOL

Since its first release in 2007, FRITZ & MACZIOL believed and has heavily invested in IBM Connections and is one of the biggest providers of services related to Connections in Germany.

Besides implementation of the product they offer consultancy services and add-on products to IBM Connections.

Their senior engineers have deep experiences in implementing and optimizing the product on various platforms. High availability infrastructures including fail-over solutions for all components including DB/2 database and file server back end are used by many of their customers. Some of their experts also contributed add-on scripting and authentication solutions to the community like Christoph Stoettner (IBM champion) and Andreas Artner (AdminCamp Germany). They also offer administration courses for IBM Connections administrators and development courses for web developers e.g. using the Social Business toolkit (SBT).

FRITZ & MACZIOL’s business consulting team is offering services and consulting around getting started into the new ways of working with IBM Connections. They are offering a complete model for introducing Connections including a technology and governance framework, change management methods, guidelines, training and education. They are specialized in the entire portfolio of IBM software and also provide integration of Connections with WebSphere Portal, WCM, BPM and we are also experienced in the application of business analytics techniques based on Watson to IBM Connections.

In addition during the last years, FRITZ & MACZIOL have also created a bunch of ready-to-use add-ons and products for IBM Connections:

C3 – Contacts, Connect, and Communities: “Knowledge Accelerator” is an add-on to IBM Connections that provides a self-service login module, a password change add-on, a “terms and conditions” application and additional features like an expert finder. It is installed upon IBM Connections to improve the experience and usability of the product.

Migration of IBM Quickr to IBM Connections: Since software withdrawal announcement of IBM Quickr in mid of 2013 customers are able to use IBM Connections Content Manager (CCM) as replacement for formerly used Quickr team places. FRITZ & MACZIOL are offering services around consulting and migrating data/information from IBM Quickr to IBM Connections Content Manager by their certified IBM software experts.

Big Data meets IBM Connections: The benefits of IBM Connections for a company are more than establishing a set of Social Business tools to improve communication and collaboration between people. If Connections is used as intended, i.e. as an open platform for sharing information and data, discussions, insights, ideas, opinions etc., it becomes a treasure of data containing a lot of knowledge about the company itself. FRITZ & MACZIOL are offering a ready-to-use solution by applying methods of business analytics and big data to IBM Connections data. They are using IBM Watson, Hadoop & Co. to bring additional value to your Connections investment.

Soccer World Cup app – Brazil 2014: FRITZ & MACZIOL has a ready-to-use World Cup app based on web standards that can be integrated into IBM Connections for motivation and gamification. A review of research on gamification shows that most studies on gamification find positive effects from gamification. This app is fully integrated into the Connections user experience and can be used e.g. inside a community.

The FRITZ & MACZIOL group is part of the Royal Imtech N.V., an internationally acting Dutch company group, being leading in the areas of mechanical and electrical engineering and ICT. The ICT Imtech division covers the entire ICT chain including software and hardware, business intelligence, control technology, platform automation, data and telecommunications, data modelling, data centres, ICT infrastructures, internet and intranet applications, managed IT services, and communication technology and other.

Visit FRITZ & MACZIOL’s website: http://www.fum.de

28/032014

Last Call for Social Connections VI Abstracts

News abstracts, event, prague, soccnx, socialconnections by Wannes Rams

Planning has kicked into high gear for our sixth event and many of the pieces are falling into place nicely. We are really excited with the location we’ve selected in the heart of Prague. We already have over 100 people registered for the event.

The first round of abstracts have been submitted and we have a lot of great speakers and sessions to pick from to fill the agenda. With this years event expanding to one and a half days, we have a little extra room for more sessions and we wanted to put out one last call for abstracts. And, don’t forget, Social Connections is a user group event for IBM Connections. It’s not all just about known and established speakers, we love to encourage new and upcoming speakers to contribute. To gain an impression of our past agenda, take a look at our agenda for Social Connections V in Zurich last June.

Each session slot is 30 minutes and should be given in English. Some exceptions will be made this year for sessions being presented in Czech. We will have limited interpretations services available at the event.

The two categories for which we are looking to fill the last few slots are:

Administration & Infrastructure: How to do it? What do you need to set up and maintain a good IBM Connections environment? Installation, setting-up, security, integration and anything else that you need to know to administrate a stable environment.
Development: How do you develop for IBM Connections? Building plug-ins, widgets or doing customizations and integration. Anything related to extending the IBM Connections platform.

If you have an exciting story to tell or a unique process to show, don’t hesitate to submit an abstract! The deadline for submitting an abstract is 30th March 2014. We look forward to hearing from you!

