IBM Connections, how would you want to see it improved?

Femke Goedhart # #

As most of you know I’m very passionate about IBM Connections as an Enterprise Social Network. I love how it puts people central and allows organisations to foster and expand their users collaboration. However, it also has certain things that can or should be improved. In the past there was an IDEAJAM site where ordinary users, customers and business partners could suggest or vote on ideas for changes, additions and improvements but unfortunately that was discontinued. Leaving very few avenues for ordinary IBM Connections users to leave their ideas.

This has now changed. With the site https://connections.ideas.aha.io everyone now has the option once more to suggest ideas for improving IBM Connections or to vote for ideas suggested by others. So what are you waiting for?!? This is your chance to help IBM understand what is needed to keep making this product great. Let’s all take that chance and make ourselves be heard 🙂

ConnectionsExpert 2.0 released!

Femke Goedhart # # # # #

It’s summer and that means that news is sometimes announced during a period while people are about to go – or just coming back from holiday. This happened to me when ConnectionsExpert 2.0 was released just before I went on holiday. Which meant that I wasn’t able to share my excitement over its inception as much as I would have liked to and that’s also why you are now reading this blog post with a few weeks delay. Don’t worry though, my excitement over this release is still the same!

So what’s ConnectionsExpert?

For those that don’t know, ConnectionsExpert is a tool from panagenda that allows you to gain deep dive information about the health status, usage and adoption rates of your IBM Connections environment by collecting and displaying key metrics and monitoring information about the platform and its usage. As a team we’ve been working hard to further expand the features of ConnectionsExpert and that has resulted in this new release! Continue reading ConnectionsExpert 2.0 released!

How not… data visualizations

Femke Goedhart #

I admit freely that I’m still learning every day when it comes to how best to visualize data and that means that I look at other visualization much more in detail than I would have done in the past. There are many best practices around how to visualize data and when a data visualization doesn’t keep to them I can’t help but go into analyzer mode (yes, even my own and I’m in no way perfect!).

One of those that caught my attention this week was the following.

Continue reading How not… data visualizations

SocialNow a new approach to presenting…

Femke Goedhart # # #

Social Now letteringTwo weeks ago I was at SocialNow conference in Lisbon and was honored to have a short session on ‘social analytics’. The conference has quite a unique setup in that it is completely based around a fictitious company called Cablinc which is thinking of implementing an Enterprise Social Network. All speakers address the conference as if they are presenting to the company trying to either instill knowledge as a ‘consultant’ or get them to buy their product as ‘vendor’. Several speakers and vendors are invited around various topics and they are provided with information about the Cablink company as well as specific use cases they could use in their presentation.

As this is quite a different approach to what I would normally do I decided to really go ‘analytics’ on this challenge of talking social analytics as one of the ‘Consultants’ and build Cablinc a dashboard around the theme “What does Cablincs current usage of mail & file storage facilities say about the need for implementation of an ESN?“…

Continue reading SocialNow a new approach to presenting…

Think 2018 – A new format

Femke Goedhart # # # #

Two weeks ago I returned from Las Vegas and due to personal circumstances I wasn’t able to post my opinion on the event sooner. So a bit late but here are my two cents on a few days in Las Vegas!

This was the first time for IBM to combine the former Connect event, focused on IBM Collaboration solutions, with all the other events of other IBM brands into one massive 4 day event. With thousands of visitors (estimated numbers ranging from 23.000 to well over 30.000 according to various people I spoke), hundreds of sessions on a wide variety of topics, two impressive conference locations (MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay) and a showcase floor that could easily encompass several football pitches, it was indeed massive. Granted, that scale also caused some challenges and problems but overall I must say I really loved it…!

Continue reading Think 2018 – A new format

Upcoming events & the IBM Champions program

Femke Goedhart

My blog has been really quiet the last few months for which my apologies. It’s one of those times where I simply don’t have time to blog nor the topics to blog about. But as there were a few things noteworthy lately I figured it’s time to do an update blog now. Continue reading Upcoming events & the IBM Champions program

That time of year again – IBM Champion nominations

Femke Goedhart # # #

Every year IBM recognizes people for their outstanding work to aid and support the technical IBM community. It’s a prestigious honor and a way for us all to thank those in our community that tirelessly help others. After all, it’s often forgotten how much people do for each other above and beyond their normal day-to-day job. That total stranger that answered your question on twitter which helped you solve a problem, the blog post from someone across the globe that set you on the track of success, the volunteers organizing the user event where you met your peers and the speakers at those events that helped you expand your knowledge. All of that is often done by people who do not necessarily get payed for those things but do it simply to help others. It’s because of the people who do all that that this community is strong and living and it is something we need to cherish. So if you feel someone directly or indirectly helped you, or the community this year, in a way that goes beyond and above their normal job then think about nominating them to be an IBM Champion. https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/champion/nominate.html

Continue reading That time of year again – IBM Champion nominations

Tableau & MakeOverMonday – Learning new skills

Femke Goedhart # # # #

For the last few months I’ve been steadily training myself into a new skill: data visualization. As data analytics is an ever increasing part of my job and something I’m highly interested in, it makes sense to do so and after working with Watson analytics it seemed logical to also explore Tableau. I have to admit I love it as it lets me be creative as well as forces me to deep dive into data, patterns and processes to fully understand the data you are working with. But learning a new skill and new software can be hard and apart from using some online materials I found, the thing that really helped me learn this new skill was to be challenged and use it hands-on.

Hello chicken and egg story: As you can’t get hands-on experience without doing it and you can’t get jobs to do it if you don’t have the experience….

Continue reading Tableau & MakeOverMonday – Learning new skills

What is IBM Connections? And how to explain it to users!

Femke Goedhart # # #

In my work a big part of what I do is to explain both the reasons as well as the interface of IBM Connections. Why? Well because once you get the hang of it it’s not that hard but to a newbie user who opens it up for the first time it can be very daunting and alien.

Continue reading What is IBM Connections? And how to explain it to users!

Session slides for my Engage & SNOUG sessions

Femke Goedhart # #

It has been a while since I posted and it’s time to catch up. Times have been rather busy so this post is mostly to just distribute my slides from Snoug & engage. Both wonderful events that really do deserve a big round of applause for setting up great events for people to come together and learn about all there is to know about IBM ICS’s products!

Continue reading Session slides for my Engage & SNOUG sessions