IBM Lotus Connections Flight School

IBM Lotus Connections“Flight School”

Sample Communications & Adoption Plan

© 2009 IBM

• Based on a series of successful rollout plans, this is a sample Communications Plan for fostering the adoption of Lotus Connections

• The plan is broken down into a five-week “flight school”

• Each week contains:

– Activities and tasks for the Student Pilots

– Weekly Student Pilot expectations/tasks to be completed

– Activities and tasks for the Flight Trainers (ie, YOU)

About…

Goals by Week• Week 1: On-board Systems Check

– “Matriculate” each student pilot into Flight school, and get them started with Lotus Connections

• Week 2: Taxing down the Runway– Student pilots have a general sense on how to organize their work and

colleagues, so it’s time to get them Blogging & managing their social network with the Homepage

• Week 3: Taking Flight– Once in the air, the student pilots will have a 10,000 ft perspective of the

their communities and effectively leverage their social networks

• Week 4: Connecting Flights– Using & configuring plugins; ideas on how to use Lotus Connections in the

real world

• Week 5: Cleared for Takeoff– Graduation & where to find help

Week 1

Flight Instructor Activities

Week 1

Pre Mission BriefingEmail & Blog Post

• Welcome and overall plans and goals for the training program

• Include a link to the Flight Training Community

• List overall program expectations; student pilots will need to – Carry out a small list of assignments each week

– Attend a weekly call/web conference for five weeks

– Post questions in the Flight Training Forum

– Learn who their community advocate is & solicit their assistance as needed

– Check the Flight Training Blog daily for news, updates, and tips

• Include time & date of the Week 1 Mission Briefing

Week 1

Student Pilot Assignments

• Before Week 2’s Mission Briefing, each student pilot should:

– Create an Activity

– Dogear up to 10 web pages

– Complete their profile

Week 1

Mission Briefing• Outline the overall program and restate weekly expectations

• Demo this week's assignments– Demo the Activity you set up for them and show them how to create

their own

– Demo how to Dogear, and how to get find their own bookmarks

– Demo how to edit a their Profile, and how to search

– Show where to find the Flight Training Community, Blog and Forum

• Describe mentor relationships

• Remind them the time & location of Week 2’s Mission Briefing

Week 1

Post BriefingEmail & Blog Post

• List what the student pilot needs to do before Week 2’s Mission Briefing– Create an Activity

– Create up to 10 bookmarks

– Update their profile

• Include time & location for Week 2’s Mission Briefing

Week 2

Student Pilot Assignments• Communicate and share with Blogs

– Create a personal or team blog

– Create at least one blog entry (“What I think the value of Social Networking can be for us”)

– Make a commitment to blog at least once a week at a certain time

– Read other blogs

• Connect to your social network by customizing your Homepage

– Configure the Profiles Widget to show your colleagues

– Configure the Blog Widget

– Configure the Activities Widget to show “My Activities”

– Configure the Dogear Widget to show “My Bookmarks”

– Configure the Community Widget to show “My Communities”

• Set your Lotus Connections Homepage as your browser default or put a short-cut on your desktop

Week 2

Flight Instructor Activities• Create a blog entry that outlines this week's assignments

• Create a blog entry that outlines last week's accomplishments

• Create blog entries about tips and short-cuts

– How to get the most out of blogging

– How to setup the “Bookmark This” browser plugin

– How to setup the Activities plugin for Lotus Notes 8/Microsoft Outlook

– How to setup and use the Lotus Connections plugin for Lotus Notes/Microsoft Outlook

Week 2

Pre Mission BriefingEmail & Blog Post

• List this week’s assignments– Create at least one blog entry per week for the next four

weeks

– Read & comment on other blogs

– Setup and use your Lotus Connections Homepage

– Set your Lotus Connections Homepage as your browser default during the Pilot or put a short-cut on your desktop

• “Please ask (or answer) at least one question in the Forum”

• Include the time & location of Week 2’s Mission Briefing

Week 2

Mission Briefing• Demo this week's assignments

– Demo how to create a new blog, create and tag a blog post

– Tell them what their first blog entry should be about

– Demo how to navigate other blogs and the blog homepage

– Demo how to login to the Lotus Connections Homepage

– Demo how to configure each widget per the above

• Mention time & date of Week 3’s Mission Briefing

Week 2

Post BriefingBlog post and email

• Document week 2’s progress and plug anyone who has created something interesting – compelling blog post, new activity, etc.

• List what the student pilot needs to do before Week 3’s Mission Briefing

– Post and tag in your Blog

– Make a commitment to blog at least once a week

– Read other blogs

– Customize your Homepage and configure the Profiles, Blog, Activities, Dogear, and Community widgets

• Remind them to ask questions in the Forum

• Include time & location for Week 3’s Mission Briefing

Week 3

Student Pilot Assignments• Create/Join a Community

– Discuss the kind of Community to create with like-minded, potential community organizers or create one based on an event, area of expertise, or topic you’re associated with

– Invite everyone who might want to participate

– Add initial bookmarks, feeds (such as blog entries), Wikis, and/or Quickr Places

– Join other Communities

• Using search to get answers, find information, discover experts

– Search Dogear for bookmarks that interest you

– Search the homepage for the same term

• Dashboards

– Open My Bookmarks, review Actions and click “show details”