07/032014

Sponsor Highlight: Kudos Badges

News isw, prague, soccnx, socialconnections, sponsors by Wannes Rams

So first out of the blocks, we have the Gold-level sponsor that is travelling over 10,000 miles from Australia to be at the event…

Kudos Suite for IBM Connections by ISW

The Kudos Suite is designed to encourage IBM Connections users to leverage the full benefits of a social enterprise. Kudos rewards user adoption, measures performance and increases productivity.

Kudos can transform and accelerate organisations usage of IBM Connections by encouraging users to leverage the full capability of social enterprise as well as increasing their productivity thru clever design.

Kudos Badges for IBM Connections is a flexible gamification engine for IBM Connections. By providing achievements and rewards (Kudos Badges), rank and leaderboards (Kudos Rank), simple next steps (Kudos Progress), and missions (Kudos Missions), organisations can dramatically improve their user engagement and adoption of IBM Connections.

Kudos Awards & Kudos Thanks have been designed to enable Social Recognition of great work amongst your employees and customers. Creating a positive culture is essential in todays workplace. When employees are recognised for their achievements it can have the effect of multiplying the positive benefits of the work they have performed across the organisation.

Kudos Analytics is a light weight analytics and reporting tool focused on enabling organisations to understand what your usage patterns are. Analytics provide insight into active Connections usage, utilisation, and which features are being leveraged well or not. Providing insights for Administrator, Community Managers, and Personal Analytics, Kudos enables organisations to optimise and target adoption strategies to the areas that need extra attention.

Kudos Boards transforms Activities within IBM Connections into a visually manageable format. Leveraging the tried and true method known as Kanban, Kudos Boards features the ability to filter by person, priority or colour, and drag and drop your Tasks as activities progress or circumstances change.

The Kudos Badges solution has won IBM awards, and is a really popular ‘reward and recognition’ solution for IBM Connections. As ISW broaden the Kudos portfolio to include analytics and task management solutions, the Social Connections team are delighted to again welcome Adam Brown and the ISW team to the event.

If you’d like to learn more about Kudos Badges, see a demo and chat to the team behind the product, then register for Social Connections VI today!

13/022014

Social Connections VI venue and dates announced! Register now!

News prague, soccnx, socialconnections, vi by Wannes Rams

London, Cardiff, Dublin, Amsterdam, Zürich…

Social Connections has certainly spread its wings over the past 2.5 years… So, where next for the IBM Connections and Social Business user group?

Here’s some clues:

Yes, that’s right, Social Connections is headed for the beautiful and historic city of Prague in the Czech Republic!

What’s more, we’ll be bigger and better than ever… It will be our first ever two-day event, starting at 12pm on Monday 16th June and concluding our formal agenda at 6pm on Tuesday 17th June. This schedule is designed to allow those short of time to travel in on the Monday morning and out on the Tuesday evening if required. However, if one has more time to spare, then it would be easy to tack on a leisurely weekend stay too.

What won’t change is that we’ll be making sure that ‘Social’ is not just a buzzword, but is instead at the heart of all that we do. Once again, we’ll have a very special complementary reception for all attendees (this time on the Monday night), splendid catering, plenty of Czech beer on tap (including the original Budweiser!), speed-sponsoring and much more. The team is planning some exciting new networking opportunities too.

However, there will also be some awesome business and technical content too – this is a Social Business conference after all! The extra day means that we’ll have a series of fantastic keynotes and main tent sessions on the Monday afternoon, and then a full day’s multi-track agenda on Tuesday – featuring at least three rooms/tracks for business, technical and case study sessions. As usual, we want to keep the content varied and the energy high, so most sessions will be 30 minutes in length giving plenty of opportunity for great speakers to enthral you with their knowledge, passion and expertise.

So where in Prague will this take place? Out of town at some bland and faceless conference centre? No, we’ll be right in the historic old town area on the stunning Wenceslas Square plaza, at the Hotel Ambassador Zlata Husa, with the main sessions being held in the gorgeous art nouveau Congress Hall:

It promises to be a truly amazing event, even if we do say so ourselves…

The cost to attend? €1,000? €500? No, due to the incredible support of our sponsors, the event will be free to attend! You just need to get yourself to Prague.

Space is limited, so you will want to register ASAP.

We are looking for additional sponsors and also for speakers.

So if you would like to submit an abstract for the event, please do so ASAP – the submission process closes on 30th March, with those sessions submitted before the end of February given best chance of being selected. We are particularly keen to see abstracts from first-time speakers, case studies from customers and thought-leading topics from analysts. However, all Social Business and IBM Connections-related abstracts will be considered!

As you can probably tell, the team are hugely excited to be announcing this event! We can’t wait to be in Prague, and hope that you’ll join us there too…