The second of the sessions delivered by Stuart McIntyre of Collaboration Matters at BLUG 2013.

1. # BLUG
A PROFILE IS THE KEY
TO A USERS'
CONNECTIONS
IDENTITY. EXPLOIT IT!
Stuart McIntyre, BLUG 2013

2. IS THIS WHAT YOU WERE
# BLUG EXPECTING?
• Profiles is arguably the core feature within IBM Connections. It is the critical backbone for this people centric application. Many features and
fields are available out-of-the-box, but the real power of Profiles comes to the force when it is customized to suit the organization or community
it serves.
• Does your organization want to leverage and maximize the value of the information in your corporate LDAP or HR database? Do you want want
to make it available in the Profiles, business cards and search results? Would you like to display key contact details and job information in IBM
Sametime, IBM Notes or IBM iNotes? How about social networking profile information such as Facebook and Twitter profiles?
• Perhaps you have multiple user types in your company - external contractors or temporary workers for example? You may want different
attributes to be displayed, or certain Profiles features blocked?
• Attend this session, discover the options available to you and your organisation, and see the steps involved from beginning to end. Stuart and
Wannes have performed these customizations many times in real-life Connections customer implementations (at 4.0 and prior releases) and will
share their experiences and best practices.

3. YOUR SPEAKERS
• Stuart McIntyre • Wannes Rams
• CTO of Collaboration Matters, a Social Business • Social Collaboration software consultant for GFI Belux
Consultancy
• IBM Redbooks Thought Leader, Speaker at BLUG and
• IBM Champion 2011/2012 Social Connections
• Blogger (stuart-mcintyre.com), Tweeter (@stuartmcintyre) • B l o g g e r ( w a n n e s r a m s . b l o g . c o m ) , Tw e e t e r
and all around Social Media advocate (@WannesRams)
• Podcaster • Sadly sick and unable to attend today ;-(
• Feel free to contact me, socially of course!

4. #blug
Interaction is good!
Image: http://www.slideshare.net/Niezette/100-pictures-for-powerpoint-presentations

5. So which is the most important feature in Connections?

6. Communities?

7. Files?

8. Activity
Stream &
Homepage?

9. My Opinion?
Profiles.

10. Why?

11. Most importantly...
User Adoption

12. Profiles should be
but are often...

13. So what do we do?

14. e.g. remove PagerID, add field for employee ID
Never ever (never!) roll out Connections
with default Profiles

15. Pager number?
When did you last have a pager?

16. CUSTOMISING PROFILES
ATTRIBUTES
• Used to be a bit of a black art
• Now documented really well for 4.0
• http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/lcwiki.nsf/dx/Customizing_IBM_Connections_4.0_Profiles
• Much improved in 4.0:
• Uses Freemarker templates to allow easy customisation of Profile layouts
• Add dropdowns and radar buttons
• Automatic refresh of customisations when enabled

17. SOME EXAMPLES

18. What do users want/need to find?
e.g. Survey your users, add fields/search attributes accordingly

19. # BLUG MAKE IT RELEVANT

20. How are individuals
categorised in your
organisation?
e.g. How do you rank/reward/promote your employees? Ensure that is represented in Profiles

21. RECOGNITION
• Rewards and Recognition are incredibly important
• Usually mix of job title, hierarchy and awards
• How do you demonstrate reputation in your organisation?
• Is this visible on intranet/social systems?

22. # BL UG IT’S ABOUT COMPETENCE
Seekers Contributors
Critical Success Factors
I need someone I am someone
Awareness How do I know who is out there? How can I become more known?
Competence (Trust) Is this person competent? How can I advertise my expertise?
Benevolence (Trust) Will this person help me? How can I develop my reputation as a trusted partner?
Mechanism Do we have a method to collaborate?

23. e.g. What do users need in a hurry, ensure this is available on biz card/search results
You’re in a panic...
Sev 1 Crisis! What
do you need?

24. Free text is everything...
And nothing...
e.g. Ensure contextual data is populated (About me etc), but offer dropdown/restricted fields for ordered data

25. Reward (regular) input
e.g. old data is misinformation, use badges and rewards to stimulate updates

26. But in truth, social software
users do and the business
problems the tools address.
Jakob Nielsen, Usability Guru

27. Questions?

28. Thank You!