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Executive Overview

August 2007

Expertise within Reach

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Making sense out of Web 2.0 and Social Software

Wiki’sBlogs

Social Networks

AJAX

RSS

Mash-ups

Social Computing

MySpace

Tags

Web 2.0

del.icio.us Flickr

REST

ATOM

LinkedIn

folksonomy

Consumerization

Digg

bookmarking

Communities

Video Sharing

Avatars Facebook

Why should my business care?

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Demand for Growth Drives Social Software Adoption

Survey show innovators grow faster

75% of CEOs indicated that collaboration was important to innovation

Top sources of innovation were business partners, employees and customers

To thrive in this environment companies must:

Weave communities into the product development process

Execute those innovative ideas quickly

CEOs: sources of new ideas and innovation

IBM Institute for Business Value. CEO Study 2006

45% 35% 25% 15% 5% 5% 15% 25% 35% 45%

Business partners

Clients

Consultants

Competitors

Associations, trade groups,conference boards

Academia Internet, blogs, bulletin boards

Think tanks

Other

Research anddevelopment (internal)

Sales or service units

Employees (general population)

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Changing Nature of Work Drives Adoption

Work environments are more complex Matrixed organizations Organization changes Mergers/Acquisitions Global companies Telecommuting

Work is increasingly collaborative Specialization Ad hoc projects

Work demands more social capital

“Today, more than 85 percent of a typical S&P 500 company’s market value is the result of intangible assets. For many companies, the bulk of these intangible assets is its people, its

human capital. It is no longer what you own that counts but what you know…”

—Craig Symons, Forrester Research, Inc.

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Introducing IBM Lotus® Connections software

Lotus Connections software is social software for business that

empowers you to be more innovative and helps you execute

more quickly by using dynamic networks of coworkers, partners

and customers.

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Lotus Connections software has five parts

CommunitiesCreate, find, join, and work with communities of people who share a common interest, responsibility, or area of expertise

BlogsUse a weblog to present your idea and get feedback from others; learn from the expertise and experience of others who blog

DogearSave, organize and share bookmarks; discover bookmarks that have been qualified by others with similar interests & expertise

ActivitiesOrganize your work, plan next steps, and easily tap your expanding professional network to help execute your everyday deliverables, faster

ProfilesQuickly find the people you need by searching across your organization using keywords that help identify expertise, current projects and responsibilities

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Lotus Connections software is already at work in IBM

CommunitiesIBM Community Map hosts 700 communities. IBM Forums hold 36,000 entries.

BlogsIBM’s BlogCentral hosts 27,300 weblogs (420 group blogs) with 62,000 entries and 60,000 comments, and 10,800 distinct tags.

DogearIBM’s internal Dogear system has 185,000 links from 3,425 users. One-third are intranet links and only 2.5% are private.

ActivitiesIBM’s internal Activities service has seen all content and usage statistics grow by 2.5x over the second half of 2006 to 10,000 activities, 60,000 entries and 32,000 users.

ProfilesIBM’s internal BluePages application provided the basis for Profiles. BluePages holds 475,000 profiles and serves 3.5 million searches per week. It is the hub of both user requests and all app authentication for IBM.

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Lotus Connections Software Helps Deliver Expertise To Customers

No easy way to find, learn from and work with experts across the company

Re-inventing the wheel again and again

Challenge

Improving the efficiency of key revenue generating employees

Increase customer satisfaction with faster service

Raising the reach and impact of their subject-matter experts

Business Value

Corporate white pages directory that allows employees to quickly find expertise in different markets, technology and financial services. Blogs, bookmarks and communities services are used so employees can share knowledge and get feedback from experts. Also, employees are using Activities to execute key deliverables faster

Solution

Global Financial Services Firm

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Lotus Connections software Drives Innovative Product Development

In order to grow the business faster, they needed a quicker way to develop and evaluate new services concepts and business models.

Challenge

Increase the number of new services using communities of customers and partners Accelerate the evaluation of new service concepts and therefore be faster to market Grow market share and revenue through differentiated services and business models

Business Value

Deployed a Innovation Factory portal application that utilized the social software services of Lotus Connections software to include communities of employees, customers and partners in the development and evaluation of new Telcom services.

Solution

Telecommunications Firm

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Lotus Connections software Improves Call Center Productivity

Want to improve employee productivity by delivering the best user experience, increase operational excellence, and foster innovation between teams

Challenge

Increase communication and coordination of projects between teams

Reduce time required to find the correct people with the right expertise

Improve collective intelligence of organization by sharing experiences

Business Value

Deployed enterprise wide implementation of the 5 social software services of Lotus Connections software. Focused on enabling users to become more productive by working smarter and finding information – one key area was transfer of knowledge between engineering and call center staff.

Solution

Network and Communications Provider

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Lotus Connections Accelerates Project Execution

Needed to improve productivity when working with contractors and partners across the US on education curriculums.

Challenge

Built strong relationships across several art archival and preservation organizations

Improved communication and status tracking of projects

Accelerated the delivery of education curriculums created by a disconnected teams

Business Value

Using the Activities component of Lotus Connections software so their entire network of employees, partners and customers can collaborate on the execution of projects.

Solution

Small Non-ProfitArts Organization

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The Value of Social Software for Business

Complete Tasks Faster

Execute with Confidence

Grow through Innovation

Empower People

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Learn more about howLotus Connections software can work for you…

www.ibm.com/lotus/connectionsLatest product info, research, podcasts, and more