Greenhouse now running IBM Connections 5.0

by with No Comment Misc

This was a pleasant surprise this morning:

Greenhouse at Connections 5.0

Yes, the IBM Greenhouse has been upgraded to IBM Connections 5.0.0.0.

New features including External Collaboration (which isn’t strictly relevant to the Greenhouse), improvements to Files and file-sync (using the new mobile apps and desktop plugins), plus significant significant enhancements to the activity stream and @mentions should all now be visible on the community test/demo platform.

Check it out!

PS. As the Greenhouse was already running the NextGen theme there aren’t too many changes visually…

PPS. The Greenhouse has over 100,000 members… Pretty amazing:

IBM Greenhouse members

Make your mind up… (Community platforms)

by with 6 Comments Social Business

I appreciate the willingness of so many IBMers to be social and collaborate with those outside the organisation.

I love the way that they will go beyond the call of duty and step in to help with issues or discussions. 

I adore that so many are willing to find information and share it privately or publicly via social tools and IBM cloud platforms.

But…

I just wish that there was one network that all IBMers (or at least all ICS staff) used rather than a combination of:

  • Greenhouse
  • Smart Cloud Engage (formerly LotusLive)
  • developerWorks
  • ibm.com

Connections is an awesome platform when used properly – and that typically means one instance for an entire organisation or community. 

I would love to see IBM pick one platform (my preference would be to use the Connections instance on ibm.com) as the place to collaborate with the ICS community (partners, customers, press, analysts – everyone), make sure it is running the latest, greatest version of Connections, and then stick with it!

Do you agree?  If so, which platform would you pick?  Please leave a comment!

IBM Connections 4.0. About to go public…

by with 3 Comments AnnouncementsIBM Connections

News from the IBM Greenhouse:

We are targeting our upgrade to Connections 4.0 Beta for Thursday July 26th. Connections will be down for the entire day while we upgrade and test the new environment.

Less than a week away!  As many of you will be aware, upgrading the Greenhouse install of Connections is one of the most significant public steps that takes place as an IBM Connections release nears GA.  The wraps are thrown off and everyone gets to try the code themselves first-hand.

With well publicised enhancements such as the embedded experience, share box, Connections Mail (aka ‘Social Mail’), community activity streams and a brand new UI, this is a massive release for the Connections product.  Where 3.0.x saw Connections hit maturity as a social platform in my eyes, 4.0 will see it really leap forward in terms of the impact on enterprise users – it can definitely become the centrepiece in an organisation’s messaging and collaboration infrastructure.

These are exciting times…  Make sure you check out Connections 4.0 in the Greenhouse this time next week!