Creating a community

Hello -- I am Samantha Daryn, the project manager for a sales team within the Renovations company. As part of an effort to plan a new fall promotion, I need a way to share information with my project team and get feedback. Lotus Connections has a suite of tools to help me collaborate with my team.

Log into Connections as Samantha Daryn

To begin, I need a way to communicate with my team, post news, and collect feedback. A community has all of the tools I need to keep my group engaged.

Create a community.

Name it Rebate Promotion

I will create a community and name it Rebate Promotion.

Some communities are public, so anyone can join. I'd like this one to be limited to my rebate team. I'll invite some of my colleagues to join the community. Now we have a private space where we can share information.

Add members: Jasmine Haj, Lin Shin, Betty Zechman

My colleagues will receive an email invitation with a link to the community.

Creating an activity

I would like my team to review a document before we meet. A community has some widgets available by default, and more available from the Customize palette. I'll add an activity widget to my community.

Create a community activity.

I will name the activity Rebate planning and upload a brochure for the team to review.

Name the activity Rebate planning

After I set up the activity I'll assign some To Dos so that team members can get started reviewing a brochure for the promotion.

Assign ToDos for reviewing a document

When I create a To Do item, the owner is notified and can check the item off when it is complete.

Send notification

Creating a forum

Before we meet I'd like to get some feedback on what type of advertising campaign to plan. A forum is the ideal way to get a discussion going.

Start a forum

Before we meet I'd like to canvas my team to see if anyone has experience with this type of campaign. A forum is the perfect place to get a conversation going.

The first topic in this forum will ask team members to give their opinion on whether to create a print or TV advertising campaign.

Create an entry.

Members can contribute ideas or comment on discussion topics.

Using profiles to locate an expert

This is the first time I have planned a promotion of this size. I would love to find someone who has more experience so I can compare notes.

I know that other marketing teams have created similar campaigns. I'd like to find someone who can give us some tips and review our strategy. I have tagged my own profile with the rebates tag – maybe someone else has used that tag.

Switch to Profiles, click My Profile, and click Rebates tag.

Perfect! I can see that Dan Misawa has experience running a rebate campaign. He will be a great resource for our team.

Find person with a tag of Rebates

One of the links from his profile page is for a wiki.

Click the link for the wiki.

It looks like his team uses the wiki to collaborate on documents relating to promotions and campaigns. That would be a great way for my team to collaborate on documents.

View wiki then return to profile page.

He will be a great resource for our team. I'll post a note asking for his advice.

Post to that person's board.

“Dan, I am working on a campaign for an insulation rebate promotion. I would love to talk to you about it and get some tips.”

Using a blog to get the word out

From Dan's business card, I can see that he maintains a blog on running a rebate campaign. A blog is similar to a forum but tends to focus on a single author or a small group of authors publishing information on a particular topic. Dan's blog sounds very helpful.

Use the link from Dan's business card to switch to the blog

This posting is about using advertising wisely. I wonder if he felt the TV campaign was worth the extra investment. I'll post a comment and see what he thinks.

Create a blog comment

I'd like to keep track of this blog so I will follow it so I that I will be notified about new posts.

Click Follow this blog.

Sharing bookmarks to key resources

There are some key resources everyone should be aware of. I've collected some bookmarks to some important sites. I'm going to tag bookmarks community members should be aware of and add them to the community.

Switch to bookmarks.

I will tag these bookmarks with the tag rebate so my team members can easily find these links.

Tag bookmarks with the rebate tag.

To share the bookmarks, I'll add them to my community to make them easily available to community members..

Click More Actions → Add to Community

When I view the community, I can see the bookmarks.

Switch to community/

Having all of the resources we need for our campaign in a single community is going to make team communication very efficient.

Sharing files

We have to keep track of contracts and other key documents. I can upload key files and share it with the team rather than email them as attachments.

Switch to Files and upload file.

By adding the file to the community, all community members will have access to the file.

Add the file to the community.

Team members will be able to review documents, see comments from others, revise documents, and upload new versions. This will work out better than sending files as email attachments.

Using the Home Page to stay informed

A great way to keep track of what's happening in my network is to check in with the Home Page.

From my Home Page, I can see at a glance that my team members have been checking off their To Do items in the activity.

I can also see that Dan has replied to my post and has agreed to be a mentor. That is welcome news.

New posts to the blog I am following display here as well.

Conclusion

Using the tools provided by Lotus Connections, I feel confident I have everything I need to successfully manage this project.

Thank you for watching this video. For more information about using Connections, see the product documentation in the IBM Connections wiki.