– Open My Profile and review all widgets

– Open My Communities and filter using the tag cloud

• Use Activities

– Mark an Activity Complete; change the Priority on an Activity; set an Activity as “tuned out”; Filter Activities by a Person and by a tag

– Open your To-do List and mark an item as complete

Week 3

Flight Instructor Activities

• Finish off instruction on the key Lotus Connections features

• Create a blog entry that outlines this week's activities

• Create a blog entry that outlines last week's accomplishments

• Create blog entries about tips and short-cuts

– Effective searching, using AND, using tagclouds, search within

• Blog/email meeting invite reminder

• Answer any questions posted in the Forum

Week 3

Pre Mission BriefingEmail & Blog Post

• “Continue blogging, tagging profiles and bookmarks, and commenting”

• What will we be covering this week?

– Using Communities

– Search, Dashboards, Activities

• Include time & location of Week 3 Mission Briefing

Week 3

Mission Briefing

• Demo how to create a Community and add each feature

– Demo adding a bookmark to a community

• Show how to join a community and add it to your homepage

• Demo how to search from the Homepage, and search within each Dogear and Profiles

• Remind student pilots of when Week 4’s call/briefing will be

Week 3

Post briefing blog post/email• Document week 3’s progress and plug anyone who has created

something interesting – compelling blog post, new activity, etc.

• List what the student pilot needs to do before Week 4’s Mission Briefing

– Create and join a Community; invite members

– Add initial bookmarks, feeds, Wikis, and/or Lotus Quickr places

– Practice with search

• Search Dogear, and on the home page

– Practice with Dashboards

• Bookmarks, My Profile, My Communities, and My Activities

• Remind them to ask questions in the Flight Training Forum

• Include time & location for Week 4’s Mission Briefing

Week 4

Student Pilot Assignments

Week 4

Flight Instructor Activities

• Complete details on how to setup the Plugins your student pilots will have.  Include screenshots!

• During the weekly meeting, demo the setup and config to enable Lotus Connections integration

• Answer Forum Questions

• Email/blog post about Week 5’s Mission Briefing

Week 4

Pre Mission BriefingEmail & Blog Post

• Setup desktop and web integration

• Continue blogging, tagging profiles and bookmarks, and commenting

• Continue searching from the Homepage (or Firefox plugin)

• Look for ways to use Lotus Connections in your daily activities

• Include time & place of Mission Briefing

Week 4

Mission Briefing• Demo how your organization can use the Lotus or Microsoft Plugins

• Discuss working with Teams

– Show how to create a team blog; how to use Activities for subteams or individual work efforts

– Demo searching Profiles to locate expertise and identify potential team members, search Dogear to help team find information

• Discuss using Lotus Connections for event planning

– Event Planning with Activities; communicating about the Event with an Event Blog or Wiki

– Create an Event Community, tagging people associated with the event

• Discuss using Lotus Connections to plan and communicate about a topic or community of practice

– Create a Community for the Topic; tag people related to the topic

– Bloggers tag entries specific to the Topic

– Add bookmarks to the Community and to Dogear

• Discuss using Lotus Connections to manage people

– Show how to create an Activity for each employee, or creating blog to share info with your staff

• Remind student pilots of when Week 5’s call/briefing will be

Week 4

Post BriefingBlog post/Email

• Highlight top blogs (most starred, most commented on, most interesting)

• Highlight/feature top or most active Communities

• Outline benefits Lotus Connections could have for building teams, managing events, communicating, and managing people

• Highlight key stats – numbers of bookmarks, blog entries, communities, activities

Week 5

Student Pilot Assignments• Getting Help

– Click Help from any Lotus Connections page and review the contextual topics

• Using additional features

– Watchlists

• Watch the bookmarks of a specific people or bookmarks that are tagged with specific keywords

• From All Bookmarks filter on a tag or a person  (or both) and add them to your watchlist

• Monitor/review your watchlist from My Updates or the Homepage

– Notification

• Notify others of bookmarks you think they’d find interesting

• Notify others about Activities items you post

• Notify others about blog entries

– Flagging

• Flag a bookmark as a broken URL

• Flag blog as inappropriate

Week 5

Flight Instructor Activities

• Send invite for last weekly call– Highlight top blogs (most starred, most commented

on, most interesting)

– Highlight/feature top Communities

– Highlight key stats – numbers of bookmarks, blog entries, communities, etc

– Inform the users on how to get on-going support

• Answer Forum Questions

Week 5

Pre MissionBriefing Email & Blog Post

• Include reminder of Week 5’s Mission Briefing time & location

Week 5

Mission Briefing• Highlight top blogs (most starred, most

commented on, most interesting)• Highlight/feature top Communities• Highlight key stats – numbers of bookmarks,

blog entries, communities, etc• Demo each Help page• Demo the Dogear watchlist• Demo Notification and Flagging features• Feature guest speakers (to show the work

they've done using Lotus Connections)

Week 5

Post Briefing email/blog post

• Inform the users on how to get on-going support

• Highlight top blogs (most starred, most commented on, most interesting)

• Highlight/feature top or most active communities

• Highlight key stats – numbers of bookmarks, blog entries, communities, etc